1 . For many Americans, regular exercise is a complicated commitment—one made at the beginning of January that fades out within weeks or months. Busy work schedules, a lack of motivation and unease towards exercising in public all contribute to the discouraging statistics that only around a quarter of adults exercise enough per week.

This month, enterptiser Trent Ward and designer Yves Behar are uncovering their design for a mirror fitness system, Forme. Forme is reflective like a mirror, uses machine learning to heighten workouts, and offers attachments including ankle belts, rope handles and a heart rate monitor. When not in use, the two arms that form the resistance pulley (滑轮) system fold behind it and the display screen disappears, turning Forme into a simple full—length mirror.

Interest in home exercise has particularly increased recently around the world. Home workout apps have seen a significant uptick in downloads, and trendy brands like Peloton have rolled out free virtual workouts for everyone stuck indoors. One French athlete who was kept away from others chose to run an entire marathon on his 23-foot balcony.

But beyond the new restrictions affecting daily workout routines, Ward and Behar are tapping into the same concerns that have made every home workout appealing：the ability to save time and sweat in the privacy of one’s home. In an age of personal metrics (衡量标准)--where one can measure their heart rate and sleep cycles with smart watches and train for marathons with AI smart sneakers----Ward and Behar want to improve exercise through machine learning. Forme evaluates performance and adjusts weights accordingly. Easy access to one’s own performance data also makes it easier to track that progress and stay motivated.

Though it’s too soon to tell if mirror gyms will be the trend of the late 2010s to 2020s, Behar explained that having a screen in the home can become the basis for more than just fitness, such as shopping or telemedicine.

1. What does paragraph 2 mainly focus on?.

A．The ways to operate Forme.	B．The features of Forme.
C．The reasons to develop Forme.	D．The theory behind Forme.

2. How can Peloton benefit its users?

A．By offering them online workouts for free.

B．By raising their interest in marathon.

C．By keeping them far away from others.

D．By entertaining them with all kinds of downloads.

3. What makes home workout appealing according to paragraph 4?

A．The better results than outdoor activities.

B．The fresher air at home.

C．The privacy of home.

D．The convenient access to mass data.

4. What is the best title for the text?

A．Can Forme Have More Powerful Functions?

B．Does Regular Exercise Keep up with New Technology?

C．Is the New Trend of Smart Machines at Home available?

D．Is this AI—Powered "Mirror Gym" the Future of Home Exercise?

2 . In the past 70 years, physical activity in America has transformed from a necessity of daily life into an often-expensive leisure(闲暇)activity, and has reformed itself as the basis of people's social position."In the 1950s and 1960s, the body became a problem, and exercise developed — it had to develop-because people realized that we were all going to die of heart attacks," Shelly McKenzie, the author of Getting Physical： The Rise of Fitness Culture in America, told me.

With new middle-class needs coming into new marketing, Jack LaLanne^!s instructional exercise TV show introduced much of the country to the active pursuit of physical fitness in 1951, paving the way for workout tapes from fitness superstars such as Richard Simmons and Jane Fonda.In the 1970s, exercise began to leave the home, both through the popularization of jogging and weightlifting and in more organized ways, such as Jazzercise classes.

No matter how they package it, these businesses aren't just selling physical activity； they're providing people with a way to stick to expectations that the industry itself helped set."Exercise, and especially public exercise, came to indicate mental, emotional, and even spiritual health and virtue," Marc Stern wrote in 2008," In return for the effort, gym-goers attain(获得)the type of body that proves their virtue to all who see them.”

That these physical standards are difficult to achieve is the point."We live in a culture in which being diligent is highly, highly praised," Petrzela, the New School professor, who is working on a book about fitness's place in American culture, told me.

“Many people want to be regarded as people who value exercise, because it shows they're committed to（致力于）self-improvement, and to hard work."Above and beyond movement itself, part of the satisfaction of gym-going comes from performing those values around other people who share them, and from achieving what that community regards as success.

1. Why did exercise develop in the 1950s and 1960s?

A．Because exercise was a necessity of daily life.

B．Because people realized the importance of body health.

C．Because exercise was an often-expensive leisure activity.

D．Because people regarded exercise as the foundation of people's social position.

2. Why do many people like going to gym according to Marc Stern?

A．To keep healthy.	B．To gain good body shape.
C．To show their good character.	D．To prove their social position.

3. What do NOT make people gain satisfaction from going to the gym?

A．Seeing some superstars in the gym.

B．The same values around other people.

C．Achieving success defined by that group of people.

D．Being regarded as people who're committed to self-improvement.

4. What is the text mainly about?

A．How to keep healthy.

B．Why American people want to gain virtue.

C．Why physical activity developed in America.

D．How physical activity developed in America.

3 . Once upon a time, when you first attended a youth sporting event, your parents probably weren't expecting you to become a professional athlete.They signed up for a basketball, football or swimming course for you in the hope that you might learn lessons about winning gentlemanly, losing with dignity(尊严)and insisting on it when things get hard. Yes, playing games is good exercise, but it is the life lessons that matter most.

For many of us, instead of looking to improve our minds and spirits, we began judging progress only by the size of our muscles or the numbers on a weighing machine. The thought that athletic competition is about greater life lessons and the building of character has been further undermined(削弱)by headlines about professional athletes.

“And yet there's still strong evidence that sports strongly improve certain personal qualities,” says Angela Lumpkin, Professor of the Department of Health, Sport and Exercise Sciences at the University of Kansas. And that's true for athletes of any age.Amateur sports(业余体育运动)provide a safe place for competition. They also provide a practice ground for managing stress.

The advantages of taking part in a sport can seep(渗透)into your professional life, too. In basketball, for example, “Getting everyone to play the right role on the court is the key to success,” says Alan Arlt, the founder of the Life Time Fitness basketball program Ultimate Hoops. “That is certainly useful in the business world, where everyone understands their own role in the organization.” “In athletic events, you go through good and bad times often in the period of two hours,” says former NBA head coach Flip Saunders. “Do you have the calm manner to settle yourself down, or do you totally lose it and get thrown out of the game which hurts both you and your team？All of that on­court experience has a real effect on how you deal with real­life situations.”

1. What would parents expect when their children joined in sports?

A．To win as many games as possible.

B．To improve their health.

C．To make more friends.

D．To get through difficulties.

2. What can we learn from Paragraph 2?

A．People play sports to build their character.

B．People still hold the idea that sports can keep us fit.

C．People keep playing sports to improve minds and spirits.

D．People pay more attention to the news of professional athletes.

3. Amateur sports are mentioned in Paragraph 3 in order to        .

A．support Lumpkin's idea

B．introduce the next topic

C．show another piece of evidence

D．show the main idea of the paragraph

4. According to the last paragraph, the sports experience has a real effect on        .

A．how to succeed in the future

B．how to keep calm in certain situations

C．how to deal with real­life situations

D．how to understand the role on the court

4 . When you go for a run outside, chances are that you’ll find litter all around you. Do you just go past it, or do you stop and pick it up? If you choose the latter, you’re part of the latest fitness trend that’s sweeping the West: plogging.

The word “plogging” combines the Swedish phrase “plocka upp” (pick up) with the English word “jogging”.

Running – especially marathons – is often associated with good causes. And plogging, which combines environmentalism with fitness, has become the new poster boy for the environmentally-friendly runner. All a plogger needs is a trash bag, and ideally a pair of gloves to protect their hands.

The process of collecting garbage is simple, but it sheds light on serious environmental issues. “When I usually walk through the streets of New York, the sight of newspapers, lost hats, and shattered glass doesn’t bother me,” Matthew Sedacca of Men’s Health magazine wrote. “But when I was plogging and focused on trash collecting, the amount of garbage strewn (散布) across the sidewalks and along the pavement was kind of shocking.”

While collecting garbage, ploggers learn to classify and dispose of it correctly too. Laura Lindberg, a plogger who lives in New Jersey, US, always keeps a note of what she’s collected in her mind. This way, she knows what can stay in her trash bag and what can go in a nearby recycling bin.

It may be difficult to measure the sense of self-satisfaction that comes from making the world a cleaner, greener and more beautiful place, but the health benefits of plogging are easy to see. According to the Swedish fitness app Lifesum, a 30-minute plogging burns around 288 calories, compared to 235 calories burned from just jogging.

So the next time you go out jogging, why not carry a trash bag and collect some litter along the way? Your body and the environment will thank you.

1. What can we learn about “plogging” from paragraph 1 to 3?

A．Plogging is becoming a tendency throughout the world.

B．A plogger should take a pair of gloves for protection.

C．A plogger can contribute to environmental protection.

D．Plogging is often connected with running especially marathons.

2. What does the underlined phrase “shed light on” in paragraph 4 most probably mean?

A．To pick something up.

B．To make something clear.

C．To do good to something.

D．To take advantage of something.

3. The author presents his ideas mainly by      .

A．setting down general rules

B．drawing a comparison

C．making assumptions

D．giving examples

4. What can we infer from the passage?

A．We should assist ploggers to classify rubbish correctly.

B．Ploggers need keep a note of what they’ve collected.

C．Plogging helps burn more calories than jogging only.

D．The joy from plogging outweighs the health benefits.

5 . Are you trying to find the best time for exercise?     1     Follow these tips to figure out what fitness routine works best for you.

Dawn, dusk or dead of night — when’s the best time to work out? Well, that depends on when’s the best time for you, because the benefits of physical activity depend upon how consistent you are.     2     But if you’re not a morning person, it may not work for you to try to get up at dawn to work out. The key is to do what’s most likely to work for you consistently.

    3     If you find that working out too late in the evening keeps you from falling asleep easily, shift your exercise session earlier in the day or try less intense, more mindful forms of movement.

To stay motivated, choose activities you enjoy. If you’re a social person, do something that engages you socially. Take a group exercise class, join a recreational team or walk with a group of friends. If you prefer having time alone, walking, swimming or biking solo might be a better fit for you.     4    

There are so many choices.     5     Having a variety of fitness activities to choose from may keep you from getting bored or burnt out.

A．The truth is, it’s personal!

B．Don’t limit yourself to just one.

C．There are other important considerations.

D．Use your body clock as a guide to when to go for a walk.

E．You might have heard that the best time to exercise is early in the morning.

F．If you’d like to spend more time with your family, find an activity you can all do together.

G．If your schedule isn’t predictable (可预测的), you may need to be flexible and have a plan for various times of day.

6 . Why Is Exercise Cool?

•Exercise Strengthens Muscles

Did you ever do a push-up or swing across the monkey bars at the playground?    1    By using your muscles to do powerful things, you can make them stronger. For older teens and adults, this kind of workout can make muscles bigger, too.

•    2    

Can you touch your toes easily without yelling ouch? Most kids are pretty flexible, which means that they can bend and stretch their bodies without much trouble. Being flexible is having “full range of motion”, which means you can move your arms and legs freely without feeling tightness or pain.

•Exercise Keeps the Balance

    3    Your body needs a certain amount of calories every day just to function, breathe, walk around, and do all the basic things.    4    If you’re not very active, your body won’t need as many calories. Whatever your calorie need is, if you eat enough to meet that need, your body weight will stay about the same. If you eat more calories than your body needs, it may be stored as extra fat.

•Exercise Makes You Feel good

It feels good to have a strong, flexible body that can do all the activities you enjoy—like running, jumping and playing with your friends. It’s also fun to be good at something, like scoring a basket, hitting a home run, or perfecting a dive.

But you may not know that exercising can actually put you in a better mood.    5    It’s just another reason why exercise is cool!

A．Exercise Makes You Flexible

B．Exercise Makes Your Heart Happy

C．Those are exercises that can build strength.

D．So you want to do some aerobic (有氧的) exercise right now?

E．But if you’re active, your body needs an extra measure of calories or energy.

F．Food gives your body fuel in the form of calories, which are a kind of energy.

G．When you exercise, your brain releases a chemical which may make you feel happier.

7 . There are many ways to travel within a city. We can walk, cycle, or take a bus. But no matter which way we travel, we have to stick to the route(线路) the city planners laid down for us.

Parkour practitioners (跑酷爱好者), however, see the city in a completely different way. To them, there are no fixed routes. There are no walls and no stairs—since they jump, climb, roll and crawl to move across, through, over and under anything that they find in their path. The city is their playground.

The International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) has noticed that this activity is drawing more and more people to it—there are 100,000 people taking part in parkour today in the UK alone, according to the Guardian—and how it is helpful for people to be much stronger: It trains coordination(协调性) and balance. So the organization is thinking about recognizing parkour as a new sport and adding it to the Olympics by 2024.

But parkour practitioners themselves don’t seem to be happy with the idea. They see parkour as “a lifestyle”, wrote the website NextSportStar. “It’s a competition against the conditions rather than just a sport.”

Indeed, many do parkour just to “escape the daily routine(事务) and experience the city in different ways”, wrote reporter Oli Mould on The Conversation. They see parkour as a way to express themselves through relaxing moves and creative routes while freeing themselves from the pressure.

It’s great that the FIG wants to develop new sport and stay close to a new cultural form. But it would be greater if they knew that not everything in life is a competition.

1. How do the parkour practitioners do parkour?

A．They move on as they wish.	B．They choose the routes the city planners laid down.
C．They run faster than others.	D．They stick to certain routes.

2. Why does the FIG want to add parkour to the Olympics?

A．It’s a special way of life.	B．It draws their attention.
C．It’s good for people to keep healthy.	D．It needs some rules and instructions.

3. What is the author’s idea on parkour?

A．It is more formal than other sports.	B．It helps people to be creative.
C．It’s worth adding to the sporting event.	D．It calls on people to work as a team.

4. What is the best title for the passage?

A．A new sports competition	B．Parkour practitioners
C．Training in a different way	D．Making the city their own

8 . If you're out for a run, what difference does it make if you're able to tough it out for another 50 seconds? If you're less than a minute from the top of the hill, that extra time can make the difference between having reached your goal and snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

How do you get those extra seconds of energy? A research team at the Texes Tech University developed a study to measure what effect listening to music would have on exercise tolerance. The researchers based the study on a stress testing. As part of the testing, they noted any changes in heart rate and blood pressure as participants underwent physically stressful exercise.

The tests were done on treadmills (跑步机), which increased in both speed and incline (坡度) through three stages. In the final stage, the treadmills moved at 10 miles per hour at a 14-percent grade. Most of these tests were designed to last up to 40 minutes. The average gym-goers lasted 30 minutes. For this study, they divided 127 participants into two groups. One listened to upbeat(快节奏) music, while the other group had earbuds in but did not listen to music.

The group that listened to music was able to outlast the non-music group by an average of 50.6 seconds. Again, being able to go an extra minute may seem like a no-brainer ,but “after 30 minutes, you feel like you are running up a mountain, so even being able to go 50 seconds longer means a lot," said the study's lead author, Waseem Shami, MD.

The study has confirmed something runners and gym-goers have suspected for years: Listening to music during workout can be beneficial to your endurance. "Our findings reinforce the idea that upbeat music can help you exercise longer and stick with a daily exercise routine," said Shami. When doctors are recommending exercise, they might suggest listening to music, too."

1. Why did Shami’s team conduct the research?

A．To test the effect of music on health.	B．To know the cause of failure in sports.
C．To improve runners' exercise tolerance.	D．To record the body change of participants

2. What did the researchers than about the Participants in the stress testing?

A．They ran much faster than average runners.	B．They created a new record of indoor sports.
C．They could run a little longer with music on.	D．They all enjoyed extreme physical challenge

3. What do the underlined words “a no-brainer” mean in paragraph 4?

A．A dull activity.	B．A foolish action.
C．A demanding task.	D．An easy practice

4. What did Shami suggest us doing in the last paragraph ?

A．Developing a daily exercise routine.	B．Listening to music while working out
C．Participating in physical stress testing.	D．Taking exercise as doctors recommend.

9 . Benefits of Sports

Taking exercise is a physical, mental and social adventure. It’s a great way for children to take a break from study and release extra energy. It also helps them lead fuller and happier lives as regular sports have proven to improve general well-being.

    1     Regardless of your fitness level when you start playing sports, you’ll notice an increase in your overall fitness once you take part. Nearly every sport requires physical activity and the skills needed to be competitive. Basketball players focus on strength training.     2     The training process helps encourage physical fitness and performances in competitions.

    3     Playing sports contributes to mental health, helping to increase confidence and self-worth. A pat on the back, high-five from a teammate, or handshake after a match really raises a child’s confidence. Words of praise and encouragement from the coach, parents and other players raise the self-worth.     4     So after a game, it’s a better idea to ask “Did you enjoy the game?” rather than “Did you win?”

Children who participate in sports might also benefit from the social aspect, feeling part of a group, building up leadership and responsibility.     5     Teamwork demands both being dependable as a teammate and learning to rely on your teammates to achieve a positive outcome. Teamwork will raise your responsibility and give you an opportunity to be a leader.

There is no shortage of reasons to find a sport to take part in. Are you ready to go? Pick one and get moving!

A．It’s not just your body that benefits from sports.

B．Therefore, playing sports is going to make you more fit.

C．Football players work on speed while track athletes train through longer runs.

D．Among these, learning how to work as a team is the most important advantage.

E．But remember, a child’s self-worth should not be judged by victory or loss.

F．If you play group sports, you’ll be part of a team that takes direction from a coach.

G．The physical benefits of doing sports are probably the most obvious.

10 . Race walking shares many fitness benefits with running, research shows, while most likely contributing to fewer injuries. It does, however, have its own problem.

Race walkers are conditioned athletes. The longest track and field event at the Summer Olympics is the 50-kilometer race walk, which is about five miles longer than the marathon. But the sport’s rules require that a race walker’s knees stay straight through most of the leg swing and one foot remain in contact (接触) with the ground at all times. It’s this strange form that makes race walking such an attractive activity, however, says Jaclyn Norberg, an assistant professor of exercise science at Salem State University in Salem, Mass.

Like running, race walking is physically demanding, she says, According to most calculations, race walkers moving at a pace of six miles per hour would burn about 800 calories(卡路里) per hour, which is approximately twice as many as they would burn walking, although fewer than running, which would probably burn about 1,000 or more calories per hour.

However, race walking does not pound the body as much as running does, Dr. Norberg says. According to her research, runners hit the ground with as much as four times their body weight per step, while race walkers, who do not leave the ground, create only about 1.4 times their body weight with each step.

As a result, she says, some of the injuries associated with running, such as runner’s knee, are uncommon among race walkers. But the sport’s strange form does place considerable stress on the ankles and hips, so people with a history of such injuries might want to be cautious in adopting the sport. In fact, anyone wishing to try race walking should probably first consult a coach or experienced racer to learn proper technique, she says. It takes some practice.

1. Why are race walkers conditioned athletes?

A．They must run long distances.

B．They are qualified for the marathon.

C．They have to follow special rules.

D．They are good at swinging their legs.

2. What advantage does race walking have over running?

A．It’s more popular at the Olympics.

B．It’s less challenging physically.

C．It’s more effective in body building.

D．It’s less likely to cause knee injuries.

3. What is Dr. Norberg’s suggestion for someone trying race walking?

A．Getting experts’ opinions.

B．Having a medical checkup.

C．Hiring an experienced coach.

D．Doing regular exercises.

4. Which word best describes the author’s attitude to race walking?

A．Skeptical.	B．Objective.
C．Tolerant.	D．Conservative.