Try this: For an entire day, forget about the clock. Eat when you’re hungry and sleep when you’re tired. What do you think will happen?

You may be surprised to find that your day is much like most other days. You’ll probably get hungry when you normally eat and tired when you normally sleep. Even though you don’t know what time it is, your body does.

These patterns of daily life are called circadian rhythms(生理节奏), and they are more than just habits. Inside our bodies are several clocklike systems that follow a roughly 24-hour cycle. Throughout the day and night, our inner clocks direct changes in temperature, body chemicals, hunger, sleepiness and more.

Everyone’s rhythms are different, which is why you might like to stay up late while your sister always wants to go to bed early. But on the whole, everyone is programmed to fell tired at night and energetic during the day.

Learning about our body clocks may help scientists understand why problems arise when we act out of step with our circadian rhythms. For example, traveling across time zones can make people wake up in the middle of the night. Regularly staying up late can make kids do worse in tests.

“There is a growing sense that when we eat and when we sleep are important parts of how healthy we are,” says Steven Shea, director of the Sleep Disorders Program at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

One way to learn about how our body clocks tick is to mess them up and see what happens. That’s what neurologist(神经病学家)Frank Scheer and his workmates did in a recent study.

Staying up night after night, their studies suggest, could make kids extra hungry and more likely to gain weight. And regularly sleeping too little, Scheer says, may be one cause of the recent increase in childhood obesity.

1.What will happen if you forget about the clock according to the passage?

A. You will feel upset.

B. You will behave normally.

C. Your body will not know what time it is.

D. You will probably get hungry more easily.

2.Mike feels energetic at 12 midnight while Tom feels sleepy. What advice would be given by the writer?

A. Both should see a doctor..

B. Tom should see a doctor.

C. Both should take it easy.

D. Mike should have a watch.

3.How do Frank Scheer and his workmates study body clocks?

A. By seeing what happens when they are messed up.

B. By asking questions and collecting answers.

C. By studying people traveling across time zones.

D. By programming people with man-made clocks.

4.What will the writer most probably talk about next?

A. Other examples of what people will do when their body clocks go wrong.

B. Medicines that can keep people from putting on weight.

C. Why it is important to have a normal body clock.

D. What circadian rhythms are.

When US musician Bob Dylan was announced as the winner of this year’s Nobel Prize for literature last month, many people took to social media to suggest that Leonard Cohen was the only other living songwriter who deserved(值得)the honor.

Sadly, on Nov 7, the deep-voiced Canadian artist died at the age of 82.

Many tributes(称赞)were written for Cohen, who had just released his 14th album, You Want It Darker, on Oct 21st. “Leonard Cohen is as important today as he was in the 1960s,” Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on in a statement. “ His ability to describe human emotion made him one of the most influential and lasting musicians ever.”

Cohen’s most famous song, Hallenlujah, in which he compared physical love to a need for spiritual connection, has been recorded hundreds of times by different musician since it was first released in 1984.

And Cohen’s song Bird on a Wire(1969) could be considered a perfect epitaph(墓志铭)that he wrote for himself. As the song’s first line goes, “Like a bird on a wire, like a drunk in midnight choir(合唱团), I have tired in my way to be free.”

“Cohen writes words that explain what it means to be human. I’ve read poetry that has as much beauty as Cohen’s work, but in the world of music, Cohen is a rarity,” US singer Jennifer Warnes told Austin American-Statesman newspaper. ‘He describes things that go on inside a heart and what it feels like to be here.”

Along with his spirituality, Cohen’s dry, deep voice also helped his popularity. In 2006 he spoke with the NPR radio station about how he got his interesting voice—apparently it was “500 tons of whiskey and a million cigarettes.”

But he never forgot to work on the instruments that made up his songs, even though he was most famous for his lyrics (歌词)and voice.

“There is no difference between a poem and a song,” Cohen said in 1969 interview with the New York Times newspaper. “Some were songs first and some were poems first and some were written at the same time. All of my writing has guitars behind it, even the novels.”

“When people talk about Cohen, they fail to mention the melodies(旋律), which to me, along with his lyrics, are his greatest genius,” Bob Dylan told the New York magazine.” They give a lift to every one of his songs. As far a I know, no one comes close to this in modern music.”

1.What do Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan have in common?

A. They have both written beautiful lyrics.

B. They have both achieved outstanding things in literature

C. They both came from the same country

D. They were both considered the possible winners of Nobel Prize in literature.

2.People often speak highly of Cohen for many things except for_____.

A. his voice B. his melodies

C. his lyrics D. his influence

3.What can be inferred from the article?

A. Hallenlujah is the most performed song in the world

B. Bird on a Wire was written to describe Cohen’s personality

C. Bob Dylan took inspiration from Cohen’s work

D. Cohen said his unhealthy habits contributed to his unique voice.

4.Which of the following words best describe Cohen?

A. Humorous and optimistic B. Sensitive(敏感的)and moody

C. Insightful(深刻的)and talented D. Expressive and rebellious(叛逆的)

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