1 .

Can you stand on one leg for 10 seconds? Balance could be a matter of life and death. The World Health Organization estimates that 684,000 fatal falls occur each year, making falling the second leading cause of unintentional injury death. Some of these falls are caused by more serious conditions -but many aren’t. According to George Locker, a long-term practitioner of tai chi, a loss of balance is a medical problem that can’t be treated with drugs or surgery, despite its effects. Increasingly,efforts are being made to remedy(补救) the balance problem among the groups already most affected by it. Tai chi,practiced by an estimated 50   million people in China,is an option. Studies have shown that as little as eight weeks of practice can improve older adults’scores on the Tinetti test —a   commonly   used   measure of competence in basic tasks such as rising from a chair and walking—as well as reducing fear of falling. Longer periods of study show further benefits. Whatever activity you choose the lesson is to work on your balance before you need to. not after it becomes an issue. As Locker puts it everyone’s told to save money for their retirement and nobody’s taught to save their balance. But both are difficult to get back once they’re gone.	Just 15 minutes a day of practice can be beneficial, but do more if you have time Starting earlier helps: try the exercises below on a hard, level surface.
	Easy Level: Standing on one leg—with your hands resting on a work surface if you' re feeling unsteady — see how long you can maintain your balance. Do this one while you’re brushing your teeth.
	Medium Level: For this movement, start from standing and take a big step forwards, bending your front leg until your trailing knee just brushes the floor. Then push off your front leg and return to a standing position.
	Hard Level: Try step-ups on to a step or box: put one foot on to a box and push through that heel to step up so both feet end up together. To ensure you aren’t using your trailing leg to help ,keep your toes off the ground on that foot.

1. What does George Locker think of a lack of balance?

A．It is costly to get treated with drugs and surgery.

B．It is a minor issue that doesn’t affect one’s overall health.

C．It is a problem without any medical solution.

D．It is a problem that can be easily fixed by exercising.

2. Which of the following best illustrates the Medium Level practice?

A．

B．

C．

D．

3. What is the lesson conveyed in the passage regarding balance and health?

A．Balance is the top leading cause of sudden death from injuries.

B．It is essential for those affected by balance issues to seek help.

C．Taichi is the most effective way to improve one’s balance.

D．It is wiser to work on balance as early as possible.

2 . The rate of childhood obesity in the U.S. has tripled over the past 50 years. But what this trend means for children’s long-term health, and what to do about it (if anything), is not so clear.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) made waves this year by recommending that doctors put obese kids as young as two years old on intensive, family-oriented lifestyle and behavior plans.     1     This advice marks a shift from the organization’s previous stance of “watch and wait,” and it reflects the AAP’s belief that obesity is a disease and the group’s adoption of a more proactive position on childhood obesity.

Yet the lifestyle programs the AAP recommends are expensive, inaccessible to most children and hard to maintain — and the guidelines acknowledge these barriers. Few weight-loss drugs have been approved for older children, although many are used off-label.     2     And surgery, while becoming more common, has inherent risks and few long-term safety data — it could, for instance, cause nutritional deficits in growing children. Furthermore, it’s not clear whether interventions in youngsters help to improve health or merely add to the stigma overweight kids face from a fat-phobic society. This stigma can lead to mental health problems and eating disorders.

Rather than fixating on numbers on a scale, the U.S. and countries with similar trends should focus on an underlying truth: we need to invest in more and safer places for children to play where they can move and run around, climb and jump, ride and skate.

    3    In 2020 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found, unsurprisingly, that kids’ sports participation increases with their parents’ incomes: about 70 percent of kids whose families earn more than $105,000 a year participate in sports, but only 51 percent of middle-class kids and 31 percent of children at or below the poverty line do. This disparity hurts people of color the most. More than 60 percent of white children, for instance, participate in athletics, but only 42 percent of Black children and 47 percent of Hispanic children do. Experts blame these problems on the privatization of sports — as public investment in school-based athletics dwindles, expensive private leagues have grown, leaving many kids out.

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, children between ages six and 17 should get at least an hour of moderate to intense physical activity every day. Yet only 21 to 28 percent of U.S. kids meet this target, two government-sponsored surveys found. The nonprofit Active Healthy Kids Global Alliance evaluates physical activity in American children, and in 2022 the group gave the U.S. a grade of D–.

Why is it so hard to get kids moving? In addition to fewer opportunities at school, researchers cite increased screen time, changing norms around letting kids play outdoors unsupervised, and a lack of safe places for them to play outside the home.

New York City, for example, had 2,067 public playgrounds as of 2019 — a “meager” amount for its large population, according to a report from the city comptroller — and inspectors found hazardous equipment at one quarter of them. In Los Angeles in 2015, only 33 percent of youths lived within walking distance of a park, according to the L.A. Neighborhood Land Trust. Lower-income neighborhoods tend to have the fewest public play spaces, despite often having a high population density.     4    

Kids everywhere need more places to play: trails, skate parks and climbing walls, gardens and ball fields, bike paths and basketball courts. Vigorous public funding to build and keep up these areas is crucial, but other options such as shared-use agreements can make unused spaces available to the public.

A．Moving more may not prevent a child from becoming overweight, but studies show clearly that it helps both physical and mental health.

B．And although rural areas have more undeveloped outdoor space, they often lack playgrounds, tracks and exercise facilities

C．A lack of safe places for them to play outside the home also contributes to kids obesity.

D．It also suggested prescribing weight-loss drugs to children 12 and older and surgery to teens 13 and older.

E．Increased screen time and changing norms around letting kids play outdoors are unsupervised.

F．They have significant side effects for both kids and adults.

3 . Running is a great form of exercise. However, running under certain conditions can cause a variety of injuries.

The National Running Association recently released the results of its latest survey on common running injuries, as illustrated in the picture on the right. According to the survey results, the most reported cases are related to knee injury and muscle pull, with the former occurring a little less frequently. About a quarter of the respondents say they have had plantar fasciitis, The number of respondents suffering from Achilles tendonitis or shin splints is nearly twice that of those with stress fracture, which is also what fewest respondents report.

There are two main causes of running injury: structural imbalance and training volume. Structural imbalance occurs when a certain muscle group is weak and requires other muscle groups to help. The body adapts to stresses and becomes stronger. This is the basic principle of training. However, if you push too fast or run too far, you can stress the body in such a way that it never has time to fully recover. Training progression and moderation are the keys to avoiding overuse injury.

Here are several ways to avoid running injury.

● Prepare your body for running by walking.

● Understand your body type and be patient.

● Follow a sensible training plan or find a coach.

● Wear the right shoes.

The cause of the injury is not easy to diagnose. For example, a foot problem can cause a problem in the knees or back. Finding and treating the cause of a running injury is the job of a trained doctor. More importantly, listen to your body and recognize the signs of overtraining so that you can avoid running injury.

1. Which group of injuries best fits the blanks numbered ①, ②, ③ and ④ in the picture?

A．① knee injury; ② muscle pull; ③ stress fracture; ④ shin splints

B．① muscle pull; ② knee injury; ③ stress fracture; ④ Achilles tendonitis

C．① knee injury; ② muscle pull; ③ shin splints; ④ stress fracture

D．① muscle pull; ② knee injury; ③ Achilles tendonitis; ④ stress fracture

2. According to the passage, which of the following leads to structural imbalance?

A．Using some muscles more intensely than others.

B．Training weak muscles more often than strong ones.

C．Adapting your body to stresses slowly.

D．Giving your body little time to recover.

3. According to the passage, if you want to find out why your back and knees hurt after running. you had better _____.

A．turn to a coach for help	B．consult a trained doctor
C．understand your body type first	D．wear another pair of running shoes

4 . Bouncier running shoes may be bad

Despite regular changes in running shoes over the years, it is estimated that every year at least a third of runners get muscle or joint injuries caused by repeated striking of the ground. Many sports shoe-makers have begun adding extra material to running shoes, to try to soften the impact on the legs — so-called maximalist footwear.     1    

A new study suggests this is because the extra cushioning alters the spring-like mechanics of the legs of a runner in a way that means their legs experience a greater impact with every step.

Juha-Pekka Kulmala at the University of Helsinki in Finland and his colleagues studied the biomechanics of 12 healthy men aged between 22 and 32 as they ran in two shoes types.

The first wore regular running shoes with 33 millimetres of cushioning under the heel and 22 millimetres under the forefoot, and then highly-cushioned shoes with a heel 43 millimetres thick and a forefoot of 37 millimetres.

The participants ran at two set speeds — 10 and 15 kilometres per hour — along a 30-metre platform that measured how hard their feet hit the ground. They also wore reflective stickers that allowed video cameras to capture their motion for analysis.

    2     The peak impact force was 6 percent higher on average at the slower running speed and 11 percent higher at the faster speed.

Normally when we run, our legs act like springs, with the ankle and knee joints bending, so that the leg as a whole compresses (压缩) as the foot lands, says Kulmala. But because highly cushioned shoes already compress under the feet, our bodies subconsciously respond by no longer bending the leg joints as much. In other words, our legs become stiffer (更僵硬的).     3    

Kade Paterson at the University of Melbourne in Australia says the findings make sense from a biomechanical point of view.     4     I’ve seen patients who have reported improvements with maximalist running shoes and others who have got injured in them, so there probably isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach,” He says.

A．The video suggested this was because the runners bent their knees and ankles less when they wore the maximalist shoes.

B．But injury rates haven’t fallen.

C．This means running in maximalist shoes may raise the risk of injuries.

D．Like many health-related things, we should be somewhere in the middle.

E．At both speeds, the runners landed on their feet harder when they wore the maximalist shoes than the regular kind.

F．However, he also maintains that long-term research is needed to see if maximalist shoes really lead to more injuries.

5 . As we age, even if we’re healthy, the heart just isn’t as efficient in processing oxygen as it used to be. In most people the first signs show up in their 50s or early 60s. And among people who don’t exercise, the changes can start even sooner.

“Think of a rubber band. In the beginning, it is flexible, but put it in a drawer for 20 years and it will become dry and easily broken,” says Dr. Ben Levine, a heart specialist at the University of Texas. That’s what happens to the heart. Fortunately for those in midlife, Levine is finding that even if you haven’t been an enthusiastic exerciser, getting in shape now may help improve your aging heart.

Levine and his research team selected volunteers aged between 45 and 64 who did not exercise much but were otherwise healthy. Participants were randomly divided into two groups. The first group participated in a program of nonaerobic (无氧) exercise—balance training and weight training—three times a week. The second group did high-intensity aerobic exercise under the guidance of a trainer for four or more days a week. After two years, the second group saw remarkable improvements in heart health.

“We took these 50-year-old hearts and turned the clock back to 30-or 35-year-old hearts,” says Levine. “And the reason they got so much stronger and fitter was that their hearts could now fill a lot better and pump (泵送) a lot more blood during exercise.” But the hearts of those who participated in less intense exercise didn’t change, he says.

“The sweet spot in life to start exercising, if you haven’t already, is in late middle age when the heart still has flexibility,” Levine says. “We put healthy 70-year-olds through a yearlong exercise training program, and nothing happened to them at all.”

Dr. Nieca Goldberg, a spokeswoman for the American Heart Association, says Levine’s findings are a great start. But the study was small and needs to be repeated with far larger groups of people to determine exactly which aspects of an exercise routine make the biggest difference.

1. What does Levine want to explain by mentioning the rubber band?

A．The right way of exercising.	B．The causes of a heart attack.
C．The difficulty of keeping fit.	D．The aging process of the heart.

2. In which aspect were the two groups different in terms of research design?

A．Diet plan.	B．Professional background.
C．Exercise type.	D．Previous physical condition.

3. What does Levine’s research find?

A．Middle-aged hearts get younger with aerobic exercise.

B．High-intensity exercise is more suitable for the young.

C．It is never too late for people to start taking exercise.

D．The more exercise we do, the stronger our hearts get.

4. What does Dr. Nieca Goldberg suggest?

A．Making use of the findings.	B．Interviewing the study participants.
C．Conducting further research.	D．Clarifying the purpose of the study.