1 . With the development of society, the choice of food and drinks for children is more diversified than ever before. However, every coin has two sides. Many facts suggest that children are overweight and the situation is getting worse, according to the statistics. I feel there are a number of reasons for this.

Some people blame the fact that we are surrounded by shops selling unhealthy, fatty foods, such as fried chicken and ice cream, at low prices. This has turned out a whole generation of grown-ups who seldom cook a meal for themselves. If there were fewer of these restaurants then probably children would buy less take-away food.

There is another argument that blames parents for allowing their children to become overweight. I agree to this, because good eating habits begin early in life, long before children start to visit fast food shops. If children are given fried chicken and chocolate rather than healthy food, or are always allowed to choose what they eat, they will go for sweet and salty foods every time,and this will carry on throughout their lives.

There is a third reason for this situation. Children these days take very little exercise. They do not walk to school. When they get home, they sit in front of the television or their computers. Not only is this an unhealthy pastime, it also gives them time to eat more unhealthy food. What they need is to go outside and play active games or sports.

The above are the main reasons for this problem, and therefore we have to encourage young people to be more active as well as guiding them away from fast food shops and bad eating habits.

1. What is the downside about the diversified choices of food and drinks for children?

A．Children don't know how to choose from the food and drinks.

B．Children don't have so many coins for food and drinks.

C．Children are becoming more and more overweight.

D．Children are getting worse because of many food and drinks.

2. Which statement is TRUE according to Paragraph two?

A．Some people blame that shops are surrounded by unhealthy food.

B．Shops selling cheap but unhealthy foods can be found everywhere.

C．Grown-ups are a generation who can't cook for themselves.

D．There are fewer restaurants that sell children take-away food.

3. According to the passage, why are some parents blamed for children becoming overweight?

A．Because parents allow their children to visit fast food shops.

B．Because parents allow their children to go for sweets.

C．Because parents allow their children to carry on eating habits throughout their lives.

D．Because parents allow their children to develop bad eating habits from early on.

4. What advice is given by the author from the pasange?

A．Children should be encouraged to take exercise and eat less.

B．Children should be guided to stay away from food shops.

C．Children should be encouraged to be more active.

D．Children should be guided to go and eat outside

3 . Empathy

Last year, researchers from the University of Michigan reported that empathy, the ability to understand other people, among college students had dropped sharply over the past 10 years.     1     Today, people spend more time alone and are less likely to join groups and clubs.

Jennifer Freed, a co-director of a teen program, has another explanation, Turn on the TV, and you’re showered with news and reality shows full of people fighting, competing, and generally treating one another with no respect, Humans learn by example — and most of the examples on it are anything but empathetic.

There are good reasons not to follow those bad examples, Humans are socially related by nature.     2     Researchers have also found that empathetic teenagers are more likely to have high self-respect. Besides, empathy can be a cure for loneliness, sadness, anxiety, and fear.

Empathy is also an indication of a good leader. In fact, Freed says, many top companies report that empathy is one of the most important things they look for in new managers.     3     “Academics are important, But if you don’t have emotional intelligence, you won’t be as successful in work or in your love life,” she says.

What’s the best way to up your EQ? For starters, let down your guard and really listen to others.     4    

A．Everyone is different, and levels of empathy differ from person to person.

B．Having relationships with other people is an important part of being human — and having empathy is decisive to those relationships.

C．“One doesn’t develop empathy by having a lot of opinions and doing a lot of talking,” Freed says.

D．Empathy is a matter of learning how to understand someone else — both what they think and how they feel.

E．Good social skills — including empathy — are a kind of "emotional intelligence" that will help you succeed in many areas of life.

F．That could be because so many people have replaced face time with screen time, the researchers said.

5 . Huge health care bills, long emergency-room waits and the inability to find a primary care physician just scratch the surface of the problems that patients face daily.

Primary care should be the backbone of any health care system. Countries with appropriate primary care resources score highly when it comes to health outcomes and cost. The U.S. takes the opposite approach by emphasizing the specialist rather than the primary care physician.

A recent study analyzed the providers who treat Medicare beneficiaries (老年医保受惠人). The startling finding was that the average Medicare patient saw a total of seven doctors—two primary care physicians and five specialists—in a given year. Contrary to popular belief, the more physicians taking care of you don’t guarantee better care. Actually, increasing fragmentation of care results in a corresponding rise in cost and medical errors.

How did we let primary care slip so far? The key is how doctors are paid. Most physicians are paid whenever they perform a medical service. The more a physician does, regardless of quality or outcome, the better he’s reimbursed (返还费用). Moreover, the amount a physician receives leans heavily toward medical or surgical procedures. A specialist who performs a procedure in a 30-minute visit can be paid three times more than a primary care physician using that same 30 minutes to discuss a patient’s disease. Combining this fact with annual government threats to indiscriminately (任意地) cut reimbursements, physicians are faced with no choice but to increase quantity to boost income.

Primary care physicians who refuse to compromise quality are either driven out of business or to cash-only practices, further contributing to the decline of primary care.

Medical students are not blind to this scenario. They see how heavily the reimbursement deck is stacked against primary care. The recent numbers show that since 1997, newly graduated U. S. medical students who choose primary care as a career have declined by 50%. This trend results I emergency rooms being overwhelmed with patients without regular doctors.

How do we fix this problem?

It starts with reforming the physician reimbursement system. Remove the pressure for primary care physicians to squeeze in more patients per hour, and reward them for optimally (最佳的) managing their diseases and practicing evidence-based medicine. Make primary care more attractive to medical students by forgiving students loans for those who choose primary care as a career and reconciling the marked difference between specialist and primary care physician salaries.

We’re at a point where primary care is needed more than ever. Within a few years, the first wave of the 76 million Baby Boomers will become eligible for Medicare. Patients older than 85, who need chronic care most, will rise by 50% this decade.

Who will be there to treat them?

1. We learn from the passage that people tend to believe that ________.

A．the more costly the medicine, the more effective the cure

B．seeing more doctors may result in more diagnostic errors

C．visiting the same doctor on a regular basis ensures good health

D．the more doctors a patient sees, the better

2. Faced with the government threats to cut reimbursements indiscriminately, primary care physicians have to ________.

A．increase their income by working overtime

B．improve their expertise and service

C．see more patients at the expense of quality

D．make various deals with specialists

3. What suggestion does the author give in order to provide better health care?

A．Bridge the salary gap between specialist and primary care physicians.

B．Extend primary care to patients with chronic diseases.

C．Recruit more medical students by offering them loans.

D．Reduce the tuition of students who choose primary care as their major.

4. The best title for this passage is ________.

A．The Health Care in Trouble	B．The Imbalance System
C．The Declining Number of Doctors	D．The Ever-rising Health Care Costs

6 . In his 1930 essay “Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren”, John Keynes, a famous economist, wrote that human needs fall into two classes: absolute needs, which are independent of what others have, and relative needs, which make us feel superior to our fellows. He thought that although relative needs may indeed be insatiable (无止境的), this is not true of absolute needs.

Keynes was surely correct that only small part of total spending is decided by the desire for superiority. He was greatly mistaken, however, in seeing this desire as the only source of insatiable demands.

Decisions to spend are also driven by ideas of quality which can influence the demand for almost all goods, including even basic goods like food. When a couple goes out for an anniversary dinner, for example, the thought of feeling superior to others probably never comes to them. Their goal is to share a special meal that stands out from other meals.

There are no obvious limits to the escalation of demands for quality. For example, Porsche, a famous car producer, has a model which was considered perhaps the best sports car on the market. Priced at over $120,000, it handles perfectly well and has great speed acceleration. But in 2004, the producer introduced some changes which made the model slightly better in handling and acceleration. People who really care about cars find these small improvements exciting. To get them, however, they must pay almost four times the prices.

By placing the desire to be superior to others at the heart of his description of insatiable demands, Keynes actually reduced such demands. However, the desire for higher quality has no natural limits.

1. According to the passage, John Keynes believed that ________.

A．desire is the root of both absolute and relative needs

B．absolute needs come from our sense of superiority

C．relative needs alone lead to insatiable demands

D．absolute needs are stronger than relative needs

2. What does the word “escalation” in paragraph 4 probably mean?

A．Understanding

B．Increase

C．Difference

D．Decrease

3. The author of the passage argues that ________.

A．absolute needs have no limits

B．demands for quality are not insatiable

C．human desires influences ideas of quality

D．relative needs decide most of our spending

7 . Tiredness May Lead to Snacking

Staying up late doing homework is always tiring. Perhaps when we are tired, we feel the need to eat unhealthy snack food. Recently scientists have been investigating tiredness and snack food.

According to a study in the Journal of Neuroscience, people are more likely to crave snacks when they don’t get enough sleep.

For the study, researchers from University of Cologne in Germany gave the same dinner to 32 healthy men aged between 19 and 33. Half of the men were then sent home to bed, and the other half were kept aware in the laboratory all night.

The next morning, the participants were asked to consider how much they would be willing to pay for snack food items shown to them in pictures.

According to the researchers, all were similarly hungry in the morning, and had similar levels of most hormones and blood sugar.

However, brain scans showed that when the sleep-deprived participants looked at the pictures of junk food, they released more of the “hunger hormone”. This is the hormone responsible for increasing the appetite, and making us consume more.

Asked about how much they would pay for snacks, “participants with sleep deprivation were more willing to overspend on food items than those with a good night’s sleep,” researchers said.

Researchers also observed that among the people who hadn’t slept, there was greater activity in the part of the brain where food rewards are processed.

Scientists think that sleep-deprived people experience changes to the hunger hormone and the brain’s reward system that leads to a stronger desire to eat snacks with high fat and calories.

“This brings us a little closer to understanding the mechanism behind how sleep deprivation changes food valuation,” Professor Jan Peters, a co-author of the study from the University of Cologne, told The Independent.

Kill the craving

Listen to some soft music to relieve your tiredness.

Do some slight exercise for a short time when you’re tired.

Eat yogurt or fruits to replace snacks with high fat and calories.

Distance yourself from the craving.

1. People are more likely to crave snacks if they don’t get enough sleep because they ______.

A．have high levels of most hormones and blood sugar

B．release more of the “hunger hormone”, making them consumer more

C．are extremely hungry in the morning

D．are attracted by the snack food items in the pictures

2. Which of the statements is NOT TRUE according to the passage?

A．Hunger hormone can increase people’s appetite and let them eat more food.

B．Participants without sleep deprivation may spend less on food items.

C．The brain’s reward system will lead to craving snack food.

D．Greater activity will appear in certain part of the brain among those who sleep well.

3. Which of the following way is most likely to help you kill the craving?

A．Listening to Rock & Roll.	B．Walking out for while.
C．Ordering a McDonald’s Big Mac.	D．Drinking black coffee.

8 . Open data-sharers are still in the minority in many fields. Although many researchers broadly agree that public access to raw data would accelerate science, most are reluctant to post the results of their own labours online.

Some communities have agreed to share online - geneticists, for example, post DNA sequences at the GenBank repository (库), and astronomers are accustomed to accessing images of galaxies and stars from, say, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, a telescope that has observed some 500 million objects- but these remain the exception, not the rule. Historically, scientists have objected to sharing for many reasons: it is a lot of work; until recently, good databases did not exist; grant funders were not pushing for sharing; it has been difficult to agree on standards for formatting data and there is no agreed way to assign credit for data.

But the barriers are disappearing in part because journals and funding agencies worldwide are encouraging scientists to make their data public. Last year, the Roval Society in London said in its report Science as an Open Enterprise that scientists need to shift away from a research culture where data is viewed as private preserve. Funding agencies note that data paid for with public money should be public information, and the scientific community is recognizing that data can now be shared digitally in ways that were not possible before. To match the growing demand, services are springing up to make it easier to publish research products online and enable other researchers to discover and cite them.

Although calls to share data often concentrate on the moral advantages of sharing, the practice is not purely altruistic (利他主义的). Researchers who share get plenty of personal benefits, including more connections with colleagues, improved visibility and increased citations. I he most successful sharers-those whose data are downloaded and cited the most often-get noticed, and their work gets used. For example, one of the most popular data sets on multidisciplinary repository Dryad is about wood density around the world; it has been downloaded 5, 700 times. Co-author Amy Zanne thinks that users probably range from climate- change researchers wanting to estimate how much carbon is stored in biomass, to foresters looking for information on different grades of timber. “I would much prefer to have my data used by the maximum number of people to ask their own questions, ” she says. “It’s important to allow readers and reviewers to see exactly how you arrive at your results. Publishing data and code allows your science to be reproducible”

Even people whose data are less popular can benefit. By making the effort to organize and label files so others can understand them, scientists become more organized and better disciplined themselves, thus avoiding confusion later on.

1. What do many researchers generally accept?

A．It is necessary to protect scientists’ patents.

B．Repositories are essential to scientific research.

C．Open data sharing promotes scientific advancement.

D．Open data sharing is most important to medical science.

2. According to the passage, what might be an obstacle to open data sharing?

A．The fear of massive copying.

B．The belief that data is private intellectual property.

C．The lack of a research culture.

D．The concern that certain agencies may make a profit out of it.

3. What helps lift some of the barriers to open data sharing?

A．The ever-growing demand for big data.

B．The changing attitude of journals and funders.

C．The advantage of digital technology.

D．The trend of social and economic development.

4. Dryad serves as an example to show how open data sharing ________.

A．is becoming increasingly popular	B．benefits shares and users alike
C．makes researchers successful	D．saves both money and labor