1 . “I was captivated by weightlifting during the London 2012 Olympic Games,” says Fiona Clements, a software developer working in London. “I think it’s partly because the effort is so obvious—you can see every flash of doubt, pain and happiness of success on the athletes’ faces.”

Clements was 48 at the time. She thought she’d left it far too late to even consider trying it, but then she kept thinking about it. “It took until September 2022, but I finally went for it.” Clements signed up for a beginner’s class with Sally Moss, a strength coach who is an expert in Olympic lifting, and loved it from her first class. Now 58, Clements can lift 50kg and push 21kg overhead. She says she has never felt stronger.

Resistance training, to use the term for any type of exercise where you’re working against weight, whether it’s using dumbbells(哑铃), exercise bands or just your own body weight, is extremely beneficial.

“I just thought that it would be impossible to make a difference to my body as an older woman,” says Joann a Blacker, a small business owner, who took up strength training at 53. “I’d gained weight and felt awful. I certainly didn’t think that weightlifting would be the way I would change my body.”

Blacker can now lift 40kg for 10 repetitions and feels more than ready to deal with training alone. Clements, at the same time, has already signed up with her local gym, for the days she’s not training with Moss. “I can feel these bands of hard muscle when I move my arms and legs that I’m pretty sure weren’t there before,” she says. “But the best part is that I’m actually able to understand the sport I love. It still feels like magic when that bar goes overhead.”

1. What does the underlined word “captivated” in Paragraph 1 mean?

A．Uninterested.

B．Attracted.

C．Upset.

D．Satisfied.

2. Why did Clements fail to try weightlifting in 2012?

A．She was fearful of the pain.	B．She found it hard to get a top coach.
C．She was doubtful about its lasting effects.	D．She thought she was too old to have a go.

3. What did Blacker benefit from taking up weightlifting?

A．She increased her willpower.	B．She improved her body shape.
C．She found a part-time job in this field.	D．She had her busy daily life changed.

4. What does Clements say about weightlifting?

A．She has a deeper understanding of it.	B．She suggests starting it at a local gym.
C．She enjoys muscle-building most of all.	D．She finds it more magic than hard work.

2 . I’m a walker, logging an average of 9000 steps a day several times a week around my neighborhood. On recent trips to Copenhagen and Stockholm, I noticed tall, fit Scandinavians (斯堪法尼亚人) walking along on city streets with poles, as if they were cross-country skiing without any snow.

It was a surprise to learn that the addition of the poles makes it a more vigorous, full-body exercise than simply walking – and, as a 76-year-old looking to stay healthy while enjoying the outdoors, I decided to give it a try.

There’s plenty of help online for the new Nordic (北 欧的 ) walker: stand tall, swing your arms out as if to shake hands, and plant your poles with vigour. Then there’s the little matter of the strap (带子) on the pole. This allows the walker to grip the pole when thrusting forward and then relax that hand as the other hand pushes forward – a skill of coordination that builds stronger muscles.

For a warm-up, I started slow: Nordic walking down the hall that extends from my front door to the deck. Keeping balance wasn’t my only problem. The novel use of my arms and upper body was surprisingly demanding. After half an hour, my heart was pounding and I was sweating, but I still wasn’t much good.

Still, I carried on because there’s no arguing with the exercise’s benefits. Nordic walkers’ upper-body exercise increases their heart rate significantly more than walking without poles. And according to cardiologist Dr Aaron Baggish, with poles “you’re engaging 80 to 90 per cent of your muscles.” It also helps people with Parkinson’s, says Burrill. “We put poles in their hands and it’s amazing because they start walking with real rhythm.”

After a few clumsy days of being convinced I would never succeed, suddenly everything clicked. Not only was I able to coordinate the movements, I was aware that my heart, arms and core were getting a workout. Nordic walking is a form of exercise I expect to enjoy for years to come.

1. What inspired the writer to try Nordic walking?

A．Enjoying the outdoor skiing.	B．Observing Scandinavians walking.
C．Getting tired of simple walking.	D．Fancying a healthy lifestyle.

2. What was the main challenge for the author during the initial stages of Nordic walking?

A．Building strong muscle in the arms.

B．Using arms and upper body harmoniously.

C．Sweating with heart pounding.

D．Feeling discouraged for lack of progress.

3. What does the author want to show by mentioning people with Parkinson’s?

A．The great benefits of Nordic walking.	B．The wide practice of Nordic walking.
C．The urgency to promote Nordic walking.	D．The promising future of Nordic walking.

4. What is the author’s intention in writing this passage?

A．To persuade readers to try Nordic walking for fun.

B．To share the experience of trying a new fitness activity.

C．To emphasize the great difficulties of Nordic walking.

D．To compare Nordic walking with simple walking.

3 . During the Covid-19 pandemic( 新冠疫情),things like eating in a restaurant or air travel are impossible. What about going to the gym?

When everybody was discussing how to make the best banana bread, during those very early quarantine( 隔离) stages, I worked out and took some online fitness classes at home, including yoga. Honestly, I just wanted to do a cool headstand by the end of quarantine.

In high school,I liked running on the track. In college and beyond, I loved the weight room. When I finally accepted that home workouts would be the best for a while, I prepared some basic gym equipment.

In some ways, I feel it stupid to admit that I missed the gym. I’m fortunate in so many ways since the start of the pandemic, but my living room is just not the same as my gym.

There’s a wider choice of equipment,and I’ve missed my gym friends. After looking into my recently-opened local gym’s safety steps in New York, I finally decided to go back.

With a spare face mask and water bottle, I made my 10-minute journey to the gym at 7 :30 am. I filled out a detailed Covid-19 survey on my gym’s app before stepping foot inside. I always feel like I get a better workout at the gym, and for me, that includes lots of extra sweat.

Please keep your mask covering your nose and your mouth. I only saw two people wrongly wearing their masks, and an employee had to call them out. The best ways to avoid Covid-19 at the gym are to wash your hands, wear your mask, wipe down equipment, and avoid standing on top of other gym-goers. If you’re used to basic, good gym rules, it shouldn’t be too challenging.

1. What was the author doing during the quarantine?

A．Making various fruit bread.

B．Searching for ways to beat the coronavirus.

C．Going out to the office for his usual work.

D．Following online healthcare classes at home.

2. What might be the advantage of going to a gym?

A．A wide choice of equipment.	B．The free food served there.
C．Discussion about good diet.	D．No need for any face masks.

3. What advice does the author give about going to a gym?

A．Avoiding standing close to the equipment.

B．Keeping a mask over your nose and mouth.

C．Taking some online classes about gym safety.

D．Choosing equipment that was challenging.

4. Which of the following is the best title for the text?

A．Difference Between Going to the Gym and Home Exercise

B．My Discussion with People About Good Food and Exercise

C．My Experience of Going to the Gym Since Quarantine

D．My Finding About Things to Do When Working at the Office

4 . In a world ruled by hard exercise and complex fitness programs, the simple act of walking is often ignored(忽略).     1     It offers physical and mental benefits that lead to total happiness.

Heart Health and Weight Management

Walking is light heart exercise that helps improve heart health by increasing blood circulation(循环).     2     Besides, regular quick walking supports in weight management by burning calories and improving digestion(消化), making it an excellent choice for those looking to throw away pounds or keep a healthy weight.

Pressure Drop and Clear Mind

Taking a relaxing walk or quick walk has been shown to give off endorphins, the body’s natural ”feel-good” materials. This leads to lower pressure levels, improved feelings, and improved mental health. Walking outdoors in nature or in a peaceful environment can provide a refreshing escape from the daily tasks.     3    

Joint(关节)Health and Free Movement

Unlike active sports, walking is soft on the joints, making it a perfect choice for people of all ages and fitness levels.     4     At the same time, it also raises the ability to move freely and easily. Walking regularly can be particularly beneficial to those recovering from pain or looking to prevent problems with joints.

Social Communication and Connection

    5     Walking clubs, group climbs, or even simple walking with a friend or family member can provide an opportunity to connect, share experiences, and create lasting memories while at the same time bringing the physical benefits.

A．It helps oil joints and make them stronger.

B．It’s a cheap way to lead a healthier lifestyle.

C．So taking a walk can make your mind relaxed and fresh.

D．A quick walk after meals has been shown to benefit the stomach.

E．It cuts down the risk of heart disease and brings down blood pressure.

F．Walking is useful exercise that can easily be turned into a social activity.

G．However, walking remains one of the easiest and most useful forms of exercise.

5 . These days, videos of “ diving grandpas” from north China’s Tianjin are popular on the Internet. In the videos, they jumped off the Shizilin Bridge into the 7-meter-deep Haihe River. However, on Wednesday, they announced that they would give up the sport.

With an average age of 60, the diving grandpas have much experience in diving. They started as a group of local diving lovers. They went swimming in the city’s rivers, and later they tried their hand at diving. The hobby has now lasted for more than thirty years.

Videos on the Internet have drawn lots of tourists from across the country to the Shizilin Bridge over the Haihe River, where “diving grandpas” perform diving. However, some inexperienced divers, trying to follow“ diving grandpas”, have met with accidents and got themselves injured. Some of the grandpas have begun volunteering to keep order for the crowds that come to see the performance on the bridge. However, accidents still continued to happen. As reported, members of the Blue Sky Rescue team in Tianjin said that they rescued 14 people at the risk of drowning or other injury in just two days.

The grandpas then made a difficult decision. They stopped diving off the bridge. They also prevented inexperienced locals and children as well as tourists from diving from the bridge . The grandpas welcomed the tourists to Tianjin, especially pointing out the other great places of interest and delicious food around the Shizilin Bridge.

1. What can we learn from Paragraph 2?

A．The diving grandpas made a living by diving.

B．The diving grandpas came from all over China.

C．The diving grandpas made diving a life-long hobby.

D．The diving grandpas began diving when they were little.

2. What made the diving grandpas decide to stop diving off the bridge?

A．The weather became colder.

B．They were too old to carry out the task.

C．The bridge was too crowded with tourists.

D．They hoped to prevent accidents from happening.

3. Which of the following can best describe“diving grandpas” in Tianjin?

A．Kind and honest

B．Energetic and warm-hearted

C．Brave and talented

D．Outgoing and optimistic

4. What is the main idea of the passage?

A．Diving became a popular activity in Tianjin.

B．Diving without guidance may cause injury or death.

C．“Diving grandpas” helped speed up tourism in Tianjin.

D．“Diving grandpas” gave up diving for tourists’ safety.

6 . A small study out of Skidmore College examined the advantages of morning vs, evening exercise for both women and men. Paul, professor for health at Skidmore, led the study.

“We had the groups divided into evening and morning groups,” he says. “We found women and men answered differently to different types of exercise depending on the time of the day, which surprised us.”

The study showed that for women who want to lower blood pressure (血压), the risk of heart disease or reduce fat, morning exercise works best. Those women hoping for upper body muscle (肌肉) gains or mood (心情) improvement should consider evening exercise. For the men, the findings were somewhat different: Evening exercise lowers blood pressure, the risk of heart disease, and feelings of tiredness. But similar to women, they burn more fat with morning exercise.

“For many people, the best time to exercise will depend on their chronotype,” says Heisz, author of Move the Body, Heal the Mind.

“Chronotype is your body’s natural habit to sleep at a certain time—it’s what decides whether you’re a night owl or an early bird. For the 25% of the population that considers themselves a night owl, getting both enough sleep and enough exercise can be difficult,” adds Heisz.

He continues, “Sleep—which provides your body the necessary time to recover (恢复) and make gains from exercise—should always be the first choice. When it comes to exercise, regardless of research on the advantages of certain exercises at particular times of the day, your results will not be good if it doesn’t allow enough time for sleep.”

1. What can women get by doing evening exercise according to the study?

A．A fat loss.

B．A good mood.

C．A lower blood pressure.

D．A smaller risk of heart disease.

2. What does the author intend to do in paragraph 5?

A．Give an example.	B．Tell the difference.
C．Do an experiment.	D．Explain a term.

3. What does Heisz think is important to achieve good results of exercise?

A．Enough sleep.	B．Low-fat food.
C．Plenty of water.	D．Lots of exercise.

4. What is the best title for the text?

A．A Night Owl or An Early Bird

B．Why Fitness Plan Being Important

C．How to Change Your Exercise Time

D．The Best Time of a Day to Exercise

7 . Research from Harvard University’s Wyss Institute have made “robotic shorts” that can help people use less energy when they walk or run.

    1     A motor on the user’s back pulls cables connected to the laps.

In the past, such devices have focused only on helping people walk or run, but not both, since walking and running use different hip (臀部) movements. But a computer on the shorts can tell which way the user is moving,    2    

The researchers found that the main benefit of the shorts was reducing the energy people needed to walk or run. In tests, the energy needed for walking was reduced by 9.3 percent.    3    Less energy was needed both on flat ground and on hills.

The researchers said that while the shorts weigh about 5 kilograms, moving with them makes users feel lighter. The tests showed that a person walking with the device would feel 4 kilograms lighter,    4    

The team now also wants to make the device itself 40 percent lighter. They hope the shorts can help people in danger of injury at work and those who want to improve their physical performance,    5     Conor Walsh, who helped lead the study, says he hopes such devices will be available to everyone in the future.

A．as well as those with disabilities.

B．Are you eager to possess such kind of shorts?

C．and someone running would feel 5.7 kilograms lighter.

D．For running, people needed about 4 percent less energy.

E．but those excellent athletes are also able to benefit from running.

F．The shorts are made of soft material and are designed to be easy to move in.

G．allowing the device to provide the right kind of assistance for both movements.

8 . In a recent game of pickleball, my teammate and I were falling far behind other teams. It was her turn to serve. We were both standing behind the baseline, paddles(球拍) up in ready position, when she nodded at me and said, “In it to win it.”

“Really?” I looked at her, surprised by her use of a catchy expression that was new to me. My inner self was never ready to accept even the tiniest suggestion that we should be trying to win the game.

In my life off the pickleball court, I enjoy yoga, folk dancing—anything but games with winners and losers, and I always prefer to be a observer rather than a participant in the world of sports.

Then pickleball came along. Suddenly, I didn’t want to be an observer any longer. I wanted to be a player myself. Like many people, I was first drawn to the game simply as a safe COVID-19 activity. Playing outdoors with people in my neighborhood allowed me to break out of social isolation(隔离).

But my addiction to the game comes from the sport’s low barrier of entry. The equipment isn’t particularly expensive. It’s a relatively easy game to learn, and a participant doesn’t need to be especially strong, tall or fast. Little wonder that everyone can now be seen throwing a green, orange or yellow plastic ball with holes in it across a net.

Pickleball is the first game I’ve ever wanted to win. I think it’s because of the excitement I feel when I hit an unreturnable ball down the middle of the court and score a point. Participating in a sport myself rather than cheering for others provides real proof that I can still work hard to achieve goals.

So, I’ve made a long-term commitment to it. I am embracing the game as my pickleball buddies embrace me. I’d forgotten how much fun it is to socialize while, doing something active. In that playful space of the court, I am facing directly my fears of winning and losing. In the meantime, doing something outside of my comfort zone feels magical. Now I wonder what contests I might be brave enough to enter next.

1. Why was the author surprised by what her teammate said in the recent game?

A．She thought her teammate was too weak.	B．She hadn’t considered winning or losing.
C．She didn’t know what her teammate meant.	D．She misunderstood the rules of the game.

2. What is the main reason for the author’s love for pickleball?

A．It is what she is good at.	B．It allows her to make new friends.
C．It is affordable and accessible.	D．It has many health benefits.

3. How has the author benefited from playing pickleball?

A．She has overcome her fears of competitive sports.	B．She has realized her own limitations.
C．She has become a more energetic person.	D．She has recognized her talents for sports.

4. What does the author plan to do?

A．Become a professional athlete.	B．Recommend pickleball to more friends.
C．Explore some extreme sports.	D．Continue playing pickleball.

9 . One of the hardest parts of any weight loss program is staying motivated throughout it. In fact, being able to keep your motivation while trying to lose weight is the essential success factor.     1    

One of the first ways to keep your level of motivation is to create a strong plan, which will help you to see where you are headed at each stage of your program.     2     For example, make sure it includes the number of minutes you intend to exercise each day as well as what you will do to achieve each goal.

    3     Thus you can keep your motivation high during the program. So think happy thoughts. You may think about how much good you are doing to your body while you are exercising. When you eat healthier foods, imagine your heart thanking you.

Making a list of positive changes from lost weight will also help. Will you feel much better because you’ve become healthier? Will you have a better self-image because you can finally fit into that dress you’ve been admiring?     4    

The final way to stay with your weight loss program is to vary your routines. Your mind is quite likely to get bored if your weight loss program never changes.     5     Moreover, to keep from being bored with your diet, buy some new healthy living cookbooks or search Internet recipe sites to find some new healthy dishes. This can help to keep you within your calorie limits without boring you.

A．Your plan should be specific.

B．Whatever will change about your life, list it.

C．Will you make an effort to have a balanced diet?

D．So how can you stay motivated during your weight loss program?

E．Have you thought of the problems that might come up if you are too fat?

F．Another good way is to think positively about your weight loss program.

G．So start a different exercise program you might be interested in every few months.

10 . Making day-to-day activities more intense for a few minutes — such as briefly stepping up the pace of a walk — could offer people who don’t exercise some of the health benefits that exercisers enjoy, according to a new study of roughly 25, 000 adults who reported no exercise in their free time.

Those who include three one- to two-minute bursts of intense activity per day saw a nearly a 40 percent drop in the risk of death from any cause compared with those without such activity. The risk of death from cancer also fell by nearly 40 percent, and the risk of death from cardiovascular (心血管的) disease dropped almost 50 percent, researchers report online December 8 in Nature Medicine.

“This study adds to other literature showing that even short amounts of activity are beneficial,” says Lisa Cadmus-Bertram, a physical activity epidemiologist (流行病学家) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “So many people are daunted by feeling that they don’t have the time, money, motivation, transportation, etc. togo to a gym regularly or work out for long periods of time,” she says. “The message we can take is that it is absolutely worth doing what you can.”

The researchers were looking for bursts of intense activity that met a definition determined in a laboratory study, like reaching at least 77 percent of maximum heart rate and at least 64 percent of maximum oxygen consumption. In real life, the signs that someone has reached the needed intensity level are “an increase in heart rate and feeling out of breath” in the first 15 to 30 seconds of an activity, Stamatakis says.

Regular daily activities offer several opportunities for these bursts, he says. “The simplest one is maximizing walking pace for a minute or two during any regular walk.” Other options, he says, include carrying grocery bags to the car or taking the stairs. “The largest population health gains will be realized by finding ways to get the least physically active people to move a little more.”

1. What was found about intense activity in the new study?

A．It helped to lower the risk of death.

B．It was more beneficial to exercisers.

C．It relieved the pain of cancer patients.

D．It cured people of cardiovascular disease.

2. What does the underline word “daunted” probably mean?

A．Inspired.

B．Surprised.

C．Discouraged.

D．Confused.

3. Which activity might be suggested by Stamatakis?

A．Working out every day.

B．Taking stairs at an even pace.

C．Keeping running at a high speed.

D．Adding short bursts to a regular walk.

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

A．The Simplest Daily Exercise Activities

B．Brief Intense Activities Can Be Helpful

C．The Guidance on Brief Intense Activities

D．Regular Exercise Is Necessary for Everyone