The Diet Zone: A Dangerous Place
Diet Coke, diet Pepsi, diet pills, no-fat diet, vegetable diet… We are surrounded by the word “diet” everywhere we look and listen. We have so easily been attracted by the promise and potential of diet products that we have stopped thinking about what diet products are doing to us. We are paying for products that harm us psychologically(心理上) and physically（身体上）.
Diet products significantly weaken us psychologically. On one level, we are not allowing our brain to admit that our weight problems lie not in actually losing the weight, but in controlling the consumption of fatty, high-calorie, unhealthy foods. Diet products allow us to jump over the thinking stage and go straight for the scale（秤）instead. All we have to do is to swallow or recognize the word “diet” in food labels.
On another level, diet products have greater psychological effects. Every time we have a zero-calorie drink, we are telling ourselves without our awareness that we don’t have to work to get results. Diet products make people believe that gain comes without pain, and that life can be without resistance and struggle.
The danger of diet products lies not only in the psychological effects they have on us, but also in the physical harm that they cause. Diet foods can indirectly harm our bodies because consuming them instead of healthy foods means we are preventing our bodies from having basic nutrients(营养成分). Diet foods and diet pills contain zero calorie only because the diet industry has created chemicals to produce these wonder products. Diet products may not be nutritional, and the chemical that go into diet products are potentially dangerous.
Now that we are aware of the effects that diet products have on us, it is time to seriously think about buying them. Losing weight lies in the power of minds, not in the power of chemicals. Once we realize this, we will be much better able to resist diet products, and therefore prevent the psychological harm that comes from using them.
【小题1】One psychological effect of diet products is that people tend to _____.

Well, to pick up where we left off last time, I believe we agreed that creativity is a mysterious idea. It is those things we all recognize when we see it, but we don’t really understand what it is. We seem to feel that some people are naturally creative, but we don’t know how they got that way. Is creativity a natural gift like good looks, or is it something that can be acquired like knowledge? Perhaps if we analyze the creative process carefully, we might get some insight into what it is and how it might work in our lives. The creative process has always been accepted as the source of all important work in the arts, but we should not think the creativity plays a role only in the arts. Every major scientific discovery began with someone imagining the world to look differently from the way others saw it. And this is what creativity is all about -- imagining the world in a new way. And despite what you may believe about the limits of your own creative imaginations, we all have the potential to imagine the world in an absolutely new way. In fact, you are born with it. It is your birth right as a human being. And what’s more, you use it every day, almost every moment of your life. Your creative imagination is what you use to make sense of your experiences. (Note: Answer the questions or complete the statements in NO MORE THAN 10 WORDS.)

1.What did the speaker most probably discuss last time?

__________________________________________________________________

2.________________________________ is the widely accepted idea about the creative process.

3. ___________________________ leads to major scientific discoveries according to the speaker?

4.According to the writer, what is creativity all about?

________________________________________________________________________

Batteries can power anything from small sensors to large systems．While scientists are finding ways to make them smaller but even more powerful, problems can arise when these batteries are much larger and heavier than the devices themselves．University of Missouri（MU） researchers are developing a nuclear energy source that is smaller, lighter and more efficient．
“To provide enough power, we need certain methods with high energy density（密度）”，said Jae Kwon, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at MU．“The radioisotope（放射性同位素） battery can provide power density that is much higher than chemical batteries．”
Kwon and his research team have been working on building a small nuclear battery, presently the size and thickness of a penny, intended to power various micro / nanoelectromechanical systems （M/NEMS）．Although nuclear batteries can cause concerns, Kwon said they are safe．
“People hear the word ‘nuclear’ and think of something very dangerous,” he said, “However, nuclear power sources have already been safely powering a variety of devices, such as pace-makers, space satellites and underwater systems．”
His new idea is not only in the battery’s size, but also in its semiconductor（半导体）．Kwon’s battery uses a liquid semiconductor rather than a solid semiconductor．
“The key part of using a radioactive battery is that when you harvest the energy, part of the radiation energy can damage the lattice structure（晶体结构） of the solid semiconductor,” Kwon said, “By using a liquid semiconductor, we believe we can minimize that problem．”
Together with J．David Robertson, chemistry professor and associate director of the MU Research Reactor, Kwon is working to build and test the battery．In the future, they hope to increase the battery’s power, shrink its size and try with various other materials．Kwon said that battery could be thinner than the thickness of human hair

1. 1.

   The text is most probably a ______.

   1. A.
      science news report
   2. B.
      book review
   3. C.
      newspaper ad
   4. D.
      science fiction
2. 2.

   Liquid semiconductor is used to ______.

   1. A.
      get rid of the radioactive waste
   2. B.
      test the power of nuclear batteries
   3. C.
      decrease the size of nuclear batteries
   4. D.
      reduce the damage to lattice structure
3. 3.

   According to Jae Kwon, his nuclear battery ______.

   1. A.
      uses a solid semiconductor
   2. B.
      will soon replace the present ones
   3. C.
      could be extremely thin
   4. D.
      has passed the final test
4. 4.

   Jae Kwon gave examples in Paragraph 4______.

   1. A.
      to show chemical batteries are widely applied
   2. B.
      to introduce nuclear batteries can be safely used
   3. C.
      to describe a nuclear-powered system
   4. D.
      to introduce various energy sources

The Diet Zone: A Dangerous Place
Diet Coke, diet Pepsi, diet pills, no-fat diet, vegetable diet… We are surrounded by the word “diet” everywhere we look and listen. We have so easily been attracted by the promise and potential of diet products that we have stopped thinking about what diet products are doing to us. We are paying for products that harm us psychologically and physically（身体上）.
Diet products significantly weaken us psychologically. On one level, we are not allowing our brain to admit that our weight problems lie not in actually losing the weight, but in controlling the consumption of fatty, high-calorie, unhealthy foods. Diet products allow us to jump over the thinking stage and go straight for the scale（秤）instead. All we have to do is to swallow or recognize the word “diet” in food labels.
On another level, diet products have greater psychological effects. Every time we have a zero-calorie drink, we are telling ourselves without our awareness that we don’t have to work to get results. Diet products make people believe that gain comes without pain, and that life can be without resistance and struggle.
The danger of diet products lies not only in the psychological effects they have on us, but also in the physical harm that they cause. Diet foods can indirectly harm our bodies because consuming them instead of healthy foods means we are preventing our bodies from having basic nutrients(营养成分). Diet foods and diet pills contain zero calorie only because the diet industry has created chemicals to produce these wonder products. Diet products may not be nutritional, and the chemical that go into diet products are potentially dangerous.
Now that we are aware of the effects that diet products have on us, it is time to seriously think about buying them. Losing weight lies in the power of minds, not in the power of chemicals. Once we realize this, we will be much better able to resist diet products, and therefore prevent the psychological harm that comes from using them.
【小题1】From Paragraph 1, we learn that ________.

When I was going home to India last year, I called up my mother to ask if she wanted anything from China．

When India had not opened up its markets to the world, I carried suitcase loads of dark glasses and jeans．Thankfully, we can get all these anywhere in India now．

Still, her answer surprised me: “Green tea．”

As long as I can remember she didn’t even drink Indian tea ．

I dutifully bought a big packet of Longjing and headed home to hear the story．My mother and her brother, both regular newspaper readers, believed that Chinese green tea was the wonder drug for all illnesses．

At the turn of the century, China was not really familiar to the average Indian．It was a strange country．

How things change! And how soon!

Now every town of any size seems to have a “China Market”．And everyone is talking about China．

The govemment of Indin has planned to send a team to China to see how things are done．A minister once said that India must open the doors for more foreign investment(投资)and such a step would “work wonders as it did for China”．

But it’s a two-way street．I just heard about a thousand Shenzhen office workers who have gone to Bangalore to train in software．Meanwhile, all the Indian IT majors are setting up a strong presence in China．

No wonder that trade, which was only in the millions just ten years ago, is expected to hit about US $15 billion for last year and US $20 billion by 2008, a goal set by both governments．

No wonder, my colleague wrote some weeks ago about this being the Sino-Indian(中印)century as the two countries started on January 1 the Sino-Indian Friendship Year．

But what is still a wonder to me is my mother drinking Chinese tea．

According to the passage, the author left _____ for ______．

     A．India; China             B．China; India

       C．China; Longjing          D．India; Shenzhen

The reason why the writer’s mother asked for Chinese green tea is that_____．

     A．she had a son working in China          B．she believed it had a curing effect

     C．she enjoyed Chinese products            D．she was tired of Indian tea

The underlined part “it’s a two-way street” in Paragraph 10 probably means ____．

     A．The exchanges between Indian and China benefit both．

     B．China and India have different traffic rules．

     C．Tea trade works wonders in both India and China．

     D．Chinese produces are popular in both China and India．

It can be inferred from the passage that _______．

     A．the author was concerned for his mother’s health

     B．the author was in favor of drinking Chinese green tea

     C．the author was surprised at China’s recent development

     D．the author was curious about the growth of India’s IT industry