64. What can we infer from the passage?
A. It is believed that brcoccoli is more nutritious than tomatoes.
B. Americans prefer tomatoes to beef.
C. People in Inner Mongolia would probably like to keep pigs for food.
D. The famous boxer Muhamm Ali would like to eat rat rather than butterfly.
63. The underlined word “taboo” (Line 3, Para. 3) refers to _____.
A. something undiscovered B. certain religions
C. something forbidden D. certain foods
62. Which of the following statements is TRUE about food likes and dislikes?
A. They are seldom related to nutrition.
B. They are mostly associated with people’s taste.
C. They are mostly connected with people’s life styles.
D. They are usually related to cultures or religions.
61. What’s the main topic of this passage?
A. Food and religion. B. Food and culture.
C. Nutrition of different foods. D. Different ways of life.
60. The main idea of the passage would be ______.
A. less TV time helps reduce children’s weight
B. fewer meals is a must in reducing children’s weight
C. the less you eat, the thinner you will be
D. more exercise is of great benefit to reduce weight
D
We all have ideas about what kinds of foods are good to eat. We also have ideas about what kinds of foods are bad to eat. As a result, people from one culture often think the foods that people from another culture eat are nauseating(令人作呕的). When the famous boxer Muhammad Ali visited Africa, for example, one member of his group became quite sick when he saw someone pick up a butterfly and eat it. Many people would find it disgusting to eat rats, but there are forty-two different cultures whose people regard rats as appropriate food.
Food likes and dislikes do not always seem related to nutrition. For example, broccoli is first on a list of the most nutritious common vegetables, but it is twenty-first on a list of vegetables that Americans like most to eat. Tomatoes are sixteenth on the list of most nutritious vegetables, but they are first on the list of vegetables that Americans like most to eat.
But dislike is not the only reason why some cultures will not eat a certain food. In some cultures, certain foods are taboo. Some foods are taboo in certain religions, but there are also other food taboos that are not connected to a religion. We do not usually think about why certain things are taboo in our culture. We may not even know why they are taboo. Anthropologists(人类学家) try to discover the hidden reasons for taboos.
Anthropologists believe that most food likes and dislikes are a result of the ways of life of different people. Some people live in areas where there are both large animals and many insects. It is difficult for these people to kill large animals, and it requires a lot of energy. It is easier for them to use insects for food because it is not difficult to catch insects and it does not require a lot of energy. Nomadic(游牧的) people who move around will not want to keep pigs for food. People will not eat pets such as dogs. Americans eat a lot of beef because there is plenty of land for raising cattle and the meat can be shipped cheaply for long distances by railroads.
59. Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the passage ?
A. Weight increase owes to the result of a reduction in TV viewing.
B. The percentage of children getting fatter has doubled in the last 20 years.
C. Children usually eat less while watching TV.
D. Children usually eat nothing while watching TV.
58. The time the 100 children spend on TV every day is about _______ in the study.
A. a quarter of an hour B. four hours C. three hours D. one hour
57. According to the passage, the time American children usually spend on watching TV ____.
A. is more than four hours a day B. is less than four hours a day
C. doubled in the last twenty years D. is more than on any other activities
56. The purpose of the first two paragraphs is ______.
A. to report the time children spend watching TV
B. to show that more TV time leads to getting fatter
C. to tell us the best way to reduce weight
D. to introduce the background of the research
55. We can infer from the passage that _________.
A. in Asian countries, women are equal to men in every field
B. learning a language well is a necessity before going abroad
C. attitudes to women vary from country to country
D. in Japan, men are still the centre of the family
C
PALO AITO, California-“Switching off the television may help prevent children from getting fatter-even if they do not change their diet or increase the amount they exercise,” US researchers said last week.
A study of 192 third and fourth grades, generally aged eight and nine, found that children who cut the number of hours spent watching television gained nearly two pounds(0.91 kg) less over a one-year period than those who did not change their television diet.
“The findings are important because they show that weight loss can only be the result of a reduction in television viewing and not any other activity,” said Thomas Robinson, a pediatrician(儿科专家) at Stanford University.
“American children spend an average of more than four hours per day watching television and videos or playing games, and rates of childhood being very fat have doubled over the past 20 years,” Robinson said.
In the study, presented this week to the Pediatric Academic Societies’ annual meeting in San Francisco, the researchers persuaded about 100 of the students to reduce their television viewing by one-quarter to one-third.
Children watching fewer hours of television showed a significantly smaller increase in waist size and had less body fat than other students who continue their normal television viewing, even though neither group ate a special diet nor took part in any extra exercise.
“One explanation for the weight loss could be the children unstuck to the television may simply have been moving around and burning off calories,” Robinson said.
“Another reason might be due to eating fewer meals in front of the television. Some studies have suggested that eating in front of the TV encourages people to eat more,” Robinson added.