For a while, my neighborhood was taken over by an army of joggers. They were there all the time: early morning, noon, and evening. There were little old ladies in gray sweats, young couples in Adidas shoes, middle-aged men with red faces. "Come on!" My friend Alex encouraged me to join him as he jogged by my house every evening. "You'll feel great."

    Well, I had nothing against feeling great and if Alex could jog every day, anyone could. So I took up jogging seriously and gave it a good two months of my life, and not a day more. Based on my experience, jogging is the most overvalued form of exercise around, and judging from the number of the people who left our neighborhood jogging army, I'm not alone in my opinion.

   First of all, jogging is very hard on the body. Your legs and feet will be a real pounding ruining down a road for two or three miles. I developed foot, leg, and back problems. Then I read about a nationally famous jogger who died of a heart attack while jogging, and I had something else to worry about. Jogging doesn't kill hundreds of people, but if you have any physical weaknesses, jogging will surely bring them out, as they did with me.

   Secondly, I got no enjoyment out of jogging. Putting one foot in front of the other for forty-five minutes isn't my idea of fun. Jogging is also a lonely pastime. Some joggers say, "I love being out there with just my thoughts." Well, my thoughts began to bore me, and most of them were on how much my legs hurt.

  And how could I enjoy something that brought me pain? And that wasn't just the first week: it was practically every day for two months. I never got past the pain level, and pain isn't fun. What a cruel way to do it! So many other exercises, including walking, lead to almost the same results painlessly, so why jog?

   I don't jog any more, and I don't think I ever will. I'm walking two miles three times a week at a fast pace, and that feels good. I bicycle to work when the weather is good. I'm getting exercise, and I'm enjoying it at the same time. I could never say the same for jogging, and I've found a lot of better ways to stay in shape.

67. From the first paragraph, we learn that in the writer's neighborhood ____.

   A. jogging became very popular         B. people jogged only during the daytime

   C. Alex organized an army of joggers   D. jogging provided a chance to get together

68. What was the writer's attitude towards jogging in the beginning?

   A. He felt it was worth a try.                B. He was very fond of it.

   C. He was strongly against it.                        D. He thought it must be painful.

69. Why did the writer give up jogging two months later?

  A. He disliked doing exercise outside.      B. He found it neither healthy nor interesting.

  C. He was afraid of having a heart attack.  D. He was worried about being left alone.

70. From the writer's experience, we can conclude that ____.

  A. not everyone enjoys jogging     

B. he is the only person who hates jogging

  C. nothing other than jogging can help people keep fit

  D. jogging makes people feel greater than any other sport

 

Mark Twain was a great writer. He was from the USA. He was born in 1835. He was also a famous speaker. He was famous for his sense of humour(幽默感). Many people liked to listen to him talk because he liked to tell some interesting stories to make people laugh all the time.

     One day Mark Twain was going to a small town because of his writing. Before he was going to leave, one of his friends said to him that there were always a lot of mosquitoes in the town and told him that he’d better not go there. Mark Twain waved (摇动) his hand and said, “It doesn’t matter. The mosquitoes are no relatives of mine. I don’t think they will come to visit me.”

     After he arrived at the town, Mark Twain stayed in a small hotel near the station. He went into his room, but when he was just about to have a rest, quite a few(许多) mosquitoes flew about him. The waiters felt very sorry about that. “I’m very sorry, Mr. Mark Twain. There are too many mosquitoes in our town.” One of them said to him.

     Mark Twain, however, made a joke, saying to the waiter, “The mosquitoes are very clever. They know my room number. They didn’t come into the wrong room.” What he said made all the people present laugh heartily.

     But that night Mark Twain slept well. Do you know why? That was because all the waiters in the hotel were driving the mosquitoes away for him during the whole night.

1..That day Mark Twain went to the town _____.

     A. to see one of his friends

     B. because he wanted to do something there for his writing

     C. because he was told there were a lot of mosquitoes there

     D. to see one of his relatives

2.. The waiters felt sorry because _____.

     A. they did something wrong to Mark Twain

     B. their hotel was too small

     C. the room was not very clean

     D. there were quite a few mosquitoes in Mark Twain’s room

3.. All the people present laughed heartily because _____.

     A. the mosquitoes were very clever and they didn’t come into the wrong room

     B. the mosquitoes knew Mark Twain’s room number

     C. Mark Twain gave the waiters some nice presents

     D. Mark Twain made a joke

4.. From the story we know _____.

     A. no mosquitoes troubled Mark Twain in the night

     B. the owner of the hotel told the waiters to look after Mark Twain well at night

     C. Mark Twain didn’t have a good rest that night

     D. there were not mosquitoes in the hotel any longer

 

 

People diet to look more attractive. Fish diet to avoid being beaten up, thrown out of their social group, and getting eaten as a result. That is the fascinating conclusion of the latest research into fish behavior by a team of Australian scientists.

The research team have discovered that subordinate fish voluntarily diet to avoid challenging their larger competitors. “In studying gobies we noticed that only the largest two individuals, a male and female, had breeding (繁殖) rights within the group,” explains Marian Wong. “All other group members are nonbreeding females, each being 5-10% smaller than its next largest competitor. We wanted to find out how they maintain this precise size separation.”

The reason for the size difference was easy to see. Once a subordinate fish grows to within 5-10% of the size of its larger competitor, it causes a fight which usually ends in the smaller goby being driven away from the group. More often than not, the evicted fish is then eaten up.

It appeared that the smaller fish were keeping themselves small in order to avoid challenging the boss fish. Whether they did so voluntarily, by restraining how much they ate, was not clear. The research team decided to do an experiment. They tried to fatten up some of the subordinate gobies to see what happened. To their surprise, the gobies simply refused the extra food they were offered, clearly preferring to remain small and avoid fights, over having a feast.

The discovery challenges the traditional scientific view of how boss individuals keep their position in a group. Previously it was thought that large individuals simply used their weight and size to threaten their subordinates and take more of the food for themselves, so keeping their competitors small.

While the habits of gobies may seem a little mysterious, Dr. Wong explains that understanding the relationships between boss and subordinate animals is important to understanding how hierarchical (等级的) societies remain stable.

The research has proved the fact that voluntary dieting is a habit far from exclusive to humans. “As yet, we lack a complete understanding of how widespread the voluntary reduction of food intake is in nature,” the researchers comment. “Data on human dieting suggests that, while humans generally diet to improve health or increase attractiveness, rarely does it improve long-term health and males regularly prefer females that are fatter than the females’ own ideal.”

1.When a goby grows to within 5-10% of the size of its larger competitor, it        .

A. faces danger                      B. has breeding rights

C. eats its competitor                                 D. leaves the group itself

2.The underlined words “the evicted fish” in Paragraph 3 refer to        .

A. the fish beaten up                B. the fish found out

C. the fish fattened up              D. the fish driven away

3.The experiment showed that the smaller fish        .

A. fought over a feast                                 B. went on diet willingly

C. preferred some extra food         D. challenged the boss fish

4.What is the text mainly about?

A. Fish dieting and human dieting.

B. Dieting and health.

C. Human dieting.

D. Fish dieting.

 

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