单选题
The Best Way to Reduce Your Weight

You hear this: "No wonder you are fat. All you ever do is eat." You feel sad: "I skip my breakfast and supper. I run every morning and evening. What else can I do?" Basically you can do nothing. Your genes, not your life habits, determine your weight, and your body constantly tries to maintain it.
Albert Stunkard of the University of Pennsylvania found from experiments that, "80 percent of the children of two obese parents become obese, as compared with no more than 14 percent of the offspring of two parents of normal weight."
How can obese people become normal or even thin through dieting? Well, dieting can be effective, but the health costs are tremendous. Jules Hirsch, a research physician at Rockefeller University, did a study of eight fat people. They were given a liquid formula providing 600 calories a day. After more than 10 weeks, the subjects lost 45 kg on average. But after leaving the hospital, they all regained. The results were surprising: by metabolic measurement, fat people who lost large amounts of weight seemed like they were starving. They had psychiatric problems. They dreamed of food or breaking their diet. They were anxious and depressed; some were suicidal. They hid food in their rooms. Researchers warn that it is possible that weight reduction doesn"t result in normal weight, but in an abnormal state resembling that of starved non-obese people.
Thin people, however, suffer from the opposite: They have to make a great effort to gain weight. Ethan Sims, of the University of Vermont, got prisoners to volunteer to gain weight. In four to six months, they ate as much as they could. They succeeded in increasing their weight by 20 to 25 percent. But months after the study ended, they were back to normal weight and stayed there.
This did not mean that people are completely without hope in controlling their weight. It means that those who tend to be fat will have to constantly battle their genetic inheritance if they want to significantly lower their weight.
The findings also provide evidence for something scientists thought was true—each person has a comfortable weight range. The range might be as much as 9 kg. Someone might weigh 60-69 kg without too much effort. But going above or below the natural weight range is difficult. The body resists by feeling hungry or full and changing the metabolism to push the weight back to the range it seeks.
单选题 What determines your weight?
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】[解析] 第一段最后一句提到“Your genes, not your life habits, determine your weight and your body constantly tries to maintain it. ”(你的基因,而不是你的生活习惯决定了你的体重,而且你的身体总是在努力维持你的体重),由此可见我们的体重是由我们的基因决定的,所以选D。
单选题 What did Jules Hirsch do in his study?
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】[解析] 第三段第三、四句中提到“Jules Hirsch...did a study of eight fat people. They were given a liquid formula providing 600 calories a day. ”,由此可知Jules Hirsch在他的研究中给八个胖子每人每天提供600卡路里热量的流食配方,所以选D。
单选题 What happened to the eight fat people after they left the hospital?
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】[解析] 第三段中提到“But after leaving the hospital, they all regained. ”(但是离开医院之后,他们的体重又恢复了),由此可知八个胖子出院后他们又回到了原来的体重,故选C。
单选题 What did Ethan Sims make his subjects do?
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】[解析] 第四段中讲到了Ethan Sims的实验,其中提到“Ethan Sims...got prisoners to volunteer to gain weight. ”由此可知Ethan Sims让他的调查对象即犯人做志愿者增加体重。其中gain weight和B项的Increase their weight意思一样,故选B。
单选题 What did scientists think was true?
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】[解析] 最后一段的第一句中讲到了科学家认为的正确观点,即“The findings also provide evidence for something scientists thought was true—each person has a comfortable weight range. ”,由此可知调查结果还证实了科学家认为是正确的一点,即每个人都有一个适当的体重范围,故本题的正确答案是A。