1 . Are _______ born or made? In my case it was definitely made. In my early 20s, I hardly went to bed before midnight, and I would always get up late the next morning.
But after a while I couldn’t ignore the high relationship between success and rising early. On those rare occasions where I did get up early, I noticed that my productivity (效率) was always higher. So I set out to become a habitual early riser. But whenever my alarm went off, my first thought was always to stop that noise and go back to sleep. Eventually some sleep research showed that my strategy was wrong.
The most common wrong strategy is this: supposing you’re going to get up earlier, you’d better go to bed earlier. It sounds very reasonable, but will usually fail.
There are two main schools (流派) of thought on sleep patterns. One is that you should go to bed and get up at the same time every day. The second school says you should go to bed when you’re tired and get up when you naturally wake up. However, I have found both are wrong if you care about productivity. If you sleep at fixed hours, you’ll sometimes go to bed when you aren’t sleepy enough. You’re wasting time lying in bed awake.
My solution is to combine both methods. I go to bed when I’m sleepy and get up with an alarm clock at a fixed time. So I always get up at the same time (in my case 5 a.m.), but I go to bed at different times every night.
However, going to bed only when I’m sleepy, and getting up at a fixed time every morning are my ways. If you want to become an early riser, you can try your own.
1. According to the passage, the underlined phrase refers to ________.

A．people who stay up until the next morning

B．people who get up early in the morning

C．people who feel sleepy in the morning

D．people whose productivity is the lowest in the morning

2. Why did the author want to become a habitual early riser?

A．Because he / she found that the productivity was higher.

B．Because he / she wanted to do morning exercise.

C．Because he / she wanted to test which school is better.

D．Because he / she wanted to have more sleep time.

3. The author experienced all the following EXCEPT ________.

A．going to bed after midnight

B．asking scholars for advice on sleeping habits

C．getting up early occasionally

D．pressing off the alarm to go on sleeping

4. What’s the author’s sleep pattern?

A．Going to bed early and getting up early.

B．Going to bed late and getting up late.

C．Going to bed when sleepy and getting up at a fixed early time.

D．Going to bed early and getting up late.

5. The passage is mainly about ________.

A．main schools of thought on sleep patterns

B．how to have a good sleep

C．wrong strategies for getting up early

D．how to become an early riser

2 . The world has a fast growing population and people need more land for houses, factories, highways, and so on. The farmland is decreasing with each passing day. How to meet the need of feeding the growing population? One way is to introduce some high-output gene into a crop to enable it to produce more. Biologists over the years have discovered genes which can raise output of the crops, resist pests, improve taste, etc.
However, in many western countries there is widespread concern over the safety of “Genetically Modified”(GM) (转基因) foods, because they think there may be serious problems of environment, health, safety, morality and so on.
As a scientist I must admit GM foods involve great risks to humans. In fact in Europe they’re called “Frankenstein foods” by many. Frankenstein is a character in a novel. He was a very clever scientist. He created a monster（怪物）, which eventually killed him.
Soybeans﹙大豆﹚ can be made into many foods. However, it’s hard to _____ Therefore, it’s very important we have to make sure the soybean, if genetically modified, is free from any poisonous matter harmful to human beings. For this we need very good testing. We do have some testing on some animals, but no completely satisfactory testing has ever been made so far. They’re entirely new, and their problems are entirely unknown. It takes time to develop persuasive tests to know whether they’re harmful to us or not.
We may not be able to tell what may happen if we take GM foods. Some of them may be resistant to antibiotics (抗生素). Then many of the medicines we have today will have no effect on people eating GM foods.
A more likely case is the GM foods may contain genes some people are allergic﹙过敏的﹚to.
GM products have already come into our lives, but most people even know nothing about it.
At least we have to be clear about what we are eating. The China Consumers Association is calling for labeling (标注) on GM foods so that consumers will know before they buy them.
1. The chief purpose of developing GM foods is to_______.

A．make the foods much tastier

B．make the foods much cheaper

C．feed the fast growing population

D．kill pests on the crops

2. From the passage we can infer that        .

A．Frankenstein was a scientist creating GM foods

B．GM foods are very popular in Europe

C．Frankenstein foods can make people clever

D．many Europeans reject GM foods

3. The underlined phrase “trace them” in Paragraph 4 probably means“      ”.

A．find their market	B．find their origins
C．raise their quality	D．enjoy their taste

4. Which of the following is TRUE about GM foods?

A．The testing shows GM soybean foods are free from poisonous matter.

B．GM foods problems have been known after testing on animals.

C．GM foods prove to be safe to humans after some testing on animals.

D．Sometimes consumers can hardly tell GM soybeans from natural ones.

5. What can we learn from the passage?

A．People should be informed of which foods are GM foods.

B．People eating GM foods will suffer from food allergies.

C．As GM foods are safe at present, they’re certainly safe later on.

D．GM foods make antibiotics fail to function properly.

3 . Motherhood may make women smarter and may help prevent dementia(痴呆) in old age by bathing the brain in protective hormones(荷尔蒙) , U.S. reseachers reported on Thursday.

Tests on rats show that those who raise two or more litters of pups do considerably better in tests of memory and skills than rats who have no babies, and their brains show changes that suggest they may be protected against diseases such as Alzheimer’s(老年痴呆症). University of Richmond psychology professor Craig Kinsley believes his findings will translate into humans.

“Our research shows that the hormones of pregnancy are protecting the brain, including estrogen(雌激素), which we know has many neuroprotective (保护神经的) effects,” Kinsley said.

“It’s rat data but humans are mammals just like these animals are mammals,” he added in a telephone interview. “They go through pregnancy and hormonal changes.”

Kinsley said he hoped public health officials and researchers will look to see if having had children protects a woman from Alzheimer’s and other forms of age-related brain decline.

“When people think about pregnancy, they think about what happens to babies and the mother from the neck down,” said Kinsley, who presented his findings to the annual meeting of the Society of Neuroscience in Orlando, Florida.

“They do not realize that hormones are washing on the brain. If you look at female animals who have never gone through pregnancy, they act differently toward young. But if she goes through pregnancy, she will sacrifice her life for her infant—that is a great change in her behavior that showed in genetic alterations(改变) to the brain.”

1. What can protect the brain of a woman according to the passage?( within 4 words)
________________
2. How do scientists know “Motherhood may make women smarter”?( within 8 words)
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3. “It’s rat data but humans are mammals just like these animals are mammals.” What does the sentence suggest? ( within 13 words)
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4. What’s the main idea of this passage? (within 10 words)
________________