The Ostrich pillow

     Whether it’s being stuck at the office, on a long bus ride or at the library, the pillow is designed to pout the wearer in soft supportive cushioning(软垫)in any resting position. The strange-looking pillow has a hole in which to put your head, and a mouth hole designed to allow its wearer to breathe easily. It also has two sides holes where you can store your hands. It is now being sold online for $99.

The Hovding bike helmet

The Hovding allows riders to get around easily. It’s actually an airbag system that’s worn around the neck, working only when there’s a sudden shake or the unlikely event that may get you knocked off your bike. After winning the world’s most famous design prize, the creators are developing a new and better model. Now the first-generation helmet is being sold at various sporting shops throughout Europe for about $500.

The Treadmill desk

Recently a study found those who spent three hours a day on a Treadmill desk became healthier. Still, it shouldn’t be treated as a solution for not getting enough exercise. Another study suggests that meeting the recommended amount of physical activity requires more exercises than walking. Its price is usually between $750 and $1.500

The Necomimi

This is basically a pair of brain-controlled cat ears that allows users to express emotional states: relaxed, mild interest, strong interest and focus. This is made possible by a built-in sensor that reads and translates emotions. It’s a kind of technology that can also be useful for athletes to determine the best state for performance. The Necomimi can be purchased for $49 through maker Neurosky’s Web site.

21. What can you afford if you have only $90?

   A. A Necomimi       B. An Ostrich pillow

   C. A Hovding bike helmet    D. A Treadmill desk

22. The Ostrich pillow is special mainly in its______.

   A. safety               B. low cost

   C. perfect warmth       D. amazing convenience

23. According to the text, the Hovding bike helmet______.

A. is being improved now      B. can work at users’ request

C. is designed only for athletes  D. is worn around the wearer’s shoulders

24. What can the Necomimi help do when a runner wears it?

   A. Protect him or her from injuries      B. Show how he or she is feeling

   C. Improve his or her running speed     D. Help him or her lose weight.

Growing up in a family of traditionalism, I found my voice later in life. I discovered that I could be so much more than a wife or mother. I could be anything I want to be. And I decided not to leave it to someday but do it today!

In the first forty years of my life I loved everyone else and forgot all about me. I had been taught that loving and caring for oneself was “selfish”. Then a light shone out of a personal tragedy, a suicide(自杀)of a loved one, which taught me the lesson of self-love. Learning to love yourself is the greatest lesson of all. I couldn’t truly love anyone else if I didn’t take the time to love and care for myself. How simple it sounds but how difficult it is to accomplish.

Embracing that truth gave me my life back.

Education and knowledge is power. Through education in a university I am powerful and lead my life that I choose, answering only to myself. With that responsibility I have become a better, gentler person. Without judgment I smile when I see other people’s foolishness. I keep my mouth shut when observe someone learning their lessons. If asked I try not to tell the persons what they should do, and how they should do it. Instead, I share with them my experiences and how I settled a particular challenge.

Sixteen years ago, after a life time in theatre, I wanted to write a play about a tragedy happening to some very dear friends. Maybe someday my play will give comfort to other parents who are going through a similar trouble. Today I have written several stage plays and a series of fairy tales. The university delivered my heart’s desire and I continue to do so every day and I am filled with gratitude.

25. Why couldn’t the author find her own voice early in her life?

   A. She wasn’t independent as a child

   B. She was just taught to think of others

   C. Her family asked her to be a good person.

   D. She didn’t know what to do in the future

26. What caused the author to change her attitude to self-love?

   A. A university education       B. A wiser judgment

   C. A suicide of a loved person    D. A higher responsibility

27. What did the author learn in the university?

   A. To care for more people      B. To write more tragedies.

   C. To live her own life better     D. To help people out of trouble

28. What is the author’s purpose in writing the text?

   A. To share her life lesson

   B. To tell her survival story

   C. To show how to live a rich life

   D. To stress the importance of family education

We’ve all done it at one time or another: took out our mobile phones to take a picture of a sunset that is too beautiful to forget, or photographed a particularly impressive dish at a restaurant.

It’s obvious that we record our lives to keep our memories from fading, but with such widespread use of camera phones and new devices like the Narrative Clip that automatically takes a picture every 30 seconds-how much is too much? Are we taking too many pictures?

If you look at recent research by Linda Henkel, a psychology professor at Fairfield University, you might think the answer is yes. Her research has suggested that taking photos can actually damage your ability to recall details of the event later. In her study from 2014, students were led on a museum tour and asked to take photos of certain works of art-and only observe others. When they were tested the next day, they were less able to remember details of objects that they had photographed. This is what Henkel calls a “photo-taking impairment effect”.

“What I think is going on is that we treat the camera as a sort of external(外部的)memory device,” Henkel says. “We have this expectation that the camera is going to remember things for us, so we don’t have to continue processing that object and we don’t involve in the types of things that would help us remember it.”

29. What does the author think of taking pictures according to Paragraph 1?

   A. We took too few pictures

   B. The pictures we took are impressive

   C. Taking a picture is a common thing for us.

   D. We shouldn’t take pictures at a restaurant.

30. The Narrative Clip is a kind of_____.

   A. picture      B. photographer

   C. mobile phone   D. automatic camera

31. What does the underlined word “impairment” in Paragraph 3 most probably mean?

   A. Help     B. Damage      C. Guide      D. Defeat.

32. Why does Henkel think that taking pictures is bad for us?

   A. It costs us much money

   B. It make us lose the ability of living

   C. It stops us from remembering more things

   D. It makes us lack interest in the art of photos.

   Contrary to the big, scary roars(吼叫)that we see at the movies, dinosaurs, even the large ones, might not have roared at all. Just as we now know that dinosaurs had feathers and potentially had mating(交配) ways similar to modern birds, it’s very possible that dinosaurs sounded more like birds than we’d like to think. In a paper published in Evolution researchers raise the possibility that the sounds some birds might have their roots in the vocalizations(发声)of their ancestors: Dinosaurs.

   “To make any kind of sense of what dinosaurs sounded like, we need to understand how living birds vocalize,” co-author of the paper Julia Clarke said. “Not only were dinosaurs feathered, but they may have had bulging(隆起的)necks and made booming, closed-mouth sounds.”

   This is just one possibility in the wide world of dinosaur sounds. The one thing that everyone can agree on his that without the help of a time machine, we’re never going to know whether dinosaurs sounded more like birds or snakes, or crocodiles. We can make educated guesses but the fact is that most sounds are made with soft parts of an animal’s body; the tongue, the throat, the lungs, and, unlike bones, those just don’t survive for millions of years.

   In the past, researchers have looked at the size of lungs and the shape of the neck to try to determine the volume. Even if they can’t definitively tell what kind of sounds they were making, it’s likely that a large dinosaur, with large lungs would be able to make louder noises than a smaller dinosaur with smaller lungs.

   We might never know exactly what a dinosaur sounds like, but by listening to large birds and reptiles, we might come close.

33. According to the first paragraph, dinosaurs’ vocalizations may sound more like _________.

   A. birds               B. snakes          C. crocodiles          D. tigers

34. What is the biggest trouble for scientists to study dinosaurs’ vocalizations?

   A. Lack of money

   B. The objection of the public

   C. The objection of government

   D. Lack of dinosaurs’ existing vocalizing organs

35. What may be the best title for the text?

   A. Dinosaurs Lived Happily               B. Birds’ Ancestor: Dinosaurs

   C. Dinosaurs May No Roar                D. Birds’ Strange Vocalizations

Beauty sleep doesn’t just belong to the fairytale world. Research has shown that people who don’t sleep enough are viewed as less healthy and less attractive. Lack of sleep has also been linked to the exacerbation(加重)of certain skin illnesses.  36   . Here are three tips on how to get the most beauty benefits from a night of rest.

1. Care for your skin

No matter how tired you feel, make time to care for your skin every evening. Your evening routine does not have to be long and complicated, just effective:

●Clean.  37   . Sleeping with makeup on has shown to cause skin inflammation (炎症)and accelerate the aging process.

●Treat. Blood flow increases at night, making skincare products sink into the skin more efficiently.   38  .

2. Sleep on your back

___39   . The American Academy of Dermatology has warned that sleeping in other positions can lead to sleep lines, while sleeping on your back can help to prevent lines. If you often wake up with swollen eyes, try to sleep with your head slightly raised. This can help to prevent the swelling caused by fluid retention(积液)in the under-eye area, which tends to accumulate there, where the skin is thinner.

3.   40  

Sleeping on a silk pillow can effectively prevent the stubborn facial wrinkles caused by sleeping on the side or on your stomach. Additionally, silk is less-absorbing than cotton, so it is not going to absorb whatever skincare product you have applied to your face as much as other material would.

A. Choose silk.

B. Go to sleep on time

C. Use a mild product to remove makeup, dirt and oil

D. Use your anti-aging products as overnight treatment.

E. Unless you have medical reasons not to do it, try this position

F. This new technology promotes skin’s self-repairing process

G. Therefore, we undoubtedly have to make healthy sleep a rule