1 . The U. S. Thanksgiving holiday is symbolized (象征) by its traditional food-roast turkey. But turkey is certainly not from Turkey. In fact, its English name is based on one big mistake. We could say it is a case of mistaken identity. The word "Turkey" has meant "the land of the Turks" since ancient times. In the mid-1500s, the word "turkey" was first used to refer to the bird in the English language.
The misunderstanding over the word happened because of two similar-looking kinds of birds.
There is an African bird called the guinea fowl(珍珠鸡). It has dark feathers with white spots and a patch of brown on the back of its neck. Traders brought the guinea fowl to Europe through North Africa. This foreign bird came to Europe through Turkish lands. So, the English thought the bird as a "Turkish chicken".
When Europeans came to North America, they saw a bird that looked like the guinea fowl. This bird was native to the North American continent. But they thought that it was the guinea fowl，which. at that time, was called the “turkey cock"，so they gave it the same name.
Hundreds of years later, we continue to call this North American bird ‘turkey", even though it has no connection at all with the country Turkey, or even with Europe.
But English is not the only language with interesting names for this North American bird.
The Turkish call turkey “hindi”, the Turkish name for India. The reference(涉及)to India probably conies from the old. wrong idea that the New World was in Eastern Asia.
The French call it "dinde", a name that also connects the bird to India. "Dinde" means "from India" in the French language. "Turkey" has similar names in several other languages.
1. What can we know from paragraph 1?| A．The word "turkey" appeared in modern times. |
| B．Turkey's English name is based on correct identity. |
| C．Americans like eating turkey in Thanksgiving holiday. |
| D．Both Turkey and turkey have similar meanings in English. |
| A．Europe. | B．Africa. |
| C．America. | D．Asia. |
| A．Eastern Asia. | B．The French language. |
| C．The New World. | D．The bird turkey. |
| A．How did Thanksgiving "turkey" get its name? |
| B．How did Americans spend their Thanksgiving holiday? |
| C．Why was the guinea fowl so popular with Americans? |
| D．Why was the guinea fowl different from American turkeys? |
2 . Let’s face it. No one drinks diet sodas for the taste. People drink diet sodas in the hope that it will help them lose weight or at least keep them from gaining it. Yet it seems to have exactly the opposite effect, according to a new study.
Researchers from the University of Texas said those who drank two or more diet sodas a day had waist size increases that were six times greater than those who didn’t drink diet sodas. ＂What we saw was that the more diet sodas a person drank, the more weight they were likely to gain,＂said Sharon Fowler.
The study was based on data from 474 participants in a large, ongoing research project, where the participants were followed for nearly 10 years.
While the findings are surprising, they also offer some explanations. Nutrition expert, Melanie Rogers, who works with overweight patients in New York, has found that when patients are switched from regular to diet sodas, they don’t lose weight at all. ＂We weren’t seeing weight loss necessarily, and that was confusing to us＂, said Rogers.
So why would diet soda cause weight gain? No one knows for sure yet, but it could be that people think they can eat more if they drink diet sodas, and so over-compensate for the missing calories.
A related study found some sweeteners (甜味剂) raised blood sugar levels in some mice. ＂Data from this and other potential studies suggest that the promotion of diet sodas and artificial sweeteners may be risky, said Helen P. Hazuda, professor at the University of Texas’s school of medicine. ＂They may be free of calories, but not of consequences.＂
1. People drink diet sodas to ____________.| A．enjoy its taste | B．stay in fashion |
| C．achieve weight loss | D．gain more energy |
| A．causes people to become heavier | B．helps people to be healthier |
| C．makes people much thinner | D．offers people more calories |
| A．regular sodas make people lose more weight | B．diet soda drinkers tend to eat more food |
| C．diet sodas do help reduce calories | D．most blood diseases come from diet sodas |
| A．sweeteners | B．diet sodas and artificial sweeteners |
| C．sodas | D．diet soda drinkers and sweetener takers |
