The Ig Nobel Prize, a spoof (滑稽模仿) of the actual Nobel Prize, exists to award the 10 strangest research projects of the year that bring you fun and make you think. The following are three of them in 2019.
Medicine Prize: pizza
It’s one of the world’s most popular foods. According to the Ig Nobel Medicine Prize winner, eating more pizzas can lower the risk of cancer and heart disease—if your pizza is loaded with fruits and veggies. These provide flavonoids (类黄酮) to fight against certain diseases. So, if you’re a pizza enthusiast, you now have one more reason to love it!
Economics Prize: Dirty Money
Paper money the most frequently passed items on the planet, is known to pick up all kinds of bacteria. Which country’s currency is the dirtiest? An international team compared seven countries’ paper money. The Romanian Leu was the only one to carry all three types of bacteria tested and the US dollar was also a finalist. Perhaps this will make cashless payments more popular.
Biology Prize: Cockroach
Cockroaches (蟑螂) are well known for their survival abilities, but few folks know they can sense magnetic fields. More surprisingly, an international team found that dead cockroaches have more magnetic properties (磁性) than live ones. That’s because magnetic properties decrease when the temperature gets higher. So if you can stand cockroaches, they may be good magnetic sensors.
1.What do the three prizes have in common?
A.They are beneficial to our health.
B.They are entertaining and unusual.
C.They’ve gained the recognition of the Nobel Prize.
D.They are stranger than any other project in previous years.
2.What can we learn from the passage?
A.People with heart disease should eat more pizzas.
B.US Dollar is relatively dirtier than Romanian Leu.
C.Dirty paper money leads to cashless payments.
D.Dead cockroaches are better magnetic sensors than live ones.
3.Which Prize are you possible to win if your major is organizing money?
A.Medicine Prize. B.Economics Prize C.Biology Prize. D.Literature Prize.
阅读下面短文，根据所给情节进行续写，使之构成一个完整的故事。
"Wanted: A violin. Can’t pay much. Call…"
Why did I notice that? I wondered, since I rarely looked at advertisements. I laid the paper on my lap, remembering what had happened many years before. When my family struggled to make a living on our farm. I, too hard wanted a violin, but we didn’t have the money.
It was not a good year. At harvest time the crops did not bring as much as we had hoped. Yet, even though times were hard, I couldn’t wait any longer to ask, "Daddy, may I have a violin of my own?" Daddy’s face looked sad.
One evening, we all sat around the table. Daddy wrote a letter to his friend Mr. Finkle, in Columbus. As he wrote, Daddy read a part of his letter out to Mother. Weeks later, I discovered he’d written lines he didn’t read aloud: "Would you look for a violin for my daughter? I can’t pay much, but she enjoys much, and we’d like her to have her own instrument."
When Daddy received the letter from Columbus a few weeks later, he announced, "We will be driving to Columbus to spend the night with Aunt Alice as soon as I can find someone to care for the farm."
At last the day arrived and we drove to Aunt Alice’s. After we arrived, Daddy made a phone call. He hung up and asked, "Mary, do you want to go with me to visit Mr. Finkle ?" "Sure," I answered.
He drove into a residential area and stopped in the driveway of a fine house. A tall man, older than Daddy, opened the door. "Mary, I’ve been hearing things about you. Your daddy has arranged a big surprise for you." Mr. Finkle led us into the living room. He picked up a case, opened it, lifted out a violin, and started to play. The melody(旋律) surged and flowed like waterfalls.
注意:
1.所续写短文的词数应为 150 左右；
2.至少使用 5个短文中标有下划线的关键词语；
3.续写部分分为两段,每段的开头语已为你写好；
4.续写完成后,请用下划线标出你所使用的关键词语。
Paragraph 1:
“I found it in a second-hand shop for seven dollars,” Mr. Finkle said, handing the violin to me.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Paragraph 2:
I forced my thoughts to the present and read again the advertisement.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
假设你叫李华，是一家英文杂志社的心理咨询师。某中学生小王给你写信，提到自己偏胖，想节食减肥，征求你的意见。请你给她回一封信，谈谈你对该问题的见解。内容要点如下：
1. 健康比漂亮更重要；
2. 不要过于注重外貌和别人的看法；
3. 适当锻炼，改变不良饮食习惯；
4. 健康的心态也很重要。
注意：1. 短文必须包括所有内容要点，可适当发挥；
2. 词数：100左右。
3. 参考词汇：state of mind 心态
Dear Xiao Wang，
I have received and read your letter，in which you mentioned that you wanted to lose weight by dieting.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Your,
Li Hua
Brenda Bongos was a girl with one big ambition- to play the drums in a band. But a(n)________lay in her way. To be good enough to play in a______, Brenda had to practice a lot, but she lived next-door to lots of_______people in a care home. The sound of beating drums would really annoy them.
Brenda was________. She always tried to find a way of practicing her drums without ________other people. But without success. However,________to practice as much as she could. Brenda________all kinds of ways.
One day, while watching a science documentary, she heard that________cannot travel in space without air. At that moment, Brenda bongos decided to become a________astronaut.
So Brenda built a space________connected with a machine, which drew out all air.Inside was a________of drums. Once inside, Brenda________the machine and played like mad!
It wasn't long before she had become________. Many people came to see her play in her space bubble.________ -afterwards she started giving________out of the bubble,________ Brenda became a real musical astronaut as the government asked her to be part of a space journey, and had gone far beyond her first________of playing drums in a band.
When asked how she had________all this, she said, "If those old people next-door hadn't________so much to me, I wouldn’t have gone to such ________to find a solution, and none of this would have ever happened.
1.A.obstacle B.question C.figure D.hand
2.A.match B.band C.talks D.scene
3.A.sick B.local C.elderly D.poor
4.A.delightful B.wonderful C.awful D.respectful
5.A.waking B.reaching C.embarrassing D.bothering
6.A.scared B.thrilled C.determined D.encouraged
7.A.tested B.tried C.played D.found
8.A.light B.sound C.air D.heat
9.A.musical B.classical C.medical D.physical
10.A.bag B.bubble C.container D.aircraft
11.A.set B.pair C.couple D.part
12.A.turned on B.put on C.got on D.held on
13.A.mature B.skillful C.famous D.confident
14.A.Hardly B.Shortly C.Rarely D.Swiftly
15.A.advice B.lessons C.speeches D.concerts
16.A.Suddenly B.Generally C.Finally D.Fortunately
17.A.effort B.performance C.ambition D.attempt
18.A.gained B.done C.got D.achieved
19.A.mattered B.related C.owed D.talked
20.A.classes B.places C.difficulties D.lengths
What makes one person more intelligent than another？What makes one person a genius，like the brilliant Albert Einstein，and another person a fool？Are people born intelligent or stupid，or is intelligence the result of where and how you live？1.
We know，however，that just being born with a good mind is not enough. In some ways，the mind is like a leg or an arm muscle.2.Mental exercise is particularly important for young children. Many child psychologists think that parents should play with their children more often and give them problems to think about.3.If，on the other hand，children are left alone a great deal with nothing to do，they are more likely to become dull and unintelligent.
4. According to some psychologists，if parents are always telling a child that he or she is a fool or an idiot，then the child is more likely to keep doing silly and foolish things. So it is probably better for parents to say very positive things to their children，such as “That was a very clever thing you did.”or“5.”
A.It needs exercise.
B.You are such a smart child.
C.A healthy body contributes to one’s intelligence.
D.What people want to express is like this.
E.Parents should also be careful about what they say to young children.
F.The children are then more likely to grow up brightly and intelligently.
G.These are very old questions and the answers to them are still not clear.
The fear of the novel corona virus has turned into discrimination against certain groups of people, including people from Wuhan, Chinese people or Asians in general. However, the outbreak of the disease can’t be an excuse to isolate these groups. What we should do is get rid of discrimination and show sympathy instead.
Since the outbreak of novel corona virus pneumonia (NCP), many people have been living in fear. This is normal, as the disease is infectious and dangerous. However, some people turn pale at the mention of “people from Wuhan or Hubei province”, the center of the outbreak.
Ding Baixing, a doctor at Huashan Hospital in Shanghai, has seen this himself. He treated a suspected patient surnamed Chen who traveled from Wuhan to Shanghai. Chen appeared desperate and avoided other patients, as he worried that they would be afraid of him.
Chen is not alone. Chen Xue, an editor working in Beijing, went to Chongli in Hebei for a ski trip on Jan 23. Though her temperature was fine and she hasn’t been to her hometown – Hubei province – since October last year, the hotel she was in told her that it wouldn’t receive Hubei guests from the next day.
However, the real enemy is the virus – not the patients or people from Wuhan or Hubei province. Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong shared this idea in a speech at the Chinese New Year dinner. “Even though the virus started in Wuhan, it doesn’t respect nationality or race. It does not check your passport before it goes into your body. Anybody can be infected,” he said.
It is not the patients’ fault that they have been infected. There is no reason to blame them. If patients didn’t go to the hospital for fear of discrimination, the virus could spread to more people. “Protecting them is just as important as protecting ourselves,” Ding said.
At the CCTV Spring Festival Gala (春节联欢晚会), six hosts read a poem to inspire people across the country. It called for greater respect for medical workers, as well as called on everyone to work together to fight the virus. One of the lines – “we isolate the virus, but we don’t isolate love” – has been widely posted online.
“This is the time for facts, not fear. This is the time for science, not rumors.This is the time for solidarity, not stigma.”
– Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization
1.Why do some people treat those from Wuhan or Hubei province unfairly?
A.Because those people look dangerous.
B.Because they want to live a normal life.
C.Because those people carry the virus.
D.Because they are afraid of getting infected.
2.Chen Xue was told to _____.
A.get treatment in a hospital
B.avoid meeting other patients
C.check her temperature three times while skiing
D.check out of the hotel she was in the next day
3.Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong is telling us that _____.
A.we shouldn’t be afraid of NCP
B.it isn’t safe to stay in other countries
C.the real enemy is the virus
D.the virus has affected many people
4.What is the purpose of the story?
A.To call on people to stop discrimination.
B.To show how people’s lives are affected by NCP.
C.To encourage suspected patients to go to hospitals.
D.To find out who to blame for the NCP outbreak.
