1 . That artificial food dyes (染料) are unhealthy is not news. Some are known to cause hyperactivity (多动症) in some children, affecting their ability to learn. But regulatory agencies (监管机构) around the world don’t necessarily agree on which food dyes are a problem, or why. That may soon change. A 2021 peer-reviewed report by California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment concluded that artificial food dyes “cause or worsen neurobehavioral (神经行为的) problems in some children” and that the current levels that are regarded safe for consumption by the federal government are too high.
California is now considering requiring warning labels on food products and dietary supplements containing the seven most commonly used artificial dyes. The warning label requirement would put California on par with the European Union, which since 2010 has required food products containing certain artificial food dyes to carry warning labels about their negative effect on activity and attention in children.
Artificial dyes are used in foods for one reason: to make products look prettier. Bright colors make candies appealing, especially to kids. But dyes are also in chocolate cake mixes, salad dressings and other products that don’t seem to cry out for a color boost.
In Europe, it was the 2010 label lawmaking that triggered (引发) companies’ decisions to reformulate. “If you’re a company, you do not want to put a warning label on your product.” says Lefferts, an environmental health consultant. Warning labels are why European Starburst Fruit Chews are now colored with natural products, not the artificial dyes that brighten their North American counterparts (同类商品).
Given that artificial food dyes are used far more than needed, we need to be more cautious. After all, we don’t dye fresh fruits and vegetables, but we do dye candy and sprinkles, points out Joe Schwarcz, a chemistry professor at McGill University in Montreal. “The foods in which you find food dyes are foods that are poor in nutrition,” he says. “If you limit foods that contain food dyes, you automatically make your diet better.”
1. What can we learn about artificial food dyes from paragraph 1?A.A 2021 report confirmed their negative effects. |
B.The fact that they are harmful is newly revealed. |
C.Regulatory agencies consider them a serious problem. |
D.The Federal government thinks their current standard too high. |
A.In opposition to. | B.In line with. | C.Ahead of. | D.Behind. |
A.Food companies will stop coloring their products. |
B.More fresh fruits and vegetables will appear in the market. |
C.Food companies may replace artificial dyes with natural products. |
D.It will be hard to find packaged foods without warning labels of dyes. |
A.Approving. | B.Neutral. | C.Tolerant. | D.Concerned. |
Katie was exceptionally small. We were in the fifth grade, but she was as short as a third grader. Although her body was small, Katie was big at heart. She had a sharp mind, too. Sometimes she got her share of teasing, but Katie knew how to handle it. All the kids who knew Katie liked her a lot.
Katie loved helping others in the class, so whenever someone was stuck on the computer he always called her for help and advice. Katie loved jokes and she always had a joke that would cheer someone up whenever he was down. She was truly the most kind and generous friend anyone could ask for.
But the other day she was in big trouble. She was such a sweet girl; a third-grade teacher always dreamed of having a classroom filled with students like Katie. She was never ever a discipline(纪律)problem. I just couldn’t imagine why she had made her parents so angry.
It seemed that Katie had been running up(积欠)sizable charges in the lunchroom. Her parents explained that Katie brought a great homemade lunch each day, and there was no reason for her to buy school lunch. They assumed a sit-down with Katie would solve the problem, but failed. So they asked me to help them get to the bottom of this situation.
So the next day, I asked Katie to my office. “Why are you charging(记账)lunches, Katie? What happens to your homemade lunch?” I asked. “I lose it,” She responded. I leaned back in my chair and said, “I don’t believe you, Katie.” She didn’t care. “Is someone stealing your lunch, Katie?” I took a new track. “No. I just lose it,” she said. Well, there was nothing else I could do.
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The problem was still unsolved the next week until I noticed a boy in the school canteen.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________3 . Black taxis have been a common sight in London for many years. Now these taxis and their drivers have become the focus of a new study into Alzheimer’s (阿尔兹海默症). For those on the outside, it may seem that behind the wheel of these black taxis are just common people who help move us to our places. But hidden within their brains is a map of London’s streets that has put GPS technology to shame for many years.
“The knowledge”, the test for London’s taxi drivers, stands among the hardest tests one could ever experience. It includes remembering information repeatedly from the memory of minute details about between 25, 000 and 56, 000 streets in London, depending on who’s taking the test, from the Trafalgar Square to the tiniest residential lanes (居民巷).
Usually, the hippocampus (马体) feels the influences of Alzheimer’s most. The hippocampus controls the brain’s short-term memory and spatial memory (空间记忆) systems. University College London and Alzheimer’s Research UK are coming together to study these taxi drivers’ brains. And the taxi drivers’ hippocampi continue to grow as they go on doing the job for more years. This suggests that perhaps there’s something we can do to reproduce the influence on the general population.
Lead researcher Hugo Spiers was part of the team which 20 years ago found that, like birds’, the taxi drivers’ hippocampi slowly got bigger. In fact, research has found for years that any animal that requires detailed spatial knowledge of their land experiences growth in the hippocampus.
Spiers’ team hopes to deal with Alzheimer’s by studying the taxi drivers “brains, since the hippocampus becomes smaller with the development of Alzheimer’s. To collect more information, Spiers has asked thirty London’s taxi drivers connected to an MRI machine to drive around. The machine will allow the researchers to keep a real-time watch on the workings of the hippocampus. “It’s been a joy to help scientists fight the disease,” said taxi driver Robert Lordan.
1. What can we learn about “The knowledge’?A.It lasts for a few minutes only. | B.It invites some residents to be testers. |
C.It is a great challenge to people’s memory. | D.It is usually held in London's busy streets. |
A.Animals’ hippocampi are quite different from humans’. |
B.The new study can do good to animals as well. |
C.More detailed studies on animals’ brains are needed. |
D.Animals’ hippocampi are similar to humans’ |
A.To decide who has the largest hippocampus. |
B.To find out what their hippocampi are doing at work. |
C.To know how Alzheimer’s develops in their brains. |
D.To test whether the machine influences the hippocampus. |
4 . “Why do I live? Why do I wish for anything, or do anything? Is there anything in my life that will not be destroyed by my death?”
These are the words of the famous Russian writer Leo Tolstoy. Like Tolstoy, many people ask these difficult questions. And they struggle to find meaning in their life. Tolstoy spent his whole life trying to answer difficult questions like these. His search for answers influenced his writing.
On August 28th, 1828, Leo Tolstoy was born in the country of Russia.
As a child, Tolstoy was a member of the Russian Catholic Church. But as a young man, he began to question that faith. Tolstoy wanted to make his own moral decisions; he was tired of being told what to believe. He thought people could achieve a degree of perfection if they tried hard enough. So he worked very hard at being the best in everything he did. He thought that he would find meaning and truth in success.
In the 1850s, Leo Tolstoy wrote his first stories. He wrote about his experiences in the army. He also told stories about when he was a child. These works were published and Tolstoy became a well-known writer.
Tolstoy was finally successful. He earned the respect he always wanted. Many wealthy and intelligent men met and talked with Tolstoy. Some of the men were writers like him. They talked a lot about faith and the meaning of life. But soon Tolstoy recognized that these men were not perfect. Now he knew they could not answer his questions about faith.
So in the 1860s, Tolstoy tried a different way to find meaning. He opened a school for the children of his serfs—the people who worked on his land. These workers were very poor. He wanted to help them because he thought they were more honest than the wealthy people he knew.
Tolstoy learned many things from his workers. He respected how they worked hard to provide for their families.
He began to believe that marriage and family would give his life meaning. So in 1862, Leo Tolstoy married a young woman named Sonya Behrs.
The next 15 years were the best years of Tolstoy's life. It was during this time that he wrote his most famous books-War and Peace and Anna Karenina. Many literature experts say that War and Peace is one of the greatest books ever written.
Both War and Peace and Anna Karenina communicate Tolstoy's beliefs about the Russian nation, church and people. They also communicate what he thought was the answer to all his questions. Tolstoy believed humans were supposed to live a simple life and take care of their families. Tolstoy thought this would satisfy him and bring him happiness.
Leo Tolstoy is still a very respected writer today. His faith and writings have influenced many people.
Tolstoy's search for the meaning of life is something everyone can understand. His teachings still interest people all over the world.
1. Which shows the correct order of the following events?①Tolstoy served in the army ②Tolstoy got married ③Tolstoy wrote War and Peace
④ Tolstoy started a school. ⑤Tolstoy became a well-known writer.
A.①②③④⑤ | B.⑤①③②④ | C.①⑤④②③ | D.⑤④①③② |
A.Respect | B.Defend. | C.Support. | D.Comfort. |
A.Leo Tolstoy: Living for writing | B.Leo Tolstoy: Influencing the world |
C.Leo Tolstoy: Being the best in everything | D.Leo Tolstoy: Searching for the meaning of life |
5 . Our neighbors had a loud party last night. We weren’t
What
And it really worked in their favor. My husband and I were so friendly that even when the event went past the
It takes such little effort to make people feel that they
A.located | B.explored | C.challenged | D.invited |
A.trapped | B.impressed | C.annoyed | D.embarrassed |
A.later | B.closer | C.earlier | D.further |
A.shocking | B.frightening | C.puzzling | D.amazing |
A.call number | B.room number | C.account number | D.car number |
A.anxiously | B.politely | C.regularly | D.obviously |
A.imagination | B.consideration | C.recognition | D.organization |
A.promised | B.supplied | C.designed | D.compared |
A.stress | B.anxiety | C.worry | D.anger |
A.respond | B.adapt | C.contribute | D.stick |
A.figure | B.succeed | C.matter | D.access |
A.sleep | B.maintain | C.travel | D.relax |
A.noticed | B.delivered | C.explored | D.proved |
A.surrounding | B.respect | C.curiosity | D.distance |
A.strategy | B.apology | C.communication | D.inspiration |
6 . People from East Asia tend to have more difficulty than those from Europe in distinguishing facial expressions — and a new report published online in Current Biology explains why.
Rachael Jack, University of Glasgow researcher, said that rather than scanning evenly (均匀的) across a face as Westerners do, Easterners fix their attention on the eyes.
“We show that Easterners and Westerners look at different face features to read facial expressions,” Jack said. “Westerners look at the eyes and the mouth in equal measure, whereas Easterners favor the eyes and neglect the mouth.”
According to Jack and her colleagues, the discovery shows that human communication of emotion is more complex than previously believed. As a result, facial expressions that had been considered universally recognizable cannot be used to reliably convey emotion in cross-cultural situations.
The researchers studied cultural differences in the recognition of facial expressions by recording the eye movements of 13 Western Caucasian and 13 East Asian people while they observed pictures of expressive faces and put them into categories: happy, sad, surprised, fearful, disgusted, angry, or neutral. They compared how accurately participants read those facial expressions using their particular eye movement strategies.
It turned out that Easterners focused much greater attention on the eyes and made significantly more errors than Westerners did. “The cultural difference in eye movements that they show is probably a reflection of cultural difference in facial expressions,” Jack said. “Our data suggest that whereas Westerners use the whole face to convey emotion, Easterners use the eyes more and mouth less.”
In short, the data show that facial expressions are not universal signals of human emotion. From here on, examining how cultural factors have diversified these basic social skills will help our understanding of human emotion. Otherwise, when it comes to communicating emotions across cultures, Easterners and Westerners will find themselves lost in translation.
1. The discovery shows that Westerners ________.A.pay equal attention to the eyes and the mouth |
B.consider facial expressions universally reliable |
C.observe the eyes and the mouth in different ways |
D.have more difficulty in recognizing facial expressions |
A.The participants in the study. |
B.The researchers of the study. |
C.The errors made during the study. |
D.The data collected from the study. |
A.do translation more successfully |
B.study the mouth more frequently |
C.examine the eyes more attentively |
D.read facial expressions more correctly |
A.The Eye as the Window to the Soul |
B.Cultural Differences in Reading Emotions |
C.Effective Methods to Develop Social Skills |
D.How to Increase Cross-cultural Understanding |
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Contributions Wanted
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________The English Newspaper
Cindy nervously glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall. Five minutes before midnight. Her parents were still out there celebrating their 15th anniversary.
“They should be home any time now,” she thought as she put the finishing touches on the chocolate cake. It was the first time in her 12 years she had tried to make a cake from zero, and to be honest, it wasn’t exactly an artistic success. The cake was... well, lumpy. And the coating was bitter, as if she had run out of sugar or something which, of course, she had.
And then there was the way the kitchen looked. Imagine a huge blender(食物搅拌器) filled with all the stuff needed for chocolate cake -including the bowls, plates and tools. Now imagine that the blender is turned on. High speed. With the cover off.
Do you get the idea?
But Cindy wasn’t thinking about the mess. She was anxious for her parents to return home from their date so she could present her anniversary gift to them. Picturing her parents’ surprised faces when they saw the cake, she could feel a wave of excitement washing over her. She turned off the kitchen lights and waited excitedly in the darkness, hoping to give her parents a big surprise. Time seemed to her to be crawling with feet of lead while she anxiously awaited her parents’ arrival. When at last she saw the flash of the car headlights, she positioned herself in the kitchen doorway, her heart thumping like a drum. By the time she heard the key sliding into the front door, she was THIS CLOSE to exploding.
Assuming Cindy was already sound asleep, her parents tried to steal in quietly, but Cindy would have none of that. She turned on the lights dramatically and trumpeted “Ta-daaa!” She gestured grandly toward the kitchen table, where a slightly off-balance chocolate cake awaited their inspection.
注意:1.续写词数应为150左右;
2.请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
Paragraph 1: But her mother’s eyes never made it all the way to the cake.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Paragraph 2: “Wow, look at the beautiful chocolate cake,” her father exclaimed.
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Chang’an Tower, also known as the Great Wild Goose Pagoda, is an architectural wonder
Rising to a
Whether it is for experiencing a piece of history
10 . The first time I saw the real Santa, he drove a big, charcoal-colored truck, not a cherry red sleigh, in the August heat. He wasn’t what I
My husband had lost his job early in July, and we’d been
One afternoon, we were feeling particularly
I looked toward the truck and thought I could see the man’s grin in the driver’s side
It seemed like a little
A.revealed | B.expected | C.predicted | D.reflected |
A.getting rid of | B.coming down with | C.making up for | D.cutting back on |
A.in vain | B.in effect | C.in debt | D.in issue |
A.awkward | B.low | C.ashamed | D.nervous |
A.close by | B.behind | C.ahead of | D.beyond |
A.menu | B.order | C.service | D.expense |
A.gestured | B.glanced | C.yelled | D.edged |
A.enter | B.approach | C.seek | D.exit |
A.ashamed | B.stressed | C.comfortable | D.grateful |
A.door | B.mirror | C.window | D.seat |
A.struck | B.shot | C.stuck | D.lent |
A.quickly | B.ultimately | C.automatically | D.instantly |
A.reminder | B.memory | C.image | D.example |
A.kindness | B.gratitude | C.heroism | D.sacrifice |
A.mild | B.freezing | C.hot | D.damp |