1 . Do you like to keep fit? We’re always told that regular exercise is good for our body and mind. More and more people are taking up activities that improve their fitness. But is there a risk that some of us might get obsessed (着迷的) and overdo it?

Well, for some people, fitness has become an obsession as they aim for perfection. And fitness trackers and apps can add to this addiction, especially if someone is driven by achievement and perfectionism. And sharing data on social media means exercising becomes public and competitive, which could cause problems in someone who is vulnerable (脆弱的). Experts say this can lead to a medical condition called orthorexia nervosa, or addiction to healthy eating and over-exercise. Untreated, it can lead to malnutrition and mental health problems.

Too much exercise can also take its toll on someone’s physical health as well. Symptoms of over-exercising include injuries such as a broken leg and a low immune system. So how much exercise is too much? Researches found the ideal pace to jog was about eight kilometers per hour-and that it was best to jog no more than three times a week or for 2.5 hours in total, showing that moderate jogging is possibly more beneficial than being inactive or undertaking strenuous (剧烈的) jogging.

If you’re more of a couch potato than a runner, this might sound like good news. But for amateur (业余的) athletes who can’t help but push their bodies to the limit, the advice from Martin Turner, a sports and exercise psychologist, is, “It’s all about letting go, not being obsessed, learning not to control everything, saying, ‘You don’t need to be perfect.’”

When I was little, I lived in a house with a beautiful garden full of all kinds of Bowers. There was nothing I enjoyed more than sitting in the garden with my mother reading stories to me. When I was old enough to read, I enjoyed reading stories aloud to her.

I would never forget one day when I was in the third grade. I bad been picked to be the princess in the school play, and for weeks my mother had rehearsed (排练) my lines so hard with me. But however easily I acted at home, the moment I stepped on stage, every word disappeared from my head. Finally, my teacher took me aside, explaining that she had written a narrator’s (解说员) part to the play, and asked me to change roles. Her word, kindly expressed, still hurt, especially when I saw my part go to another girl.

I didn’t tell my mother what had happened when I went home after school that day. But she sensed my pain. Instead of suggesting we practice my lines, she asked if I wanted to take a walk in the garden.

It was May and roses were blossoming and, under the trees, we could also see yellow dandelions (蒲公英) in the grass, as if a painter had painted our garden with red, yellow and green. I watched my mother casually bend down by one dandelion. ”I think I’m going to dig up all these weeds,” she said, pulling it up by its roots. ”From now on, we’ll have only roses in this garden. ”

“But I like dandelions,” I protested, “All flowers are beautiful-even dandelions.” “Yes, every flower is beautiful in its own way, isn’t it?” she asked thoughtfully. I nodded, pleased that I had won her over. “And that is true of people too,” she added. “Not everyone can be a princess, but there is no shame in that.” Relieved that she had guessed my pain, I started to cry as I told her what had happened. She listened and smiled to me gently.

Para 1: “But you will be a beautiful narrator,” she said.

Para 2: After the play, I took home the flower.

Yours,

Li Hua

4 . Walking in the city is very different from walking in the park. A small psychology study suggests urban environments can slow your step and possibly increase your mental load.     1    

It can ease your mind and quicken your pace. The findings show that natural settings may potentially reduce cognitive (认知的) tiredness and improve reaction time straight away.     2    

The first of the two experiments in the new study focused on people’s way of walking and cognitive load. During this trial, participants were fitted with sensors and a dozen motion control cameras were set up to watch them repeatedly walk down a l5-metre room at their natural speed. The wall opposite them showed an image of either a nature scene or a city scene.     3     On the whole, when walking in city settings, people reported that they felt more uncomfortable and they walked at a slower pace, indicating a higher cognitive load.

    4     In the trial, participants were asked to distinguish (区分) between basic visual shapes on the computer while also in the presence of a natural or urban image (the same ones from the first experiment).

Measuring reaction time in both natural and urban settings, the team found results to support their idea. In urban environments, participants were slower in distinguishing between simple shapes.

    5     Our brains take longer to process. However, more research is needed to prove that idea.

5 . Have you been exercising and eating healthy, but when you step on the scale, it says you’ve gained a few pounds? “That’s normal, and it doesn’t mean that your workouts are not effective”, says Jeffrey A. Dolgan, an exercise physiologist in Miami Beach, Florida.

“A person’s scale mass (质量) is a combination of muscle, fat, bone, blood, and even the air that we carry in our lungs,” he says. “Immediately after a workout routine, the percentage of mass in each body part can shift as much as 15 percent. So if you’re gaining weight while working out and eating healthy, it’s probably not the type of weight gain that you think it is.

The scale can’t tell you how much of your body weight is muscle or fat, which means if your goal is to improve your fitness level, the scale is not the best tool for measuring improvements. When you start to change your body composition with your workouts — by building more muscle mass and decreasing your body fat — your scale weight may increase, while your body fat percentage may decrease. These changes happen over weeks and months (not hours or days) so the scale is useless when tracking them.

You may argue that you weigh a few pounds less after a high intensity (强度) training class. Don’t get too excited—it’s just water loss due to sweat. Water makes up approximately 65 to 90 percent of a person’s weight, and variation in water content of the human body can move the scale by ten pounds or more from day to day.

So ignore the scale and pay more attention to objective measurement tools like body composition. Keep in mind that if you’re exercising but gaining weight, you may actually look slimmer.

6 . It was the first night of a tiring seven-day 250km race across the Gobi Desert a year ago. Mr. Leonard _______ a little dog going around his camp trying to _______ herself.

“Cute, but I’m not giving you any,” Leonard thought. Like all_______, he had packed just enough for the whole _______. He’d been running competitively for three years, and he had a_______ to win.

The next day, at the starting line, the dog_________ him again. He waved her away, _______ she might be stepped on by the runners. _________, the dog followed him all the way until the day’s race _________. That night the dog snuggled (偎依) up to Leonard and even __________ to get a little food from him. By then, he was determined to________ her Gobi.

The pair went on to finish the seven-day race, with Gobi __________ a distance of 125km on her own, and winning Leonard over, enough for him to make a ________ — he would take her home to Edinburgh. “Seeing Gobi on the race__________ my attitude to things. It made me think more about stopping and helping her, __________ just focusing on winning,” said Leonard, who finished second. “It also made my running more________, giving me a lot of pleasure.”

As Leonard was preparing to get Gobi home, she was ________. With a group of 20 local volunteers coming to his ________, he finally found her. After that, Leonard never let Gobi out of his ________. Now Gobi’s favorite activity is still running, and she __________ does at least 8km a day with Leonard up the hills.

10 . Madison Williams was studying in her bedroom in Dublin, Ohio, in August 2016 when the door burst open. It was her mother Leigh Williams, with a(an) _________ story: A little boy fell into a drain and no one can _________ him. Then she made this _________ of her 13-year-old daughter: “Can you help?”

Madison and Leigh ran to a neighbor’s yard, where they found the boy’s _________ mother and other adults _________ a manhole cover (下水道井盖). Its diameter was _________ wider than a basketball. The boy, aged only two, had _________ the drain and was drowning in the water.

Madison quickly examined the situation. She was the only one who could _________ through the small hole. Without _________, she told the adults to lower her in. Leigh and others held her waist and __________. Madison shook her arms and shoulders __________ she got through the hole into the dark and smelly drain. In the process her left wrist was __________. Rather than tend to her injury, Madison __________ the surface of the water, hoping to __________ the boy. Every once in a while, she could see his little __________ but failed to grasp his foot. Minutes ticked by before she saw the outline of his foot again. Madison shot her good hand out and grabbed the foot __________. Then both of them were lifted out.

But the boy wasn’t out of trouble. He had been short of oxygen that he wasn’t __________. Lying on the ground unconscious, he was in urgent need of first aid. After calling for emergency services, an adult cleared his airway and placed him on his side, and another adult __________ him firmly on his back until the boy coughed up fluids. Then they were rushed to the hospital.

It took Madison longer to recover than the boy, who returned home soon. She __________, stayed there for her injury, experiencing months of physical treatment for her wrist. “Madison’s a heroine,” the boy’s mother said. “What other teenage girls will __________ to go into a drain?”