In summer the extreme heat often makes people sweaty and restless. While people are annoyed by it, experts suggest summer is the best season to discharge (排放) your body’s toxins (毒素) and recover your energy.
One popular option is hot-stone massage (按摩). Therapists use smooth and heated stones, usually river rocks, to massage certain parts of the body, or place them on key points of the body. The warmth of the hot stones will improve blood circulation and also help relax muscles, while sweating is also believed to be good for discharging the body’s toxins.
Another popular option is hot-stone baths. The hot-stone bath will help the body discharge toxins and humidity that accumulated during the last winter. Summer is the best season to build a good body. Rather than use water or steam to heat and wash the body, people simply wear a coat or something comfortable, and then lie on heated stone tablets made of hot stones, which are warmed to around 45oC. The body will gradually warm up and blood circulation will also be improved. More sweat will come out quickly. The sweat is smooth and fresh, not smelly like that released after sports activities. Such baths bring a number of health benefits, such as anti-aging, improved blood circulation and stress relief. The slimming effect of dieting can even be promoted.
Using hot stones for healing dates back to ancient times, but the modern renewal of hot-stone massage is generally credited to Mary Nelson, a native of Tucson, Arizona, America, whose trademark is “LaStone Therapy”.
The therapy is gaining wide popularity with many people, especially those who have jobs in cool air-conditioned rooms. The hot-stone therapy can help cure many diseases, including back pain.
1.What do people use to release toxins in our body according to the text?
A. Washing the body with cold water.
B. Discharging lots of sweat.
C. Relaxing muscles
D. Lying on the warm beds.
2.What can we know from the text?
A. Sports have greater effects on the health than hot-stone massage.
B. There are no toxins and humidity in the body in summer.
C. Using water of about 45oC to wash the body is good for the health.
D. People should take advantage of summer to improve their health.
3.What can be learned about the hot-stone therapy?
A. It was invented by Mary Nelson, an American.
B. It successfully cured many people of cancer.
C. It is popular with people with its excellent effects.
D. It can help people avoid sweating too much in hot summer.
4.Which of the following could be the best title for the text?
A. The origin and development of the hot-stone therapy
B. The amazing functions of the hot-stone therapy
C. A healthy and comfortable lifestyle
D. How to live comfortably in summer
Welcome to the British Museum, the grandest and the most spectacular of human history. The admission is free and we open every day from 10:00 to 15:30. You can explore 10 departments including:
The Department of Africa, Oceania and the Americas
The collection of the Department of Africa, Oceania and the Americas includes around 350,000 objects. The scope of the collection is contemporary, and historical. It includes most of Africa, the Pacific and Australia, as well as the Americas. All of the collections were got during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and date from this time.
The Department of Asia
The Department of Asia covers the material and visual cultures of Asia – a vast geographical area of Japan, Korea, China, Central Asia, Afghanistan, South Asia and South-East Asia. The collection dates from about 4000 BC, to the present day. It represents the cultures and ways of life of local people and other minority groups.
The Department of Greek and Roman Empires
The Department of Greek and Roman Empires features antiquities (古董). It has one of the most comprehensive collections of antiquities from the Classical world, with over 100,000 objects. These mostly range in date from the beginning of the Greek Bronze Age (about 3200BC) to the time of the Roman emperor Constantine in the fourth century AD.
1.The scope of the Department of Africa, Oceania and Americas doesn’t include______.
A. Africa B. the South America
C. Australia D. Britain
2.The earliest collection is from ______.
A. The Department of Africa, Oceania and the Americas
B. The Department of Greek and Roman Empires
C. The Department of Asia
D. The Department of the Middle East
3.The Department of Asia represents ______.
A. the geographic features of Asia
B. the life styles and cultural traditions of some peoples
C. the relationships between Asian countries
D. the cultural fights between some native groups
阅读下面短文，然后按照要求写一篇150词左右的英语短文。
Love Tunnel sees lots of love and trash
Bearing a resemblance to the forest－surrounded “Love Tunnel” in Ukraine, the twokilometer tunnel in Jiangning district Nanjing saw a recent rise in popularity as more than 2,000 tourists paid a visit every day this summer.The high number of visitors caused traffic safety concerns and increased the workload of sanitation workers.The Nanjing government had intended to cut the trees by the end of 2014.After the Nanjing government was forced to draft plans to cut the trees due to public pressure, visitors poured into a railway section that runs through thick forest for sightseeing and to take photos this weekend, leaving the railway with overwhelming piles of trash.
However, in response to the government's plan, complaints and outcries were made by the citizens that the love tunnel should be reserved.They claim that walking along the leafy green tunnel is like entering a fairy tale, and a possible decision to tear down the trees could bring the story to a pitiful end.
注释：sanitation 卫生
（写作内容）
1．以大约30个词左右概括短文的内容要点；
2．以大约120个词谈谈你对“爱情隧道”该不该保留的看法，并说出你的理由。
（写作要求）
1．作文中可以使用亲身经历或虚构的故事，也可以参照阅读材料的内容，但不能直接引用原文中的句子；
2．作文中不能出现真实姓名和学校名称。
（评分标准）
概括准确，语言规范，内容合适，篇章连贯。
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任务型阅读
Shared habits of happy people
Happy people all share happy habits.It's as simple as that.The happiest people I know share these obvious habits.If you're looking to expand your general happiness, you may consider adopting these in your own life.
People may take an active role in their local city council, join a social club supporting causes they believe in, or find passion in their careers.In each case, the physiological outcome is the same.They engage in something they strongly believe in.This engagement brings happiness and meaning into their lives.
A happy life is a life shared with friends and family.The stronger the personal relationships are and the higher the frequency of interaction is, the happier a person will be.
Quite often people concentrate too much on negative outcomes and leave no time to reflect positively on their successes.It's natural for a person to want to correct undesirable circumstances and focus closely on doing so, but it is important to reflect mindfully on the good while striving diligently to correct the bad.A continuous general awareness of your daily successes can have a noticeably positive effect on your overall emotional happiness.
The power of endings is quite remarkable.The end of any experience has a great impact on a person's overall perception(看法) of the experience as a whole.Think about reading a wellwritten novel.Now imagine the ending is really poor.Even if the story was appealing until the ending, would you still be happy recommending the novel to a friend? People always remember the ending.If the ending is happy, the experience creates happiness.Always tie loose ends, leave things on a good note, and create happy endings in your life whenever possible.
Everyone possesses unique personal strengths.We all have different talents and skill sets.Emotional happiness comes naturally to those who use their strengths to get things done.The state of completion always creates a sense of achievement.If the achievement is based on your own personal ability to get the job done, the physiological rewards are priceless.
The best things in life are free.They come in the form of simple pleasures and they appear right in front of you at previous locations and arbitrary times.They are governed by Mother Nature and situational circumstances and captured by mindful awareness.It's all about taking a moment to notice the orange and pink sunset reflecting off the pond water as you hold hands with someone you love.Noticing these moments and taking part in them regularly will bring unplanned bursts of happiness into your life.
Shared habits | Explanations |
Be a part of something you believe in | If people are engaged in what they strongly believe in, it brings happiness and 1. into their lives. |
2. time with friends and family | If the personal relationships are stronger and the interaction is more 3.， a person will be happier. |
4. on the good | If people often concentrate their attention on 5. outcomes, it will result in their overall emotional happiness. |
Create happy endings whenever 6. | If the ending is happy, the 7. will bring happiness to you. |
Use personal strengths to get things done | It is 8. that emotional happiness comes to those who use their personal strengths to get things done. |
Enjoy the natural joy of simple pleasures | If you are able to 9. the simple natural pleasures and enjoy them, it will bring unplanned bursts of happiness into your 10.. |
You have a backache; your legs are painful after a basketball match—what better than a relaxing massage (按摩)?
Scientists now say they have figured out the reason why a massage brings comfort. They say a massage changes how some of your proteins (蛋白质) act.This makes your muscles less inflamed (发炎的), according to the Los Angeles Times.
The leader of the study, Professor Mark Tarnopolsky at McMaster University, Canada, chose several healthy young men for the experiment.He asked them to do very tiring exercise. Then he looked at how the cells changed in their legs.After this, the men were given a massage on only one leg and Tarnopolsky recorded any cell changes again.
Tarnopolsky and his team found that massaging made the inflammation caused by exercise get better because it weakened the activity of a protein called NFkB.
Scientists also noticed that massaging helped cells recover from exercise damage.When muscles were being massaged, the amount of another protein called PGClalpha increased. This kind of protein can stimulate (促进) the growth of a tiny part inside cells called mitochondria (线粒体)．
People used to think that massaging eases pain by clearing away the lactic acid (乳酸) which built up after exercise. However, Tarnopolsky and his team didn't see any changes to lactic acid.
Thomas Birk is a professor at Wayne State University, US. He said that the study was the first he had seen to analyze massage in such depth. He said they wanted to start research 10 years ago, but technology was not yet good enough.
One day massages could be used to treat injuries and muscle disease. They may even be able to replace some antiinflammatory medicines, said Birk. But, he said, more research is needed for masseurs (按摩师) to figure out the best massages for different diseases.
1.What is the article mainly about?
A. A new way to massage.
B. The best way to relax after doing sports.
C. New research into massages.
D. The advantages of a massage.
2.How can a massage bring comfort according to the article?
A. It weakens the activity of the protein NFkB.
B. It helps protein recover from exercise damage.
C. It can clear away the mitochondria in muscles.
D. It can prevent inflammation in muscles.
3.What does the underlined word “eases” in Paragraph 6 probably mean?
A. makes easier B. reduces
C. puts up with D. stops
4.Which of the following statements is TRUE?
A. It was believed that massages cleared away lactic acid.
B. Research into massages started 10 years ago.
C. Massages are used to treat muscle diseases in hospitals.
D. Massages will reduce the amount of protein PGClalpha.
Since people first launched rockets into space in the 1950s, we have been leaving behind all sorts of things. Some of them, like the camera, were lost by astronauts while they did work outside their spacecraft. But much of the space junk is made up of little pieces of things that were once bigger objects, until they struck each other and broke apart.
Some things we send into space fall back toward Earth and burn up in the atmosphere. But larger pieces sometimes survive the extreme heat and hit the ground or the ocean at great speeds. So there is always concern that something may fall from the sky and do some harm.
But space junk falling on roofs is not the biggest worry. Scientists are concerned about the “Kessler” problem. Imagine what happens when an empty rocket strikes another while orbiting the earth. Two big things become many smaller things. They then hit other things. The pieces get smaller and smaller until they form a cloud of junk that blocks the path of future space vehicles.
Marco Castronuovo, an Italian Space Agency researcher, says launching a satellite into space that would get very close to some of the larger pieces of space junk. The satellite would connect a small rocket to the useless object. When the rocket explodes, it pushes the junk into a lower and slower orbit, nearer the Earth. After a time, the junk burns up in the atmosphere. Mr.Castronuovo has proposed using a number of small satellites with robotic arms. One arm would catch the space junk, and another arm would connect the rocket. He imagines that each satellite could jump from one large piece of junk to another. He thinks this method could destroy about ten large objects each year.
Scientists have been concerned about space junk for many years. Right now, the costs of the cleanup have been too great. Mr.Castronuovo says his system could be put in place for a much more reasonable amount of money. So what can be done to clean up the space around our planet?
1.We can learn from the text that much of the space junk ________.
A. was left by the astronauts on purpose
B. is mainly made up of broken spaceship
C. is usually made of small pieces of things
D. burns up before it reaches the atmosphere
2.Now scientists are most worried that space junk will ________.
A. harm the future space vehicles
B. do some harm to the atmosphere
C. fall on people's house roofs
D. destroy the habitat of wildlife
3.It implies in the last but one paragraph that ________.
A. clearing up the space will actually cost little
B. small rockets also do harm to the atmosphere
C. only robots can clear up the space completely
D. it is still difficult for us to clear up the space
4.What is the text mainly about?
A. Space junk threatens earth's orbital environment.
B. Scientists use different methods to clear up space junk.
C. Spacecrafts will meet with a lot of space junk in the future.
D. Marco comes up with many methods to deal with space junk.
