READING COMPREHENSION
Directions: Read the following three passages. Each passage is followed by several questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A, B, C and D. Choose the one that fits best according to the information given in the passage.
A
Four out of ten women who diet end up heavier than when they started watching their waistline（腰围）, a study revealed today. The research also showed that a large percentage of women start noticing the pounds creeping back on just 21 days after reaching their ideal weight.
Yesterday, Dr Ian Campbell of the Jenny Craig weight management program said: “In the UK 61.4 per cent of adults are overweight or obese. Successful weight management requires a long-term commitment in order to lose weight successfully and for good. Dieting can be a real challenge so setting realistic goals and remaining focused on them is important. Otherwise as this research shows, women could end up heavier than when they started.”
The “Food: Body: Mind” report was publicized by Jenny Craig who quizzed 2000 women aged between 18 and 65 who diet regularly on their attitudes, beliefs and behaviors around weight loss. Six in ten said they are currently on a diet and one in five women said they are on a “continuous diet”.
It found the most common triggers to start dieting was seeing their “reflection in the mirror”, preparing for a summer holiday or unflattering photos posted on social networking sites. Other popular reasons include comments by friends or relatives or their other half.
However, the study showed that one in ten give up within one day, while almost a fifth manage to make it to a week or more. The average is ten days. Many blamed pressure they put on themselves to lose weight too quickly for the weight gain, which leaves them with a bigger appetite than normal. Others blamed colleagues, who tuck into fatty lunches and snacks unaware of the effect it has on the dieter, while mothers who polish off their children's leftovers（剩饭）was another common cause of weight gain.
56. Which of the following might be the best title for this article?
A. Three reasons to fail in dieting B. Important things for successful diet
C. Obesity: problem for 61.4% adults in UK D. Four in ten women gain weight on diets
57. In the UK, women who go on a diet __________.
A. are all overweight or obese
B. are likely to gain weight again after reaching their ideal weight
C. all fail because they are not persistent enough
D. end up heavier than when they start to diet
58. The underlined word “triggers” in Paragraph 4 probably means __________.
A. effects B. examples C. causes D. imagination
59. Which of the following is NOT the reason why many people quit dieting very soon?
A. The pressure they put on themselves to lose weight quickly.
B. Colleagues who give them fatty lunches and snacks.
C. Reflections they see in the mirror.
D. Leftovers of children’s taken by their mothers.
60. In which column of the newspaper do you probably find the passage?
A. Health. B. Economy. C. Sports. D. Education.
B
The US government has started a website, Admongo, to help children think critically about the advertising aimed at them. It claims to provide visitors with an “aducation” through games and other entertainment.
A cartoon man dressed in old time pilot clothing greets visitors to Admongo. "Call me Haiz", he says upon arrival in a rocket ship that opens up with a crazy world inside it. Spacey dance music plays in the background as Haiz tells visitors that they need to learn about advertising.
Its inventors say eight to twelve years old is the age kids develop their critical thinking abilities. Kids that age are also a big market for advertisers.
The idea behind Admongo is to teach children three things: To identify the advertiser. To know what the advertiser is really saying. And to know what the advertisement is trying to get the child to do.
Children learn these things through a video game. They create their own game character. They can choose different skin colors, hair styles, eye and mouth shapes. Then they begin a trip through ad-land, where there are ads on buses and billboards. The players have to find all the marketing in the neighborhood before they can move on to the next level.
The Admongo game takes players inside a home, to the advertising studio and everywhere else ads can be found. It is a complete exploration of the world of marketing.
One such area is food marketing. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) says it is a big business. The FTC estimates that food, drink and fast-food restaurants spent more than one and a half billion dollars on advertising to young people in 2009.
The FTC says children are important for three reasons. They buy products. They influence parents and caregivers to buy. And they are the future adult buyers of the products.
A recent study says most advertising aimed at children is for foods of the lowest nutritional value. First Lady Michelle Obama has said she would like to see advertisers marketing healthy foods for children.
61. What is the best title of the text?
A. A website aimed at children’s food B. The cartoon guide named “Haiz”
C. An “aducation” website for children D. A popular online video game
62. Why did the government start the website?
A. To advertise the video game for children. B. To help children know about advertising.
C. To attract the biggest market of buyers. D. To sell the products of its company.
63. What can players do in the website game?
A. Play video games during the trip. B. Travel to a supermarket.
C. Eat in a fast-food restaurant. D. Choose appearance for their character.
64. Children are important for advertising because they are .
A. important for the society B. the most potential buyers
C. easily influenced by ads D. easily affected by poor products
65. According to Michelle Obama, lots of foods advertised for children are ________.
A. of low quality B. yummy C. of high nutrition D. healthy
C
Is language, like food, a basic human need? Judging from the extreme experiment of Frederick in the 13th century, it may be. Hoping to discover what language a child would speak if he heard no mother tongue he told the nurses to keep silent.
All the babies died before the first year. But clearly there was more than language deprivation (剥夺，丧失). What was missing was good mothering. Without good mothering, in the first year of life especially, the ability to survive is seriously affected.
Today no such extreme deprivation exists as that ordered by Frederick. Nevertheless, some children are still backward in speaking. Most often the reason for this is that the mother is insensitive to signals of the baby, whose brain is programmed, to mop up language rapidly. There are critical times, it seems when children learn more rapidly. If these sensitive periods are neglected, the ideal time for acquiring skills passes and they might never be learned so easily again.
Linguists suggest that speech milestones are reached in a fixed order and at a constant age, but there are cases where speech has started late in a child who eventually turns out to be of high IQ.
Recent evidence suggests that a baby is born with the ability to speak. What is special about man’s brain, compared with that of the monkey, is the complex system which enables a child to connect the sight and feel of, say, a teddy bear with the sound pattern “teddy bear”.
But speech has to be developed, and this depends on interaction between the mother and the child, where the mother recognizes the signals in the child’s babbling, clinging, grasping, crying, smiling, and responds to them. Insensitivity of the mother to these signals reduces the interaction because the child gets discouraged and sends out only the obvious signals. Sensitivity to the child’s nonverbal (非语言的) signals is basic to the growth and development of language.
66. Frederick’s experiment was extreme because _________.
A. he wanted to prove children are born with ability to speak
B. he wanted his nurses to say another language
C. he was unkind to the nurses
D. he ignored the importance of mothering to the babies
67. The reason that some children are backward in speaking is most likely that _________.
A. they do not listen carefully to their mothers
B. their mothers do not respond to their attempts to speak
C. their brain has to absorb too much language at once
D. their mothers are not intelligent enough to help them
68. In paragraph 3, by “critical times” the author means _________.
A. difficult periods in the child’s life
B. moments when the child becomes critical towards its mother
C. important stages in the child’s development
D. times when mothers often neglect their children
69. If a child starts to speak later than others, he will _________ in future.
A. have a high IQ?????????????????????????????? B. be less intelligent
C. not necessarily be backward???????? D. be insensitive to verbal signals
70. If the mother seldom responds to her child’s signals, _________.
A. the child will be able to speak properly
B. the child will continue to give out signals
C. the child will invent a language of own
D. the child will make little effort to speak
56~60：DBCCA 61~65：CBDBA 66~70：DBCCD
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