Question

If you are sitting down listening to what I’m going to say, stand up. Move your legs. Touch your toes, if you can. Do anything but sit.

If you cut down on the time you spend sitting, you might live longer. New research shows that sitting less than three hours a day might extend your life by two years.

Just the opposite, says Peter Katzmarzyk. He is a scientist at the University of Louisiana in the southern United States. He says that sitting is ubiquitous in our lives. "We sit while we're eating; we sit in the car; we sit while we watch TV. Many of us sit for many hours at work. " But, he adds, that does not make sitting good for us. The human body is designed to move. But modern lifestyles and office jobs rarely give us the chance to move around.

Exercise is important. So is not sitting.

"We can't throw away physical activity. It's extremely important. We have 60 years of research showing us that. Even if you exercise for 30 minutes a day, what goes on in the other 23-and-a-half hours a day is also very important."

Mr. Katzmarzyk and his co-workers are part of a new generation of researchers studying how sitting all day affects length of life. This is a relatively new area of study—studies that have assessed the relationship between sitting and mortality(死亡) or television viewing and mortality.

Making uses of the few studies available to them, they found that cutting television time to less than two hours a day could add one-point four years to life.

New desk designs are helping

Change is already coming to some offices, especially in the design of desks. A "standing desk" lets people stand while they work. Another new design is called the "treadmill desk." A treadmill is an exercise machine that lets you walk in one place. That's one of the strategies that many companies are using now. Some companies may equip their employees with a "standing desk" or a "treadmill desk". Other companies may not buy one for everybody, but they'll have a bank of these desks where people can go for an hour a day and answer their emails or talk on the phone. Even some U.S. schools are beginning to experiment with such desks to keep children moving.

Mr. Katzmarzyk says studying this problem has inspired his team to make a few changes in their own lives. "As a university professor, you know, it is a very sedentary occupation. We're chained to a desk in terms of writing papers and doing research. We really try to limit the amount of time we spend doing that."

Suggestions for sitting less

If you work in office job or have a sedentary job, Mr. Katzmarzyk and his team suggest a few simple changes:

get up from your desk as often as you can take walks at lunch time walk to your colleagues’ offices and talk directly instead of emailing them All these activities may help you live longer.

1.What might be the best title for the passage?

A. Take exercise, keep fit.

B. Change more, achieve greater.

C. Talk directly, improve relationship.

D. Sit less, live longer.

2.The word “ubiquitous ” (in Para. 3) means “_______”.

A. common B. normal

C. individual D. specific

3. Mr Katzmarzyk holds the view that _______.

A. the study doesn’t benefit him at all

B. it’s unnecessary to limit television time

C. emailing colleagues is better than a face-to-face talk

D. those taking exercises 30 minutes a day still can’t sit long

4. The passage is most likely to be _______.

A. a medical research B. a book review

C. a health report D. a sports feature

Answer 1

1.D

2.A

3.D

4.C

【解析】

试题分析：本文主要讲坐着的坏处，以及给了读者如何减少坐着时间的几点建议，告知读者坐的越少活得越久.

1.If you cut down on the time you spend sitting, you might live longer坐的时间越少活得越长，本文全文都在号召人们少坐，故选D

2.We sit while we're eating; we sit in the car; we sit while we watch TV. Many of us sit for many hours at work.吃饭时坐着，在车里坐着，看电视坐着，我们工作时花费数小时坐着，可知坐很普遍，故选A

3.We really try to limit the amount of time we spend doing that. Mr Katzmarzyk说我们不得不限制坐着的时间，可知他赞成坐的越少越好，故选D

4.

考点：考查科普文阅读