A new study found that inner-city kids living...

A new study found that inner-city kids living in neighborhoods with more green space gained about 13% less weight over a two-year period than kids living among more concrete and fewer trees. Such findings tell a powerful story. The obesity epidemic(肥胖症的流行)began in the 1980s, and many people think it results from increased portion（食物） sizes and inactivity , but that can't be everything. Big Macs and TVs have been with us for a long time. "Most experts agree that the changes were related to something in the environment," says Thomas Glass of the Hopkins School of Public Health. That something could be a shrinking of the green.

The new research, published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, isn't the first to associate greenery with better health, but it does get us closer to identifying what works and why. At its most straightforward, a green neighborhood simply means more places for kids to play — which is important since time spent outdoors is one of the strongest links to children's activity levels.

Glass warns that most studies don't necessarily prove a link between greenness and health, but they're helping spur action. In September the U.S. government approved the No Child Left Inside Act to encourage public initiatives (积极性)aimed at exposing kids to the outdoors.

Finding green space is, of course, not always easy, and you may have to work a bit to get your family a little grass and trees. If you live in a suburb or a city with good parks, take advantage of what's there. Your children in particular will love it — and their bodies will thank you.

1.According to the passage, what might cause children’s inactivity?

A. Less concrete and more trees

B. Increased portion sizes

C. A green neighborhood

D. A shrinking of the green

2.According to the passage, which of the following statements is wrong?

A. Big Macs and TVs have something to do with obesity.

B. If a 100-pound man lives in green space for 2 years, he will lose 13 pounds.

C. Kids should be exposed more to outdoors.

D. Kids gain less weight living in a suburb or a city with good parks.

3.What does the underlined word “spur” in the fourth paragraph mean?

A. improve　　　 B. take

C. encourage 　　 D. stop

4.What might be the best title of the passage?

A. The obesity epidemic　　 B. Slimmer in the grass

C. Causes of obesity　　　　 D. Prevention of obesity

高二英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析

Studies show that kids living and studying in a harmonious environment are less likely to become 　　 .

A. abnormal　　 B. aggressive

C. alarmed　　 D. opposed

高二英语单项填空中等难度题查看答案及解析

A new study, which was published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, found that heavy use of platforms such as Facebook and Snapchat was associated with feelings of being separated from society among young adults—basically the opposite of what we are led to believe.

Study co-author Brian Primack and his team surveyed 1,787 U. S. adults aged 19 to 32 and asked them about their usage of 11 social media platforms. They also asked participants questions related to social isolation, such as how often they felt left out. The participants who reported spending the most time on social media—over two hours a day—had twice the odds of perceived（感知到的）social isolation than those who said they spent a half-hour per day or less on the same sites.

According to Tom Kersting, psychotherapist and author of Disconnected, the key to understanding these results lies in our understanding of “connections.” “Humans are social —emotional beings, meaning that it is in our DNA to be connected, face-to-face, with other humans,” he told Reader’s Digest. “Although people think being on social media all the time makes them ‘connected’ to others, they are actually ‘disconnected,’ because the more time one spends behind a screen, the less time one spend face-to-face.”

“Part of the issue of loneliness is that the majority of people who use social media aren’t just posting, they are also viewing,” Kersting continued. “They are spending a lot of time looking at everyone else’s posts, where they are and what they are doing. The constant exposure to everyone else’s ‘perfect’ life experiences causes feelings of being left out.”

So what’s the answer? It’s simple, says Kersting. “The solution to this is resisting the temptation to look at everyone else’s life. Just focus on your own life, where you’re going, what you are grateful for, and what you want to accomplish in this world.”

1.What is the finding of the new study?

A. Humans are social-emotional beings.

B. Social media platforms are overused by the young.

C. Social media strengthens interpersonal relationship.

D. Heavy use of Social media can lead to loneliness.

2.How did the team conduct their research?

A. By asking questions.　　 B. By experimenting.

C. By distributing forms.　　 D. By media reporting.

3.Who might have a strong feeling of social isolation?

A. Those who use a single social media platforms.

B. Those who spend three hours a day on social media.

C. Those who don’t spend time on social media.

D. Those spending a half-hour per day on social media.

4.What does Kersting suggest people do to avoid feelings of social isolation?

A. Never compare with others.　　 B. Make more fiends on the internet.

C. Choose a travel destination.　　 D. Set up a clear goal for the future.

高二英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析

According to the findings of a new study, telling kids they’re smart enhances the idea that intelligence is a genetic gift rather than a skill that ran he improved, and children who think their intelligence is fixer! are not likely to pay attention to mistakes and recover from them.

In the study publisher! online, researchers looked at 123 children who were about 7. The team assessed the children to determine whether they had a “growth mindset（思维定式）”. They asked the children to complete a fast-paced computer task while their brain activities were recorded. During the recording, researchers noted that brain activity stopped within a half-second after making a mistake. The larger the brain response was, the more the child focused on the error.

Based on the data they collected, the researchers concluded that children with a “growth mindset” were much more likely to have a larger brain response after making a mistake, and in turn were more likely to improve their performance by paying closer attention to the task after making an error.

For parents, the lessons are clear: for starters, don’t pay praises that suggest intelligence is fixed. If a child hands you an A test, don’t say “You are smart!” Instead say “Wow, that study really paid off!”

Second, focus on using errors to work together and learn. Many parents and teachers shy away from mentioning a child’s mistakes, telling them “It’s OK. You’ll get it next time.” without giving them the opportunity to figure out what went wrong. Instead, it’s better to tell the child that mistakes happen, and to pay attention and work to figure out where and how they made the mistake.

1.What’s the resold of telling kids they’re clever?

A. They may think efforts are useful.

B. They may be attentive to their mistakes.

C. They may think they’re very clever.

D. They may think intelligence is fixed at birth.

2.How would children with a “growth mindset” react to their mistakes in the study?

A. They would be more careful to their mistakes and more likely to improve.

B. They had a smaller response and would pay no attention to their errors.

C. They would he less attentive to their errors and pay little attention to their mistakes.

D. They are more likely to have a larger brain response before making a mistake.

3.What does the author advise the parents to do when their kids make mistakes?

A. Comfort the kids and stress the efforts they made.

B. Tell them it’s OK and they will get it next time.

C. Praise the progress they made but not their smartness.

D. Let the child think about what mistakes they made.

4.What floes the passage mainly talk about?

A. Praise the children for their intelligence.

B. How to Heal with kids’ performance at school.

C. Proper response to kids’ mistakes and progress.

D. The reflection on kids’ smartness and development.

高二英语阅读理解困难题查看答案及解析

It’s common knowledge that there are many benefits to being fit, but one large new study found that skipping out on the gym is practically the worst thing you can do for your health. In fact, the study claims not exercising might be more harmful to your health than smoking.

New findings, published Friday in the journal JAMA Network Open, detail how researchers at the Cleveland Clinic studied 122,007 patients from 1991 to 2014, putting them under treadmill (跑步机) testing and later recording death rates. Researchers found a clear connection between a longer, healthier life and high levels of exercise. The report calls for health care professionals to encourage patients to achieve and continue a strong and healthy fitness routine.

Although it is widely understood that an active lifestyle can lead to a healthy life, the study concludes that a lifestyle which involves much sitting but little activity is equal to having a major disease and the simplest cure is exercise.

Dr Wael Jaber, co-author of the study, called the results totally surprising. “Being unfit on a treadmill or in an exercise stress test has a worse prognosis (病情预断), as far as death, than being a smoker or suffering from high blood pressure,” Jaber told CNN. “We’ve never seen something as noticeable as this and as objective as this.”

The study also took a look at the risk of being overactive and found that extreme exercisers do not face higher risk of death: the research found that the more a person exercises the lower their death rates.

1.Which of the following best explains “skipping out on” in paragraph 1?

A. keeping away from B. running in

C. jumping out of D. smoking inside

2.What do we know from the new findings?

A. An active lifestyle can lead to a healthy life.

B. The simplest cure for a major disease is exercise.

C. A person unfit on a treadmill is less likely to die.

D. One’s life span is related to the level of exercise.

3.What does Jaber think of the research results?

A. Impossible. B. Amusing.

C. Unbelievable. D. Uncertain.

4.What conclusion can we draw from the last paragraph?

A. Too much exercise will be no good.

B. A low death rate depends on an active lifestyle.

C. Extreme exercise is more harmful for health.

D. The rise of death rate is related to exercise.

高二英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析

Mothers can still offer comfort, even from a distance, a new study has found. The results show that simply hearing their mothers’ voice over the phone works just as well at calming the nerves of stressed children as a real-life pat on the shoulder.

The soothing（抚慰的）effect is most likely due to the release of the hormone（荷尔蒙）, oxytocin（催生素）, in the brain, the researchers say. This “love hormone” is known to quell stress and is likely to be involved in social connections, including those between a mother and a child.

Previous work has revealed that this hormone is released during physical contact with a mother. “But it’s clear from these results that a mother’s voice can have the same effect as a hug, even if she isn’t actually standing there,” said the researcher, Leslie Seltzer, a biological scientist.

Seltzer tested a group of 61 girls, aged 7 to 12, by having them make an unprepared speech and solve a series of maths problems in front of a group of strangers, sending their hearts racing and levels of cortisol—a hormone associated with stress—soaring.

Facing a challenge like that raises stress levels of a lot of people. Once stressed, a third of the girls were comforted in person by their mothers with hugs. A third of the girls watched an emotionally neutral 75-minute video. The rest were handed a telephone with their mothers on the line.

For the girls who interacted in person or over the phone with their mothers, the levels of the “love hormone” rose significantly, and the stress-marking hormone was washed away. This effect didn’t show up for participants who watched the video.

Seltzer is now testing the amount of oxytocin released with other communication methods—like text messaging—and hopes to see the research spread out from human subjects. “It’s not just us, of course. Lots of very social species have voices,” she said. “on the one hand, we are curious to see if this effect is unique to humans. On the other, we’re hoping researchers who study vocal communication will consider looking at oxytocin release in other animals and apply it to broader questions of social behavior and evolutionary biology.

1.Mothers’ voice over the phone can reduce children’s nerves according to the study, because ________.

2.The underlined word “quell” in the second paragraph probably means “________”.

3. From the study, we know that ________.

4.From the last paragraph, we can conclude that ________.

高二英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析

A new study has found that it may be possible to train people to be more intelligent, increasing the brainpower they had at birth．

Until now，it has been widely assumed that the kind of mental ability that allows us to solve new problems without having any relevant previous experience—what psychologists call fluid intelligence—is innate and cannot be taught（though people can raise their grades on tests of it by practicing）．

But in the new study，researchers describe a method for improving this skill，along with experiments to prove it works．

The key, researchers found, was carefully structured training in working memory—the kind that allows memorization of a telephone number just long enough to dial it．This type of memory is closely related to fluid intelligence，so the researchers reasoned that improving it might lead to improvements in fluid intelligence．

First they measured fluid intelligence of volunteers using standard tests．Then they trained each in a complicated memory task—the child’s card game，in which they had to recall a card they saw and heard．During the course, they needed to ignore irrelevant items, monitor ongoing performance，manage two tasks at the same time and connect related items to one another in space and time．

The four groups experienced a half-hour of training daily for 8, 12, 17 and 19 days, respectively．To make sure they were not just improving their test-taking skills，the researchers compared them with control groups that took the tests without the training．

The results, published Monday in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences，were striking．Improvement in the trained groups was a lot greater．Moreover，the longer they trained, the higher their scores were．All performers，from the weakest to the strongest，showed significant improvement．

“Our results show you can increase your intelligence with proper training．” said Dr Jaeggi, a co-author of the paper．“No one knows how long the gains will last after training stops,” he added, “and the experiment’s design did not allow the researchers to determine whether more training would continue to produce further gains．

1.By writing the article，the writer intends to ______________．

A. inform the readers of a new study

B. call on people to be trained to increase intelligence

C. prove one’s born brainpower can be improved

D. tell people the improved intelligence will last forever

2.The researchers thought the key to improving the intelligence was ______________．

A. memorizing telephone numbers　　　

B .improving working memory

C. training in concentration　　　　　　　

D. recalling a card

3.The following aspects of the training help increase intelligence EXCEPT___________．

A. ignoring irrelevant items　　　　　　　　

B.monitoring ongoing performance

C.managing two tasks at the same time　　

D.using previous experience

4.When the experiment was conducted, the researchers______________．

A.trained the four groups for the same period of time

B.only made comparisons between the four groups

C.compared the four groups with control groups

D.trained the four groups together

高二英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析

A new study has found that it may be possible to train people to be more intelligent, increasing the brainpower they had at birth．

Until now，it has been widely assumed that the kind of mental ability that allows us to solve new problems without having any relevant previous experience—what psychologists call fluid intelligence—is innate and cannot be taught（though people can raise their grades on tests of it by practicing）．

But in the new study，researchers describe a method for improving this skill，along with experiments to prove it works．

The key, researchers found, was carefully structured training in working memory—the kind that allows memorization of a telephone number just long enough to dial it．This type of memory is closely related to fluid intelligence，so the researchers reasoned that improving it might lead to improvements in fluid intelligence．

First they measured fluid intelligence of volunteers using standard tests．Then they trained each in a complicated memory task—the child’s card game，in which they had to recall a card they saw and heard．During the course, they needed to ignore irrelevant items, monitor ongoing performance，manage two tasks at the same time and connect related items to one another in space and time．

The four groups experienced a half-hour of training daily for 8, 12, 17 and 19 days, respectively．To make sure they were not just improving their test-taking skills，the researchers compared them with control groups that took the tests without the training．

The results, published Monday in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences，were striking．Improvement in the trained groups was a lot greater．Moreover，the longer they trained, the higher their scores were．All performers，from the weakest to the strongest，showed significant improvement．

“Our results show you can increase your intelligence with proper training．” said Dr Jaeggi, a co-author of the paper．“No one knows how long the gains will last after training stops,” he added, “and the experiment’s design did not allow the researchers to determine whether more training would continue to produce further gains．”

1..The researchers thought the key to improving the intelligence was ______________．

A.memorizing telephone numbers        B.improving working memory

C.training in concentration                             D.recalling a card

2..The following aspects of the training help increase intelligence EXCEPT___________．

A.ignoring irrelevant items                             B.monitoring ongoing performance

C.managing two tasks at the same time                   D.using previous experience

3..When the experiment was conducted, the researchers______________．

A.trained the four groups for the same period of time

B.only made comparisons between the four groups

C.compared the four groups with control groups

D.trained the four groups together

4..By writing the article，the writer intends to ______________．

A.inform the readers of a new study

B.call on people to be trained to increase intelligence

C.prove one’s born brainpower can be improved

D.tell people the improved intelligence will last forever

高二英语阅读理解简单题查看答案及解析

If you like texting and are trying to lose weight, a new study found that using texting(发短信) to track diet and exercise habits may help you lose weight.

Previous research has shown that keeping food and exercise diaries improves the likelihood of success when you are using it to lose weight. Using a computer or a pen and paper to record information, however, can be a burden and cause some people to give up.

Duke University researchers said using text messages to track eating and exercise habits can save time, and increase the chances that people will stick with their weight-loss rules.

The study included 26 obese/fat women with an average age of 38. The women used daily texting as part of their weight-loss program. The text messages focused on tracking personalized goals, such as avoiding sugary drinks or walking 10,000 steps a day. Messages also provided brief feedback (反馈) and tips.

Every morning, the women received a text from an automated system that said, “Please text yesterday’s personal information of steps you walked and how many sugary drinks you had.” Based on the women's responses to the text message, the system sent another text with personalized feedback and tips.

After six months, the women who used daily texting lost an average of nearly 3 pounds, while another group of women who used traditional methods to keep food and exercise diaries gained an average of 2.5 pounds, according to the study, which was published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research.

“Text messaging has become popular and may be an effective method to simplify tracking of diet and exercise behavior,” Dori Steinberg, who was responsible for this research, said.

Steinberg said, “Text messaging offers several advantages compared to other self-monitoring methods. Unlike web-based diet and exercise diaries, data in a text message can be entered quickly on nearly all cell phone platforms so it is very convenient to receive feedback. Besides, because of the limited number of words used in text messages, it saves time.”

1.According to the study, traditional methods _________.

A. are easier for people to lose weight　

B. may cause people to give up losing weight

C. provide brief feedback and tips　

D. are easy to track diet and exercise behavior

2.Which is NOT true about text messaging according to Steinberg?

A. It saves time.

B. It saves money.

C. It can be entered quickly.　

D. It is easy to receive feedback.

3.What’s the best title for the text?

A. Texting helps keep healthy　

B. Texting saves time and money

C. Texting provides brief feedback and tips

D. Texting can help you lose weight

4.What’s Dori Steinberg’s attitude towards text messaging?

A. Unknown.　　　　　　　　　　　 B. Negative.

C. Positive.　　　　　　　　 　 D. Unconcerned.

高二英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析

A new study by a Penn State College of Medicine research team found that honey is a better and safer treatment for children than cough medicines.

Ian Paul, the study’s lead researcher, was motivated to test honey because treating coughs in children has recently become a sticky subject. Coughing is the body’s way of clearing irritated (受刺激的) airways to help you breathe. But too much coughing can irritate your lungs and throat even more. It can also make it tough to get the sleep your body needs to heal. Hoping to ease the suffering of their children, parents often give them cough medicines.

But there have never been any good studies showing that they work. Cough and cold medicines may also cause serious side effects. Hundreds of kids die in the hospital each year after receiving too much cough medicine by mistake. Last October, the US Food and Drug Administration suggested that parents should not give cough medicines to children under 6.

In order to search for a different solution, Paul designed a study that involved 105 kids who were sick with coughs and other cold conditions. At bedtime, the kids took buckwheat (荞麦) honey, honey-flavored (蜂蜜味的) DM (one of the most common ingredients in cough medicines), or no treatment. Parents and kids in the no-

-treatment group knew they weren’t getting anything, but the other two groups weren’t told which treatment they were getting.

The surveys showed that kids who swallowed about 2 teaspoons of buckwheat honey before bedtime coughed less and slept better than kids in the other groups. “When parents want something for their kids to take,” Paul says, “honey seems like the best option”.

But what gives honey its healing power? Substances called antioxidants (抗氧化剂) may be part of the answer. All honey contains antioxidants that protect our cells from damage. Studies show that antioxidant levels in the body rise after someone swallows honey.

68. Which of the following can be the best title for this passage?

A. No cough medicines to children

B. Sweet solution to kids’ coughing

C. Best treatment for your cold

D. Cough medicines don’t work

69. We can learn from Paragraph 2 that coughing ______.

A. sometimes does good to people

B. can cure lung and throat diseases

C. is more harmful to children

D. helps improve children’s diet

70. During Paul’s experiment, the kids who received treatment ______.

A. seemed much worse than before

B. knew they weren’t getting anything

C. coughed less and slept better

D. had no idea what they swallowed

高二英语阅读理解简单题查看答案及解析