阅读理解The best title for this text could be .

阅读理解In many traditional cultures, women and girls tend to wear more beautiful clothing than men

阅读理解Passage 2 This book is written expressly for students in an attempt to present the material that is most useful and interesting to them

阅读理解It''s hardly news anymore that Americans are just too fat. A quick look around the mall, the beach or the crowd at any baseball game will leave no room for doubt:our individual weight problems have become a national crisis. Even so, the actual numbers are shocking. Fully two-thirds of U. S. adults are officially overweight, and about half of those have graduated to full-blown obesity. 　　It wouldn''t be such a big deal if the problem were simple aesthetic. But excess poundage takes a terrible toll on the human body. significantly increasing the risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, infertility, and many forms of cancer. The total medical bill for illnesses related to obesity is $117 billion a year-and climbing - and the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that poor diet and physical inactivity could soon overtake tobacco as the leading cause of preventable death in the U. S. 　　Why is it happening? The obvious, almost trivial answer is that we eat too much high-calorie food and don''t burn it off with enough exercise. If only we could change those habits, the problem would go away. But clearly it isn''t that easy. Americans pour scores of billions of dollars every year into weight-loss products and health-club memberships. Food and drug companies spend even more trying to find a magic food or drug that will melt the pounds away. Yet the nation''s collective waistline just keeps growing. 　　It''s natural to try to find something to blame - fast-food joints or food manufacturers or even ourselves for having too little willpower. But the ultimate reason for obesity may be rooted deep within our genes. Obedient to the inevitable laws of evolution, the human race adapted over millions of years to living in a world of scarcity, where it paid to eat every good-tasting thing in sight when you could find it. 　　Although our physiology has stayed pretty much the same for the past 50,000 years or so,we humans have utterly transformed our environment. Over the past century especially, technology has almost completely removed physical exercise from the day-to-day lives of most Americans. At the same time, it has filled supermarket shelves with cheap, mass-produced, good-tasting food that is packed with calories. And finally, technology has allowed advertisers to deliver constant, virtually irresistible messages that say "Eat this now" to everyone old enough to watch TV. 　　This artificial environment is most pervasive in the U. S. and other industrialized countries, and that''s exactly where the fat crisis is most acute.

阅读理解Passage 2 What might driving on an automated highway be like? The answer depends on what kind of system is ultimately adopted

阅读理解Directions: Read the following passages and answer the questions. Choose the most appropriate answer for each question and circle the letter on the answer sheet. Remember to write the letter corresponding to the question number.The deserts, which already occupy approximately a fourth of the earth’s land surface, have in recent decades been increasing at an alarming pace. The expansion of desert like conditions into areas where they did not previously exist is called desertification. It has been estimated that an additional one- fourth of the earth’s land surface is threatened by this process.Desertification is accomplished primarily through the loss of stabilizing natural vegetation and the subsequent accelerated erosion of the soil by wind and water. In some cases, the loose soil is blown completely away, leaving a stony surface. In other cases, the finer particles may be removed, while the sand-sized particles are accumulated to form mobile hills or ridges of sand.Even in the areas that retain a soil cover, the reduction of vegetation typically results in the loss of the soil’s ability to absorb substantial quantities of water. The impact of raindrops on the loose soil tends to transfer fine clay particles into the tiniest soil spaces, sealing them and producing a surface that allows very little water penetration. Water absorption is greatly reduced; consequently runoff is increased, resulting in accelerated erosion rates. The gradual drying of the soil caused by its diminished ability to absorb water results in the further loss of vegetation, so that a cycle of progressive surface deterioration is established.In some regions, the increase in desert areas is occurring largely as the result of a trend toward drier climatic conditions. Continued gradual global warming has produced an increase in aridity for some areas over the past few thousand years. The process may be accelerated in subsequent decades if global warming resulting from air pollution seriously increases.There is little doubt, however, that desertification in most areas results primarily from human activities rather than natural processes. The semiarid lands bordering the deserts exist in a delicate ecological balance and are limited in their potential to adjust to increased environmental pressures. Expanding populations are subjecting the land to increasing pressures to provide them with food and fuel. In wet periods, the land may be able to respond to these stresses. During the dry periods that are common phenomena along the desert margins, though, the pressure on the land is often far in excess of its diminished capacity, and desertification results.Four specific activities have been identified as major contributors to the desertification processes: overcultivation, overgrazing, firewood gathering, and over irrigation. The cultivation of crops has expanded into progressively drier regions as population densities have grown. These regions are especially likely to have periods of severe dryness, so that crop failures are common. Since the raising of most crops necessitates the prior removal of the natural vegetation, crop failures leave extensive tracts of land devoid of a plant cover and susceptible to wind and water erosion.

阅读理解Text 3 When Microsoft bought task management app Wunderlist and mobile calendar Sunrise in 2015, it picked up two newcomers that were attracting considerable buzz in Silicon Valley

阅读理解Team Work in Sports ①Teams that win in team sports are often those that work well together

阅读理解Scientific tradition demands that scientific papers follow the formal progression :method first, results second, conclusion third. The rules permit no hint that, as often happens, the method was really made up as the scientist went along, or that accidental results determined the method, or that the scientist reached certain conclusions before the results were all in, or that he started out with certain conclusions, or that he started doing a different experiment. 　　Much scientific writing not only misrepresents the workings of science but also does a disservice to scientists themselves. By writing reports that make scientific investigations sound as unvarying and predictable as the sunrise, scientists tend to spread the curious notion that science is infallible. That many of them are unconscious of the effect they create does not alter the image in the popular mind. We hear time and again of the superiority of the "scientific method". In fact, the word "unscientific" has almost become a synonym for "untrue". Yet the final evaluation of any set of data is an individual, subjective judgment; and all human judgment is liable to error. Thoughtful scientists realize all this; but you wouldn''t gather so from reading most scientific literature. A self-important, stiff and unnatural style too often seizes the pen of the experimenter the moment he starts putting words on paper. 　　Editors of scientific publications are not without their reasons for the current style of scientific writing. Their journals aren''t rich. Paper and printing are expensive. Therefore, it is helpful to condense articles as much as possible. Under pressure of tradition, the condensation process removes the human elements first. And few scientific writers rebel against the tradition. Even courageous men do not go out of their way to publicize their deviations from accepted procedures. Then ,too, there is an apparent objectivity and humbleness attached to the third person, passive voice writing technique adopted in the preparation of most scientific papers. So, bit by bit, the true face of science becomes hidden behind what seems to the outsider to be a self-satisfied all-knowing mask. Is it any wonder that in the popular literature the scientist often appears as a hybrid superman-spoiled child? 　　No small contribution to modern culture could be the simple introduction, into the earliest stage of our public-school science courses, of a natural style of writing about laboratory experiments as they really happen. This is something that could be done immediately with the opening of classes this fall. It requires no preparation except a psychological acknowledgment of the obvious fact that the present form of reporting experiments is a mental tie whose very appearance is calculated to repel the imaginative young minds science so badly needs.

阅读理解Text 4 Last Thursday, the French Senate passed a digital services tax, which would impose an entirely new tax on large multinationals that provide digital services to consumers or users in France

阅读理解Hawaii, the Aloha State ① Hawaii is sometimes called the Aloha State

阅读理解Passage 2 I dont ever want to talk about being a woman scientist again

阅读理解 Sometimes the biggest changes in society are the hardest to spot precisely because they are hiding in plain sight. It could well be that way with wireless communications. Something that people think of as just another technology is beginning to show signs of changing lives, culture, politics, cities, jobs, even marriages dramatically. In particular, it will usher in a new version of a very old idea: nomadism. Futurology is a dangerous business, and it is true that most of the important arguments about mobile communications at the moment are to do with technology or regulation—bandwidth, spectrum use and so on. Yet it is worth jumping ahead and wondering what the social effects will be, for two reasons. First, the broad technological future is pretty clear: there will be ever faster cellular networks, and many more gadgets to connect to these networks. Second, the social changes are already visible: parents on beaches waving at their children while typing furtively on their BlackBerrys; entrepreneurs discovering they don't need offices at all. Everybody is doing more on the move. Wireless technology is surely not just an easier-to-use phone. The car divided cities into work and home areas; wireless technology may mix them up again, with more people working in suburbs or living in city centers. Traffic patterns are beginning to change again: the rush hours at 9am and 5pm are giving way to more varied patterns, with people going backwards and forwards between the office, home and all sorts of other places throughout the day. Already, architects are redesigning offices and universities: more flexible spaces for meeting people, fewer private enclosures for sedentary work. Will it be a better life? In some ways, yes. Digital nomadism will liberate ever more knowledge workers from the cubicle prisons as depicted in Mr. Dilbert's cartoons. But the old tyranny of place could become a new tyranny of time, as nomads who are 'always on' all too often end up—mentally—anywhere but here. As for friends and family, permanent mobile connectivity could have the same effect as nomadism: it might bring you much closer to family and friends, but it may make it harder to bring in outsiders. Sociologists fret about constant e-mailers and texters losing the everyday connections to casual acquaintances or strangers sitting next to them in the cafe or on the bus. The same tools have another dark side, turning everybody into a fully equipped paparazzo. Some fitness clubs have started banning mobile phones near the treadmills and showers lest exercising people find themselves pictured, flabby and sweaty, on some website. As in the desert, so in the city: nomadism promises the heaven of new freedom, but it also signals the hell of constant surveillance by the tribe.

阅读理解Text 2 We have heard a lot about the health benefits of tea, especially green tea

阅读理解Throughout the nations more than 15,000 school districts, widely differing approaches to teaching science and math have emerged

阅读理解I remember my first Mortenson moment

阅读理解Task 3 Directions: The following is an ad of AAA service

阅读理解Passage 1 Robert Capa is a name that has for many years been synonymous with war photography

阅读理解Passage 1 Where do pesticides(杀虫剂)fit into the picture of environmental disease? We have seen that they now pollute soil, water, and food, that they have the power to make our streams fishless and our gardens and woodlands silent and birdless

阅读理解 The biggest thing in operating rooms these days is a million-dollar, multi-armed robot named da Vinci, used in nearly 400,000 surgeries nationwide last year—triple the number just four years earlier. But now the high-tech helper is under scrutiny over reports of problems, including several deaths that may be linked with it and the high cost of using the robotic system. There also have been a few disturbing, freak incidents: a robotic hand that wouldn't let go of tissue grasped during surgery and a robotic arm hitting a patient in the face as she lay on the operating table. Is it time to curb the robot enthusiasm? Some doctors say yes, concerned that the 'wow' factor and heavy marketing have boosted use. They argue that there is not enough robust research showing that robotic surgery is at least as good or better than conventional surgeries. Many U. S. hospitals promote robotic surgery in patient brochures, online and even on highway billboards. Their aim is partly to attract business that helps pay for the costly robot. The da Vinci is used for operations that include removing prostates, gallbladders and wombs, repairing heart valves, shrinking stomachs and transplanting organs. Its use has increased worldwide, but the system is most popular in the United States. For surgeons, who control the robot while sitting at a computer screen rather than standing over the patient, these operations can be less tiring. Plus robot hands don't shake. Advocates say patients sometimes have less bleeding and often are sent home sooner than with conventional laparoscopic surgeries and operations involving large incisions. But the Food and Drug Administration is looking into a spike in reported problems during robotic surgeries. Earlier this year, the FDA began a survey of surgeons using the robotic system. The agency conducts such surveys of devices routinely, but FDA spokeswoman Synim Rivers said the reason for it now 'is the increase in number of reports received' about da Vinci. Reports filed since early last year include at least five deaths. Whether there truly are more problems recently is uncertain. Rivers said she couldn't quantify the increase and that it may simply reflect more awareness among doctors and hospitals about the need to report problems. Doctors aren't required to report such things; device makers and hospitals are. Company spokesman Geoff Curtis said intuitive Surgical has physician-educators and other trainers who teach surgeons how to use the robot. But they don't train them how to do specific procedures robotically, he said, and that it's up to hospitals and surgeons to decide 'if and when a surgeon is ready to perform robotic cases.' A 2010 New England Journal of Medicine essay by a doctor and a health policy analyst said surgeons must do at least 150 procedures to become adept at using the robotic system. But there is no expert consensus on how much training is needed. New Jersey banker Alexis Grattan did a lot of online research before her gallbladder was removed last month at Hackensack University Medical Center. She said the surgeon's many years of experience with robotic operations was an important factor. She also had heard that the surgeon was among the first to do the robotic operation with just one small incision in the belly button, instead of four cuts in conventional keyhole surgery.