Research suggests that a newly-identified gene known as insomniacs(失眠癥患者) may play a role in keeping us asleep. By cloning and testing this gene in about 21,000 fruit flies, Rockefeller University researchers say they have discovered an entirely new mechanism (機(jī)制) by which sleep is controlled.
By studying these flies, the researchers discovered that mutations(變異) in the insomniac gene were associated with a great reduction in sleep. While a typical fruit fly slept for an average of 927 minutes a day, the mutant flies slept for just 317. They also slept for shorter periods of time, and slept and woke more frequently.
“The results showed a great loss of both the time that the flies’ sleep lasted and their ability to remain asleep after they slept,” says researcher Nicholas Stavropoulos.
The researchers also examined the link between sleep and lifespan, finding that flies with mutations to the insomniac gene lived only about two-thirds as long as unchanged flies. But when the scientists removed insomniac only in neurons（神經(jīng)細(xì)胞）---allowing it to remain in the rest of the flies’ bodies---this difference disappeared; the resulting animals slept poorly but lived just as long.
“This suggests that reduced sleep can be ‘uncoupled’(分開(kāi)) from reduced lifespan, supporting the idea that some interruptions of sleep do not affect overall health, at least as far as lifespan is concerned,” Stavropoulos says.
Although flies and humans would appear to have little in common when it comes to lifestyle, scientists say that the mechanisms of sleep and wakefulness are likely to be quite similar.
“Sleep is a fundamental behavior in all animals, and it is poorly understood from a scientific standpoint, says Stavropoulos. This work could prove useful in understanding and treating sleep disorders”
【小題1】The text is mainly about____.

A．the progress in cloning fruit flies

B．the methods of cloning fruit flies

C．the link between gene and lifespan

D．the influence of a gene on the ability to sleep

【小題2】According to paragraph2, the mutant flies________.

A．slept about 5 hours a day

B．had problems waking up

C．didn’t seem sleepy at all

D．could not fall asleep

【小題3】We can conclude from the text that________.

A．sleep and health go hand in hand

B．sleep can be controlled by humans

C．research into sleep is very fruitful

D．the findings are useful in medical treatment

It is thought that crying is hardly an activity encouraged by society. Tear, whether they are of sorrow, anger, or joy, typically make Americans feel uncomfortable and embarrassed. The shedder of tears (落淚者) is likely to apologize, even when a great tragedy was the cause. The observer of tears is likely to do everything possible to put an end to the emotional tears. But judging from recent studies of crying behavior, both those responses to tears are often inappropriate and may even be counterproductive (適得其反).
Humans are the only animals clearly known to shed emotional tears. Since evolution has given rise to few purposeless physiological responses, it is logical to assume that crying has one or more functions that enhance (increase) survival.
Although some observers have suggested that crying is a way to ask for assistance form others (as a crying baby might from its mother), the shedding of tears is hardly necessary to get help. Vocal cries would have been quite enough, more likely than tears to gain attention. So, it appears, there must be something special about tears themselves.
Indeed, the new studies suggest that emotional tears may play a direct role in alleviating stress, University of Minnesota researchers who are studying the chemical composition of tears have recently isolated two important chemicals from emotional tears. Both chemicals are found only in tears that are shed in response to emotion. Tears shed because of exposure to cut onion would contain no such substance.
Other researchers are investigating the usefulness of tears as a means of diagnosing human ills and monitoring drugs. At Tulane University’s Teat Analysis Laboratory Dr. Peter Kastl and his colleagues report that they can use tears to detect drug abuse, to study the causes of “dry eye” syndrome（綜合癥）and the effects of eye surgery, and perhaps even to measure exposure to environmental pollutants.
【小題1】What does the phrase “both those responses” in Paragraph 1 refer to ?

A．Crying out of sorrow and shedding tears for happiness.

B．The embarrassment and unpleasant sensation of the observers.

C．The tear shedder’s apology and the observer’s effort to stop the crying.

D．Linking illness with crying and finding the chemical composition of tears.

【小題2】From the passage we can infer that        .

A．it is unnatural for people to shed tears

B．we can reduce our stress by shedding tears

C．shedders of tears can’t get help by crying loudly

D．unlike animals, humans can shed tears for survival

【小題3】What does the passage mainly talk about?

A．Roles of emotional tears.

B．functions of shedding tears.

C．Unwelcome shedders of tears.

D．Research on the effects of tears.

Lettuce (萵苣)has been eaten for over 4,500 years, and was known to the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans. Now, people in some countries start the meal with lettuce as part of a salad. There are hundreds of kinds of lettuce. The main ones include head lettuce, such as iceberg, leaf lettuce _,Boston, bibb and romaine.
Experts say lettuce is one of the easiest crops to grow in your garden. The best time to plant the seeds is during cool weather. The University of Illinois Extension advises that the best planting temperature is 15 ⁰C.
Lettuce seeds are small, so do not place them too deep in the ground. If you plant some seeds every week or two, you will have crops ready to eat one after another.
To start the seeds inside, you can use a seed tray in your home or other shelter. This container should be deep enough to hold at least three centimeters of soil or more. There should be about one centimeter of space between the soil and the top of the container. The container should have holes in the bottom so the extra water can flow out. Drop the seeds over the surface and cover them lightly with soil. If the soil is not already a little wet, give it some water. But do not drown the seeds.
Next, cover the seed tray with paper. When the seedlings have come up far enough to touch the paper, take it off. You can transplant the seedlings into the garden when they are about two to three centimeters tall. Do this when the weather is not too hot and not too cold. Take out as much soil as you can with the seedlings, Then dig a hole in the ground bigger thanthe lettuce roots. Water the plants but not too heavily.
Harvest leaf lettuces when the leaves are big enough to eat. Pull the leaves from the outside of the planting so the inside leaves will keep growing. Or, you can cut off the whole plant. Leave about two or three centimeters above the ground so the plant will re-grow. Cut off head lettuces at ground level.
Lettuce is best when served fresh, so make a salad and enjoy. Experts say lettuce is one of the easiest crops to grow in your garden.
【小題1】Which of the following shows the right order of planting lettuces?
a.Dig a hole in the ground bigger than the lettuce roots.
b.Drop the seeds over the surface.
c.Water the plants.
d.Cover the seed with soil.
e.Take off the paper.
f.Transplant the seedlings into the garden.

A．b, d, e ，f, a, c	B．a(chǎn), b ，c, d ，e, f
C．d, e，f, b，a，c	D．b，c, d，e，f，a

【小題2】The underlined word “seedlings” in paragraph 5 means______.

A．containers

B．seeds

C．young plants

D．layers

【小題3】When eating Iettuce₅ you’d better ______ so that it tastes best.

A．store it in plastic bags	B．eat the inside leaves
C．wrap it in paper	D．eat while it is fresh

【小題4】What can we infer from the passage?

A．Lettuce is the easiest crop to grow in your garden.

B．The lettuce is not hard to plant and store.

C．We can plant lettuce in a two-centimeter-high tray.

D．We should water lettuce at least twice a day.

Are morning people born or made? In my case it was definitely made. In my early 20s, I hardly went to bed before midnight, and I would always get up late the next morning.
But after a while I couldn’t ignore the high relationship between success and rising early. On those rare occasions where I did get up early, I noticed that my productivity (效率) was always higher. So I set out to become a habitual early riser. But whenever my alarm went off, my first thought was always to stop that noise and go back to sleep. Eventually some sleep research showed that my strategy was wrong.
The most common wrong strategy is this: supposing you’re going to get up earlier, you’d better go to bed earlier. It sounds very reasonable, but will usually fail.
There are two main schools (流派) of thought on sleep patterns. One is that you should go to bed and get up at the same time every day. The second school says you should go to bed when you’re tired and get up when you naturally wake up. However, I have found both are wrong if you care about productivity. If you sleep at fixed hours, you’ll sometimes go to bed when you aren’t sleepy enough. You’re wasting time lying in bed awake.
My solution is to combine both methods. I go to bed when I’m sleepy and get up with an alarm clock at a fixed time. So I always get up at the same time (in my case 5 a.m.), but I go to bed at different times every night.
However, going to bed only when I’m sleepy, and getting up at a fixed time every morning are my ways. If you want to become an early riser, you can try your own.
【小題1】According to the passage, the underlined phrase refers to ________.

A．people who stay up until the next morning

B．people who get up early in the morning

C．people who feel sleepy in the morning

D．people whose productivity is the lowest in the morning

【小題2】Why did the author want to become a habitual early riser?

A．Because he / she wanted to have more sleep time.

B．Because he / she wanted to do morning exercise.

C．Because he / she wanted to test which school is better.

D．Because he / she found that the productivity was higher.

【小題3】The author experienced all the following EXCEPT ________.

A．going to bed after midnight

B．a(chǎn)sking scholars for advice on sleeping habits

C．getting up early occasionally

D．pressing off the alarm to go on sleeping

【小題4】What’s the author’s sleep pattern?

A．Going to bed early and getting up early.

B．Going to bed late and getting up late.

C．Going to bed when sleepy and getting up at a fixed early time.

D．Going to bed early and getting up late.

【小題5】The passage is mainly about ________.

A．main schools of thought on sleep patterns

B．how to have a good sleep

C．wrong strategies for getting up early

D．how to become an early riser

High-tech machines have made life easier for millions around the world. However, some people still prefer low-tech ways of doing things. Here’s an example of why this is happening. You can microwave a frozen hamburger in 60 seconds. However, it won’t taste as good as one you cook on the stove. And if you’re in that much of a hurry, you probably won’t take time to toast the bun. High-tech cooking saves time, but it doesn’t make for better-tasting meals.
Most people get their news from high-tech sources like television or the Internet. This has many advantages. For example, electronic news is more up to date than newspapers or magazines. It’s also more exciting to see live and videotaped news events than photographs. However, newspapers and magazines have some important advantages. They give more background and details. They also let you read the parts that are important to you and skip the rest.
Other high-tech timesavers have similar disadvantages. For examples, most people use the phone or e-mail to stay in touch with friends and family members who live in other places. But when you use the Internet or the phone, you don’t always think carefully about what you are saying, and sometimes you forget the important things you want to communicate. Similarly, when you word-process a homework assignment instead of handwriting it, you can check your spelling electronically and put in fancy headings. However, some students are so busy with the computer that they don’t pay enough attention to the actual words they are writing.
【小題1】Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the passage?

A．The writer likes high-tech cooking.

B．Low-tech cooking produces better-tasting meals.

C．High-tech news programs always keep you reading what is important to you.

D．Handwritten homework is better than word-processed homework.

【小題2】How does the writer feel about high-tech tool?

A．Better late than never.	B．Easy come, easy go.
C．Every coin has two sides.	D．Learn to walk before you run.

【小題3】What is the main subject discussed in the text?

A．High-tech vs. low-tech

B．Advantages vs. disadvantages.

C．Newspapers and magazines vs. television and the Internet.

D．Word-processing vs. handwriting.

Every time you go to the supermarket, you come away with your purchases in plastic bags. But wouldn’t it be kinder to the environment if you asked for paper bags instead?
The answer is not the easy as it might seem. Environmentalists say there are drawbacks to using both plastic bags and paper bags.
According to the American Plastics Council 80 percent of groceries in the US are packed in plastic bags.
“The numbers are becoming huge,” said Vincent Cobb, a businessman from Chicago who set up “reusable bags. com” on the Internet. He notes that consumers use between 500 billion and 1 trillion plastic bags per year worldwide.
Some experts believe that all these bags harm the environment. Plastic takes hundreds of years to break down and, as it does so, poisonous materials are released into the water and soil.
Further damage is caused if plastic bags enter the sea. For example, endangered sea turtles cannot tell the bags from jellyfish(水母), their main source of food, and often choke on them.
Floating plastic bags have been spotted as far north as the Arctic Ocean and as far south as the southern end of South America. One expert predicts that, within ten years, plastic bags will wash up in Antarctica!
However, this kind of bag does have its advantages.
“Plastic grocery bags are some of the most reused things around the house,” explained Laurie Kusek of the American Plastics Council.
According to the Film and Bag Federation, a trade group in the US plastics industry, paper bags use more energy and create more waste than plastic bags. Plastic bags require 40 per cent less energy to produce and cause 70 per cent less air pollution, the group explained. They also release as much as 94 percent less waste into the water than paper ones.
But paper bags do break down more quickly than plastic bags. They don’t endanger wildlife, either.
So what should we do? One possible solution would be to use biodegradable(能被生物分解的)plastic bags. But until biodegradable technology improves, it might be easier to pack things you buy in reusable cloth bags.
【小題1】The best title of the passage is _____.

A．Paper Causes Less Pollution

B．Plastic Causes Less Pollution

C．Paper and Plastics Cause Pollution

D．Paper Bags Break Down More Quickly

【小題2】The underlined word “drawbacks” might mean “_____”.

A．Advantages

B．disadvantages

C．a(chǎn)ir pollution

D．waste

【小題3】According to the passage, which of the following in NOT true?

A．Plastic takes longer to break down than paper.

B．Sea turtles usually mistake the plastic bags for jellyfish.

C．Paper bags require less energy than plastic bags.

D．You’d better pack things in reusable cloth bags.

【小題4】Which of the following shows that paper bags are better than plastic ones?

A．Paper bags take less time to rot.

B．Paper bags cause less air pollution.

C．Paper bags are more reusable.

D．Paper bags cause less water pollution.

In a recent study, researchers have estimated the energy required to produce bottled water, including the energy required to manufacture plastic, make the plastic into bottles, process the water, fill and seal the bottles, transport the bottles, and chill the bottles for use. Combining all the energy input totals for treatment and distribution, researchers found that producing bottled water requires between 5.6 and 10.2 million joules(焦耳) of energy per liter, depending on transportation factors. That's up to 2, 000 times the energy required to produce tap water.
To break down the energy requirements, researchers found that producing the plastic bottles and transporting the bottles greatly dominated(控制) the energy input. Although some companies are experimenting with producing lightweight bottles or using recycled materials, the researchers calculated that the manufacturing cost is about 4 million joules of energy per plastic bottle weighing 38 grams, and the cap weighing 2 grams.
“Our previous work had suggested that bottled water production was an energy­ intensive process, but we were surprised to see the results, ” the researchers said.
Transportation costs vary depending on the distance and mode of transport and both factors depend on the type of bottled water. There are two main kinds of bottled water in the US:^” spring water” which comes from an underground spring and “purified water”,which is city tap water that has received further treatment. For purified water distributed locally by truck within Los Angeles, the total transportation energy is about 1.4 million joules per liter. In the second situation, spring water shipped from Fiji (such as Fiji Spring Water) across the Pacific to Los Angeles, and then delivered locally by truck requires about 4 million joules per liter for transportation. For the spring water, the transportation energy equaled (in the case of Fiji) the energy required to produce the bottle.
With this data, the researchers hope that future studies will have the ability to make specific estimates for different situations, and possibly find ways to cut energy costs.
【小題1】From the first Paragraph we can know that the energy required to ______.

A．produce bottled water includes the energy required to drink it

B．distribute bottled water includes the energy for producing the bottles

C．distribute bottled water is much smaller than the energy for treating it

D．produce bottled water is much smaller than the energy for producing tap water

【小題2】To reduce the energy required to produce bottled water, some companies are trying ______.

A．to fill tap water into the plastic bottles directly

B．to replace the plastic bottles with metal containers

C．to produce lightweight bottles with recycled materials

D．to use bicycles to transport and deliver bottled water locally

【小題3】What's Paragraph 4 mainly talking about?

A．Treatment of bottled water needs no energy input at all.

B．Bottled water production is an energy­ intensive process.

C．Transportation of bottled water takes up the most energy input.

D．Production of the plastic bottles greatly dominated the energy input.

【小題4】 We can infer from the passage that ______.

A．there are two main kinds of bottled water in the US

B．world consumption of bottled water has been increasing

C．transportation costs have something to do with the mode of transport

D．bottled water produced in Spring is more expensive than purified water

【小題5】 What's the main purpose of the passage?

A．To help consumers themselves make more environmentally sustainable choices.

B．To advise the government to take severe measures to stop producing bottled water.

C．To urge the consumers to drink tap water instead of bottled water for the sake of the earth.

D．To try the best to find ways to produce bottled water cheaply and quickly for the companies.

What will people die of 100 years from now? If you think that is a simple question, you have not been paying attention to the revolution that is taking place in bio-technology(生物技術(shù)). With the help of new medicine, the human body will last a very long time. Death will come mainly from accidents, murder and war. Today's leading killers, such as heart diseases, cancer, and aging itself, will become distant memory.
In discussion of technological changes, the Internet gets most of the attention these days. But the change in medicine can be the real technological event of our times. How long can humans live? Human brains were known to decide the final death. Cells(細(xì)胞) are the basic units of all living things, and until recently, scientists were sure that the life of cells could not go much beyond 120 years because the basic materials of cells, such as those of brain cells, would not last forever. But the upper limits will be broken by new medicine. Sometime between 2050 and 2100, medicine will have advanced to the point at which every 10 years or so, people will be able to take medicine to repair their organs(器官). The medicine, made up of the basic building materials of life, will build new brain cells, heart cells, and so on---in much the same way our bodies make new skin cells to take the place of old ones.
It is exciting to imagine that the advance in technology may be changing the most basic conditional human existence, but many technical problems still must be cleared up on the way to this wonderful future.
【小題1】According to the passage, human death is now mainly caused by _______.

A．diseases and aging	B．a(chǎn)ccidents and war
C．a(chǎn)ccidents and aging	D．heart diseases and war

【小題2】 In the author's opinion, today's most important advance in technology lies in _____.

A．medicine	B．the internet
C．brain cells	D．human organs

【小題3】Humans may live longer in the future because ______.

A．heart disease will be far away from us

B．human brains can decide the final death

C．the basic materials of cells will last forever

D．human organs can be repaired by new medicine

【小題4】We can learn from the passage that _____.

A．human life will not last more than 120 years in the future

B．human have to take medicine to build new skin cells now

C．much needs to be done before humans can have a longer life

D．we have already solved the technical problems in building new cells.