1 . Everybody is afraid of something. That’s what more than 1,700 kids told us when we asked them about fears and scary stuff. We gave kids a list of 14 scary things and asked which one frightened them most. Here are the top 5 answers from our survey: ① Scary movies and TV shows; ② Scary dreams; ③Thunderstorms, hurricanes, and other horrible weather;④ War and terrorism; ⑤ Sounds heard at night.

But not everyone is afraid of the same thing. And what makes one person scared can be of no big deal for someone else. Plenty of kids said their biggest fear wasn’t on our list.

What is fear?

Fear is feeling that everyone has -- it’s programmed into all of us--and that’s a good thing because fear is there to protect us. We’re born with a sense of fear so we can react to something that could be dangerous. The baby cries, and their mom comes over to comfort him or her, helping the baby feel safe and OK again.

Real vs. Pretend

The best way to get over a fear is to get more information about it. As kids get older, they understand more and start seeing the difference between what is real and unreal. So when William’s imagination leads him to think of witches, he can tell himself, “Wait a minute. They’re only pretend things. I don’t need to worry about them.”

The same goes for the dark. A kid’s imagination can start playing tricks when the lights go out. What’s under my bed? Is that a thief i hear? With the help of a parent, kids can get more comfortable in the dark. Using a nightlight or shining a flashlight under the bed to see that there’s nothing there can help kids fight that fear.

1. What is paragraph 2 mainly about ?

A．The list of fears is not complete

B．The things people fear are of no big fear.

C．Kids have more fears than people think.

D．People are afraid of different things.

2. In the writer’s opinion,        .

A．having a sense of fear is not a bad thing.

B．babies have a weak sense of fear.

C．fear is not something that we are born with

D．not all people can react to dangerous things.

3. What does the underlined word “pretend” in paragraph 4 mean?

A．Ugly

B．Usual

C．Unreal

D．Lovely

2 . What time of day can you think most quickly? Are you a morning person? Or does it take you a few hours to get your brain going? A lot of recent research suggests that we should pay attention to our body clock. It can tell us what time of day we can perform best at.

Many people work best later in the morning. This is because the body’s temperature takes time to rise through the day. Taking a warm shower when you wake up can help your body’s temperature rise quickly.

But everyone’s body clock is different and some are special. Morning people will get up early and work better early in the day. Evening people will work later but work better towards the end of the day.

Research shows that we’re better at some activities at certain times of the day. Physical performance is at its best between 3 pm and 6 pm, so it’s better to exercise later in the day. Between noon and 4 pm, people begin to pay less attention. This is because we think less quickly after a big meal. Research also shows we become sleepy around 2 pm. This is why people in Spain take a short sleep in early afternoon. Finally, it is best to eat when we’re active. This allows our body to burn calories better and stops our blood sugar levels(血糖)from getting too high.

1. ________ can tell us what time of day we can perform best at.

A．Morning people	B．A warm shower
C．Our body clock	D．Our body temperature

2. What is the best time for physical performance?

A．Between 3 pm and 6 pm.	B．Between 7 pm and 10 pm.
C．Between noon and 4 pm.	D．Between 5 am and 8 am.

3. Why is it best to eat when we’re active?

A．Because eating makes the brain unable to think quickly.

B．Because it makes our blood sugar levels higher.

C．Because our body needs a short sleep.

D．Because our body can burn more calories.

4 . Looking for a new weight loss plan? Try living on top of a mountain. Mountain air contains less oxygen than air at lower altitudes, so breathing it causes the heart to beat faster and the body to bum more energy. A handful of studies have found that athletes training at high altitudes tend to lose weight. Doctor Florian Lippl of the University Hospital of Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich wondered how the mountain air would affect overweight individuals if they weren’t doing any more physical activity than usual.

Lippl and his colleagues invited 20 overweight men to an environmental research station about 300 meters below the summit of Zugspitze, a mountain around 2,970 meters near the Austrian border. They were allowed to eat as much as they liked. The men also gave blood so that researchers could test for hormones (荷尔蒙) linked to appetite and fatness. At the end of the week, the men, whose mean weight starting out was 105kg, had lost on average about 1.5kg. The men’s blood pressure also dropped, which the researchers attributed to weight lost.

Exactly what caused the weight loss is uncertain. Loss of appetite is common at higher altitudes, and indeed the men ate significantly less than usual—about 700 calories fewer per day. Lippl also notes that because their consumption was being recorded, they may have been more self-conscious about what they ate. Regardless, eating less accounts for just 1kg of the 1.5kg lost, says Lippl. He thinks the increased metabolic (新陈代谢) rate, which was measured, also contributed to weight loss but cannot separate the different effects with the given data.

Appetite loss at high altitudes could certainly be key, notes Damian Bailey, a physiologist at the University of Glamorgan, UK, who recently lost 11kg during a 3-month expedition to the Andes in Chile.

Unfortunately, for the average person, there’s no treatment that can resemble living at high altitude, says Lippl. The only alternative is a hypobaric chamber (低压舱) , which exposes subjects to low oxygen and isn’t practical as a therapy. He says, half-jokingly, “if fat people plan their holidays, they might not go to the sea, but maybe to the mountains.”

1. What contributes the most to one’s heart rates, according to the first paragraph?

A．Our bodyweight.

B．The consumption of energy.

C．The rates of our breathing.

D．The amount of oxygen provided.

2. Why does Damian Bailey agree with the idea of appetite loss at high altitudes?

A．He experimented with the new weight loss plan in the Andes.

B．He found no other reasons for his loss of weight in the Andes.

C．He researched the related subject in the Andes.

D．He lost much weight in the high altitude Andes.

3. Lippl talks about the way of losing weight by spending holidays on mountains with __________.

A．casualness	B．inaccuracy
C．uncertainty	D．confidence

5 . A new study suggests Earth could have lost up to 60 percent of its atmosphere in the collision of space objects that created the moon. Most scientists believe this event happened about 4 billion years ago when Earth was still developing. They think a massive object, possibly the size of the planet Mars, hit the Earth, sending vaporized particles （颗粒）into space. Gravity is believed to have brought these particles together to form the moon.

The study presents evidence that this collision might have caused Earth to lose between 10 to 60 percent of the atmosphere it had. A report on the study appeared in the publication Astrophysical Journal Letters. The researchers‘ impact assumption is one of three leading theories of how the moon was formed. The others suggest the moon was either created at the same time as Earth, or that it was captured by Earth's gravitational field as it traveled through space.

The researchers decided to explore how massive collisions of objects affected rocky planets with thin atmospheres. To do this, they carried out more than 300 “supercomputer simulations （模拟）The experiment considered the positions at which the objects hit the planet, the speed of the impacts, as well as the size and mass of the colliding objects. Earlier research suggested that impact collisions during the latter stages of the formation of a planet can affect its atmosphere. The computer models in this study expanded on this idea. They showed that a collision like the one that may have formed the moon likely took a large part of Earth's atmosphere.

1. What do most scientists believe?

A．Earth has lost its atmosphere in the collision.

B．The moon was created in the collision of space objects.

C．The planet Mars hit Earth about 4 billion years ago.

D．The collision of space objects caused the atmosphere to increase.

2. What can we infer from Paragraph 2?

A．The collision of Earth and the moon affected gravity.

B．The atmosphere on Earth is the cause of the collision.

C．Scientists hold different points on how the moon was formed.

D．An agreement on the formation of the moon has been reached.

3. What does the passage talk about?

A．The process of the moon's being formed.

B．The heated debate among different scientists.

C．The supercomputer experiment of planets’ collision.

D．The collision of space objects affected Earth's atmosphere.

4. What is the purpose of the passage?

A．To inform.

B．To persuade.

C．To debate.

D．To warn.

6 . When something on your fruit or vegetable looks strange, it isn't unusual to throw it to the side. without any hesitation. But some “unusual" parts of fruits and vegetables actually contain abundant amounts of health benefits or they may offer other little known uses. Those stings in your banana are no different.

Often thrown away with its skin, banana strings, which are scientifically called phloem bundles, are just as nutritious as the rest( inner pat) of the fruit. They are packed full of fibre, vitamin A, and vitamin B6 and other nutritional content, Phloem can be found in all plants, which is responsible for the transport of nutrients.“ Phloem bundles are made up of living cells that send food products and sugar to all the different parts of the plant," says Rebecca Lee, a registered nurse and the founder of remediesforme. com. And that is exactly what those strings do in the banana, transporting necessary nutrients throughout the delicious fruit so that it can grow up properly.

“They are not disgusting, and they just help the banana grow and become delicious," Dr. Elizabeth Trattner A. P. DOM, Doctor of Chinese and Integrative Medicine, told Reader's Digest. “It is fine to eat and although is structure is a little different from the inside.

Those phloem bundles can also be used to determine if your banana is ready to eat. If all of the nutrients haven't been transported completely in a balanced way throughout the fruit yet, then the phloem bundles stay on more tightly, meaning the banana is under ripe. Then the opposite occurs with ripe and over ripe bananas, as the strings can be removed more easily. But if your bananas do end up bring over-ripe. throw them away? Absolutely not!

1. What are the strings of a banana?

A．It’s nutrition producers.	B．It’s transporting cells.
C．It’s fleshy inner parts.	D．It’s protective skins.

2. What does the underlined phrase “the opposite" in the last paragraph refer to?

A．The banana is not ripe enough.	B．The phloem's structure is tight.
C．The nutrients are distributed fully.	D．The phloem bundles become longer.

3. What does the author seem to discuss in the next paragraph?

A．The ways to deal with over -ripe bananas.	B．The reasons for bananas being over -ripe.
C．The steps of stopping bananas being ripe.	D．The links between phloem and ripe bananas.

4. Where is the text probably taken from?

A．A biology textbook.

B．A research paper.

C．A medical brochure.

D．A health magazine.

7 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passage coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.

Taking a shower is relaxing. You can hum a song, daydream or think about nothing, leaving the real world behind you. But do you know that showering     1     also benefit your mind?

A research by Scott Barry Kaufman, a psychologist from Yale University in the US interviewed over 3,000 people around the world.     2     turned out that nearly two-thirds of the interviewees said they experienced new ideas in the shower and were more likely to have them in the shower than at work. So why does a simple shower have such magic power? Science can explain it.

Showering can help to raise our level of dopamine, a hormone     3    (relate) to our creativity. “People     4    (vary) in terms of their level of creativity according to the activity of dopamine”, explained Alice Flaherty, a famous American neuroscientist. “Taking a warm shower can make us feel relaxed and therefore make the dopamine level rise and bring ‘Aha!' moment to us.”

    5     the chemical changes, showering may give you a break from what you feel you have been stuck with. Especially when you     6    (think) hard all day about a problem, jumping into the shower can keep you from the outside world so that you can focus on your inner feelings and memories. In this way, according to American psychologist Shelley H. Carson, author of Your Creative Brain, “a showering hour may turn into an ‘incubation (孵化) period’ for your ideas.”

Compared with sitting in front of a computer, taking a shower is something we do     7    (frequently) in our daily life. When showering, we get a fresh experience with the change of location, temperature and humidity. “New and unexpected experiences can lead to positive changes in thinking,” explained Kaufman. “Getting off the couch and jumping in the shower may create a distance and force you to think from a new perspective.”

Showering allows us to enjoy the creative juices of our minds, but it needn't just be in the bathroom that you get your inspiration. For instance, Gertrude Stein,     8     female American writer and poet, got new ideas by driving around a farm and stopping at different cows     9     she found the one that most inspired her. So try to create your own way to free your mind,     10     it's a walk near the ocean, a country drive or reading a book at home.

8 . A NASA-funded study used satellite to search for penguin poops (粪便) in Antarctica: funny at first sight though, it resulted in unique insights on the Adelie penguin’s diet and its future. The findings unlocked the secrets about the species that can provide an early-warning of threats to Antarctica’s delicate ecosystem.

Researchers used satellite images to see if the Adelie penguin’s diet has been changing in response to Antarctica’s changing climate. Adelie penguin population has dropped greatly in some areas even as the global population increases. The satellite images show their presence can be detected by the stain (污渍) left on the ice by their waste, called guano.

Male and female penguins take turns incubating (孵化) in the nest. The guano builds up in the same areas occupied by the nests. A global survey for Adelie penguins turned up 3.8 million breeding pairs. Also, the satellite data can detect the color of the penguin guano, ranging from white to pink to dark red. White guano is from eating mostly fish; pink and red would be from eating mostly krill (磷虾). The team found that while the Adelie penguin’s diet did show changes from year to year, no consistent pattern was obvious.

“This was a big surprise, since the abundance and distribution of Adelie penguins has changed dramatically over the last 40 years and scientists had assumed that a change in diet might have played a role,” said Casey Young. However, continuing changes in the physical environment and a growing krill fishery in the region are likely to have an influence on penguin prey (猎物) and penguin population itself. “They will be important for the management of the Antarctic ecosystem, ” said Young.

1. What concerned scientists most according to paragraph 1?

A．The Antarctica’s ecosystem.	B．The Adelie penguin’s diet.
C．The climate change.	D．The secret of penguin poops.

2. Which of the following statements is true according to the passage?

A．The Adelie penguin population was 3.8 million worldwide.

B．Guano colors reflected the health condition of the penguin.

C．The Adelie penguin’s diet stayed the same most of the time.

D．Adelie penguin waste helped estimate the penguin population.

3. What does “This” in the last paragraph refer to?

A．Changes of penguin’s diet without a definite pattern.

B．The wide range of the color of the penguin guano.

C．Dramatic changing of penguin population.

D．The abundance and distribution of Adelie penguins.

4. What did Casey Young’s words infer?

A．More Adelie penguins have appeared over the last 40 years.

B．Diet changes didn’t actually affect penguin population as assumed.

C．There was not an obvious changing pattern of penguin’s diet.

D．Fishery was important for the management of the Antarctic ecosystem.

9 . Everyone has got two personalities—the one that is shown to the world and the other that is secret and real.You don’t show your secret personality when you’re awake because you can control yourself,but when you’re asleep,your sleeping position shows the real you.In a normal night,of course,you often change your sleeping positions.The important position that best shows your secret personality is the one that you fall asleep with.

If you go to sleep on your back,you’re a very open person.You normally trust people and you are easily influenced by fashion or new ideas.You don’t like to upset people.So you never express your real feelings.You’re quite shy and you aren’t very confident.

If you sleep on your stomach,you are a person who likes to keep secrets.You worry a lot and you’re always easily becoming sad.You never want to change your ideas,but you are satisfied with your life the way it is.You usually live for today not tomorrow.

If you sleep curled up(卷曲),you are probably a very nervous person.You have a low opinion of yourself and often protect yourself from being hurt,so you are very defensive.You’re shy and you don’t usually like meeting people.You prefer to be on your own.You’re easily hurt.

If you sleep on your side,you have usually got a well-balanced personality.You know your strengths and weaknesses.You’re usually careful.You believe in yourself.You sometimes feel anxious,but you don’t often get unhappy.You always say what you think,even if it makes people rather angry.

1. You may find the passage in a _______.

A．storybook	B．guide book
C．sports newspaper	D．science magazine

2. Tina hardly tells her secrets to her friends.She probably goes to sleep _______.

A．curled up	B．on her back
C．on her stomach	D．on her side

3. What does the passage tell us?

A．Sleeping positions show people’s secret personalities.

B．Sleeping on your side is the best way of sleeping.

C．Changing positions will cause sleeping problems.

D．Enough sleep makes people look better and healthier.

10 . 阅读下面短文，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

Earthquakes are a form of     1    (natrue)disaster.They are so powerful     2     they can cause tall buildings to crash to the ground in just a few seconds. In fact, most of the     3    (death) in an earthquake are caused     4    falling houses . New research data from earthquake zones is helping architects to design     5    (safe) buildings that will not     6    (destroy) during an earthquake. Instead of being fixed in place like most ordinary     7    (building), the new buildings     8    they have designed can move. Other researchers have     9    (design) a small round house that will not fall down when there is     10     quake. Because the houses   are round, they can survive strong winds and floods and are good shelters during a disaster.