1 . Back pain can make it difficult for many people to function in everyday life.
Our bodies need adequate movement throughout the day to avoid the stiffness that contributes to aches and pains. If the weather is good, don't hunt for the nearest parking spot; don't take the elevator when you have the option of one or two flights of stairs. When you need to sit for long periods, set a timer to get up every hour and be active for just a few minutes.
When we overuse our dominant side, we create muscle patterns of weakness and tension that increase pain, especially in our backs. Consider the actions you take repeatedly throughout the day that shift your weight to one side.
Psychological stress is a noted risk factor for back pain, according to research. Most mental stress is caused by focusing on the past or future.
| A．Switch sides when you carry things. |
| B．It affects how you move, feel and think. |
| C．You should learn more about the cause of your pain. |
| D．Approach the health of your back as a responsibility. |
| E．So actively being mindful of the present reduces stress. |
| F．You'd better take a quick break to check in with your breathing. |
| G．More minutes of movement add up to big health benefits over time. |
2 . Eyesight plays a very important role in our daily life. Every waking moment, the eyes are working to see the world around us. Over forty percent of Americans worry about losing eyesight, but it's easy to include steps into our daily life to ensure healthy eyes. Here are five suggestions for a lifetime of healthy eyesight:
Schedule yearly exams.
Protect against UV rays .
Long-term stay in the sun creates risk to your eyes. No matter what the season is, it’s extremely important to wear sunglasses.
Two-thirds of Americans spend up to seven hours a day using computers or other digital products.
As part of a healthy diet, eat more fruits and vegetables each day. Vitamins C and E help protect eyesight and promote eye health.
Practice safe wear and care of contact lenses.
Many Americans use contact lenses to improve their eyesight. While some follow the medical guidance for wearing contact lenses, many are breaking the rules and putting their eyesight at risk.
Otherwise: you may have problems such as red eyes, pain in the eyes, or a more serious condition.
| A．Eat your greens. |
| B．Eye care should begin early in life. |
| C．They can properly protect your eyes. |
| D．Stay in good shape by taking more vitamins. |
| E．Parents usually don’t care about their own eyesight. |
| F．Always follow the doctor’s advice for appropriate wear. |
| G．This frequent eye activity increases the risk for eye tiredness. |
3 . What is the best sleep position for your health?
It’s difficult to control what sleeping position we naturally fall into, as our body will subconsciously all into the most comfortable position for us. However, some positions are better for you than others and come could hold back your health and wellbeing.
If you sleep on your side
More than 60 per cent of people sleep on their side. Often our body naturally moves to this position, which is linked to when we were in the womb in the foetal(胎儿的) position.
If you sleep on your back
Lying on your back is the second most popular sleeping position and offers just as many benefits as side sleeping. When you’re sleeping on your back, it’s easy to keep alignment and to also evenly distribute your weight.
If you sleep on your stomach
Sleeping on your stomach is the least common sleeping position.
| A．This also helps to prevent any neck and back pain. |
| B．Sleeping on your side is probably the best position |
| C．Side sleeping would be particularly beneficial for older people. |
| D．There are more negatives to this position compared to positives. |
| E．Determining the sleeping position for you is personal preference. |
| F．Here, this article reveals exactly how your sleep position is affecting your health. |
| G．This is mostly likely because it is one of the most comfortable sleeping positions. |
4 . How tall are you? Do you tower over your friends and family - or are they people you literally have to look up to?
Of course, our height is out of our control.
In a recent study scientists have discovered a brain receptor, called MC3R, linked to our growing process.
For those eager to be taller, we need to look at the Dutch, who stand head and shoulders above the rest of us as the tallest people in the world. But, of course tall people have to stoop (俯身) through doorways and struggle to fit in cars and can have joint and cardiovascular problems.
| A．Are you getting as tall as you want to be? |
| B．It’s a biological fact influenced partly by genetics. |
| C．So maybe we should be careful for what we wish for. |
| D．Obviously, we’re not all the same, and size doesn’t really matter. |
| E．It’s thought to be the crucial link between food and sex development and growth. |
| F．There is a ceiling for height, and it’s reached when people achieve their genetic potential. |
| G．If this makes you want to be taller, it’s good to know we are taller than we were 150 years ago. |
5 . The tooth is the hardest part of your body. Your teeth help you in many ways. For example, they can help you talk. They can also help you have a great smile. And the most important job of your teeth is to chew (咀嚼) your food. But do you know how your teeth grow?
When you are born, you don’t have any teeth. About 8 months later, small teeth begin to appear one by one. These teeth are called baby teeth. They are also called milk teeth. You won’t have baby teeth forever. They usually begin to fall out when a child is about 6 years old. Then, permanent (永久的) teeth begin to appear. These teeth are larger and more powerful. Most people will have 28 permanent teeth by the time they are 12 years old.
For some people, four more permanent teeth arrive by their 25th birthday. They are called wisdom teeth (智齿). But these teeth don’t make you smart! Sometimes they bring you pain. If a wisdom tooth brings you too much pain, you should go to a dentist (牙医) and have it pulled out.
1. Which part of your body is the hardest?| A．The nose. | B．The tooth. | C．The leg. | D．The hand. |
| A．to prepare food | B．to cook food | C．to chew food | D．to protect food |
| A．Baby teeth. | B．Adult teeth. | C．False teeth. | D．Big teeth. |
| A．22. | B．24. | C．26. | D．28. |
| A．Go to a dentist and have it brushed. |
| B．Go to a dentist and have it pulled out. |
| C．Go to a dentist and have it cleaned. |
| D．Go to a dentist and have it examined. |
6 . In English it’s common to say, “I know this town like the back of my hand!” While we may know our towns really well, how well do we actually know our hands? Maybe not quite as well as we think, said a scientific study.
Matthew Longo and his team from University College London studied the left hands of 100 people. With their hands placed palms down under a board, Longo’s team gave the instruction to point to their knuckles and fingertips with a marker. How did they do? Not that well.
“People think their hand is wider than it actually is,” said Longo. He said they also seemed to think their fingers were shorter than their true lengths. People were most accurate when finding their thumbs, but became less accurate with each finger, up to their little fingers.
“It is connected to our sense of position,” explained Longo. Humans know where different parts of our bodies are, even if we can’t see them. “It tells us whether a joint is straight or not,” said Longo. “We also need to know the distances between our joints,” he went on. Our brains know the sizes and shapes of our bodies from the maps they make for themselves. “This experiment tried to find those maps,” he said.
Maybe maps don’t need to be perfect. But why aren’t our brains more accurate? Longo said our brains “see” areas based on our sense of touch, with the stronger the sense of touch in a specific body part, the bigger that body part seems. An example is our lips. As they have more nerves than our noses, our brain’s map shows our lips are bigger. The same thing can happen with body parts that have a lot of nerves. If you’ve ever had something stuck in your teeth, it probably felt huge! That’s because our tongues also have lots of nerves.
If you want to have some fun, try this test with your classmates. Get some boards and some markers and have them mark the spots where they think their knuckles and fingertips are. Compare their hands to the marker spots and see how well they have performed.
1. Why is the saying mentioned in Para. 1?| A．To test readers. | B．To serve as a topic. | C．To prove a scientific study. | D．To attract readers’ interest. |
| A．Thumbs are bigger. | B．Thumbs are much stronger. |
| C．Thumbs may have more nerves. | D．Thumbs may have strong sense of position. |
| A．Sizes. | B．Brains. | C．Shapes. | D．Maps. |
| A．To find the maps in human brains. | B．To draw the maps in human brains. |
| C．To figure out how different senses cooperate. | D．To help people locate their body parts accurately. |
7 . While learning the science lessons, I used to get a doubt-why ears, nose, tongue and eyes should be called as special senses? The basic reason is that these are the channels through which we maintain contact with the surroundings. Though apparently it may feel like these are individual sensory organs, they do show some connectivity. Interestingly, our hearing is less sharp after we eat a heavy food. Isn't it good for a sound nap after a stomach-full meal? That does not mean we go deaf after a meal, but the hearing pitch does change after a heavy meal.
We usually give credit of the taste to our tongue, but do you know that unless saliva dissolves something, our tongue cannot recognize the taste of the food eaten？Taste is nothing but the food chemicals dissolved in the saliva being sensed by the taste buds present on the tongue. Try to dry off your tongue and mouth with a tissue paper and then taste something.
Women are much better smellers than men. They are born with this characteristic ability and can correctly pinpoint the exact fragrance of the sample. We all can store almost 50, 000 different scents, which are strongly tied to the memories.
Pupils do not respond to light alone, but to the slightest bit of noise around too. Thus surgeons, watchmakers and those professionals who have to perform a much delicate job do prefer to have a sound-free environment. Even a small noise can dilate their pupils, change the focus and blur their vision. If you do not wear glasses or contact lens due to having a 6/6 vision, you are just among the one third of the human population. It is now statistically proved that only one third of the population has perfect vision, the rest all are either wearing glasses or are trying to read with a compromised vision.
Each and every one of us has a particular or individualistic or characteristic smell, which is unique to us, except for the identical twins. This smell is very subtle yet can be sensed even by a newborn. It may be due to this scent that the newborn recognizes the presence of his parents around. Many of us can pinpoint the smell of our significant friends and colleagues. A significant part of this phenomenon is guided by genetics but it is also changed by the environment, diet and personal hygiene. This all together creates the unique chemistry that is individualistic for each person.
1. What does the example of “heavy meal and hearing” in the first paragraph prove?| A．Every sensory organs has its specific function. |
| B．We easily fall asleep after eating a heavy meal |
| C．We feel the world through our eyes, ears, nose and tongue. |
| D．All the individual sensory organs are actually connected. |
| A．Our sense of taste becomes sharper when our tongue is dry. |
| B．The chemical dissolved in the saliva helps digest food eaten. |
| C．Saliva plays an important role in identifying the taste of food. |
| D．The taste buds works better when there is less saliva in the mouth. |
| A．A craftsman who is working on a diamond. | B．An actor who is doing rehearsal. |
| C．A pilot who is flying a plane. | D．An engineer who is checking machines. |
| A．The identical genes guide him. | B．He can recognize their unique smell |
| C．He can hear their individual voices. | D．The sensor in his brain picks them out. |
| A．The discovery of special senses. | B．The functions of sensory organs. |
| C．The connectivity of our organs. | D．The differences in sense among people. |
8 . Researchers continue to show the power behind our sense of smell. Recent studies have found, among other things, that the smell of foods like pizza can cause uncontrollable anger in drivers on roads.
The review explains that smell is unique in its effects on the brain. According to Conrad King, the researcher who carried out the review, "more than any other senses, the sense of smell goes through the logical part of the brain and acts on the systems concerned with feelings. This is why the smell of baking bread can destroy the best intentions of a dieter."
Smell, which dictates the unbelievable complexity of food tastes, has always been the least understood of our senses. Our noses are able to detect up to 10,000 distinct smells. Our ability to smell and taste this extremely large range of smells is controlled by something like 1,000 genes (基因), which make up an amazing 3% of the human genome. Researchers Richard Axel and Linda Buck were together awarded a Nobel Prize in 2004 for their ground-breaking research on the nature of this extraordinary sense. These two scientists were the first to describe the family of 1,000 olfactory (嗅觉) genes and to explain how our olfactory system works.
According to one study in the research review, smelling fresh pizza or even the packaging of fast foods can be enough to make drivers feel impatient with other road users. They are then more likely to speed and experience uncontrollable anger on roads. The most reasonable explanation is that these can all make drivers feel hungry, and therefore desperate to satisfy their appetites.
In contrast, the smells of peppermint and cinnamon were shown to improve concentration levels as well as reduce drivers’ impatience. Similarly, the smells of lemon and coffee appeared to promote clear thinking and mental focus.
However, the way genes regulate smell differs from person to person. A study by researchers in Israel has identified at least 50 olfactory genes which are switched on in some people and not in others. They believe this may explain why some of us love some smells and tastes while others hate them. The Israel researchers say their study shows that nearly every human being shows a different pattern of active and inactive smell-detecting receptors.
1. What did Richard Axel and Linda Buck find out?| A．The category of food smells. |
| B．The logical part of human brain. |
| C．The nature of human olfactory system. |
| D．The relationship between food and feelings. |
| A．Bread. | B．Fruits. |
| C．Coffee. | D．Fast food. |
| A．Some people can recognize up to 50 smells. |
| B．Every person has a different pattern of genes. |
| C．Different people are sensitive to different smells. |
| D．There are still some olfactory genes to be found out. |
| A．Logic and behaviour. |
| B．Smell and its influence. |
| C．Sense ability and food tastes. |
| D．Olfactory genes and its system. |
9 . Mark Bertram, 46, lost the tips of two fingers at work in 2018 when his hand became trapped in a fan belt. “It's life-changing but it's not life-ending,” he says. “Doing work is harder now. Everything is just a little different.”
After two surgeries and occupational therapy, Bertram decided to make light of his condition by asking Eric Catalano, a tattoo (纹身) artist, to create fingernail tattoos. The idea made everyone in the studio laugh—until they saw the final result. “The mood changed,” Catalano recalls from his Eternal Ink Tattoo Studio. “Everything turned from funny to wow.”
When Catalano posted a photo of the tattoos, a pair of fingernails that looked so real that no one could believe their eyes, he had no idea the image would eventually be viewed by millions of people around the world.
The viral photo pushed Catalano, 40, further into the world of paramedical (辅助医疗的) tattooing. Now people with life-altering scars come from as far away as Ireland to visit his shop. They enter Eternal Ink looking for the artistic healing they saw online. Using flesh-toned (肉色的) inks and a needle, Catalano transforms his clients' view of themselves.
Leslie Pollan, 32, a dog breeder in Oxford, was bitten on the face by a puppy in 2014. She underwent countless surgeries to correct a scar on her lip.
“Plastic surgery gave me no hope,” she says. “So I looked for other options.” She ultimately traveled six hours to meet with Catalano. He hid Pollan's lip scar, giving her back a piece of her confidence.“ You don't understand until you've been through it,” Pollan says. “It made me have a different look on life.”
Catalano performs up to eight reconstructive tattoos. While he charges $100 per regular tattoo, he doesn't charge for paramedical tattoos. “Financially, it doesn't make sense,” Catalano says. “But every time I see that emotion from my customers, I'm 100 percent sure this is something that I can't stop doing.”
1. What best describes people's attitude when first hearing of fingernail tattoos?| A．Indifferent. | B．Ridiculous. |
| C．Confident. | D．Surprised. |
| A．He drew an artistic puppy. |
| B．He inked scars on her face. |
| C．He created a lip tattoo. |
| D．He performed plastic surgeries on her. |
| A．Cosmetic surgery is of no use. |
| B．Tattoos earn Mark Bertram a good fame. |
| C．Catalano is a kind and generous person. |
| D．Fingernail tattoos are popular around the world. |
| A．A Life-changing Event | B．Miracle Tattoos |
| C．An Amazing Artist | D．A Promising Business |
10 . Perhaps you use your headphones to enjoy music and peace and quiet during the day. But you may be neglecting the dangers of hearing loss with headphones.
In fact, headphones are not a bad thing. They can bring peace, allow for better musical enjoyment, and even protect your ears from higher decibels(分贝).
How long should you wear your headphones every day? The answer is, according to the World Health Organization, one hour per day.
Then, how do you set the safest volume for your headphones? With headphones, it depends on the type you’re using and your environment. To test things out, you should take them off your ears and extend them in your hands out in front of you.
| A．This might seem unreasonable to you. |
| B．At times, hearing loss isn’t permanent. |
| C．l in 5 teens will have some types of hearing loss. |
| D．What’s more concerning is what that means for children. |
| E．It’s the duration and volume that cause the problem, however. |
| F．If you still hear your music clearly, you need to turn them down. |
| G．It’s a wonderful thing to shut out the rest of the world and enjoy your music. |
