We know that hugs make us feel easy inside. And this feeling, it turns out, could actually ward off stress and protect r the immune (免疫) system, according to a new research from Carnegie Mellon University.
It’s a well-known fact that stress can weaken the immune system. In this study, the researchers sought to determine whether hugs----like social support more broadly ----could protect individuals from the increased sensitivity to illness brought on by the particular stress that come with interpersonal conflict.
“We know that people experiencing ongoing conflicts with others are less able to fight off cold viruses. We also know that people who report having social support are partly protected from the effects of stress on psychological states, such as depression and anxiety, “the study’s lead author, psychologist Dr. Sheldon Cohen , said in a statement. “We tested whether awareness of social support is equally effective in protecting us from sensitivity to infection caused by stress and also whether receiving hugs might partially account for those feeling of support and thus protect a person against infection.”
In the experiment , over 400 healthy adults filled out a questionnaire about their perceived (感知) social support and also participated in a nightly phone interview for two weeks . They were asked the frequency they engaged in interpersonal conflicts and received bugs that day.
Then, the researchers exposed the participants to a common cold virus, and monitored them to assess signs of infection. They found that both perceived social support and more frequent hugs reduced the risk of infection associated with experiencing interpersonal conflict. Regardless of whether or not they experienced social conflicts, infected participants with greater perceived social support and more frequent hugs had less severe illness symptoms.
“This suggests that being hugged by a trusted person may act as an effective means of conveying support and that increasing the frequency of hugs might be an effective means of reducing the effects of stress,” Cohen said. “The apparent protective effect of hugs may result from the physical contact itself or hugging being a behavioral indicator of support and closeness. Either way, those who receive more hugs are somewhat more protected from infection.”
If you need any more reason to go wrap your arms around someone special, consider this: hugs also lower blood pressure, reduce fearsome around death and dying, improve heart health and decrease feeling of loneliness.In Paragraph 1, the underlined words “ward off “can be replaced by ____.
| A．produce | B．increase | C．prevent | D．support |
Dr. Sheldon Cohen’s experiment shows that ____.
| A．hugs can hide serious illness symptoms |
| B．social conflicts can monitor signs of infection |
| C．social support can reduce the risk of having a cold |
| D．depression and anxiety result from less social support |
The passage aims to convey that ____.
| A．hugs can have protective effects |
| B．social support can sure diseases |
| C．interpersonal conflicts cause infections |
| D．stress can weaken our immune system |
The passage is most likely to be found in ____.
| A．a social science magazine |
| B．a commercial brochure |
| C．a medical report |
| D．an academic essay |
Remember how great exercise was when you were a little kid? Back then，racing around the playground or skipping rope for hours，you weren't thinking fitness，you were thinking entertainment．But in this age of high-tech home equipment and underused(未充分利用的)gym memberships，the simple joy of jumping rope has been forgotten．Rediscovering it will give you a total-body exercise you can find．
Although considered an excellent form of exercise，jumping rope has never gained widespread acceptance because of two fundamental reasons．First，most people recognize jumping rope as an excellent form of cardiovascular (心血管的) exercise，but they also believe that it is simply too difficult．In other words，they don't think they'll be able to continue jumping for the near 20 minutes that it takes to achieve a beneficial physical result．Second, many view it as somewhat boring and too repetitive-not as something fun or enjoyable．
As a matter of fact，jumping rope can be great fun if you find a proper way to practise it．Instead of doing the usual two-foot bounce over and over again，people good at rope-jumping often change their pattern every 10 or 20 jumps．A single bounce，a double bounce，a skip，a knee-up，side swings，as well as a variety of other easy-to-learn free-style rope-jumping．
Now researchers are learning that jumping rope also prepares the brain for learning．It is an exercise allowing both brain hemispheres(半球)to perform in parallel(并行地)to each other．In short，jumping rope can be a life-long activity requiring little equipment，time and space，yet leading to a much healthier life．From the first paragraph we learn that_______ ．
| A．all people now have more advanced equipment |
| B．jumping rope has disappeared from people's memories |
| C．racing around the playground was preferred |
| D．people now like to have exercise in a gym |
Rope jumping has not spread widely because_______ ．
| A．it benefits the cardiovascular system |
| B．it requires little equipment，time and space |
| C．it is neither easy nor enjoyable |
| D．it is considered boring |
The first sentence in the 3rd paragraph implies_____ ．
| A．there are many ways to follow |
| B．the usual way should not be used |
| C．the easiest way is always the best |
| D．there is only one proper way to follow |
According to the researchers, jumping rope _____.
| A．only prepares the brain for learning. |
| B．is suitable for students only |
| C．helps both brain hemispheres work together |
| D．can be dangerous for old people |
What is the author's attitude towards rope jumping?
| A．He is arguing against it. | B．He is sitting on the fence of it. |
| C．He is in favor of it. | D．He is not clear about it. |
He came into the room to shut the windows while we were still in bed and I saw he looked ill. He was shivering, his face was white, and he walked slowly as though it ached to move.
“What's the matter, Schatz?”
“I've got a headache.”
“You better go back to bed.”
“No. I'm all right.”
“You go to bed. I'll see you when I'm dressed.”
But when I came downstairs he was dressed, sitting by the fire, looking a very sick and miserable boy of nine years. When I put my hand on his forehead I knew he had a fever.
“You go up to bed,” I said, “You're sick.”
“I'm all right,” he said.
When the doctor came he took the boy's temperature.
“What's is it?” I asked him.
“One hundred and two.”
Downstairs, the doctor left three different medicines in different colored capsules with instructions for giving them. One was to bring down the fever, another a purgative(泻药), the third to overcome an acid condition. The germs of influenza（流感）can only exist in an acid condition, he explained. He seemed to know all about influenza and said there was nothing to worry about if the fever did not go above one hundred and four degrees. This was a light epidemic(传染病；传染性的) of flu and there was no danger if you avoided pneumonia（肺炎）.
Back in the room I wrote the boy's temperature down and made a note of the time to give the various capsules.
“Do you want me to read to you?”
“All right. If you want to, “ said the boy. His face was very white and there were dark areas under his eyes. He lay still in the bed and seemed very detached（超然的；冷漠的）from what was going on.
I read aloud from Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates（海盗）;but I could see he was not following what I was reading.
“How do you feel, Schatz?” I asked him.
“Just the same, so far,” he said.
I sat at the foot of the bed and read to myself while I waited for it to be time to give another capsule. It would have been natural for him to go to sleep, but when I looked up he was looking at the foot of the bed, looking very strangely.
“Why don't you try to sleep? I'll wake you up for the medicine.”
“I'd rather stay awake.”
After a while he said to me, “You don't have to stay in here with me, Papa, if it bothers you.”
“It doesn't bother me.”
“No, I mean you don't have to stay if it's going to bother you.”
I thought perhaps he was a little lightheaded and after giving him the prescribed capsules at eleven o'clock I went out with my gun and the young hunting dog….I killed two quail(鹌鹑), and missed five, and started back pleased to have found a covey of quail close to the house and happy there were so many left to find on another day.
At the house they said the boy had refused to let anyone come into the room.
“You can't come in,” he said. “You mustn't get what I have.”
I went up to him and found him in exactly the position I had left him, white-faced, but with the tops of his cheeks flushed（发红）by the fever, staring still, as he had stared, at the foot of the bed.
I took his temperature.
“What is it?”
“Something like a hundred,” I said. It was one hundred and two and four tenths.
“It was a hundred and two,” he said.
“Who said so?”
“The doctor.”
“Your temperature is all right,” I said. “It's nothing to worry about.”
“I don't worry,” he said, “but I can't keep from thinking.”
“Don't think,” I said. “Just take it easy.”
“I'm taking it easy,” he said and looked straight ahead, He was evidently holding tight onto himself about something.
“Take this with water.”
“Do you think it will do any good?”
“Of course it will.”
I sat down and opened the Pirate book and began to read, but I could see he was not following, so I stopped.
“About what time do you think I'm going to die?” he asked.
“What?”
“About how long will it be before I die?”
“You aren't going to die. What's the matter with you? “
“Oh, yes, I am, I heard him say a hundred and two.”
“People don't die with a fever of one hundred and two. That's a silly way to talk.”
“I know they do. At school in France the boys told me you can't live with forty-four degrees. I've got a hundred and two.”
He had been waiting to die all day, ever since nine o'clock in the morning.
“You poor Schatz,” I said. “Poor old Schatz. It's like miles and kilometers. You aren't going to die. That's different thermometer. On that thermometer thirty-seven is normal. On this kind it's ninety-eight.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely,” I said, “It's like miles and kilometers. You know, like how many kilometers we make when we do seventy miles in the car?”
“Oh,” he said.
But his gaze at the foot of the bed relaxed slowly. The hold over himself relaxed too, finally, and the next day it was very slack(松驰的) and he cried very easily at little things that were of no importance.The author writes about the doctor’s visit in order to _____.
| A．show the doctor’s knowledge about influenza and its treatment |
| B．show the boy’s illness was quite serious |
| C．create a situation of misunderstanding around which to build a story |
| D．show the father was very much concerned about the boy’s illness |
The pronoun “it” in “Papa, if it bothers you” (line 41) refers to _____.
| A．the boy’s high temperature |
| B．the father giving the medicine to the boy |
| C．the father staying with the boy |
| D．the boy’s death |
It can be inferred from the story that it is _____ by the time the father gets home from hunting.
| A．early in the afternoon |
| B．close to evening |
| C．at noon |
| D．late in the morning |
From the story we know that the boy kept tight control over himself because _____.
| A．he did not want to be a bother to others |
| B．he wanted to recover quickly so that he could go hunting with his father |
| C．he was afraid that he would die if he lost control over himself |
| D．he thought he was going to die and he must show courage in the face of death |
That the boy cried very easily at little things of no importance the next day suggests that _____.
| A．he couldn’t control his emotions when he finally relaxed |
| B．his father would go out hunting without him if he didn’t cry |
| C．something went wrong with his brain after the fever |
| D．he often complained about unimportant things as a spoiled boy |
The theme of the story is _____.
| A．death is something beyond a child’s comprehension |
| B．to be calm and controlled in the face of death is a mark of courage |
| C．misunderstanding can occur even between father and son |
| D．misunderstanding can sometimes lead to an unexpected effect |
WASHINGTON---Think you’re savvy about food safety? That you wash your hands well, scrub away germs, cook your meat properly?
Guess again.
Scientists put cameras in the kitchens of 100 families in Logan, Utah. What was caught on tape in this middle-class, well-educated college town suggests why food poisoning hits so many Americans.
People skipped soap when hand-washing. Used the same towel to wipe up raw meat juice as to dry their hands. Made a salad without washing the lettuce. Undercooked the meat loaf. One even tasted the marinade in which bacteria-ridden raw fish had soaked.
Not to mention the mom who handled raw chicken and then fixed her infant a bottle without washing her hands.
Or another mom who merely rinsed(冲洗) her baby’s juice bottle after it fell into raw eggs---no soap against the salmonella(沙门氏菌) that can lurk(潜伏) in eggs.
“Shocking,” was Utah State University nutritionist Janet Anderson’s reaction.
Specialists call this typical of the average U.S. household: Everybody commits at least some safety sins(罪恶) when they are hurried, distracted by fussy children or ringing phones, simply not thinking about germs. Even Anderson made changes in her kitchen after watching the tapes.
The Food and Drug Administration funded Anderson’s $50,000 study to detect how cooks slip up. The goal is to improve consumers’ knowledge of how to protect themselves from the food poisoning that strikes 76 million Americans each year.
“One of the great barriers in getting people to change is they think they’re doing such a good job already,” said FDA consumer research chief Alan Levy.
Surveys show most Americans blame restaurants for food-borne illnesses. Asked if they follow basic bacteria-fighting tips---listed on the Internet at www.fightbac.org---most insist they’re careful in their kitchens.
Levy says most food poisonings probably occur at home. The videotapes suggest why. People have no idea that they’re messing up, Anderson said. “You just go in the kitchen, and it’s something you don’t think about.”
She described preliminary(初步的) study results at a food meeting last week. Having promised the families anonymity, she didn’t show the tapes.
For $50 and free groceries, families agreed to be filmed. Their kitchens looked clean and presumably(perhaps) they were on their best behavior, but they didn’t know it was a safety study. Hoping to see real-life hygiene, scientists called the experiment “market research” on how people cooked a special recipe.
Scientists bought ingredients for a salad plus either Mexican meat loaf, marinaded halibut or herb-breaded chicken breasts with mustard sauce---recipes designed to catch safety slip-ups.
Cameras started rolling as the cooks put away the groceries.
There was mistake No. 1: Only a quarter stored raw meat and seafood on the refrigerator’s bottom shelf so other foods don’t get contaminated(污染) by dripping juices.
Mistake No. 2: Before starting to cook, only 45 percent washed their hands. Of those, 16 percent didn’t use soap. You’re supposed to wash hands often while cooking, especially after handling raw meat. But on average, each cook skipped seven times that Anderson said they should have washed. Only a third consistently used soap---many just rinsed and wiped their hands on a dish towel. That dish towel became Anderson’s nightmare. Using paper towels to clean up raw meat juice is safest. But dozens wiped the countertop(台面板) with that cloth dish towel---further spreading germs the next time they dried their hands.
Thirty percent didn’t wash the lettuce; others placed salad ingredients on meat-contaminated counters.
Scientists checked the finished meal with thermometers, and Anderson found “alarming” results: 35 percent who made the meat loaf undercooked it, 42 percent undercooked the chicken and 17 percent undercooked the fish.
Must you use a thermometer? Anderson says just because the meat isn’t pink doesn’t always mean it got hot enough to kill bacteria.
Anderson’s study found gaps in food-safety campaigns. FDA’s “Fight Bac” antibacterial program doesn’t stress washing vegetables. Levy calls those dirty dish towels troubling; expect more advice stressing paper towels.
Anderson’s main message: “If people would simply wash their hands and clean food surfaces after handling raw meat, so many of the errors would be taken care of.”Where did this article most likely come from?
| A．The Internet. | B．A newspaper. | C．A Textbook. | D．A brochure. |
What is the purpose of Paragraphs 4 through 6?
| A．To present the author’s opinion about the study. |
| B．To explain how the study was conducted. |
| C．To state the reason for the food safety study. |
| D．To describe things observed in the study. |
What prevents many Americans practicing better food safety in their kitchen?
| A．They don’t trust the Food and Drug Administration. |
| B．They’ve followed basic bacteria-fighting tips on the Internet. |
| C．They think they are being careful enough already. |
| D．They believe they are well-informed and well-educated enough. |
Which of the following would prevent most cases of food poisoning in the home?
| A．Washing hands and cleaning surfaces after handling raw meat. |
| B．Strictly following recipes and cooking meat long enough. |
| C．Storing raw meat on the bottom shelf in the refrigerator. |
| D．Using paper towels t clean up raw meat juice. |
What is the main purpose of this article?
| A．To discourage people from cooking so much meat at home. |
| B．To criticize the families who participated in the study. |
| C．To introduce the Food and Drug Administration’s food safety campaigns. |
| D．To report the results of a study about the causes of food poisoning. |
Below is a passages adapted from a website.
| Tayka Hotel De Sal Where: Tahua, Bolivia  How much: About $95 a night Why it’s cool: You’ve stayed at hotels made of brick or wood, but salt? That’s something few can claim. Tayka Hotel de Sal is made totally of salt---including the beds (though you’ll sleep on regular mattresses (床垫) and blankets). The hotel sits on the Salar de Uyuni, a prehistoric dried-up lake that’s the world’s biggest salt flat. Builders use the salt from the 4,633-square-mile flat to make the bricks, and glue them together with a paste of wet salt that hardens when it dries. When rain starts to dissolve the hotel, the owners just mix up more salt paste to strengthen the bricks. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------- Green Magic Nature Resort Where: Vythiri, India  How much: About $240 a night Why it’s cool: Taking a pulley(滑轮)-operated lift 86 feet to your treetop room is just the start of your adventure. As you look out of your open window---there is no glass!---you watch monkeys and birds in the rain forest canopy(罩蓬). Later you might test your fear of heights by crossing the handmade rope bridge to the main part of the hotel, or just sit on your bamboo bed and read. You don’t even have to come down for breakfast---the hotel will send it up on the pulley-drawn “elevator”. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------- Dog Bark Park Inn B&B Where: Cottonwood, Idaho  How much: $92 a night Why it’s cool: This doghouse isn’t just for the family pet. Sweet Willy is a 30-foot-tall dog with guest rooms in his belly. Climb the wooden stairs beside his hind leg to enter the door in his side．You can relax in the main bedroom, go up a few steps of the loft(阁楼）in Willy’s head, or hang out inside his nose. Although you have a full private bathroom in your quarters, there is also a toilet in the 12-foot-tall fire hydrant (消防栓）outside. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------- Gamirasu Cave Hotel Where: Ayvali, Turkey  How much: Between $130 and $475 a night. Why it’s cool: This is caveman cool! Experience what it was like 5,000 years ago, when people lived in these mountain caves formed by volcanic ash. But your stay will be much more modern. Bathrooms and electricity provide what you expect from a modern hotel, and the white volcanic ash, called tufa, keeps the rooms cool, about 65℉in summer. (Don’t worry---there is heat in winter.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------- Treebones Resort Where: California, America  How much: $100 a night Why it’s cool: You can sleep in a “room” any night, but how often do you get the chance to sleep in a yurt. What’s a yurt? Good question. Yurts are the name given to guest rooms at the Treebones Resort. These spaces provide all of the accessibility to nature you’d enjoy in a tent, but with all the comforts of a cabin. In one of sixteen yurts, you will doze off(打盹儿) while gazing at the stars that can be seen through a sky dome. |
What is the main purpose of this passage?
| A．To sell the hotels. |
| B．To attract guests. |
| C．To offer good service. |
| D．To get popular. |
If you want to experience a thrilling life, you’d better go to ____________.
| A．Treebones Resort |
| B．Gamirasu Cave Hotel |
| C．Dog Bark Park Inn B&B |
| D．Green Magic Nature Resort |
Sweet Willy is the name of ____________.
| A．a doghouse for the family pet |
| B．a thirty-foot-tall family dog |
| C．the building of Dog Bark Park Inn B&B |
| D．the guest rooms in Dog Bark Park Inn B&B |
Which of the following words can best describe all the five hotels in the passage?
| A．Unique. | B．Ordinary. | C．Costly. | D．Natural. |
It’s nearly noon on a Saturday and you can’t believe it: your teenager is still in bed, sleeping away. But before you wake him up---mumbling to yourself that you can’t believe what a lazybones he is---you should know that he probably needs all the zzzs he can get.
As much as nine hours of sleep a night, in fact. Furthermore, teens’ circadian rhythms (i.e., processes that occur once a day) mean that young people would rather stay up past midnight and rise after 9 a.m. The result? Many teens stay up late, drag themselves out of bed early for school and try to make up the sleep debt on the weekends---or in class!
“There’s a biological reason why teens stay up late and want to sleep late,” says Dr. Stan Kutcher, the Sun Life Chair of Adolescent Mental Health at Dalhousie University in Halifax. “Their natural sleep-wake cycle changes as part of the maturation process. And because of changes in their social activities, recovering from sleep debt is more problematic.”
Teens need extra sleep for several reasons. First, their brains are changing. “The brain is reorganizing itself, laying down new pathways. What we’re seeing is a relationship between brain redevelopment and an increased need for sleep,” says Kutcher. As well, growth hormones are released during sleep, so adequate sleep is crucial for adolescents’ physical development. In addition, everything adolescents have learned in school that day is being processed and locked into long-term memory during sleep. Sufficient sleep also plays a key role in overall physical health. The immune system, for example, needs deep sleep to become and remain robust(healthy).
Staying up late on school nights means that, on average, teens get between six and a half and seven hours of sleep a night---about two hours less than they need. As a result, many either doze off in class or have trouble concentrating. Some of the behavioural problems and irritability in teens can be linked directly to sleep deprivation(损失), Kutcher says.
Then there’s the breakfast issue. Dr. Carlyle Smith, a sleep researcher and a psychology professor at Trent University in Peterborough, Ont., adds that many teens simply cannot tolerate food when they first wake up, so skipping breakfast becomes another factor in reduced alertness in class. The most obvious solution to the teen sleep problem is to have school start later in the day, but initiatives(积极性) toward this across the country have gone nowhere, Smith says, mainly because of costs and resistance from school boards and teachers.
So for now, just sympathize with your teens. Encourage them to go to bed, if not early, then at least at a regular time, so they won’t develop insomnia from erratic(不稳定的) schedules. Warn them not to have too many caffeinated drinks before bed. And don’t let sleeping away the weekend become an issue to fight over. Schedule family activities to take place later in the day on weekends and let them sleep in. “If you want your kids to grow and remember stuff, let them sleep,” says Smith. “It’s not laziness. Their brains are working really, really hard.” The word “zzzs” (Paragraph 1) most probably means __________.
| A．food | B．sleep | C．energy | D．blame |
What causes teenagers to be less sleepy late at night and more sleepy early in the morning?
| A．Caffeinated drinks. |
| B．Too much family activities. |
| C．Circadian rhythms. |
| D．Too much homework. |
How many reason why teens need extra sleep are mentioned in Paragraph 4?
| A．Three. | B．Four. | C．Five. | D．Six. |
One of the reasons why many teenagers fail to have better performances in class is that __________.
| A．teenagers go to bed early and sleep late |
| B．teenagers stay up late and get up late |
| C．teenagers participate in too many social activities at night |
| D．teenagers skip breakfast because of sleeping in |
The author wrote this article to __________.
| A．advise parents to let sleeping teenagers lie |
| B．explain why teenagers often sleep late |
| C．state schools should start late in the day |
| D．warn teenagers not to drink coffee before bed |
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