Question

Are You Listening to What Your Heart Is Telling You?

Wearable technology is getting a lot of attention these days. These devices are becoming increasingly more integrated into our daily lives and are providing new insights into our personal activity and fitness levels. According to IDC Research, the worldwide wearables market will reach 45.7 million units shipped by the end of 2015 and 126.1 million units in 2019.

To date, the vast majority of that growth has been in basic activity trackers like the Fitbit One and the Jawbone UP that use an accelerometer (加速计) to measure movement and translate those measurements into estimates of step counts, calories burned, distance travelled and other metrics (度量标准). However, these devices won’t tell you how your body responded to that movement. In other words, while an activity tracker can estimate that you’ve taken 10,000 steps in a day, it can’t tell you how hard your body worked to take those 10,000 steps or how your body recovered from that effort. Measurements of both physical activity and the body’s response to physical activity are important components in determining whether you’re actually improving your health and fitness.

This can be explained by what exercise scientists refer to as workload. Workload is defined as the amount of time spent doing an activity or workout multiplied by the intensity of that activity. For example, to burn approximately 400 calories you can work out for an hour at low intensity or work out for 20 minutes at very high intensity. This may seem obvious, but while basic activity trackers can be good at measuring how many steps you’ve taken, they are incapable of telling you how your body actually responded to those steps. The best way to quantify your body’s true response to workload is by continuously and accurately measuring heart rate.

With accurate information about your workloads and level of effort you are on your way to getting much better insight into your health and fitness. For example, with training you will start to see improvements in your cardiac efficiency (心效率). This is why more companies are adding continuous heart rate monitoring to their next-gen wearable products. You can expect to see this trend continue as consumers get more value from the powerful insights that accurate heart rate data can provide.

1.What does the author mainly talk about in Paragraph 2?

A. The disadvantages of basic activity trackers.

B. The metrics of future wearable technology.

C. The growth in wearable devices.

D. Important physical activities.

2.According to the passage, the next-gen wearable products will be better than basic activity trackers in that ___________.

A. they are like the Fitbit One and the Jawbone UP

B. they are good at measuring your physical activity

C. they are likely to have a sensor monitoring heart rate

D. they are able to estimate step counts, calories burned and distance travelled

3.In which column of the newspaper can this passage most probably be found?

A. Advertisement.    B. Finance.

C. Medicine.    D. Science.

Answer

1.A

2.C

3.D

【解析】

本文是一篇科技类短文阅读。文章主要讲述现在可穿戴设备越来越受欢迎，但目前的设备存在一些缺点，科学家正在研究可监测心率的可穿戴设备。

1.段落大意题。根据文章第二段内容可知，特别是However, these devices won’t tell you how your body responded to that movement.这一句，可知此段主要讲述基本活动跟踪器的缺点。故选A。

2.细节理解题。根据文章最后一段This is why more companies are adding continuous heart rate monitoring to their next-gen wearable products.可知，下一代可穿戴设备更好是因为它们可能有一个传感器监测心率。故选C。

3.推理判断题。本文是一篇科技类短文阅读，故此篇文章最有可能在报纸的科学栏目里发现。故选D。