1 . Directions: Complete the following passage by using the words in the box. Each word can only be used once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. reward B. encouraging C. progression D. serving E. supplied F. native G. skin H. rate I. loaded J. shine K. remove

Pomegranate(石榴): Still Healthy at 5,000 Years Old

The pomegranate is one of the oldest known fruits. Pomegranates are found in ancient writings and pictured in the ancient art of many cultures and religions. The pomegranate is also a symbol of health, fertility and long life.

Experts   think   the   pomegranate   is    1     to   northern   India,   Pakistan,   Iran     and     Afghanistan. Today it also grows in Southeast Asia, the western U.S., Armenia and parts of Africa, among other places.

The    2     of   a pomegranate   is   strong.   It   can be red,   purple or   orange-yellow. The   inside is filled with beautiful dark red seeds that    3    like rubies( 红 宝 石 ).     It is not easy to get them out. But the    4    is great.

Health benefits

The pomegranate grows on trees. Parts of the pomegranate tree and fruit are used to make medicine.

The pomegranate is used for many conditions. However, the U.S National Institutes of Health says there is not enough scientific evidence to    5    pomegranates as effective for any of them.

Still, in traditional medicine, the pomegranate is used for conditions of the heart and blood vessels, including high blood pressure and “hardening of the arteries”.

The jewel-like seeds of the pomegranate are    6    with many nutrients and chemicals   called antioxidants( 抗 氧 化 物 ). These antioxidants    7    poisons from the body.

Antioxidants   slow   the    8     of   age-related   sickness   and   may   slow   the   growth   of cancer cells. Men who have prostate cancer may benefit from a daily    9    of pomegranate juice.

Pomegranates are used for weight loss and used as a treatment for sore throat. Pomegranates are also high in vitamin K, phosphorus, magnesium, calcium, zinc and iron.

Let’s just say pomegranates are loaded with great things for the inside of your body.

Beauty benefits

But let’s not forget the outside, too!

Pomegranates are great for the skin. They protect the skin by    10    new skin growth,     healing wounds and repairing tissue. Pomegranates protect the skin against sun damage as well. They may help skin look younger by providing moisture and elasticity.

2 . Directions: Complete the following passage by using the words in the box. Each word can only be used once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. motive       B. deliberately   C. convinced       D. injurious E. alerts F. desperately     G.   swept       H. accounts I. unconscious     J. preserving K. charging

Why Humpback Whales (座头鲸) Protect Other Species from Killer Whales

Robert Pitman, a marine ecologist, describes an encounter he witnessed in Antarctica in 2009. A group of killer whales were attacking a Weddell seal. The seal swam     1     toward a pair of humpbacks that had inserted themselves into the action. One of the humpbacks rolled over on its back, and the seal was     2     onto its chest, between the whale’s massive flippers (鳍). “That incident     3     me,” he says. “Those humpbacks were doing something we couldn’t explain.”

Pitman started asking other researchers and whale watchers to send him similar     4    . Soon he was reading through observations of 115 encounters between humpbacks and killer whales, recorded over 62 years. “There are some pretty astonishing videos of humpbacks     5     killer whales,” he says.

In a 2016 article in Marine Mammal Science, a famous scientific journal, Pitman and his co-authors describe this behaviour and confirm that such acts of do-gooding are widespread. But knowing that something is happening and understanding why it’s happening are two different things. Pitman and his co-authors openly reflected on the meaning of these encounters. “Why,” they wrote, “would humpbacks     6     interfere with attacking killer whales, spending time and energy on a potentially     7     activity, especially when the killer whales… were attacking other species of prey?”

Interestingly, humpbacks don’t just hit on killer-whale attacks. They race toward them like firefighters into burning buildings. And like those rescue workers, humpbacks don’t know who is in danger until they get there. That’s because the sound that     8     them to an attack isn’t the sad voice of the victim. It’s the excited calls of the killer whales. Pitman believes humpbacks have one simple instruction: “When you hear killer whales attacking, go break it up.”

I wonder what humpback whales care deeply enough about to actively swim into battle with killer whales. When I ask Pitman, he tells me that, it still comes down to selfishly     9     their own kind. He believes that their occasional rescues of humpback calves (后代) create a strong enough     10     for them to rush in to help, even if it means they end up saving sunfish, sea lions, dolphins every now and then.

3 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in each blank with a proper word given in the box. Each word can only be used once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

Former World’s Fattest Man Finds Love

He was once the world’s fattest man weighing in at an incredible 980 pounds and consuming 20,000 calories (卡路里) a day. But it seems that after losing 672 pounds following a surgery, it’s not just Paul Mason’s health that has a more promising     1    —his weight loss may have also promoted his love life.

Mr. Mason has only known his new girlfriend Rebecca for a month and the pair are yet to meet, but already   the 52-year old has     2     that Rebecca is the love of his life. The pair met online last month when Rebecca saw   a television     3     about Mr. Mason’s extreme fatness—the result of overeating when a previous relationship ended. She was so touched by his situation as to get in touch, keen to help Mr. Mason get the NHS (National Health Service) to pay for a second operation to     4     him of layers of extra skin.

Mr.   Mason said: “She didn’t really think of anything     5     at the beginning. It wasn’t until the second conversation that I realised there was more there than just friends. She felt the same and brought up the idea of us being boyfriend and girlfriend.”

Mr. Mason says that he doesn’t go for looks and finds Rebecca’s     6     attitude particularly attractive. “It is   her personality,   her     7     and passion that has made me fall for her. We share the same ideas and interests and she has made me look at life in a new way. For a long time I couldn’t really see light at the end of the tunnel, but since Rebecca’s been in my life I’ve got a whole new     8     of worth and excitement.”

Mr. Mason     9     to his incredible size by eating ten times the amount needed by a normal man due to a compulsive eating disorder. As his weight rose sharply he was left unable to stand or walk before finally becoming bed-ridden and being looked after full time by carers.

Firefighters had to knock down the front wall of his     10     home so they could use a fork lift truck to lift him out and put him into an ambulance when he needed an operation in 2002.

4 . Directions: Complete the following passage by using the words in the box. Each word can only be used once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. distributed B. absolutely C. infections   D. consume E. harbor F. reliance G. potential H. specific I. originate J. respectively K. revealed

Microplastic Pollution

In the past few years, scientists have found microplastics in our soil, tap water, bottled water, beer and even in the air we breathe. And there’s growing concern about the     1     health risks they pose to humans.

The new analysis in the UK have discovered microplastics widely     2     across all 10 lakes and rivers sampled. More than 1,000 small pieces of plastic per litre were found in the River Tame, which was     3     last year as the most polluted place tested worldwide. Even in relatively remote places such as the Falls of Dochart and Loch Lomond in Scotland, two or three pieces per litre were found.

Microplastics are not a     4     kind of plastic, but rather any type of small pieces of plastic that is less than 5 mm in length according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. They may     5     from a variety of sources, including cosmetics, clothing, and industrial processes.

Humans are known to     6     the tiny plastic particles through food and water, but the possible health effects on people and ecosystems have yet to be determined. One study, in Singapore, has found that microplastics can     7     harmful microbes (微生物).

Research by the National University of Singapore found more than 400 types of bacteria on 275 pieces of microplastic collected from local beaches. They included insects that cause gastroenteritis (肠胃炎) and wound     8     in humans.

“Microplastics are being found     9     everywhere but we do not know the harm they could be doing,” said Christian Dunn at Bangor University, Wales, who led the work. “It’s no use looking back in 20 years’ time and saying: ‘If only we’d realized just how bad it was.’ We need to be monitoring our waters now and we need to think, as a country and a world, how we can be reducing our     10     on plastic.”

5 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in each blank with a proper word given in the box. Each word can be used only once. Note that there is one more word than you need.

Criticism of the Fast Fashion

In the 2006 film version of The Devil Wears Prada, Miranda Priestly, played by Meryl Streep, scolds her unattractive assistant for imagining that high fashion doesn’t affect her. Priestly explains how the deep blue color of the assistant’s sweater was     1     over the years from     fashion shows to departments stores and to the bargain bin in which the poor girl probably found her clothes.

This top-down concept of the fashion business couldn’t be more out of date or in conflict with the mad world described in Overdressed, Elizabeth Cline’s three-year accusation of “fast fashion”. In the last decade or so,     2     in technology have allowed mass-market labels such as Zara, H&M, and Uniqlo to react to trends more quickly and predict demand more     3    . Quicker turnarounds mean less wasted stock, more frequent release, and more profit. These labels encourage style-conscious consumers to see clothes as disposable—meant to last only a wash or two, although they don’t advertise that—and to     4     their wardrobe(衣橱) every few weeks. By offering on-trend items at dirt-cheap prices, Cline argues, these brands have controlled fashion cycles, shaking an industry long     5     to a seasonal pace.

The     6     of this revolution, of course, are not limited to designers. For H&M to offer a $5.95 knit miniskirt in all its 2,300-plus stores around the world, it must rely on low-wage overseas labor, order in volumes that     7     natural resources, and use massive amounts of harmful chemicals.

Towards the end of Overdressed, Cline introduced her ideal, a Brooklyn woman named   Sarah Kate Beaumont, who since 2008 has made all of her own clothes—and beautifully. But as Cline is the first to note, it took Beaumont decades to perfect her craft; her example can’t be imitated.

Though several fast-fashion companies have made efforts to     8     their impact on labor and the environment—including H&M, with its green Conscious Collection line—Cline believes lasting change can only be made by customers. She exhibits the idealism     9     to many advocates of sustainability, be it in food or in energy. Vanity(虚 荣心) is a constant; people will only start shopping more     10     when they can’t afford not to.

6 . Directions: Fill in each blank with a proper word chosen from the box. Each word can be used only once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

How do Cigarettes Affect the Body?

Cigarettes aren’t good for us. But how exactly do cigarettes harm us? Let’s look at what happens as their ingredients make their way through our bodies, and how we benefit     1     when we finally give up smoking.

Inside the airways and lungs, smoke increases the     2     of infections as well as long - lasting diseases. It does this by damaging the tiny hair - like tissues which keep the airways clean. That’s one of the reasons smoking can lead to oxygen loss and     3     of breath.

Within about 10 seconds, the bloodstream carries a stimulant called nicotine to the brain, creating the     4     sensations which make smoking highly addictive. Nicotine and other chemicals from the cigarette, at the same time, cause tightness of blood tubes, restricting blood flow. These effects on blood tubes lead to     5     of blood tube walls, increasing the possibility of heart attacks and strokes.

Many of the chemicals inside cigarettes can activate dangerous     6     in the body’s DNA that make cancers form. In fact, about one of every three cancer deaths in the United States is caused by smoking. And it’s not just lung cancer. Smoking can cause cancer in multiple tissues and organs, as well as damaged eyesight and     7     bones. It makes it harder for women to get pregnant. And in men, it can cause long-term damages of body functions.

But for those who quit smoking, there’s a huge positive upside with almost     8     and long-lasting physical benefits. A day after ceasing, heart attack risk begins to decrease as blood pressure and heart rates     9    . Lungs become healthier after about one month, with less coughing. After ten years, the chances of developing fatal lung cancer go down by 50%, probably because the body’s ability to repair DNA is once again restored.

There’s no point pretending this is all easy to achieve. Quitting can lead to anxiety and depression. But fortunately, such effects are usually     10    . Advice and support groups and moderate intensity exercise also help smokers stay cigarette - free. That’s good news, since quitting puts you and your body on the path back to health.

7 . Directions: Complete the following passage by using the words in the box. Each word can only be used once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

Identify the problem, a goal, and a reward

Novelist Sarah Howery Hart says it's important that writers identify a specific problem, a goal, and a reward for any behavior they wish to change. In her conference workshops titled “Stuck, Tired, Bored, and Distracted: How Writers in Distress can use Psychology Tools to Overcome Common Writing-related Problems, she teaches techniques learned in her doctoral study of psychology to help writers become more     1     and efficient.

One of the most common     2     she hears is the lack of time to write. “First, we need to determine what that means,” she says. “Maybe it means that you do things that     3     your own writing, like checking emails and social media. Your next step is to determine how     4     this is happening.”

She offers her participants worksheets to help them measure how often a particular behavior occurs, and then asks them to     5     whether the behavior is truly a problem. “Let’s say you find that you check your email once an hour while you're writing. Is that too frequent? Only you can determine that, ’’ she says. “If you check your email and then move on to Facebook and then to Twitter-even if you’ve only checked once, this can take a(n)     6     15 minutes out of your writing hour. Also, you lose your     7     of thought and can’t remember what you were going to write next.”

She advises writers to set a goal - for instance, writing for an hour without checking email or social media. “And then you have to determine your reward     8    ,” she says. “How often will you need to reward yourself?”

She urges writers to assess their progress    9    . “After a day, after a few days，are you meeting your goals?” she says. “If the reward didn’t work, you may need to     10     it. Maybe reading a book for 15 minutes wasn't the strongest reward for you because you read for two hours when you go to bed at night. Maybe you’d rather go to the gym or out for a half-hour run.”

8 . Directions: Complete the following passage by using the words in the box. Each word can only be used once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

Welcome to Windsor Castle

Windsor Castle is the oldest and largest occupied castle in the world and the Official Residence of the Queen of Britain. Over a period of nearly 1,000 years it has been    1    continuously, and altered and redecorated by monarchs(君主) one after the other. Some were great builders, strengthening the Castle against    2    and rebellion; others, living in more peaceful times, created a grand Royal residence. William the Conqueror chose the site, high above the river Thames and on the edge of a Saxon hunting ground. It was a day’s march from the Tower of London and intended to guard the western    3    to the capital. The outer walls of today’s structure are in the same position as those of the    4    castle built by William the Conqueror in the 1070s.The Queen uses the Castle both as a private home, where she usually spends the weekend, and as a Royal residence at which she undertakes certain formal duties. Windsor Castle is    5    used by the Queen to host State Visits from overseas monarchs and presidents. Every year the Queen takes up official residence in Windsor Castle for a month over Easter (March-April).

The Castle is huge, so people tend to head for the most    6    bits -- the State Apartments, St. George’s Chapel, the Gallery and the delightful Queen Mary’s Dolls House. Works of art, antique furniture, curiosities and impressive architecture reflect the tastes of many different royal generations. The State Apartments are    7    decorated formal rooms still used for state and official functions.

The magnificent and beautiful St. George’s Chapel was started in 1475 by Edward IV and was completed 50 years later by Henry VIII. It    8    among the finest examples of late medieval architecture in the UK.

The Drawings Gallery    9    the exhibition “The Queen: 60 Photographs for 60 Years”. The exhibition presents portraits of the Queen    10    in brief moments on both official occasions and at relaxed family gatherings.

A. uprising 　　　　B. original　　　 　 C. frequently 　　　　D. spectacular E. features 　　　 　F. luxuriously　　　 G. captured 　　 　　H. approaches I. inhabited 　　　　J. matters 　　 　　K. ranks

9 . Directions: Complete the following passage by using the words in the box. Each word can only be used once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

Publicity at any Price

Have you ever wondered how far some people will go to get    1     or to make their point? There are hundreds of examples of publicity stunts（广告行为）but here are just several that really caught the public’s attention.

1 THE PEANUT PROTESTER

In September 2003, Mark McGowan created massive media interest when he took two weeks to push a peanut across London, using only his nose. The protest against his student debt started at Goldsmiths College and ended at 10 Downing Street, where Mr McGowan    2     the nut to former Prime Minister Tony Blair. He asked Mr Blair to accept the nut as     3     for his debt.

2 EARTH HOUR

In 2007, Sydney, Australia saw the launch of this campaign to raise awareness of climate change. 2.2 million homes and businesses turned off their non-essential lights for one hour. Since then, this event has captured the public's     4    with up to 50 million people across the world taking part. Global    5    like the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, Rome’s Colosseum and the Coca-Cola billboard in Time’s Square have all stood in darkness.

3 MICHAEL JACKSON ON THE THAMES

The release of Michael Jackson’s CD History was     6     by his record company, Sony, by floating a huge statue of the artist down the River Thames in June 1995. This was part of a massive     7    campaign costing $30 million. There were a total of nine statues used in countries throughout Europe as part of the campaign. Each one was 10 metres tall, 2100 kilos in weight and was made from steel and fiberglass.

4 THE COLOUR OF PEPSI

To promote the change of     8    colour from red and white to blue, the soft drink company, Pepsi, launched a series of ambitious publicity stunts. In April 2006 it paid the British newspaper. The Mirror, to print on blue paper. It also     9     for Concorde airplanes to be painted blue and got the astronauts on the Mir space station to be filmed with a(n)     10    Pepsi can. In total the campaign cost the company £300 million.

10 . Directions: Complete the following passage by using the -words in the box. Each -word can only be used once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. infections     B. factors                 C. particularly          D. separate          E. seriously        F. passive G. mixtures          H. significantly   I. present                       J. negative            K. exposed

Air pollution triggers (引发)more heart attacks than using cocaine and poses as high a risk of sparking a heart attack as alcohol, coffee and physical exertion, scientists said on Thursday. Anger, marijuana (大麻)use and chest or respiratory (与呼吸有关的)     1     can also trigger heart attacks to different extents, the researchers said, but air pollution,       2     in heavy traffic, is the major cause.

The findings, published in The Lancet journal, suggest population-wide       3     like polluted air should be taken more       4     when looking at heart risks, and should be put into context besides higher but relatively rarer risks like drug use. Tim Nawrot of Hasselt University in Belgium, who led the study, said he hoped his findings would also encourage doctors to think more often about population level risks.

Nawrot’s team combined data from thirty-six       5     studies and calculated the relative risk posed by a series of heart attack triggers and their population-attributable fraction (PAF)—in other words the proportion of total heart attacks estimated to have been caused by each trigger. “Of the triggers for heart attack studied, cocaine is the most likely to trigger an event in an individual, but traffic has the greatest population effect as more people are       6     to it,” the researchers wrote. “PAFs give a measure of how much disease would be avoided if the risk was no longer       7    . ”

A report published late last year found that air pollution in many major cities in Asia exceeds the WHO’s air quality guidelines and that poisonous       8     of pollutants result in more than 530,000 earlier deaths a year. While       9     smoking was not included in this study, Nawrot said the effects of secondhand smoke were likely to be similar to that of outdoor air pollution, and noted previous research found that bans on smoking in public places have       10     reduced heart attack rates.