Crossword puzzles and exercise are just a few of the habits that improve memory best. But to 1. (true) give your brain a push, you might want to take a simple tip to heart-and it’s nothing you learned in school.
So far, researchers from Waterloo University in Canada 2. (discover) what may be the easiest way to improve your memory ever. Their research, recently 3. ( publish) in the journal Memory, suggests that reading out loud to yourself can increase your recall skills 4. up to 15%.
In the study, scientists asked 95 participants to test four 5. (method): reading, silently, hearing someone else read, reading aloud and listening to a recording of oneself reading. Their result? The people 6. read the information out loud showed the best retention(保持)rates—about 15% 7. (high) in learning speed, in fact. You may want to add these brain-boosting foods that can improve memory to your diet, too.
“Read 8. needs to be remember out loud, and you’ll remember it better. Yes, it’s shat simple!” psychologist and study co-author Colin Macleod said.
So next time when you ‘re preparing for a big exam, spend some time 9. (read) loud. Trust us. It might make you 10. genius.
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
Ever walked to the shops only to find, once there, you’ve completely forgotten what you went for? Or struggled to remember the name of an old friend? For years we’ve accepted that a forgetful brain is as much a part of aging as wrinkles and gray hair. But now a new book suggests that we’ve got it all wrong.
According to The Secret Life of the Grown-up Brain, by science writer Barbara Strauch, when it comes to the important things, our brains actually get better with age. In fact, she argues that some studies have found that our brain hits its peak between our 40s and 60s — much later than previously thought.
Furthermore, rather than losing many brain cells as we age, we keep them, and even produce new ones well into middle age. For years it’s been assumed that brain, much like the body, declines with age. But the longest, largest study into what happens to people as they age suggests otherwise.
This continuing research has followed 6,000 people since 1956, testing them every seven years. It has found that on average, participants performed better on cognitive (认知的) tests in their 40s and 50s than they had done in their 20s. Specifically, older people did better on tests of vocabulary, verbal memory (how many words you can remember) and problem solving. Where they performed less well was number ability and perceptual speed — how fast you can push a button when ordered. However, with more complex tasks such as problem-solving and language, we are at our best at middle age and beyond. In short, researchers are now coming up with scientific proof that we do get wiser with age.
Neuroscientists are also finding that we are happier with aging. A recent US study found older people were much better at controlling and balancing their emotions. It is thought that when we’re younger we need to focus more on the negative aspects of life in order to learn about the possible dangers in the world, but as we get older we’ve learned our lessons and are aware that we have less time left in life: therefore, it becomes more important for us to be happy.
1.Barbara Strauch probably agrees that ______.
A.the young are better at handling important things
B.wrinkles and gray hair are the only symbols of aging
C.aging leads to the decline of the function of the brain
D.people’s brains work best between their 40s and 60s
2.The continuing research has found older people perform better on ______.
A.vocabulary tests B.number ability
C.perceptual speed D.body balance
3.People are happier with aging because ______.
A.they know how to share feelings B.they learn to value the time left
C.they cannot focus on negative aspects D.they do not realize the possible dangers
4.What is the main idea of the passage?
A.People get happier with age. B.People get more forgetful with age.
C.People get wiser with age. D.People get more self-aware with age.
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
In Asia, the best food is found not in fancy restaurants, but in the carts and stalls lining busy streets. These following snacks are not only local to their city or country, but also show the delicious range of structure and flavour.
Xiaolongbao-Shanghai, China
Shanghai’s Xiaolongbao is filled with pork and aspic, which makes it special. Aspic is a meat combination that melts into soup when heated. As a result, the tiny buns are tasty and salty. They are found throughout the city, so people enjoy standing up at street stalls and restaurant-fronts by Shanghai's business set.
Pho-Hanoi, Vietnam
Pho is noodle soup. Ingredients in the soup are simple: noodles, meat (chicken or beef), and garnishes (green onion, Thai basil, lime and chilis). But what really sets pho apart is its soup, made by simmering bones with onion and ginger, spices and seasonings, ideally for hours on end to get the flavour just right.
Penang AsamLaksa-Penang, Malaysia
Penang AsamLaksa is spicy noodle soup made with thick rice noodles. The dish is made more notable with the addition of lemongrass, spicy (辛辣的) chilis, sweet pineapple, cilantro, onions and fresh mint garnishes. Penangites have loved their asam laksas for some time and with their loving additions to their favorite recipe.
Som Tam-Bangkok, Thailand
This fruit salad is a mix of papaya, a local fruit,and the following ingredients:sugar, chilis, fish sauce, garlic, tomato, among others. This dish is not sweet like you might expect, but sour, salty or spicy in equal measure. Local variations add in everything from peanuts to crab, but in Bangkok you'll find the spiciest versions, which can be as challenging to eat as they are delicious.
1.What can you find Xiaolongbao special about?
A.You can find it filled with pork.
B.You can enjoy meat soup when it is heated.
C.You can enjoy it throughout the whole city.
D.You can find it filled with salty and delicious meat.
2.Which two snacks contain noodles?
A.Xiaolongbao and Pho.
B.Xiaolongbao and Som Tam.
C.Pho and Penang AsamLaksa.
D.Penang AsamLaksa and Som Tam.
3.What is the main characteristic of Som Tam in Bangkok?
A.Hot. B.Salty.
C.Sweet. D.Sour.
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
Two summers ago, Spencer Seabrooke stepped off the edge of a cliff and out into the air. He was held up by a narrow band of fabric, three centimetres wide. The slackline (扁带) went over a deep channel on the top of Stawamus Chief Mountain in Squamish, Canada. The plan was to walk across without safety equipment. The ground was 290 metres below Seabrook’s feet. A fall meant death. The walking distance of 64 metres would mark a world record in free solo slacklining.
“You’re standing on nothing,” Seabrooke said at the time. “Everything inside your body is telling you this is wrong.” Several steps into the crossing, Seabrooke looked down. He lowered his body to steady himself and reached with his hands to hold the slackline. He suddenly turned over but hung on. He righted himself, let out a few screams, and stood again. He had walked the same slackline-with assistance-many times before. Finally, he crossed in four minutes and made it.
Slacklining became known in the early 1980s, around the rock climbing scene at Yosemite National Park in California. Scott Balcom, in 1985, was the first to walk on a 17-metre highline on Lost Arrow Spire, the valley bottom some 880 metres below. Charles “Chongo” Tucker, who has been living in Yosemite for a long time, was there in slacklining’s earliest days. Later, in 1994, he was one of the next people to walk the Lost Arrow Spire highline. “As scared as I was, it was as cool as anything I’ve ever done in my life,” said Tucker.
Seabrooke grew up in Peterborough, Canada, in love with the outdoors. He saw a documentary in 2012 that was about Andy Lewis, a slackliner and free solo pioneer who performed at the Super Bowl. Seabrooke was attracted and devoted himself to the sport. Three years later, he walked his record free solo highline on the Stawamus Chief.
The attention Seabrooke won led to work, everything from commercials to paid appearances at slackline festivals from Poland to China. “When you step out into the air, there’s something so clean about it,” said Seabrooke. “Height makes it real.”
1.What do we know about Seabrooke’s slacklining experience two years ago?
A.It was record-breaking.
B.It was done in Yosemite.
C.It involved materials for security.
D.It presented no challenge to him.
2.What did Seabrooke’s words in Paragraph 2 imply?
A.He was very confident.
B.He made a wrong decision.
C.Slacklining was a dangerous sport.
D.Slacklining was done without any support.
3.What was Tucker’s attitude to slacklining?
A.Negative. B.Ambiguous.
C.Frustrated. D.Favorable.
4.What encouraged Seabrooke to start slacklining?
A.The Super Bowl.
B.A slackline festival.
C.Its commercial promise.
D.A slackliner’s performance.
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
Austin residents and businesses are making efforts to put their leftovers to good use. The city is among a handful of U.S.cities aiming for “zero waste”.
For Austin, there are plenty to go around: it annually wastes more than 190 million pounds of food, worth at least $200 million. Those numbers are big, but they're not out of line with national trends-some 40 percent of food in the nation goes to waste. Put in plain terms, that is enough to fill a 90,000-seat stadium each day.
For many, the answer lies in donation. Austin City Limits, one of the city’s influential festivals, gives all unwanted food to the Central Texas Food Bank. And there are volunteer-driven nonprofits that pick up donated food and deliver it to hungry people.
But the best practice, Austin believes, is to use less, and the city is calling on businesses and households to buy the right amount of food. Full Fridge, a new meal-delivery service, solves this problem. “Full Fridge came about because, basically, we were seeing a lot of people not knowing how to prepare food,” says co-founder Mokshika Sharma. They would buy groceries, but not know what to do with them, and end up throwing away a lot.
Her business hopes to end that problem by offering ready-made meals for only five dollars each. Full Fridge also minimizes waste by stopping sales two days before delivery, so the chef and shopper can plan precisely.
Another satisfactory solution is to compost(将......制成堆肥) it. Austin’s restaurants and grocery stores typically contract with composting companies to deal with much of their food waste, and then sell it as fertilizer. Meanwhile, Compost Pedallers, a company created by Dustin Fedako, is working on bicycle-powered compost collection.
“We play the dot-connecter,” says Fedako, “getting the material from those of us who are making it to the people in the community who use it as a resource to grow more food, and to grow better quality food.”
1.What do the figures in Paragraph 2 indicate?
A.The urgent need for donated food. B.The rapid growth in food donation.
C.The ambitious goal of “zero waste”. D.The serious problem of food waste.
2.Paragraph 3 mainly talks about Austin' s efforts to______.
A.feed the hungry. B.make use of leftovers.
C.build more volunteer-driven nonprofits. D.hold festivals to entertain its residents.
3.Who are Full Fridge's target customers?
A.Those with too little food. B.Those with poor cooking skills.
C.Those with unhealthy eating habits. D.Those with little time to buy groceries.
4.What does Fedako mean by saying “We play the dot-connecter”?
A.They find it rather easy to collect food waste.
B.They hope people will buy better quality food.
C.They link food waste producers to fertilizer users.
D.They are trying to connect with composting companies.
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
When should the speakers be at the airport?
A.At 2:00 a.m. B.Around 11:00 p.m. C.No later than 10:00 p.m.
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
What is the conversation mainly about?
A.A trip to Paris. B.The woman’s dress. C.A competition.
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
What does the man think of the cereal?
A.It is too sweet. B.It tastes delicious. C.It needs more sugar.
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
What will the man do next?
A.Pay Laura for her ticket.
B.Buy an extra ticket for Laura.
C.Ask Laura for some suggestions.
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
Where is the history section?
A.In the front of the store. B.Up the stairs. C.Down the hallway.
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
听下面一段较长对话，回答以下小题。
1.Who are the speakers?
A.Teachers. B.Students. C.Workers.
2.What will the woman probably do in the end?
A.Rent an apartment.
B.Buy an air-conditioner.
C.Move into another dormitory.
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
听下面一段较长对话，回答以下小题。
1.What does the girl want to do?
A.Borrow a car. B.Get a concert ticket. C.Pick up her mother.
2.Who wants to go to a concert with the girl?
A.Eric. B.Smelly Toes. C.Her mother.
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
听下面一段较长对话，回答以下小题。
1.What are the speakers mainly discussing?
A.The food. B.Different customs. C.The health.
2.How does the host know the guest is full according to the man?
A.The guest refuses the offered food.
B.The guest eats up all the food.
C.The guest leaves some food on the plate.
3.Where does the woman come from probably?
A.China. B.The USA. C.The UK.
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
听下面一段较长对话，回答以下小题。
1.Why does the woman need some special things?
A.To celebrate her wedding anniversary.
B.To make her pretty at the wedding.
C.To have a happy marriage.
2.What has the woman got from her grandmother?
A.A diamond ring. B.A wedding dress. C.Blue flowers.
3.What is the woman looking for?
A.Something borrowed. B.Something new. C.Something old.
4.Where does the man usually put the coin?
A.In his purse. B.In his shoe. C.In his pocket.
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
听下面一段独白，回答以下小题。
1.How long has the speaker been a history teacher?
A.Nearly 3 years. B.Almost 13 years. C.About 30 years.
2.What is the main point of the lecture?
A.The importance of history education.
B.A new method of history education.
C.The purpose of learning history.
3.What do teachers usually begin with in terms of the history of business?
A.The problem of present economy.
B.The history of the Industrial Revolution.
C.The government action in the past.
4.What does the speaker say about the traditional approach?
A.It makes students memorize facts mechanically.
B.It is the most effective way of learning history.
C.It helps students understand the importance of history.
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia (百科全书), is the largest encyclopedia ever. An encyclopedia is a collection of informative articles about various things. Encyclopedias used to be printed as books. 1.
“Wiki”is an internet term that means”a website that can be edited by the public. “It comes from”wikiwiki”，a Hawaiian word for”quick”. Two Americans, Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger, created Wikipedia in 2001.2.It has about 6 million articles in 300 languages and is visited by billions of people each day,who want to find information on just about anything-science, math, languages, art, cultureand company histories. There are articles on sports stars, too, and even long-forgotten soap operas from the 1970s.
3.Except for a small number of pages, anyone can edit articles, anonymously (匿名地) or with a user account, and registered users can create their own articles. Editing is unpaid, although Wikipedia does employ a small staff. Wikipedia is freely available to anyone with an internet connection. Its founders hoped that the model would make use of humanity’s collective knowledge.
4.Many Wikipedia pages contain errors, although the organization has a content review system that works to fix this problem. Several studies have concluded that Wikipedia is as accurate as most print encyclopedias. Indeed, a 2005 report in the journal Nature found it to be only slightly less reliable than Encyclopedia Britannica.
Today Wikipedia faces many challenges. It does not rely on advertising. 5.Perhaps more importantly, the number of its volunteer editors is shrinking.
Despite these difficulties, Jimmy Wales says he will still stick to his dream. He has big plans for the future. He wants Wikipedia available in all of the world’s languages.
A.Instead, all of its funds come from donations.
B.Wikipedia employs an open editing model.
C.It allows users to get information within seconds.
D.It is now the fifth-most visited website on the Internet.
E.Most of its editors are volunteers.
F.Now,they are mostly found online.
G.However,some people doubt the accuracy of Wikipedia's content.
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
Reverend Karen Onesti and Rabbi Andrew Bossov, both in Mt. Laurel, New Jersey, knew each other from a monthly meeting. On this evening ten years ago, however, Onesti could_______something was up with Bossov. So she_______him in the parking lot and asked him how he was doing.
“Not so well,_______,” Bossov replied. “I need a new kidney(肾).”
Bossov’s kidneys were failing, the_______of an experimental drug he’d taken more than a decade earlier for his colitis (结肠炎). Facing dialysis(透析), Bossov had already_______the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) registry, but 70,000 people were in front of him. He’s also been_______close friends and relations to find a live donor, but so far, he hadn’t found a(n)_______.The statistics are_______for people in Bossov’s situation: in the U.S.,20 people die every day waiting for a(n)_______donation.
Onesti didn’t________: “I’ll give you one of mine,” she told Bossov.
Writing in a journal, Bossov________that “ that year that________had many twists and turns as we navigated the hard path toward donating and________an organ. Being accepted for transplant was one thing, but being________for surgery was another, and there were no guarantees.” Bossov began dialysis. However, Onesti________discovered she needed major surgery of her own, an hysterectomy (子宫切除术), before she could be able to________an organ.
But________, both Bossov and Onesti were cleared, and their surgeries were a(n) ________. More than a decade later, the kidney is functioning perfectly, and Bossov is ________“beyond words” every single day. Today, both Bossov and Onesti lead happy and healthy lives, and their ________has deepened over the years.
1.A.admit B.declare C.tell D.imagine
2.A.persuaded B.challenged C.employed D.approached
3.A.deliberately B.unfortunately C.conveniently D.uncertainly
4.A.purpose B.evidence C.result D.advantage
5.A.inspected B.joined C.organized D.introduced
6.A.competing with B.connecting with C.fighting with D.debating with
7.A.match B.mistake C.remark D.explanation
8.A.inaccurate B.meaningless C.comparable D.awful
9.A.blood B.organ C.cash D.food
10.A.hesitate B.participate C.swear D.interrupt
11.A.warned B.guaranteed C.predicted D.reported
12.A.began B.followed C.marked D.changed
13.A.describing B.examining C.preserving D.receiving
14.A.suggested B.complained C.approved D.paid
15.A.unexpectedly B.unsurprisingly C.cheerfully D.cautiously
16.A.select B.find C.donate D.feel
17.A.eventually B.disappointedly C.irregularly D.generously
18.A.joke B.accident C.success D.thought
19.A.amused B.regretful C.scared D.grateful
20.A.friendship B.situation C.conflict D.knowledge
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
假定英语课上老师要求同桌之间交换修改作文，请你修改你同桌写的作文。文中共有10处语言错误，每句中最多有两处。每处错误涉及一个单词的增加、删除或修改。
增加：在缺词处加一个漏字符号（∧），并在其下写出该加的词。
删除：把多余的词用斜线（\）划掉。
修改：在错的词下划一横线，并在该词下面写出修改后的词。
注意：1.每处错误及其修改均仅限一词；
2.只允许修改10处，多者（从第11处起）不计分。
My secret of staying young is simple: Keeping your mind awake and you will stay young all over. Take an interest in the world around you, and learn at least a new thing every day. Don’t think that you are ever too older to go back to school. I know a man entered a medical college at 70. He got his degree with honors and became famous doctor. Other man, with his children encouragement, went to a law school when he was 71 and is now an active lawyer. You may never say that staying young is easy only for those living in the future. In fact, you could do it if you care enough to try to keep your mind awake and active, what is the only way to be always young.
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
假定你是李华，你的纽约笔友Matt对下面这句话非常赞叹：“In every challenge lies an opportunity and a challenge solved would be an opportunity gained-Xi Jinping” (危与机总是同生并存的，克服了危就是机) 他发来邮件跟你分享。请你结合今年高考形势，给Matt回封信。要点如下：
1. 感谢Matt分享习主席的话；
2. 你现阶段的“危”与“机”；
3. 你对Matt的鼓励或安慰。
注意：词数100左右，可以适当增加细节以使行文连贯。
参考词汇：the COVID-19 pandemic(新冠疫情)；self-discipline(自律n.)；reassure(使安心vt.)
Dear Matt,
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Yours truly,
Li Hua
难度: 中等查看答案及解析