Which part of the world has the most nearsighted students? Just look around you– it’s East Asia. Nine in ten school leavers in major East Asian cities are nearsighted, according to the BBC. Experts say books and video games are not to blame (责备). East Asian students, they say, aren’t getting enough sunlight.
People become nearsighted because their eyeballs grow out of shape and light entering their eyes cannot focus correctly. The body can produce a chemical called dopamine (多巴胺) to stop eyeballs from changing shape. And guess what scientists have just discovered? Sunlight can help our bodies produce more dopamine, reported AFP.
According to the study, primary school students in Singapore spend only 30 minutes outdoors every day; in Australia, by contrast (相反), kids spend about three hours a day outside. As a result, fewer children in Australia are nearsighted – only 10 percent, compared with 90 percent in Singapore.
“Children in East Asia just go to school, go home and stay inside. They study and they watch television,” Ian Morgan of the Australian National University told AFP.
But being a bookworm or a couch potato does not directly harm the eyes, added Morgan. “As long as they get outside, it doesn’t seem to matter how much study they do,” he explained. “There are some kids who study hard and get outside and play hard and they are generally fine. The ones who are at major risk are the ones who study hard and don’t get outside. As a result of massive (巨大的) educational pressures and the construction (构成) of a child’s day, the amount of time they spend outside in bright light is minimized.”
Experts suggest children should stay outside for two to three hours every day. This can include time spent in the playground and walking to and from school.What is the main reason for the large number of nearsighted students in East Asia?
| A．Too much reading or gaming. | B．Being short of sunlight. |
| C．Genetic (基因) reasons. | D．Being short of exercise. |
How long do experts suggest children stay outside every week?
| A．Two to three hours. | B．Fourteen to twenty-one hours. |
| C．Two to three days. | D．Over twenty-one hours. |
In the writer’s opinion, why can’t East Asian students get enough bright light?
| A．Because they don’t like sports. |
| B．Because their parents don’t allow them to. |
| C．Because they have great pressures from study. |
| D．Because they spend more time playing video games. |
According to the passage, which of the following statements is TRUE?
| A．Dopamine is a chemical that causes eyeballs to grow out of shape. |
| B．Dopamine can stop light entering the eyes from focusing correctly. |
| C．Spending time in the sun can make the loss of dopamine in the body. |
| D．The more dopamine a person has in their body, the better eyesight he or she has. |
Five teenagers from Sarasota, Florida, are making music from garbage. The Garbage-Men band’s instruments are made from old things. The guitars are boxes. The horn (喇叭) is made from pipes . The keyboard is formed from old bottles.
The band started about two years ago. Jack, who was in eighth grade at the time, decided to make a homemade guitar. After some hard work, he ended up building it from a cereal box, a big ruler and some little sticks. After Jack showed his guitar to his friend Ollie, Ollie had the idea to make a band using other homemade instruments as a way to suggest people recycle old things. “We want to show people there is more to recycling than throwing things away in the rubbish box,” Jack, 16, told TFK. “You can actually recycle old things.”
Ollie, 15, plays the drums made from rubbish cans. Evan, 14, plays the guitar; Harrison, 15, plays the horns and the violin; and Austin, 16, plays the keyboard. They make up the band The Garbage-Men and play at local parties around. They wand to help people get interested in recycling old things. “Music is a really good way to get a good message across to people because it’s really easy for people to understand,” Jack says. Their instruments may be garbage, but their message isn’t.
What are the Garbage-Men band’s instruments made from?
A. Big boxes.
B. Little sticks.
C. Old things.Which of the followings is NOT true?
A. Evan is the youngest in his band.
B. Jack came out of the idea to make a band first.
C. There are five members in the Garbage-Men band.Ollie’s drums are made of .
A. B. C.What do the five teenagers suggest people do?
A. Making instruments.
B. Listen to music.
C. Reuse garbage.The best title of the passage is .
A. Five music Fans
B. Reduce, Reuse, Replay
C. A Strange Band
Molly Daniels opened the door so hard that the door nearly broke it. Then she looked through the window at her neighbor across the yard. “ She is in my garden again. Those are my strawberries, not hers. Maybe I should call the police.”
Her friend, Doris, was sitting at the table with a cup of coffee in her hands. “You want to call the police because she picks your strawberries?” she asked.
“Of course,” Molly answered angrily. “What would you do if your neighbor walked into your yard without your permission and picked your strawberries?”
“I would say, better her than the bees.”
“The bees don’t take my strawberries.”
“But the birds do,” Doris continued. “That old lady only picks a few strawberries every year, and the only ones she picks are those you leave to the birds. Why don’t you pick some of your good strawberries and give them to her?”
“Are you crazy? What are you thinking?’
“Don’t you remember what happened when you were in hospital last year? She went to see you and gave you a pot full of chicken soup. When you give her the strawberries you can tell her that you still remember that.”
Molly was shocked. She had almost forgotten that little kindness because she was too angry. Then she picked a basket of good strawberries and went out. Through the window, Doris could see that the anger on Molly’s face changed into a bright smile.Molly opened the door very hard because _____
A. she was very angry
B. she was very happy
C. Doris wasn’t friendlyWho was in hospital last year?
A. Doris B. Molly C. Molly’s neighborThe underline word “shocked” in the passage means “_____”.
A. angry B. surprised C. upsetWhich sentence is similar to the sentence “I would say, better her than the bees.”?
A. It’s better to let the neighbor pick the strawberries than to give them to the bees.
B. The bees are better than the neighbor.
C. The bees like strawberries more than the neighbor does.From the last paragraph, we can infer(推断)what Molly did at last with a basket of good strawberries.
A. She called the police to drive the neighbor away.
B. She happily gave a basket of good strawberries to the neighbor.
C. She ate up the strawberries herself.
One day, I happened to meet an Englishman in the street and soon we began to talk. As I was talking about how I was studying English, the foreigner seemed to be very surprised, gently shaking his head and saying, “You don’t say! You don’t say!” I was puzzled, and I thought, “Perhaps this is not a right thing to talk about.” So I said to him, “Well, shall we talk about the Great Wall? Have you ever been there?”
“Certainly, everyone back home will laugh at me if I leave here without seeing it. The Great Wall is wonderful!” “Yes, it is one of the wonders in the world. And people of many countries have come to visit it.” As I went on telling him more about it, he stopped me again, “You don’t say!”
I couldn’t help asking, “Why do you ask me not to talk about it?”
The foreigner said, “I don’t say that. Why do you think so?”
“Didn’t you say ‘you don’t say!’?” I asked again.
Hearing this, the foreigner laughed loudly. He began to explain, “’You don’t say!’ means ‘Really?’ Perhaps you know little about English idioms.”
Wow! How foolish I was! Since then I have been careful with English idioms. The writer began to talk about the Great Wall because ______.
A. the Englishman told him to do so
B. he tried to find a new and right topic
C. he couldn’t talk about his study any moreWhen the writer asked, “Why do you ask me not to talk about it?”,
the Englishman felt ______.
A. angry B. interested C. surprisedHere “You don’t say!” means ______.
A. “Stop talking!”
B. “really?”
C. “Look out.”The story may happen in ______.
A. China B. England C. AustraliaThis is a story about ______.
A. nice trips
B. good manners
C. English idioms
Not long ago, people thought babies were not able to learn things until they were five or six months old. Yet doctors in the United States say babies begin learning on their first day of life.
Scientists note that babies are strongly influenced by their environment. They say a baby will smile if her mother does something the baby likes. A baby learns to get the best care possible by smiling to please her mother or other caregivers. This is how babies learn to connect and communicate with other human beings.
One study shows that babies can learn before they are born. The researchers placed a tape recorder on the stomach of a pregnant woman. Then, they played a recording of a short story. On the day the baby was born, the researchers attempted to find if he knew the sounds of the story repeated while in his mother. They did this by placing a device in the mouth of the newborn baby.
The baby would hear the story if he moved his mouth one way. If the baby moved his mouth the other way, he would hear a different story. The researchers say the baby clearly liked the story he heard before he was born. They say the baby would move his mouth so he could hear the story again and again.
Another study shows how mothers can strongly influence social development and language skills in their children.
Researchers studied the children from the age of one month to three years. The researchers attempted to measure the sensitivity of the mothers. The women were considered sensitive if they supported their children’s activities and did not interfere (干涉) unnecessarily. They tested the children for thinking and language development when they were three years old. Also, the researchers observed the women for signs of depression (消沉).
The children of depressed women did not do as well in tests as the children of women who did not suffer from depression. The children of depressed women did poorly in tests of language skills and understanding what they hear.
These children also were less cooperative and had more problems dealing with other people. The researchers noted that the sensitivity of the mothers was important to the intelligence development of their children. Children did better when their mothers were caring, even when they suffered from depression.
| A．The environment. | B．Mother’s sensitivity. |
| C．Education before birth. | D．Their peers (同龄人) |
| A．To prove that babies can learn on the first day they are born. |
| B．To prove that babies can learn before they are born. |
| C．To show mothers can strongly influence intelligence development in their babies. |
| D．To indicate early education has a deep effect on the babies’ language skills. |
| A．The children of women who did not suffer from depression. |
| B．The children of depressed but caring mothers. |
| C．The children of depressed mothers who cared little for their children. |
| D．The children with high communication abilities. |
| A．Scientific findings about how intelligence develops in babies. |
| B．Scientific findings about how the environment has an effect on babies’ intelligence. |
| C．A study shows babies are not able to learn things until they are five or six months old. |
| D．Scientific findings about how babies develop before birth. |
A turkey named Courage gave thanks to President Obama for saving his life on the day before Thanksgiving. Honouring a 62-year-old tradition, the President pardoned(赦免)the bird on Thanksgiving eve.
The tradition of a turkey pardon at Thanksgiving began with President Truman in 1947. Courage comes from Ellsworth, Iowa. The name Courage was chosen by voters (投票人)who took part in a survey posted on the White House website. The lucky turkey walked on the lawn of the Rose Garden and posed for the cameras at the presidential podium(讲台).
The dinner that has become known as the First Thanksgiving was actually a harvest festival celebrated in December of 1621. That’s when English settlers in Plymouth, Massachusetts, gave thanks for the progress they had made after a hard winter in their new country. As America grew, Thanksgiving customs also spread and got bigger. George Washington declared that the first national Thanksgiving would be on November 26, 1789. In the decades to follow, however, people celebrated Thanksgiving locally, with no official date. President Abraham Lincoln declared the last Thursday in November 1863 a national day of Thanksgiving. It stayed that way until 1939, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt moved it one week earlier. He wanted to lengthen the shopping period before Christmas to encourage gift-buyers and to help businesses. So Congress（议会） ruled that, after 1941, Thanksgiving would be an official federal holiday falling on the fourth Thursday of November.
This year we celebrated Thanksgiving on Thursday, November. Millions of Americans got together to give thanks with friends and family. The lucky turkey, Courage, was one of them. After his pardon, Courage would be sent to Disneyland Resort in California, where he would be the grand assemble of Disney’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
| A．George Bush | B．Congress |
| C．President Truman | D．the public |
| A．celebrate the harvest of British settlers |
| B．celebrate the progress of Americans |
| C．encourage the struggle with British settlers |
| D．celebrate the joy of all Americans after a hard winter |
| A．President Obama pardoned a turkey before Thanksgiving because of the economic crisis |
| B．the turkey named Courage was pardoned by President Roosevelt before Thanksgiving |
| C．the pardoned turkey walked on the lawn of the Rose Garden on Thanksgiving eve |
| D．the pardoned turkey will appear in a celebrating parade of Thanksgiving Day |
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