The Diet Zone: A Dangerous Place
Diet Coke, diet Pepsi, diet pills, no-fat diet, vegetable diet… We are surrounded by the word “diet” everywhere we look and listen. We have so easily been attracted by the promise and potential of diet products that we have stopped thinking about what diet products are doing to us. We are paying for products that harm us psychologically and physically（身体上）.
Diet products significantly weaken us psychologically. On one level, we are not allowing our brain to admit that our weight problems lie not in actually losing the weight, but in controlling the consumption of fatty, high-calorie, unhealthy foods. Diet products allow us to jump over the thinking stage and go straight for the scale（秤）instead. All we have to do is to swallow or recognize the word “diet” in food labels.
On another level, diet products have greater psychological effects. Every time we have a zero-calorie drink, we are telling ourselves without our awareness that we don’t have to work to get results. Diet products make people believe that gain comes without pain, and that life can be without resistance and struggle.
The danger of diet products lies not only in the psychological effects they have on us, but also in the physical harm that they cause. Diet foods can indirectly harm our bodies because consuming them instead of healthy foods means we are preventing our bodies from having basic nutrients(营养成分). Diet foods and diet pills contain zero calorie only because the diet industry has created chemicals to produce these wonder products. Diet products may not be nutritional, and the chemical that go into diet products are potentially dangerous.
Now that we are aware of the effects that diet products have on us, it is time to seriously think about buying them. Losing weight lies in the power of minds, not in the power of chemicals. Once we realize this, we will be much better able to resist diet products, and therefore prevent the psychological harm that comes from using them.From Paragraph 1, we learn that ________.
| A．diet products fail to bring out people’s potential | |
| B．people have difficulty in choosing diet products | |
| C．diet products are misleading people | D．people are fed up with diet products |
One psychological effect of diet products is that people tend to _____.
| A．try out a variety of diet foods | B．hesitate before they enjoy diet foods |
| C．pay attention to their own eating habits | D．watch their weight rather than their diet |
In Paragraph 3, “gain comes without pain” probably means ______.
| A．losing weight is effortless | B．it costs a lot to lose weight |
| C．diet products bring no pain | D．diet products are free from calories |
Diet products indirectly harm people physically because such products ______.
| A．are over-consumed | B．lack basic nutrients |
| C．are short of chemicals | D．provide too much energy |
Which of the following shows the structure of the passage?
All of us eat every day, but most of us don’t understand nutrition(营养). How much do you know about good nutrition? Are the following statements true or false?
1. People who don’t eat meat can stay healthy.
True. As long as people eat enough milk, eggs and meat alternates(替代物), they can get enough protein.
2. Fresh vegetables cooked at home are always more nutritious than canned vegetables.
False. The difference depends more on how vegetables are prepared than whether they are fresh or canned. Vegetables cooked in too much water can lose a large quantity of vitamins.
3. Food eaten between meals can be just as good for health as food eaten at regular meals.
True. Nutritional value depends on what types of food you eat, not when you eat them. Eating an egg or an orange between meals can contribute to a good diet.
4. Taking extra vitamins beyond the recommended daily allowances won’t give you more energy.
True. It’s widely believed that extra vitamins provide more energy. But taking more than the baby needs doesn’t make it function better, just as overfilling your gas tank doesn’t make your car run better.
5. Natural vitamins are better supplements(补充)for the diet than synthetic vitamins.
False. There is no difference. A vitamin has the same properties(性质)and specific chemical structure whether made in a laboratory or taken from plant or animal parts.
6. Older people need the same amount of vitamins as younger people.
True. Older people need the same quantity of vitamins as younger people although they need fewer calories. Certain illnesses raise the requirements for some vitamins, but that is true for the young as well as the old.
7. Food grown in poor soil is lower in vitamins than food grown in rich sold.
False. The vitamins in our foods are made by the plants themselves. They don’t come from the soil.
However, the minerals in a plant depend on the minerals in the soil.
If you have answered these questions correctly, you can say you know much about food and nutrition by today’s standards. But remember that nutrition is a growing science and that may be aged as new information is obtained.The main purpose of the passage is to .
| A．list today’s standards of some food and nutrition |
| B．introduce what should be eaten and what not |
| C．explain what is helpful to your health and what is not |
| D．test our nutrition IQ by judging the problems listed |
From the surrounding words and sentences we know that the underlined phrase “contribute to” means .
| A．help to bring about | B．take the place of |
| C．make room for | D．turn to |
The underlined word “synthetic” most probably means in Chinese.
| A．不同的 | B．特别的 |
| C．合成的 | D．天然的 |
Global Positioning Systems（GPS） are now a part of everyday driving in many countries. These satellite-based systems provide turn-by-turn directions to help people get to where they want to go. But, they can also cause a lot of problems, send you to the wrong place or leave you completely lost. Many times, the driver is to blame. Sometimes a GPS error is responsible. Most often, says Barry Brown, it is a combination of the two.
We spoke to Mr. Brown by Skype （网络电话软件）. He told us about an incident involving a friend who had flown to an airport in the eastern United States. There he borrowed a GPS-equipped car to use during his stay. BARRY BROWN: “And they just plugged in an address and then set off to their destination. And, then it wasn’t until they were driving for thirty minutes that they realized they actually put in a destination back on the West Coast where they lived. They actually put their home address in. So again, the GPS is kind of 'garbage in garbage out'.”
Mr Brown says this is a common human error. But, he says, what makes the problem worse has to do with some of the shortcomings, or failures, of GPS equipment. BARRY BROWN: “One problem with a lot of the GPS units is that they have a very small screen and they just tell you the next turn. Because they just give you the next turn, sometimes that means that it is not really giving you the overview that you would need to know that it’s going to the wrong place.”
Barry Brown formerly served as a professor with the University of California, San Diego. While there, he worked on a project with Eric Laurier from the University of Edinburgh. The two men studied the effects of GPS devices on driving by placing cameras in people’s cars. They wrote a paper based on their research. It is called “The Normal, Natural Troubles of Driving with GPS.”
It lists several areas where GPS systems can cause confusion for drivers. These include maps that are outdated, incorrect or difficult to understand. They also include timing issues(时机问题) related to when GPS commands are given.
Barry Brown says, “ To make GPS systems better we need a better understanding of how drivers, passengers and GPS systems work together.”In paragraph 2, Mr. Brown mentioned his friend in the conversation to _______.
| A．build up his own reputation |
| B．laugh at his stupid friend |
| C．prove the GPS system is only garbage |
| D．describe an example of human error |
What is the disadvantage of small screens in GPS equipment according to the text?
| A．They just provide the next turn. | B．They are harmful to eyes. |
| C．They make drivers tired easily. | D．They often break down suddenly. |
Which of the following statements would Barry Brown most likely agree with?
| A．GPS units are to blame for most GPS service failures. |
| B．We should introduce higher standards for the driving license. |
| C．Cameras are urgently needed to help improve GPS systems. |
| D．Drivers, GPS systems and passengers should unite to improve GPS systems. |
What is Mr. Brown’s attitude towards GPS?
| A．Unconcerned. | B．Prejudiced. |
| C．Objective. | D．Critical. |
Which of the following statements can best describe the main idea of the pasage?
| A．Driving with GPS can be difficult. |
| B．Driving confusions can be caused by small screens. |
| C．Driving without GPS should be much more convenient. |
| D．GPS equipment in driving to be deserted or improved |
My grandmother was from a town in Michigan. Summer after summer, I enjoyed staying with my grandparents as a young child. I was from the city and loved the small town they lived in. People knew everyone, their kids, their pets, their ancestors. The bond with them continued to grow as I grew and they got older. Grandma was always using her hands for something exciting. She would make little sandwiches and we’d have tea parties. She’d make beautiful quilts for each one. I remember the small thimble(顶针) she would use while doing her needle work.
A few years ago, when Grandma left this earth, I bid farewell to a loving grandmother. How quickly our lives can change. We had just had tea together a couple of months earlier, on her 91st birthday.
I missed her very much. On one particular birthday, when I was feeling a little low, something happened to make me feel like she was sharing that special day with me. I was arranging some colorful pillows that she had made, and suddenly I felt something inside one pillow. It was small and hard. I moved the object to a seam(接缝) that I carefully opened, and to my delight out came a tiny silver thimble! How happy I was to find something that had been a part of her. Not realizing it had fallen off her finger, I pictured her sewing it in that little pillow that I just happened to place on my bedspread that day. I carefully laid the thimble alongside the others I’ve collected over the years, where I could continue to see the gift God chose to reveal to me. What a precious memory of a very special lady who somehow, I knew, was laughing in delight at sewing her thimble inside my pillow.
I made some tea, using my best china, as Grandma always did, and enjoyed my tea and Grandma’s thimble. What a wonderful birthday that was!The author liked staying with her grandparents because________.
| A．they often bought her some gifts |
| B．she was curious about people and things there |
| C．she could have tea parties and eat sandwiches |
| D．she could learn to sew quilts |
How did the author feel when she found the silver thimble?
| A．Sad | B．Proud | C．Lucky | D．Cheerful |
It can be inferred from the passage that the silver thimble________.
| A．was the item the author had been trying to find |
| B．was the most treasured possession of Grandma |
| C．was very precious to the author |
| D．was a birthday gift Grandma had given the author |
What is the best title for the passage?
| A．A little pillow | B．Grandma’s silver thimble |
| C．My grandparents | D．My childhood |
Is language, like food, a basic human need without which a child at a critical period of life can be starved and damaged? Judging from the experiment of Frederick in the thirteenth century, it may be. Hoping to discover what language a child would speak if he heard no mother tongue, he told the nurses to keep silent.
All the infants died before the first year. But clearly there was more than lack of language here. What was missing was mothering. Without good mothering, in the first year of life especially, the capacity to survive is seriously affected.
Today no such severe lack exists as that ordered by Frederick. Nevertheless, some children are still backward in speaking. Most often the reason for this is that the mother is insensitive to the signals of the infant, whose brain is programmed to learn language rapidly. If there sensitive periods are neglected, the ideal time for acquiring skills passes and they might never be learned so easily again. A bird learns to sing and to fly at the right time, but the process is slow and hard once the critical stage has passed.
Experts suggest that speech stages are reached in a fixed order and at a constant age, but there are cases where speech has started late in a child who eventually turns out to be of high IQ. At twelve weeks a baby smiles and makes vowel-like sounds; at twelve months they can speak simple words and understand simple commands; at eighteen months he has a vocabulary of three to five words. At three he knows about 1,000 words, which he can put into sentences, and at four his language differs from that of his parents in style rather than grammar.
Recent evidence suggests that an infant is born with the capacity to speak. What is special about man’s brain, compared with that of the monkey, is the complex system which enables a child to connect the sight and feel of, say, a toy-bear with the sound pattern “toy bear”. And even more incredible is the young brain’s ability to pick out an order in language from the mixture of sound around him, to analyze, to combine and recombine the parts of a language in new ways.
But speech has to be induced（激发，引起）, and this depends on interaction between the mother and the child, where the mother recognizes the signals in the children’s babbling（咿呀声）,grasping and smiling, and responds to them. Insensitivity of the mother to these signals dulls the interaction because the child gets discouraged and sends out only the obvious signals. Sensitivity to the child’s nonverbal signals is essential to the growth and development of language.The writer mentioned the experiment of Frederick to __________.
| A．support his idea | B．introduce his topic |
| C．describe a new finding | D．give an example of his theory |
The purpose of Frederick’s experiment was to __________.
| A．prove that children are born with the ability to speak |
| B．discover what language a child would speak without hearing any human speech |
| C．find out what role careful nursing would play in teaching a child to speak |
| D．prove that a child could be damaged without learning a language |
The reason why some children are backward in speaking is most probably that ________.
| A．they are not able to learn language rapidly |
| B．they are exposed to too much language at once |
| C．their mothers do not respond enough to their attempts to speak |
| D．their mothers are not clever enough to help them |
If a child starts to speak later than others, he will __________ in future.
| A．have a high IQ | B．be less intelligent |
| C．be insensitive to verbal signals | D．not necessarily be backward |
Which of the following statements is NOT true according to the passage?
| A．A child is born with the ability to speak. |
| B．A child’s brain has a complex system which helps to connect the sight and feel of an object. |
| C．A child can produce his own sentences. |
| D．A child owes his speech ability to good nursing. |
According to the passage, the writer agrees that__________.
| A．the infants will certainly die because of lack of language. |
| B．all children learn their language in fixed stages |
| C．the child’s brain is highly selective |
| D．insensitivity to the child’s non-verbal signals will not affect the development of the child’s language |
A wise man once said that the only thing necessary for the victory of evil is for good men to do nothing. So, as a police officer, I have some urgent things to say to good people. Day after day my men and I struggle to hold back a tidal wave of crime. Something has gone terribly wrong with our once-proud American way of life. It has happened in the area of values. A key ingredient is disappearing, and I think I know what it is: accountability.
Accountability isn’t hard to define. It means that every person is responsible for his or her actions and liable for their consequences.
Of the many values that hold civilization together --- honesty, kindness, and so on --- accountability may be the most important of all. Without it, there can be no respect, no trust, no law --- and, ultimately, no society.
My job as a police officer is to impose accountability on people who refuse, or have never learned, to impose it on themselves. But as every policeman knows, external controls on people’s behavior are far less effective than internal restraints such as guilt, shame and embarrassment.
Fortunately there are still communities --- smaller towns, usually --- where schools maintain discipline and where parents hold up standards that declare: “In this family certain things are not tolerated --- they simply are not done!”
Yet more and more, especially in our larger cities and suburbs, these inner restraints are loosening. Your typical robber has none. He considers your property his property; he takes what he wants, including your life if you annoy him.
The main cause of this breakdown is a radical shift in attitudes. Thirty years ago, if a crime was committed, society was considered the victim. Now, in a shocking reversal, it’s the criminal who is considered victimized: by his underprivileged (被剥夺基本社会权利的) upbringing, by the school that didn’t teach him to read, by the church that failed to reach him with moral guidance, by the parents who didn’t provide a stable home.
I don’t believe it. Many others in equally disadvantaged circumstances choose not to engage in criminal activities. If we free the criminal, even partly, from accountability, we become a society of endless excuses where no one accepts responsibility for anything. We in America desperately need more people who believe that the person who commits a crime is the one responsible for it..What the wise man said suggests that it’s __________.
| A．unnecessary for good people to do anything in face of evil |
| B．certain that evil will be widespread if good men do nothing about it |
| C．only natural for good men to defeat evil |
| D．desirable for good men to keep away from evil |
According to the author, if a person is found guilty of a crime, ________.
| A．society is to be held responsible |
| B．modern civilization is responsible for it |
| C．the criminal himself should bear the blame |
| D．the standards of living should be improved |
Compared with those in small towns, people in large cities have ________.
| A．less self-discipline | B．better sense of discipline |
| C．more respect to each other | D．less effective government |
The writer is sorry to have noticed that ________.
| A．people in large cities tend to excuse criminals |
| B．people in small towns still stick to old discipline and standards. |
| C．today’s society lacks sympathy for people in difficulty |
| D．people in disadvantaged circumstances are engaged in criminal activities |
The key point of the passage is that ________.
| A．stricter discipline should be maintained in schools and families |
| B．more good examples should be set for people to follow |
| C．more attention should be paid to people’s behavior |
| D．more people should accept the value of accountability |
粤公网安备 44130202000953号