Welcome to your future life!

       You get up in the morning and look into the mirror. Your face is firm and young-looking. In 2035, medical technology is better than ever. Many people at your age could live to be 150, so at 40, you’re not old at all. And your parents just had an anti-aging (抗衰老的) treatment. Now, all three of you look the same age!

       You say to your shirt, “Turn red.” It changes from blue to red. In 2035, “smart clothes” contain particles(粒子) much smaller than the cells in your body. The particles can be programmed to change clothes’ color or pattern.

       You walk into the kitchen. You pick up the milk, but a voice says, “You shouldn’t drink that!” Your fridge has read the chip (芯片) that contains information about the milk , and it knows the milk is old. In 2035, every article of food in the grocery store has such a chip.

       It’s time to go to work. In 2035, cars drive themselves. Just tell your “smart car” where to go. On the way, you can call a friend using your jacket sleeve. Such “smart technology” is all around you.

       So will all these things come true? “For new technology to succeed,” says scientist Andrew Zolli, “it has to be so much better that it replaces what we have already.” The Internet is one example—what will be the next?

21. We can learn from the text that in the future__________.

       A. people will never get old

       B. everyone will look the same

       C. red will be the most popular color

       D. clothes will be able to change their pattern

22. What can be inferred from Paragraph 4?

       A. Milk will be harmful to health.

       B. More drinks will be available for sale.

       C. Food in the grocery store will carry electronic information.

D. Milk in the grocery store will stay fresh much longer.

23. Which of the following is mentioned in the text?

       A. Nothing can replace the Internet.

       B. Fridges will know what people need.

       C. Jacked sleeves can be used as a guide.

       D. Cars will be able to drive automatically.

24. What is the text mainly about?

       A. Food and clothing in 2035.

       B. Future technology in everyday life.

       C. Medical treatments of the future.

       D. The reason for the success of new technology.

Decision-making under Stress

A new review based on a research shows that acute stress affects the way the brain considers the advantages and disadvantages, causing it to focus on pleasure and ignore the possible negative (负面的) consequences of a decision.

The research suggests that stress may change the way people make choices in predictable ways.

“Stress affects how people learn,” says Professor Mara Mather. “People learn better about positive than negative outcomes under stress.”

For example, two recent studies looked at how people learned to connect images(影像) with either rewards or punishments. In one experiment, some of the participants were first stressed by having to give a speech and do difficult math problems in front of an audience; in the other, some were stressed by having to keep their hands in ice water. In both cases, the stressed participants remembered the rewarded material more accurately and the punished material less accurately than those who hadn’t gone through the stress.

This phenomenon is likely not surprising to anyone who has tried to resist eating cookies or smoking a cigarette while under stress ------at those moments, only the pleasure associated with such activities comes to mind. But the findings further suggest that stress may bring about a double effect. Not only are rewarding experiences remembered better, but negative consequences are also easily recalled.

The research also found that stress appears to affect decision-making differently in men and women. While both men and women tend to focus on rewards and less on consequences under stress, their responses to risk turn out to be different.

Men who had been stressed by the cold-water task tended to take more risks in the experiment while women responded in the opposite way. In stressful situations in which risk-taking can pay off big, men may tend to do better, when caution weighs more, however, women will win.

This tendency to slow down and become more cautious when decisions are risky might also help explain why women are less likely to become addicted than men: they may more often avoid making the risky choices that eventually harden into addiction.

25.        We can learn from the passage that people under pressure tend to ______.

       A. keep rewards better in their memory

       B. recall consequences more effortlessly

       C. make risky decisions more frequently

       D. learn a subject more effectively

26.        According to the research, stress affects people most probably in their ______.

       A. ways of making choices                         B. preference for pleasure

       C. tolerance of punishments                            D. responses to suggestions

27.  The research has proved that in a stressful situation, ______.

       A. women find it easier to fall into certain habits

       B. men have a greater tendency to slow down

       C. women focus more on outcomes

       D. men are more likely to take risks

Eating too much fatty food, exercising too little and smoking can raise your future risk of heart disease. But there is another factor that can cause your heart problems more immediately: the air you breathe.

Previous studies have linked high exposure (暴露）to environmental pollution to an increased risk of heart problem, but two analyses now show that poor air quality can lead to heart attack or stroke (中风）within as little as a few hours after exposure. In one review of the research, scientists found that people exposed to high levels of pollutants (污染物）were up to 5% more likely to suffer a heart attack within days of exposure than those with lower exposure. A separate study of stroke patients showed that even air that the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) considers to be of “moderate” (良好）quality and relatively safe for our health can raise the risk of stroke as much as 34% within 12 to 14 hours of exposure.

The authors of both studies stress that these risks are relatively small for healthy people and certainly modest compared with other risk factors such as smoking and high blood pressure. However, it is important to be aware of these dangers because everyone is exposed to air pollution regardless of lifestyle choices. So stricter regulation by the EPA of pollutants may not only improve environmental air quality but could also become necessary to protect public health.

28. The text mainly discusses the relationship between            .

A. heart problems and air quality       B. heart problems and exercising

C. heart problems and smoking        D. heart problems and fatty food

29. The underlined word “modest” in Paragraph 3 most probably means  .

A. relatively high                                B. extremely low

C. relatively low                                 D. extremely high

30. What can we learn from the text?     

A. Eating fatty food has immediate effects on your heart.

B. The EPA conducted many studies on air quality.

C. Moderate air quality is more harmful than smoking,

D. Stricter regulations on pollutants should be made.

31. The author’s purpose of writing the text is most likely to            .

A. inform            B. persuade             C. describe        D. entertain

       Sports accounts for a growing amount of income made on the sales of commercial time by television companies. Many television companies have used sports to attract viewers from particular sections of the general public, and then they have sold audience to advertisers.

       An attraction of sports programs for the major U.S. media companies is that events are often held on Saturday and Sunday afternoons—the slowest time periods of the week for general television viewing. Sports events are the most popular weekend programs, especially among male viewers who may not watch much television at other times during the week. This means the television networks are able to sell advertising time at relatively high prices during what normally would be dead time for programming.

       Media corporations also use sports to attract commercial sponsors that might take their advertising dollars elsewhere if television stations did not report certain sports. The people in the advertising departments of major corporations realize that sports attract male viewers. They also realize that most business travelers are men and that many men make family decisions on the purchases of computers, cars and life insurance.

       Golf and tennis are special cases for television programming. These sports attract few viewers, and the ratings （收视率）are unusually low. However, the audience for these sports is attractive to certain advertisers. It is made up of people from the highest incomes groups in the United States, including many lawyers and business managers. This is why television reporting of golf and tennis if sponsors by companies selling high-priced cars, business and personal computers, and holiday trips. This is also why the networks continue to carry these programs regardless of low ratings. Advertisers are willing to pay high fees to reach high-income consumers and those managers who make decisions to buy thousands of “company cars” and computers. With such viewers, these programs don’t need high ratings to stay on the air.

32. Television sport programs on weekend afternoons＿＿＿.  

   A. result in more sport events.                                    

B. get more viewers to play sports.

C. make more people interested in television.            

D. bring more money to the television networks.

33. Why would weekend afternoons become dead time without sport programs?

A. Because there would be few viewers.                    

B. Because the advertisers would be off work.

C. Because television programs would go slowly.

D. Because viewers would pay less for watching television.

34. The ratings are not important for golf and tennis programs, because＿＿＿.

A. their advertisers are carmakers.                   B. their viewers are attracted by sports.

C. their advertisers target at rich people.            D. their viewers can afford expensive cars.

35. What is the passage mainly about?

A. Television ratings are determined by male viewers.

B. Rich viewers contribute most to television companies.

C. Sports are gaining importance in advertising on television.

D. Commercial advertisers are the major sponsors of sport events.

Sure, we’ve all heard that we should get more sleep. The realities of life often make it become "we should get more sleep later."     36      The result is that you wake up the next day feeling like a role of The Walking Dead. Here are four ways you can adjust your biology in order to pay less for staying up.

     ● Move around.

Exercising before bed is a sure way to keep awake. That’s why you shouldn’t do it when you want to go to sleep, and it is also why hitting the gym, or even some fast push-ups can tell your body that it’s not time for bed. Being physically exhausted isn’t fun when you are trying to stay up late.               37      .

     ● Eat more protein.

Few people think about the fact that the brain and body use a lot more energy when were awake. If you are pulling an all-nighter, you’re going to need a lot more food than you are used to eating.      38  . To stay awake, plan to eat larger meals than normal and to eat them more frequently.

     ● Drink the right stuff.

    It’s tempting (诱人) to switch to sugary caffeine drinks like Red Bull, but the sugar will lead to a crash. Instead, if you want to use caffeine, drink early in the evening so it’ll wear off by the time you want to sleep.      39      Don’t make it worse by drinking sugar.

       40 ______________

    Turn the lights down at night because bright lights keep you awake. For three or four hours after you’re exposed to bright white light, your body won’t make melatonin, a must for deep sleep. You will sleep better if you turn the lights a little bit down.

   A. Turn the lights off.

   B. Just do enough to get energetic.

   C. And your body can never bear something like that.

   D. Your brain can use up to 25 percent of your total calories.

   E. When you stay up late, your blood sugar becomes abnormal.

   F. There is either more work to be done, or more fun to be had, or both.

   G. Avoid bright lights.