1 . 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 |
2 . Be at your best!
What does your brain need to work well? Here are some things it needs.
Good food
Experts say that breakfast is much more important than any other meal.
A regular supply of energy
Your brain needs a regular supply of energy, so you need to eat carbohydrates (碳水化合物). They’re found in bread, rice, pasta and beans.
A continuous supply of oxygen (氧气)
Your brain needs oxygen, which it gets from exercise.
Water
Your brain needs several hours’ sleep, so it can ‘update’ itself, just like a computer. Experts say that when you study for a test or an exam, you should get some sleep as quickly as possible after you’ve finished studying. This helps you to remember what you’ve learned.
| A．A short break |
| B．A good night’s sleep |
| C．It works best in the morning. |
| D．Exercise improves your memory too. |
| E．Water is much better than sweet drinks. |
| F．Your brain works better when you have eaten. |
| G．Chocolate, biscuits and sweets are not good for your brain. |
3 . When we see well, we do not think about our eyes very often. It is only when we cannot see perfectly that we realize how important our eyes are.
People who are near-sighted can only see things that are very close to their eyes. Everything else seems blurry(=unclear). Many people who do a lot of work, such as writing, reading and sewing become near—sighted.
People who are far-sighted suffer from just the opposite problem. They can see things that are far away, but they have difficulty in reading a book unless they hold it at arm’s length. If they want to do much reading ,they must get glasses, too.
Other people do not see clearly because their eyes are not exactly the right shape. They have what is called astigmatism (散光). This, too, can be corrected by glasses. Some people’s eyes become cloudy because of cataracts (白内障). Long ago these people often became blind. Now, however, it is possible to operate on the cataracts and remove them.
Having two good eyes is important for judging distances. Each eye sees things from a slightly different angle. To prove this to yourself, look at an object our of one eye; then look at the same object out of your other eye. You will find the object’s relation to the background and other things around it has changed. The difference between these two different eye views helps us to judge how far away an object is. People who have only one eye cannot judge distance as people with two eyes.
1. We should take good care of our eyes ________.| A．only when we can see well |
| B．only when we cannot see perfectly |
| C．even if we can see well |
| D．only when we realize how important our eyes are |
| A．near-sighted | B．far-sighted |
| C．astigmatic | D．suffering from cataracts |
| A．seeing at night | B．seeing objects far away |
| C．looking over a wide area | D．judging distances |
| A．one eye bigger than the other |
| B．eyes that are not exactly the right shape |
| C．a difficulty that can be corrected by an operation |
| D．an eye difficulty that cannot be corrected by glasses |
4 . Where would you be without your legs and feet? They do a lot to get you where you need to go.
But sometimes, kids have problems with these important body parts. Their legs and feet might look different or might not work exactly the way they should.
Pigeon Toes
Pigeon toes, or inwardly turning toes, is a common foot condition in kids. It occurs when the front of the foot is turned inward, facing the other foot.
When someone stands with the feet and ankles together but the knees widely apart, we call that being bowlegged. Many babies are born bowlegged because their legs were folded tightly across their bellies while they were growing inside their mom. Bowlegs usually straighten once babies with this condition start to walk and their legs bear weight. By the age of 3, most kids grow out of the condition.
Knock-Knees
Knock-knees is a condition where the legs curve in at the knees so much that the ankles are separated.
Flatfeet
| A．Bowlegs |
| B．Full Arch |
| C．Stand sideways in front of a mirror. |
| D．Boys and girls both experience pigeon toes. |
| E．In other words, if your feet are flat, they’re fine! |
| F．The good news is that these problems usually aren’t serious. |
| G．Lots of kids become knock-kneed between the ages of 3 and 5. |
5 . Your dentist has probably been telling you to floss for years.
That’s why many cheered at a news report that flossing might not be necessary. The Associated Press reviewed 25 studies and concluded that flossing didn’t have proven health benefits. Should you throw away your floss? Not so fast.
One review of 12 studies found that people who brushed and flossed regularly were less likely to have bleeding gums.
In fact, many dentists say the reason they recommend flossing isn’t because of research.
| A．Many dental experts aren’t on board. |
| B．There are also many benefits in flossing. |
| C．They had lower levels of gum disease, too. |
| D．If you’ve refused to do so, you’re not alone. |
| E．Instead, it’s because of what they see in their patients. |
| F．It takes seven or more years to train a professional dentist. |
| G．The connection between gum disease and health isn’t entirely clear. |
6 . Ways to protect eyes from screens
Too much screen time may cause serious eye strain (眼疲劳) and even a sharp decline of eyesight. That's a big problem a lot of people are faced with nowadays, especially those who work on a computer. The following tips may be helpful.
Get regular eye tests
Experts recommend having a comprehensive eye exam every year to detect (探测) problems before they develop. During this test, you should tell the doctor how often you use your phone and your computer.
Give your eyes space
Take breaks
This may not always be practical if you're quite busy, but it's important not to stare directly at a screen for too long.
Staring at a screen continuously for hours on end may make it difficult for you to focus. To avoid this, many eye experts recommend the “20-20-20 rule” — looking away from your phone/computer screen every 20 minutes and focusing on an object at least 20 feet away for at least 20 seconds. The science behind his trick is that looking at objects at a distance relaxes the focusing muscle in the eye.
| A．Exercise your eyes. |
| B．Give your eyes a chance to rest. |
| C．Make your screen more eye-friendly. |
| D．Studies show it's an effective way to reduce tiredness. |
| E．You should also measure the distance from your eyes to your screen at work. |
| F．The closer your phone/computer screen is to your eyes, the harder they have to work to focus. |
| G．Make sure that you use your phone or computer in a room where the lighting is bright enough. |
Faces communicate feelings. They can tell people if we are happy, sad, or confused. Faces have another use, too. Like your unique fingerprint, your face can identity you. Unless you have an identical twin, there is no one else in the world with your face. By matching the code of any new lace to the codes for faces that are already in the database, nowadays facial-recognition technology can probably pick up the same person.
Now, organizations are using your face for many different purposes. Police department uses facial-recognition databases to identify people. For example. The U. S. police analyzed the data from the facial-recognition technology to look for terrorists at a large sports event in Florida. Another use is for preventing identity theft. Banks will use a customer’s “face-print” for identification instead of an ID card, which are easy to steal.
Not everyone is happy with these developments. Many people feel that facial-recognition technology can be an invasion of privacy. For example, advertisers are using the technology to analyze people’s laces. When people walk by an outdoor advertisement, the sign takes their picture. It analyzes the picture and suggests products for these people to buy, such as makeup. People have another concern: A stranger may take your picture without your knowledge, match this photo to one on a social media website, and obtain your personal information such as age, interests, and even address.
Experts hope that we will find ways to limit the risks of the technology. It’s certain that as the new technology develops, we will need new laws to protect people. Meanwhile, experts have a suggestion: Simply tilt your head 15 degrees to the side when someone takes your picture. Facial recognition doesn’t work on faces in this position!
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
8 . The spine (脊柱) stands at the center of your health, providing your body with structure and support. It also contains a major collection of nerves that deliver electric signals from the rest of the body to your brain. Since your spine is so central to health, it’s important to take care of it.
Staying in a good position is one of the most important things you can do to keep your spine healthy. A proper position means standing or sitting while keeping your spine straight, except for its natural bending. Positions play a vital part even when you’re asleep. Stomach sleeping is far from a good idea. Many people prefer sleeping on their side, which is in the interests of their spine. Sleeping on your back has lots of benefits yet can cause lower back pain and put some pressure on your spine.
Staying still for too long — even if your position is good — can be hard on your back. Especially if you work at a task most of the day, it’s important to get up and stretch (伸展) periodically. Therefore, exercise is also a key part in the health of your spine. Stretches can help the muscles (肌肉) around your spine relax. Strength exercises with light weights or body weight exercises like pushups can also help by strengthening the muscles. However, don’t overdo the exercise, as repeated movements can hurt the muscles around the spine, as trying to lift heavy weights with poor technique.
Your diet also affects the health of your spine because many vitamins are necessary for bones and nerves. In particular, vitamin B and omega3 fatty acids help keep nerves healthy. Another important part is vitamin D, which is required for strong bones. Vitamin D can come from some foods, but it’s also absorbed from sunlight, so it may help to do some exercises outside. At last, many of the actions necessary to keep a spine healthy are similar to those used to protect your health in other ways. So protect your back, and the rest of the body will benefit.
1. Which sleep position is best for our spine according to the passage?A． | B． |
C． | D． |
| A．Doing a proper amount of exercise. |
| B．Staying still in a good position. |
| C．Repeating a certain movement more. |
| D．Strengthening muscles of the whole body. |
| A．Vitamin B reacts with omega3 fatty acids. |
| B．Abundant vitamin D guarantees strong bones. |
| C．Vitamin D can’t be absorbed without sunlight. |
| D．Doing pushups outside increases vitamin D intake. |
| A．Good posture, good spine |
| B．Stay still, stay healthy |
| C．Healthy means, healthy spine |
| D．Proper exercise, proper weight |
9 . Most of us learned what we know about eye color from a chart in grade-school biology. You know two blue-eyed parents are going to have blue-eyed kids. But the story of how eye color is passed down is more complicated（复杂的) than we’re taught.
Humans get their eye color from melanin（黑色素）, which also determines skin and hair shades. Melanin is good at absorbing light, which is especially important for the iris（虹膜）, the function of which is to control how much brightness can enter the eyes. Once it passes through the irises, the majority of the visible light goes to the retina（视网膜）, where it’s translated into images by the brain. The little that isn’t absorbed by the iris is reflected back, producing what we see as eye color. That color depends on the kind and amount of melanin a person is born with.
Though we used to think eye color just came from a simple pattern of inheritance （遗传）, in recent years scientists have found that it’s also shaped by many genes acting together. What’s more, tiny changes, or mutations（突变）, in a gene can result in different shades in the iris.
The two genes currently thought to be most strongly linked with human eye color are OCA2 and HERC2. OCA2, the gene we used to think was the only player in eye color, controls the production of the P-protein and the organelles that make and transport melanin. Different mutations in the OCA2 gene increase or decrease the amount of protein that’s produced in the body, changing how much melanin is sent to the irises. The HERC2 gene, meanwhile, acts like a helicopter parent （直升机父母） for OCA2. Different mutations in this gene act as a switch that turns OCA2 on and off and determines how much P-protein it produces.
Those are just the two genes we know about in detail so far. Newer studies have linked as many as 16 genes to eye color, all of which pair with OCA2 and HERC2 to generate different iris colors and patterns. With all these genes and their structural changes, it’s hard to say for sure what a child’s eye color will be based on their parents’.
1. Which of the following shows how light reaches the brain?| A．The irises→ melanin→ the brain. |
| B．The retina→ melanin→ the brain. |
| C．The irises→ the retina→ the brain. |
| D．The retina- the irises -the brain. |
| A．OCA2 is controlled by HERC2. |
| B．OCA2 can be changed into HERC2 |
| C．Both can make and transport melanin |
| D．Both are the cause of mutations in genes. |
| A．Different colors received by the retina. |
| B．A lot of genes as well as their mutations |
| C．The amount of protein the person has in his or her body. |
| D．OCA2 and how much melanin it produces and transports. |
| A．Whether the melanin plays a key role in mutations. |
| B．Whether oCA2 and HERC2 can influence each other. |
| C．Whether melanin results in different shades in the iris. |
| D．Whether your eye color just comes from your parents. |
Removing foreign objects from ears and noses costs England almost £3 million a year, a study suggests. Children were responsible for
According to the study, the accidents of foreign objects in children is generally attributed to
