When we smile, our system recognizes that there’s an absence of threat, and relaxes: It slows down our heart rate, and may temporarily reduce blood pressure, too, promoting overall heart health. Even forcing your face into a smile can reduce stress and relax your heart rate.
Smiling is a language that everyone understands regardless of age, race, culture, language, and nationality. We all know that when you smile at people, even strangers, they almost always smile back, spreading a kind of peace and goodwill. This contagious（有感染力的）smiling comes from a subconscious tendency to match other people’s emotions. It’s why people who spend time around children，who smile often, naturally smile more than people who keep mostly adults company.
People who are generous with smiles are considered more likeable and approachable than people who wear a deadpan（面无表情的）expression. Consider successful salesmen and politicians. Can you imagine how we’d react if they wore sour expressions? People who smile a lot are more likely to gain our trust — and earn better tips — than someone who provides the same service with an impassive face.
In a study, Major League Baseball players from 1952 who wore full-faced, genuine smiles on their baseball cards lived longer, around 79.9 years, compared to players who only partly smiled or didn’t smile at all, who lived 5 to 7 years less. Smiling can make us look younger, too: People who smile frequently seem to age more slowly, appearing around three years younger than their less smiley counterparts.
We now have evidence that we are hardwired to smile. While smiling used to be considered a learned behavior that babies acquired at around six weeks of age, more advanced ultrasound testing has shown that even babies who are bom blind can smile. Babies have been known to make breathing and sucking movements while still in the womb（子宫）, and these reactions are thought to prepare them for their life outside. Now smiling has joined the list. Say cheese!
1.What can smiling do according to Paragraph 1?
A. Remove your life pressure.
B. Improve the condition of the heart.
C. Make your blood pressure steady.
D. Prevent you from being absent-minded.
2.What should you do if you want to smile more according to the author?
A. Stay more with people smiling more.
B. Approach smart children.
C. Care more about others’ feelings.
D. Volunteer together with more strangers.
3.What does the author want to show by mentioning salesmen and politicians?
A. A false smile may hurt people.
B. Smiles contribute to a career.
C. Generous people tend to smile more.
D. Work pressure stops people smiling.
4.What does the author suggest in the last paragraph?
A. Babies smile within 2 months.
B. Blind babies learn to smile.
C. Smiling is a natural ability.
D. Breathing and sucking are similar to smiling.
A nerve-zapping（电击神经）headset caused people to get rid of fat in a small preliminary study. Six people who had received the stimulation（刺激）lost on average about 8 percent of the fat on their trunks in four months, scientists reported at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience,
The headset stimulated the vestibular nerve（前庭神经）, which runs just behind the ears. That nerve sends signals to the hypothalamus, a brain structure thought to control the body’s fat storage. By stimulating the nerve with an electrical current, the technique shifts the body away from storing fat toward burning it.
Six overweight and obese people received the treatment, consisting of up to four one-hour-long sessions of stimulation a week. Because it activated the vestibular system, the stimulation created the sensation of gently rocking on a boat or floating in a pool, said the study’s co-author Jason McKeown of the University of California, San Diego.
After four months, body scans measured the trunk fat for the six people receiving the treatment and three people who received unreal stimulation. All six in the treatment group lost some trunk fat, despite not having changed their activity or diet. In contrast, those in the unreal group gained some fat. Researchers suspect that changes in the set of life-sustaining chemical transformations within human cells are behind the difference. “The results were a lot better than we thought they’d be,” McKeown said.
Earlier studies found that vestibular nerve stimulation causes mice to drop fat and pack on muscle, resulting in what McKeown called Schwarzenegger mice. Though small, the current study suggests that the approach has promise in people. McKeown and his colleagues have started a company based on the technology and plan to test it further.
1.What is an electrical current used for?
A. Causing the body to bum its fat.
B. Controlling the body’s storage of fat.
C. Seeing if the headset will be affected.
D. Speeding the process of one’s digesting.
2.What’s the probable reason for the different results in participants?
A. The length of stimulation they received.
B. The type of stimulation they received.
C. The difference in their vestibular system.
D. The way chemicals process in their body.
3.Which is true about McKeown’s current findings?
A. They have a kind of practical value.
B. They go against those of earlier tests on mice.
C. They were widely recognized at the meeting.
D. They have been tested by MeKeown’s company.
4.What can be the best title of the text?
A. The science of zapping fat
B. A new trial of weight loss
C. Zapping certain nerves leads to fat loss
D. Exercise for weight loss and get fit
When Seattle-based poet Heather McHugh won $500,000 from the Mac Arthur Foundation, she didn’t buy a Maserati or fly to Paris. Instead, she put the money in the bank and continued teaching college courses and writing poetry. It wasn’t until about two years later, in 2011, that she finally figured out what to do with it.
She discovered there are millions of caregivers in the United States taking care of the chronically（长期地）ill or disabled. “It’s a heartbreaking contract of love,” she says. So in 2012, Heather formed Caregifted, a non-profit organization that offers a seven-day, all-expenses-paid vacation to Vancouver Island to people who have been caregivers for at least ten years.”It’s hard physical, psychological, and emotional work. “It’s clear they deserve and need a respite,” she says.
Tricia Eisner, a single mother of 19-year-old triplet（三胞胎中的一个）boys，two of them with severe illness, was one of the first caregivers to go on vacation, in 2013. When Tricia got a phone call saying Caregifted wanted to send her to Eastport，Maine，she “couldn’t believe” someone would pay for her to go on a vacation; disbelief gave way to concern about her sons. But after two days away, the worry was gone. n After being in Maine by myself, with nobody to take care of or think about except myself, I realized that rock was gone," says Tricia. She was afraid the heaviness would return when the week was over, but to her surprise, it hasn’t been back since.
Heather says, “Everybody needs restorative time. For some, it’s life-extending.” Tricia and the other guests aren’t the only ones to benefit from Caregifted ； Heather has too. “I thought I was the queen of love, being a poet, ” Heather says. “But I didn’t know a thing about love until I met these people.”
1.Whom is Caregifted intended for?
A. The disabled. B. The kids.
C. The caregivers. D. The patients.
2.What does the underlined word “respite” in Paragraph 2 probably mean?
A. reward B. rest
C. job D. promotion
3.How did Tricia feel after staying in Maine for two days?
A. Concerned. B. Relieved.
C. Excited. D. Doubtful.
4.What does the last paragraph suggest?
A. People benefit when they give.
B. Poets are full of love and helpful.
C. Caregifted is life-extending.
D. Heather once lackedlove.
The National Parks and Federal Recreational Lands Pass Series
A pass is your ticket to more than 2,000 federal recreation sites. Each pass covers entrance fees at national parks and national wildlife refuges as well as standard amenity（便利设施）fees and day use fees for a driver and all passengers in a personal vehicle at per vehicle fee areas at national forests and grasslands, and at lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Reclamation and U. S. Army Corps of Engineers. Children aged 15 or under are admitted free. The following passes make up the series：
Annual Pass
● $ 80
● Available to everyone.
● Can be obtained in person at a federal recreation site, right here online, or contact us.
● Non-transferable（不可转让的）.
Senior Pass
● $ 10, lifetime pass
● For U. S. citizens or permanent residents aged 62 or over.
● May be obtained online, in person at a federal recreation site or through the mail using this application form. Applicants must provide documentation of age and residency or citizenship.
Access Pass
● Free
● For U. S. citizens or permanent residents with permanent disabilities.
● May be obtained in person at a federal recreation site or through the mail using this application form. Applicants must provide documentation of permanent disability and residency or citizenship.
Volunteer Pass
● Free
● For volunteers who acquire 250 service hours with the federal agencies that participate in the Interagency Pass Program.
● Contact your local federal recreation site for more information about volunteer opportunities or visit Volunteer, gov.
1.Which pass is suitable for a healthy U. S. citizen in his seventies?
A. Annual Pass. B. Senior Pass.
C. Access Pass. D. Volunteer Pass.
2.What do we know about the pass series?
A. Only U. S. citizens can access the series.
B. Ownership of Annual Pass can be handed over.
C. Access Pass can be got through two ways.
D. Volunteering guarantees Volunteer Pass.
3.Where is the passage probably taken from?
A. A report. B. A poster.
C. A newspaper. D. A webpage.
假设你是红星中学高三（1）班学生李华。最近你和同学组织了“文明使用共享单车”的活动，请根据以下四幅图的先后顺序，给校刊“英语角”写一篇稿件介绍你们的活动过程。注意：词数不少于60。
提示词：1.civilized 文明的
2. leaflets 宣传单
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假定英语课上老师要求同桌之间交换修改作文，请你修改你同桌写的以下作文。文中共有10处语言错误，每句中最多有两处。每处错误仅涉及二个单词的增加、删除或修改。
增加：在缺词处加一个漏字符号(∧)，并在其下面写出该加的词。
删除：把多余的词用斜线（\）划掉。
修改：在错的词下划一横线，并在该词下面写出修改后的词。
注意：1.每处错误及其修改均仅限一词；
2.只允许修改10处，多者（从第11处起）不计分。
New college life is approached. I'm glad to hear that there will be six clubs for me to join in. Among those six clubs, the drawing club is my favorite one, that I'd most like to choose. On the one hand, I have been learning to draw for several years, but I hope the club can give me more chance to show my talent. Maybe I can have my own exhibitions and become a famously artist one day. On other hand, I expect to make more friends who has the same hobbies. I think I would have a wonderful college life if I can be a member of the club. I'm looking forward to them.
