1 . How Much Exercise Do I Need?

When it comes to exercise, less is not more-but it’s certainly better than none. Physical inactivity accounts for as many as 23 percent of all deaths from major chronic diseases, yet almost one of every three Americans is sedentary. According to the Centers for Disease Control, 29.4 percent of those surveyed report they have no free-time physical activity at all. City people tend to be more active than country folks, with 27.4 percent saying they are sedentary, compared with 36.6 percent of those in rural areas.

Light activity can improve physical and mental well-being. While light activity is good, moderate activity is even better, and health experts encourage everyone to have at least 30 minutes a day of moderate physical activity. But you don’t have to head to a gym. As recent studies have confirmed, “lifestyle” activities, such as walking, house cleaning and gardening, are as effective as a structured exercise program in improving heart function, lowering blood pressure and keeping or losing weight.

In one study, overweight, sedentary middle-aged men and women who learned behavioral skills to make them more physically active, such as walking around airports or train stations while waiting for a departure, reduced their body fat percentage and improved their blood pressure and heart function as much as individuals participating in structured programs at a fitness center. In another study, fat women ranging in age from 21 to 60 who adopted a more active lifestyle lost as much weight as women in a low-impact aerobics (有氧健身)program-and regained fewer pounds in the following year.

Recognizing the value of different levels and types of activity, the American College of Sports Medicine has changed its recommendations on quantity and quality of exercise to include flexibility as well as aerobic and muscle exercise and to acknowledge that multiple short periods of exercise during the day are nearly as beneficial as one long session.

1. By saying that almost one third of Americans are sedentary, the author means________ .

A．they take proper exercise to be healthy	B．they know nothing about light activity
C．they are very fond of physical activity	D．they take little free-time physical activity

2. We can learn from the passage that________ .

A．light activity is especially good for the middle-aged people

B．people like light activity because it won’t make them feel tired

C．people only need to do light activity three times a week to keep fit

D．light activity promotes people’s well-being physically and mentally

3. What do health experts suggest about moderate activity?

A．No less than half an hour’s moderate activity daily can do us good.

B．Moderate activity is no better than light activity to people.

C．“Lifestyle” activities don’t belong to moderate activity.

D．People may go to the gym to take moderate activity.

4. According to the passage, which of the following belongs to a structured exercise program?

A．Doing gymnastics at a gym.	B．Taking outdoor activities.
C．Walking.	D．Gardening.

4 . One of the most important skills in building a successful career is listening. While drive and confidence may get you in the door of a dream job, listening enables you to build successful partnerships that will help you climb to the top.     1     When colleagues feel listened to, they feel safe to communicate and enjoy working together.

So how do people become good listeners?

    2    

While we all have our own ideas, to properly listen, we must put these aside when the other person is speaking. Many people succeed because they’ve learned to listen with the purpose of understanding what the other person is trying to convey. It helps you get important information, of course, but it’s more than that: It’s also the greatest sign of respect you can give someone.

Ask question.

This shows the other person that you re paying attention and interested, which will lead to a more honest and productive conversation. Clarify things that may be unclear, reflect back what you hear and ask questions that allow the person to unpack the topic.     3    

Be supportive.

Create a safe and comfortable workplace by showing your support.     4     Body language can also play a significant role in creating a supportive environment. Positive feedback (反馈) is an important part too. Gaining new information is the best way to stay on top of the game, no matter what the job is.

Be patient with yourself.

Don’t forget to be patient with yourself.     5     Take the time to manage your success in this field and remember that little change can go a long way.

A．Listen with the goal of comprehension.

B．Learning to listen effectively doesn’t happen overnight.

C．Here’s how to build your career by being a good listener.

D．Understand what words will truly persuade the other person.

E．Open-ended questions are the best as they don’t force a direct answer.

F．Sincere listening is transformative as it helps create a supportive workplace.

G．This can be done by showing confidence in the person and avoiding criticism.

5 . Dogs tend to ignore suggestions from people who are lying. This is what Ludwig Huber’s team at the University of Vienna in Austria found in its recent experiment.

In the experiment, Huber and his colleagues first trained 260 dogs of various pure breeds to find hidden food in one of two covered bowls. The dogs learned to follow the suggestion of a person they had never met—the “communicator”—who would touch the food-filled bowl, glance at the dog, and say, “Look, this is very good!” Dogs appeared to trust this new person when they were reliably following the signal, says Huber.

Once that trust was established, the team had the dogs witness another person move the food from the first to the second bowl. The communicators were either in the room, and also witnessed the switch, or were briefly absent and so apparently unaware that the food had been switched. In either case, the communicators would later recommend the first bowl—which was now empty.

In previous versions of this experiment with children under age 5, Japanese macaques or chimpanzees, the participants reacted in particular ways. If a communicator had been absent during the food switch, it would appear that they couldn’t know where the treat really was. As such, the children, chimps or macaques would typically ignore a communicator who gave honest—but misleading—advice on where the food was, says Huber.

However, if the communicator had been in the room and witnessed the switch, but still recommended the first (now empty) bowl, young children and non-human primates (灵长目动物) were actually much more likely to follow the communicator’s knowingly misleading suggestion to approach the empty container. This may be because the children and non-human primates trusted the communicator over the evidence of their own eyes, says Huber.

The dogs in the new experiment, however, weren’t so trusting of lying communicators—much to the researchers’ surprise. Half of the dogs would follow the communicator’s misleading advice if the communicator hadn’t witnessed the food switch. But about two-thirds of dogs ignored a communicator who had witnessed the food switch and still recommended the now-empty bowl. These dogs simply went to the bowl filled with food instead. “They did not rely on the communicator anymore,” says Huber.

“This study reminds us that dogs are watching us closely, are picking up on our social signals, and are learning from us constantly even outside of formal training contexts,” says Monique Udell at Oregon State University.

Besides, the fact that half the dogs trusted the communicator who seemed to have made an honest mistake could reveal a lot about how dogs process social information, says Udell. “There is both genetic and behavioral evidence that dogs are hypersocial, meaning that many dogs have a difficult time ignoring social cues even when another solution might be more advantageous,” she says. “This is a really striking example of just how often this may occur.”

1. What did Huber and his colleagues try to do first?

A．To let dogs trust a stranger.	B．To train dogs to guide humans.
C．To communicate more with dogs.	D．To improve dogs’ ability to seek food.

2. How would young children react when the communicator was obviously lying?

A．They would be misled by the communicator.

B．They would ignore the communicator’s advice.

C．They would teach the communicator a good lesson.

D．They would keep a distance from the communicator.

3. What did the new experiment show?

A．Dogs tend to follow the communicator’s advice.

B．Dogs can be easily confused by the food switch.

C．Dogs can identify whether the communicator is lying.

D．Dogs can accurately understand humans’ social signals.

4. What does Monique Udell say about dogs?

A．They are much smarter than humans.

B．They prefer to stay with honest humans.

C．They need to be trained to follow humans.

D．They can be easily influenced by social cues.

6 . The other day, while taking a drop-in art class, I had an experience that I don’t always have when I’m engaged in something creative. I was fully in the zone. My instructor even commented: “You’re on fire today.” Painting after painting was flying out of me. I felt free—a very unfamiliar feeling for me.

Class started off with quick thirty-second figure drawing, then we worked our way up to one-minute, and then finally four-minute sketches (素描). Ever since the instructor told me not to go over the same line twice, I’ve really struggled with finding my freedom in figure drawing. But that day I was completely free, and as a consequence, my line quality was much better. I felt completely unconcerned with what the teacher thought of my work. It was one of the most enjoyable creative experiences I’ve had.

Afterwards, I was reflecting on why this was such a pleasurable experience. This is how I always want to feel while creating.

I think this was so enjoyable because it was a drop-in class. Not a full course. Not to get a master’s degree. Therefore, I felt no responsibility for getting it right. I was able to take it less seriously and just have fun with it. And I wasn’t monitoring myself to make sure that I was improving.

If you practice at your chosen craft, you will improve over time. Worrying about whether you’re getting better doesn’t help you improve. It actually slows down your growth. Your intellect might think it’s helping out, but it’s actually slowing you down and making your creative process less fun. Eventually, there’s truth to the simple saying—practice makes perfect. Since there’s no perfection in the world of creativity, practice makes better.

Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Create even though it won’t be perfect. Create because it won’t be perfect. Create even though it won’t be perfect. Create because it won’t be perfect. Create because your spirit needs to express itself. That is where the freedom is. That is where the joy is.

1. What does the underlined part in the first paragraph mean?

A．The author was very clever.	B．The author got a little bored.
C．The author made a wise choice.	D．The author devoted herself to her work.

2. What do we know about the author in the drop-in art class?

A．She did what she liked.	B．She learnt the basic skills of sketching.
C．She had no inspiration to create works.	D．She couldn’t keep up with other students.

3. What can we learn about the author from the text?

A．She focuses on gaining better drawing skills.

B．She has no sense of responsibility in her daily life.

C．She thinks joy mainly results in a person’s perfection.

D．She has found the reason for the pleasurable experience.

4. What can be a suitable title for the text?

A．Practice makes perfect

B．Begin enjoying drop-in art classes

C．Try to find the key to successful work

D．Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good

9 . Staffan Lindeberg is a professor in the department of medicine at the University of Lund in Sweden. He was interested in a Stone Age diet. In the early 1990s he travelled to Papua New Guinea to study the diet of the people on the island of Kitava as it was very close to the Stone Age diet. While there, he found that people did not suffer from heart attacks, diabetes (糖尿病), being overweight and many other diseases common in western countries.

As a result of his findings, he decided to test patients in Sweden to see how such a diet would affect them. Fourteen patients followed a Stone Age diet while another fifteen followed a Mediterranean diet, also healthy with lots of fruit and vegetables. All of the patients in the tests had high blood sugar levels, most suffered from diabetes and all had heart problems.

At the end of three months, the group following the Mediterranean diet had reduced their blood sugar levels by a small amount but those following the Stone Age diet had much lower levels of sugar in their blood. The patients in both groups also lost weight although the level of sugar in the blood and the patients’ weight didn’t seem to be related.

So, what is it about the Stone Age diet that can make us healthier? The diet contains some meat, fish, vegetables and nuts (坚果) but it doesn’t contain any dairy products (乳制品) or grains, and there is no salt.

The next question is whether the Kitava people are healthier than us. After all, their life expectancy (预期寿命) is much lower. According to Professor Lindeberg, this is not as simple as we may think. Because of their poor health care, there is more chance of them dying at a young age. However, if people on Kitava manage to reach fifty, they are likely to live as long as people in more developed countries.

1. What did Staffan Lindeberg find about the Kitava people on the island of Kitava?

A．They followed the Stone Age diet.

B．They lived a simple life.

C．They had no diseases common in western countries.

D．They had poor medical conditions.

2. What did the tests in Sweden show?

A．The Stone Age diet could help people lose weight quickly.

B．High blood sugar levels could cause people to be overweight.

C．The Mediterranean diet could not help reduce blood sugar levels.

D．People following the Stone Age diet had a low blood sugar level.

3. What did the Stone Age diet did not contain?

A．Vegetables.

B．Salt.

C．Meat.

D．Fish.

4. Why is Kitava people’s life expectancy low?

A．They have unhealthy eating habits.

B．Their living conditions are poor.

C．They don’t have good health care.

D．They tend to suffer from a rare disease at a young age.

10 . 阅读下面短文，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

There are certain things on the Earth that we must not lose. The great animal migration across the Serengeti Plains or the towering pyramids of Egypt are such examples. Every country is proud of     1     (it) cultural or natural heritage sites,     2     must be protected. We are lucky to have UNESCO to oversee such an important task. It sees heritage as our legacy from     3    past, what we live with today, and what we pass on to future generations as well as sources    4    irreplaceable inspiration.

The incredible splendour of heritage sites is a     5     (remind) of the power of nature and the genius of man. As a nature reserve, Jiuzhaigou Valley is home to snow-capped mountains, thick forests, impressive waterfalls and lakes. This dream-like scenery makes us realize that nature has    6     (true) created a masterpiece. Similarly, standing in the shadow of the Borobudur Temple, as the sun rises over this grand historic building, we    7     (impress) with the effort and determination of the people who     8    (build) it with only primitive tools.

It is in heritage sites like this     9     we cannot help but be humbled, come to understand our limitations as human beings, and know that our duty is to protect them for generations     10     (come).