Healthy knees aren’t the main consideration in choosing high heels,but new research says chunky heels are just as bad for the knees as spindly stilettos（细高跟鞋）.“It takes a long time to feel the effects of knee osteoarthritis（骨关节炎）—and once you do it,it is too late,”said Dr.Casey Kerrigan,leading researcher of the study and associate professor at Harvard Medical School’s department of physical medicine.“I compare it to smoking—one cigarette is not painful,but over a lifetime it is.Wide-heeled shoes feel comfortable,so women wear them all day long,”Kerrigan said.“They are better for your feet than stiletto heels,but just as bad for your knees.”

In the study,researchers had twenty women wear two pairs of shoes with three-inch heels,one with a narrow heel and the other with a thick one.The scientists compared how much pressure was put on the women’s knees by both types of shoes.The women also walked bare-foot to test normal pressure.The scientists found that both types of shoes applied equal amounts of pressure to the knees.Compared with walking barefoot,the heels increased pressure on the inside of the knee by 26 percent.Increased pressure on the knee eventually leads to arthritis,experts say.

The idea that high heels are bad for your health isn’t new—scientists have warned women for years that they contribute to problems ranging from corns to hammer toes,tendonitis,knee pain,sprained(扭伤)ankles and back problems.But in 1998,Kerrigan and a team of Harvard researchers were the first to link high heels and knee osteoarthritis,a painful joint disease that destroys cartilage(软骨)surrounding the knee.The first study looked only at stiletto heels,and Kerrigan said she wanted to study the chunky high-heeled shoes she noticed many women wearing.“This study confirms what we all intuitively（直觉地）know that high-heeled shoes of any kind are not good for our health,”said Dr.Glem Pfeffer,a San Francisco doctor and member of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons who was not connected to the study.

We learn from the passage that women choose chunky heels because _________.

A.they want to walk comfortably

B.chunky heeled shoes are cheaper than stiletto heeled pairs

C.chunky heels do less harm to knees

D.chunky heels are not painful at all

The study mentioned in the second paragraph found that _________.

A.pressure on the foot is caused by high heels

B.the pressure is abnormal while walking barefoot

C.arthritis is always caused by pressure on the knees

D.both types of shoes have the same harm to the knees

It can be inferred from the passage that _________.

A.people got to know the high heels are bad for health recently

B.people have known the high heels are bad for health for years

C.people haven’t known the high heels are bad for health yet

D.people will be warned that the high heels are bad for health soon

Kerrigan’s late study looked at the chunky high-heeled shoes because _________.

A.they feel more comfortable

B.they are related to knee osteoarthritis

C.they are worn by many women

D.they are different from stiletto heels

The best title for the passage may be _________.

A.Talking Healthy Knees into Consideration

B.High-heels Do Harm to Knees

C.Chunky Heels and Stiletto Heels

D.When Wearing High-heels

People from East Asia tend to have more difficulty than those from Europe in distinguishing facial expressions--and a new report published online in Current Biology explains why.

      Rachael Jack, University of Glasgow researcher, said that rather than scanning evenly

(均匀的) across a face as Westerners do, Easterners fix their attention on the eyes.

      "We show that Easterners and Westerners look at different face features to read facial expressions," Jack said. "Westerners look at the eyes and the mouth in equal measure, whereas Easterners favor the eyes and neglect (忽略) the mouth."

      According to Jack and her colleagues, the discovery shows that human communication of emotion is more complex than previously believed. As a result, facial expressions that had been considered universally recognizable cannot be used to reliably convey emotion in cross-cultural situations.

      The researchers studied cultural differences in the recognition of facial expressions by recording the eye movements of 13 Western Caucasian and 13 East Asian people while they observed pictures of. expressive faces and put them into categories: happy, sad, surprised, fearful, disgusted, angry, or neutral. They compared how accurately participants read those facial expressions using their particular eye movement strategies.

      It turned out that Easterners focused much greater attention on the eyes and made significantly more errors than did Westerners. "The cultural difference in eye movements that they show is probably a reflection of cultural difference in facial expressions," Jack said. "Our data suggest that whereas Westerners use the whole face to convey emotion, Easterners use the eyes more and mouth less."

    In short, the data show that facial expressions are not universal signals of human emotion. From here on, examining how cultural factors have diversified these basic social skills will help our understanding of human emotion. Otherwise, when it comes to communicating emotions across cultures, Easterners and Westerners will find themselves lost in translation.

The discovery shows that Westerners __

    A. pay equal attention to the eyes and the mouth

    B. consider facial expressions universally reliable

    C. observe the eyes and the mouth in different ways

    D. have more difficulty in recognizing facial expressions

What were the people asked to do in the study?

A. To make a face at each other.    B. To get their faces impressive.

C. To classify some face pictures.   D. To observe the researchers' faces.

What does the underlined word "they" in Paragraph 6 refer to?

A. The participants in the study.

B. The researchers of the study.

C. The errors made during the study.

    D. The data collected from the study.

What can be the best title for the passage?

    A. The Eye as the Window to the Soul

B. Cultural Differences in Reading Emotions

C. Effective Methods to Develop Social Skills

D. How to Increase Cross-cultural Understanding

It seems like every day there's some new research about whether our favorite drinks are good for us.  One day,  science says a glass of red wine a day will help us live longer. The next day, maybe not.  It seems journalists are pretty interested in wine research and the same might be said for coffee.  Now there's been a lot of research into whether coffee's good for our health "the results have really been mixed"，admits Neal Freedman who led the coffee study and published his findings in a medical journal recently.   "There's been some evidence that coffee might increase the risk of certain diseases and there's also  been  maybe  more recent evidence that coffee  may protect against other diseases as well".
Freedman and his colleagues undertook the biggest study yet to look at the relationship between coffee and health.  They analyzed data collected from  more than  400，000 Americans ages 50 to 70 participating in the study.  "We found that the coffee drinkers had a modestly lower risk of death than the non-drinkers， he said.  Here's what he means by "modestly": those who drank at least two or three cups a day were about 10 percent or 15 percent less likely to die for any reason during the 13 years of the study when the researchers looked at specific causes of death, coffee drinking appeared to cut the  risk  of  dying from  heart  disease, lung  disease injuries,  accidents  and infections.
Now, Freedman stressed that the study doesn't prove coffee can make people live longer .A study like this can never prove a cause-and-effect relationship.  All it can really do is to point researchers in the right direction for further investigation. And even if it turns out that coffee is really good for you, scientists have no idea why.
【小题1】According to the first paragraph，reporters  would like to  know  the research findings of_______.

A． tea

B． beer

C． coffee

D． wine

【小题2】According to the passage, which of the following is TRUE?

A． Freedman and his colleagues hired 400，000 Americans to collect date.

B． People who took part in Freedman's research are about 50 to 70 years old.

C． About 400, 000 Americans worked for Freedman's team for 13 years.

D． People who are 50 to 70 years old seldom drink wffee.

【小题3】According to the author, scientists________.

A． have already proved that coffee is good for human health

B． have a long way to go before they find a way to study coffee

C． have avoided the cause-and-effect approach to study coffee

D． are still unable to figure out why coffee is good for us

【小题4】Which of the following can be the best title?

A． The Magical Effects of Coffee

B． Neal Freedman and His Research

C． Can Coffee Help You Live Longer?

D． A Cup of Coffee A Day Makes Diseases Away

I learned about life from an ant farm. When I was seven years old, my family tried to __1__ an ant farm at home. First, we put clean sand in a thin glass box, and then we brought some ants from the backyard and placed them into the __2__ home.

Shortly after the new __3__ were dropped into the glass structure, they got to work making tunnels. I was amazed that each one knew __4__ what to do. After hours of staring, I realized that the ants had particular given jobs. With my mom’s help, I kept a journal of what happened each day and __5__ the ants. My favorite was the biggest, Cinderella. I drew a picture of her in my journal, which I still have.

On day five a disaster __6__ the ant farm. While I was __7__ the ants, I had put my face so close to the structure that I accidentally tipped it over, __8__ in all the tunnels. Although the ants __9__ their earthquake, one by one they began to die. I was __10__ as I watched them give up their tunnel-building to carry the bodies to a corner of the farm. My mother reported that the ants were dying of “frustration”—feeling annoyed and impatient as they couldn’t control the situation. They simply could not __11__ the reality that their tunnels had been destroyed. Cinderella was the last to die; she did so while carrying a dead ant on her back.

Although much time has passed, I still think of that ant farm. Mom had hoped it would teach me about the natural world, __12__ it taught me much more. __13__ the years, I came to realize the ants were a study in the benefits of __14__. Working together, they were able to create a(n) __15__ world for themselves. I also learned that they should be __16__ for their hard work. Day in and day out, each labored at their task. The ant farm demonstrated that teamwork and perseverance are indeed two key __17__ to success. But there was an even larger lesson that I did not __18__ until recently: Disaster is a natural part of life, and must be __19__. Unlike the ants, humans cannot give up when they face __20__. Unlike the ants, we have to realize that if a tunnel caves in, we just have to build another.

1.                A．get            B．buy            C．run  D．find

 

2.                A．empty          B．new           C．strange   D．distant

 

3.                A．guests          B．settlers         C．friends   D．members

 

4.                A．probably        B．roughly         C．exactly   D．normally

 

5.                A．named         B．trained         C．compared     D．measured

 

6.                A．affected        B．struck          C．kicked    D．beat

 

7.                A．removing       B．teaching        C．observing D．collecting

 

8.                A．turning         B．rushing         C．filling D．caving

 

9.                A．experienced     B．predicted       C．faced D．survived

 

10.               A．annoyed        B．horrified        C．moved    D．thrilled

 

11.               A．reflect         B．ignore         C．confirm   D．stand

 

12.               A．and           B．but            C．so    D．or

 

13.               A．In             B．For            C．From D．Over

 

14.               A．teamwork       B．devotion        C．responsibility   D．organization

 

15.               A．relaxing        B．amusing        C．moving    D．amazing

 

16.               A．supported      B．inspired        C．admired   D．admitted

 

17.               A．certificates      B．approaches     C．ingredients D．circumstances

 

18.               A．give           B．realize         C．take  D．adopt

 

19.               A．accepted       B．suffered        C．achieved D．managed

 

20.               A．challenges      B．barriers        C．pressure  D．disappointment

 

 

When one looks back upon the fifteen hundred years that are the life span of the English language, he should be able to notice a number of significant truths. The history of our language has always been a history of constant change—at times a slow, almost imperceptible change, at other times a violent collision between two languages. Our language has always been a living growing organism, it has never been static. Another significant truth that emerges from such a study is that language at all times has been the possession not of one class or group but of many. At one extreme it has been the property of the common, ignorant folk, who have used it in the daily business of their living, much as they have used their animals or the kitchen pots and pans.         At the other extreme it has been the treasure of those who have respected it as an instrument and a sign of civilization, and who have struggled by writing it down to give it some permanence, order, dignity, and if possible, a little beauty. 

As we consider our changing language, we should note here two developments that are of special and immediate importance to us. One is that since the time of the Anglo-Saxons there has been an almost complete reversal of the different devices for showing the relationship of words in a sentence. Anglo-Saxon (old English) was a language of many inflections. Modern English has few inflections. We must now depend largely on word order and function words to convey the meanings that the older language did by means of changes in the forms of words. Function words, you should understand, are words such as prepositions, conjunctions, and a few others that are used primarily to show relationships among other words. A few inflections, however, have survived. And when some word inflections come into conflict with word order, there may be trouble for the users of the language, as we shall see later when we turn our attention to such maters as WHO or WHOM and ME or I. The second fact we must consider is that as language itself changes, our attitudes toward language forms change also. The eighteenth century, for example, produced from various sources a tendency to fix the language into patterns not always set in and grew, until at the present time there is a strong tendency to restudy and re-evaluate language practices in terms of the ways in which people speak and write.

1．In contrast to the earlier linguists, at present, more and more attention is paid to_________.

A. the standardization of the language 

B. language practices in terms of current speech rather than standards or proper patterns 

C. the improvement of the language than its history 

D. the rules of the language usage 

2．From the study we know that language is ________.

A. a possession of upper class. 

B. a possession of lower class. 

C. a possession of the whole society. 

D. the only property of those who treasure it much. 

3．Which of the following statements is NOT mentioned in the passage? 

A. It is generally believed that the year 1500 can be set as the beginning of the Modern English.

B. Some other languages had great influence on the English language in its development. 

C. The English language has been and still in a state of relatively constant change. 

D. Many classes or groups have contributed to the development of the English language. 

4．The author of these paragraphs is probably a(an) _________. 

A. writer specially interested in English                   

B. person who pays much attention to people of lower classs          

C. teacher who teaches the English language             

D. expert in studying languages 

5．Which of the following can be best used as the title of the passage? 

A. The history of the English language. 

B. Our changing attitude towards the English language. 

C. Our changing language. 

D. Some characteristics of modern English.