1 . Are you relatively skinny but growing a “beer belly”?
Then don’t be surprised at your next checkup if the nurse measures your waistline to determine your healthy weight. That’s because research is showing that a protruding (鼓出的) belly may be a sign of VAT — a dangerous form of fat around organs deep inside your body. “Studies confirm that visceral (内脏的) fat is a clear health risk,” said Dr. Tiffany Wiley, a senior expert at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. Unlike the fat just under your skin, visceral fat raises your risk for heart disease. Experts think that’s because visceral fat raises blood pressure and inflames (使发炎) tissues and organs.
However, you can’t assume you’re safe from visceral fat if your overall weight is healthy, experts stress. That’s because you can have dangerous visceral fat even if you’re not considered overweight — and not have any visceral fat even if you are overweight.
How do you know if your stomach is protruding into dangerous size? Do a check. Non-pregnant women with a waist size greater than 88 cm and men with a waist larger than 102 cm, are at higher risk according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. If you’re Asian, it drops to 80 cm for women and 90 cm for men. But it is only a rough measure. “The only sure way to know is to check your visceral fat levels on a CT scan or MRI,” say experts.
According to the AHA committee, the most salutary physical activity to “shrink” belly is aerobic exercise. Aerobic means “with oxygen”, so aerobic exercise increases your breathing rate and promotes the circulation of oxygen through the blood. This type of exercise makes the heart work more effectively and improves its ability to move oxygen-carrying blood with every beat. Speed walking, jogging, stair climbing, cycling and swimming are all examples of aerobic exercise.
“However, more studies are needed to determine the best physical activity, food and other lifestyle changes to reduce heart disease risk,” Dr. Tiffany Wiley added.
1. What would a “beer belly” cause?| A．Enlarged organs inside the body. | B．Higher risk of heart disease. |
| C．Raised mental pressure. | D．Inflamed stomach. |
| A．A white man with a waist size of 120 cm. |
| B．A white woman with a waist size of 90 cm. |
| C．An Asian man with a waist size of 102 cm. |
| D．An Asian woman with a waist size of 75 cm. |
| A．Beneficial. | B．Difficult. | C．Enthusiastic. | D．Useless. |
| A．Doing aerobic exercise can remove visceral fat completely. |
| B．Heart ability improves when one does speed walking. |
| C．Further studies are needed to reduce heart disease risk. |
| D．Food and life style determine one’s body shape. |
Sometimes, we all need that one person to believe in us if we ever want to change our lives. Thankfully, one homeless man’s note was about to get found by someone willing to help turn his life around.
Anthony Johnson is a 36-year-old who had been living without a home in England. Sadly, his time on the streets meant that Anthony struggled to find work. He soon decided to leave a note at a bus shelter asking anyone to give him a chance so he could make his life worth living.
It turned out that Anthony had once got caught up with the wrong crowd. Although he has turned his life around, Anthony had no way of making money and couldn’t afford a home. To top it off, Anthony had also been battling his mental health in the last few years and just needed a chance to make it for himself.
It wasn’t until 16-year-old Charlotte Howard saw the note that everything started to change. Charlotte wanted to help Anthony in his quest to turn things around and decided to start a GoFundMe page. Here, the teen hoped to raise almost $400-$130 to buy a trailer and the rest to cover the cost of the repairs.
It didn’t take long for Charlotte’s post to take the nation by storm, and the page soon had more donations than the teen ever imagined. In just six days, Charlotte had blown her initial goal out of the water as the page had received more than $2,300 in donations. It was way more than either of the pair ever expected.
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。
Unbelievably, the generosity didn’t end there.
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Charlotte Howard came up with a new idea about how to use the rest of the money.
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3 . There is no doubt that first responders (急救人员) are heroes and deserve a lot of appreciation. This was also the
As an attempt to
Whether the notes came to them on a cloudy day or after a long and tiring shift, the recipients of these notes
It turns out that the
| A．thought | B．plan | C．doubt | D．suggestion |
| A．career | B．campaign | C．project | D．progress |
| A．researching | B．coming | C．fearing | D．fighting |
| A．wake | B．cheer | C．call | D．bring |
| A．messages | B．explanations | C．analyses | D．apologies |
| A．catching | B．showing | C．lifting | D．following |
| A．sometimes | B．truly | C．perhaps | D．slightly |
| A．positivity | B．congratulation | C．satisfaction | D．usefulness |
| A．over | B．down | C．back | D．up |
| A．spreading | B．reflecting | C．enjoying | D．realizing |
| A．kindness | B．love | C．wealth | D．fame |
| A．continuously | B．unfortunately | C．probably | D．later |
| A．place | B．favor | C．memory | D．time |
| A．Curiously | B．Hopefully | C．Strangely | D．Carefully |
| A．report | B．describe | C．perform | D．inspire |
4 . Although Friends came to an end in 2004, it’s still considered one of the best sitcoms to ever make its way onto our screens. This show thrust the likes of Lisa Kudrow, Matthew Perry, Jennifer Aniston, Matt LeBlanc, David Schwimmer, and Courteney Cox into the limelight (聚光灯), and everyone had their favorites. Women wanted to have their hair cut just like Rachel, many people wanted to be as confident as Joey, and others wanted to be able to sing just like Phoebe! However, it seems as though Lisa Kudrow’s experience on the set of Friends wasn’t as perfect as it seemed.
Recently, Lisa Kudrow was asked to speak on Marc Maron’s podcast (播客), and she opened up about her experiences with her own body image. She noted that, while working on Friends, she would often compare herself to her co-stars. She would look at Jennifer Aniston and Courteney Cox, and she would then see her flaws compared to their perfections. She would see them as extremely thin and beautiful women, but then she looked at herself on her screen and saw someone who was much larger.
Because she often felt as though she was less of a woman because she felt larger than her co-stars, Lisa would lose weight on purpose to feel better about herself. The more she lost weight, the more she received compliments from those who knew her, and complete strangers. This heightened the idea that she needed to be thin to be beautiful.
Now, Lisa has put weight back on and feels more beautiful than ever.
1. Who were most probably Matthew Perry and Jennifer Aniston?| A．Stars from Friends. | B．Characters from Friends. |
| C．Fans of Friends. | D．Coauthors of Friends. |
| A．Because she didn’t work well with other stars. |
| B．Because she thought she was too fat. |
| C．Because she wasn’t her audience’s favorite. |
| D．Because she was poor at playing her role. |
| A．Don’t think much of your appearance. |
| B．Don’t express your true feelings to your fans. |
| C．Don’t focus much on the comments of co-stars. |
| D．Don’t make too much comparison with others. |
| A．Dislike. | B．Comment. | C．Praise. | D．Requirement. |
5 . China on Monday issued strict new measures aimed at addressing what authorities describe as youth videogame addiction, which they blame for a variety of societal ills, including distracting young people from school and family responsibilities.
The new regulation, announced by the National Press and Publication Administration, will ban minors from playing videogames entirely between Monday and Thursday. On the other three days of the week, and on public holidays, they will be only permitted to play" between 8 p. m. and 9 p. m.
The announcement didn't offer a specific age for minors, but previous regulations targeting younger videogamers have drawn the line at 18 years old. Enforcement measures weren't detailed, but in response to previous moves by the government to limit videogame playing by young people, Tencent Holdings Ltd. , the world's largest videogame company, has used a combination of technologies, automatically kicking off players after a certain period of time and using real-name registration and facial-recognition technology to limit game play for minors.
In restricting videogame play for younger people, the government is seeking to "effectively protect the physical and mental health of minors," China's state-run Xinhua News Agency said Monday.
Monday's new rule is likely to be felt through China's online gaming industry, one of the world's largest. The measure comes as the Chinese government seeks to restrict China's technology industry, a campaign that has caused a trillion-dollar selloff in Chinese stock market and hit a range of businesses, including for-profit education providers, ride-hailing (打车) services and e-commerce platforms.
Videogames have become a particular object of anger as Beijing seeks to reshape an industry it has described as motivated by profit at the expense of public morals. A state-media remarks this month triggered a selloff in shares of Tencent after it published an article that described online games as "opium (鸦片) for the mind. "
After the regulations were published on Monday, following the close of stock-market trading, Tencent said it had introduced a variety of new functions to better protect minors. It promised to continue to do so as it "strictly follows and actively implements the latest requirements from Chinese authorities. "
1. According to the new regulation, how long can a minor play videogames during a weekend?| A．One hour | B．Two hours | C．Three hours | D．Unlimited hours |
| A．Parental guidance | B．Automatic registration |
| C．Compulsory offline | D．Fingerprint identification |
| A．They harm teenagers' mental health | B．They make people easy to get angry |
| C．They make people entirely irresponsible | D．They bring in lots of profits for the government |
| A．No More Games | B．Protection of the Youth |
| C．The End of Technology Industry | D．Further Restriction on Youth Gaming |
6 . An international team of astronomers have announced the first organized search for alien technology in our own solar system. The Galileo Project, led by Professor Avi Loeb from Harvard University in the US, will look for signs of robotic spacecraft from other planets.
The project might sound like science fiction but it's rooted in science fact. Many astronomers believe that if life and intelligence have evolved elsewhere in our galaxy, then at least a few alien civilizations are likely to have launched probes to explore other solar systems and perhaps watch over habitable planets like Earth.
One of the project's main aims is to carry out a scientific study of UFOs (unidentified flying objects). Since at least the 1940s, many people have reported seeing strange objects or lights in the sky that fly in seemingly impossible ways. Some have even been caught on film. Although UFOs are unlikely to have alien pilots, Loeb suggests that they could be intelligent machines investigating the Earth to gather data. Since they are hard to explain from rare chance sightings, the project aims to set up automatic networks of telescopes to scan the skies. If a UFO is spotted, a variety of very precise instruments can then be used to track and measure it.
Further afield, the team want to look for possible alien machines flying through our solar system. In 2017, scientists were excited when Oumuamua, a 400-metre-long object from outside our solar system, flew past the Sun at high speed. Most scientists think it was a natural comet that escaped from its orbit around another star, but because it was discovered by chance, there was little time to study it in detail. Loeb plans to search the skies for similar visitors, so that astronomers can learn more about them and investigate whether they might be artificial rather than natural.
1. What does the underlined phrase “caught on film” in Paragraph 3 probably mean?| A．Shot down | B．Photographed | C．Trapped | D．Looked into |
| A．Alien pilots have been spotted in them |
| B．They are strange objects or lights in the sky |
| C．They must be spacecrafts searching our planet for statistics |
| D．Many accurate tools have been applied to track and measure them |
| A．making a summary | B．drawing comparisons |
| C．explaining a concept | D．giving an example |
| A．A science fiction which is rooted in science fact |
| B．A project to look for habitable planets like Earth |
| C．A program to search for flying machines from alien civilizations |
| D．A scientific study of our solar system carried out by Harvard University |
7 . Clara Daly was seated on an Alaska Airlines flight from Boston to Los Angeles when a flight attendant asked an urgent question over the loudspeaker: “Does anyone on board know American Sign Language?”
Clara, 15 at the time, pressed the call button. The flight attendant came by and explained the situation. “We have a passenger on the plane who’s blind and deaf,” she said. The passenger seemed to want something, but he was traveling alone and the flight attendants couldn’t understand what he needed.
Clara had been studying ASL for the past year and knew she'd be able to finger spell into the man's hand. So she left her seat, walked toward the front of the plane, and knelt by the seat of Tim Cook, then 64. Gently taking his hand, she signed, “How are you? Are you OK?” Cook asked for some water. When it arrived, Clara returned to her seat. She came by again a bit later because he wanted to know the time. On her third visit, she stopped and stayed awhile.
“He didn’t need anything. He was lonely and wanted to talk,” Clara says.
So for the next hour, that's what they did. She talked about her family and her plans for the future. Cook told Clara how he had gradually become blind and shared stories of his days as a travelling salesman. Even though he couldn’t see her, she “looked attentively at his face with such kindness,” a passenger reported.
“Clara was amazing,” a flight attendant told Alaska Airlines in a blog interview. “You could tell Tim was very excited to have someone he could speak to, and she was such an angel. ”
Cook’s reaction: “Best trip I've ever had.”
1. What happened on the plane?| A．Clara pressed the call button by accident. |
| B．There was a problem with the loudspeaker. |
| C．A passenger became blind and deaf suddenly. |
| D．The attendants failed to understand a passenger’s need. |
| A．Because she could tell him the time. |
| B．Because she could help reduce his loneliness. |
| C．Because she wanted to share her plans for the future. |
| D．Because she wanted to learn the man's travelling stories. |
| A．Positive. | B．Negative. | C．Neutral. | D．Indifferent. |
| A．To explain the importance of ASL. |
| B．To show an urgent situation on the plane. |
| C．To introduce a girl’s act of kindness to a stranger. |
| D．To call on people to care about the blind and deaf. |
8 . The first and most simple step you can take to improve your personality is to give everyone a warm greeting. People will perceive you as friendly and kind if you smile when you see them. Flash your pearly whites and shake their hands or hug them.
When you meet someone, don't go on and on about yourself.
Those who have good personalities are often very reliable and trustworthy people. If you tell someone you'll do something, don't make excuses!
Always look for little opportunities to help others. See someone struggling to get a book off a high shelf?
| A．Step in if you can. |
| B．Get to know them instead! |
| C．Just take some time to think. |
| D．Politeness conveys respect and thoughtfulness to others. |
| E．Just follow through so they know they can depend on you. |
| F．It takes time for changes to become habits, or to even become comfortable with new behaviors. |
| G．This will help you become a more positive person and ensure you don't take anything for granted. |
1. What is Diego's adventure?
| A．Sailing round the world. | B．Visiting famous islands. | C．Taking a flight into space. |
| A．At a young age. | B．Without paying. | C．With his friends. |
| A．More entertaining. | B．More expensive. | C．More available. |
10 . “The research is clear that usable knowledge--that is, learning that can be transferred to new situations- only occurs when individuals are actively making sense of the world” (Science and Engineering for Grades 6-12: Investigation and Design at the Center, p.57)
One of the recent innovations (创新) in science and engineering education is the central focus on having students figure out puzzling phenomena and solving real- world problems. This idea builds on decades of research on how people learn and shifts the focus from“learning about" a science topic or the engineering design process to “figuring out” how to explain a phenomenon they see or solving a problem. With this focus, students learn ideas and skills because they realize they are missing some knowledge or skill that would allow them to answer their own questions-to satisfy their curiosity.
Students' engagement in their own learning is a strong predictor of their achievement, and teachers often report that it is a challenge to engage students in learning when they are not face to-face in a classroom. However, by centering students' experience on figuring something out that they are genuinely curious about, science and engineering learning can become the most engaging part of a student's day, even in remote learning environments. A phenomenon-and problem-centered focus provides opportunities to connect learning more closely to students' own lives and therefore to make it more relevant to them when they are at home.
If students explore a phenomenon or problem that they see in their own home, neighborhood, or community, they can more easily apply the learning in other aspects of their lives.
1. Why is the quotation put at the beginning of the text?| A．To popularize the idea of a book. | B．To lead in the author's concept. |
| C．To arouse the readers' interest. | D．To introduce the background. |
| A．Learning knowledge. | B．Finding a problem. |
| C．Explaining a phenomenon. | D．Teaching oneself. |
| A．To talk about a science topic or the engineering design process. |
| B．To focus on the knowledge and skill they need for the course. |
| C．To prepare themselves for the ability to solve real problems. |
| D．To engage themselves in real-world phenomena and problems. |
| A．They will become more curious. | B．They will become the center of the course. |
| C．They will be motivated to learn. | D．They will have better learning environment. |
