Gardening(园艺) is popular in many parts of the world. It brings us sweet smelling flowers, fresh fruit and vegetables. But you can get more from your garden.

Gardening helps to keep healthy. Today’s people sit indoors for too long and don’t get much exercise. When you garden, you have to move around. It’s a good chance for you to exercise your body by watering flowers or doing some digging. Also, when you are in your garden, you can feel the warm sunshine. This means you are getting Vitamin D. It helps your bodies use calcium(钙), which is necessary to keep your bones(骨骼) strong.

Gardening is a great activity to do with children. It gets them off computers, televisions and phones. Gardening can be a great teacher to teach children about nature and healthy eating. It can also help them to understand the meaning of “No pains, no gains.”

Gardening is a great way to meet people and build relationships. When you are gardening, you are outdoors. So it is a perfect time to communicate with your neighbors. Most people love to talk about their hobbies, and so do gardeners. They usually enjoy showing people what they are growing. And most enjoy sharing advice and stories about their gardens.

1.When it’s ________, you can get Vitamin D in your garden.

A.sunny B.cloudy C.snowy D.rainy

2.According to the passage, ________ is one of the gardening activities.

A.watching TV B.watering flowers C.walking dogs D.playing with phones

3.The underlined phrase “No pains, no gains.” in Paragraph 3 means ________ in Chinese.

A.人非生而知之者 B.吃一堑,长一智 C.不劳则无获 D.乐中有悲

4.The structure(结构) of the passage should be ________. (P means paragraph)

A. B. C. D.

5.The best title of the passage may be “________”.

A.Healthy Eating Habits B.Relationships with Neighbors

C.Advantages(优点) of Outdoor Activities D.Advantages of Gardening

Play Ball!

If someone asks you to go to an association football(英式足球)game, will you be interested? Association football is known as soccer in the US. It is the world most widely played sport. Games similar to soccer were played as long as two thousand years ago in China! Modem soccer got its name from association football, a game played in England in the mid-1800s. The word association was shortened to assoc and it was finally turned into soccer.

The first soccer clubs were formed in England in the 1850s. The first professional(职业的)players joined in the 1880s. Soccer quickly spread across Europe and became very popular in countries such as Spain, Italy, and Germany. Soccer even spread to countries in faraway South America. People seemed to like how simple the game is. All you need to play are a ball and two goals. Everything else comes from the players. Soccer still remains very popular in both Europe and South America.

One of the best and most famous of these professionals is Edson Arantes do Nascimento. He is better known by his

Nickname, Pelé. Pelé was born in Brail, a country in South America. With Pelé's help, Brazil won three World Cup titles from the late 1950s to the early 1970s. Today, he is still one of the all-time leading scorers in World Cup history with12 goals. The International Olympic Committee named Pelé Soccer Player of the Century in 1999.

The World Cup is the worldwide soccer competition that is held every four years, once for women and once for men. Millions of people worldwide watch the matches on television. The first Women's World Cup match was played in 1991 in China.

It took longer for soccer to be accepted in the US than it did in other places around the world. A different kind of football was already played in this country. People were not eager(热切的)to try another form. After Pelé joined the New York Cosmos in 1975, soccer became more popular in the US. It continues to grow in popularity. Today, soccer is the second favorite sport for kids in the US!

1.What is association football known as in the US?

2.When were the first soccer clubs formed in England?

3.How many World Cup titles from the late 1950s to the early 1970s did Brazil win?

4.Where was the first Women's World Cup match played?

5.Why did it take longer for soccer to be accepted in the US?

Sheep Learned to Read Faces

①Which animals are smart? Your answer may be dogs, or elephants. Now there is one more animal on the list: sheep.

②According to a new study, sheep learned to recognize four famous people after being shown their pictures, suggesting these animals have face-recognition abilities similar to humans.

③Before testing, scientists let the sheep take a look at pictures of four famous people like former US President Barack Obama and British actress Emma Watson. Then the sheep went into a room with two computer screens. Each screen showed a human face looking straight ahead. One screen showed a famous person and the other screen showed a common person. The sheep were more likely to walk toward the screen showing the famous person. On average, they chose correctly in 8 out of 10 tests.

④After learning the animals’ ability to recognize famous people, researchers gave them a new task. They wanted to see if the farm animals could correctly recognize the same people shown from the side. The animals were still able to identify (识别) them, though they were a bit slower to recognize the pictures than before and they were correct less than 70% of the time.

⑤Finally, the researchers wanted to know if the sleep could recognize their trainers from a photo. Pictures of their trainers were randomly (随机地) shown on screens along with other unfamiliar faces. Without any training, the sheep could recognize their trainers.

⑥The results show that the animals’ face-recognition abilities are similar to those of monkeys, and humans.

⑦Face recognition is a difficult process (过程). But sheep have big brains. When they see other sheep, they use this process to recognize one another, said Jenny Morton, the lead researcher.

⑧The researchers plan to further study the sheep and find out if they can recognize different facial expression made by humans.

⑨The researchers hope that the study could shed light on certain brain diseases (疾病) such as Huntington’s disease, which affects (影响) abilities like facial recognition.

⑩We can’t say for sure, but it might help us understand how the disease starts, said Morton.

1.Scientists found that sheep can .

A.become humans’ best friend B.be smarter than other animals

C.identify people by their names D.recognize familiar human faces

2.Which paragraphs describe how the scientists did the experiments?

A.①②③ B.③④⑤ C.⑥⑦⑧ D.⑧⑨⑩

3.What do the words “shed light on” in Paragraph 9 probably mean?

A.Make it easier to understand. B.Turn a very strong light on.

C.Find ways to solve problems. D.Keep trying new experiments.

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