A Latin phrase beloved by every old-fashioned British schoolmaster was mens sana in corpora sano—a healthy mind in a healthy body. Greater physical activity is associated with better mental, as well as physical health. And it might also be linked to greater worker productivity, and thus faster economic growth. That is the conclusion of a new report from a European think tank — RAND.
The RAND study looks at different measures: absenteeism (when workers take time off for illness) and presenteeism (when they turn up for work but are less productive because of sickness). The latter measure was self-reported by employees, who were asked whether their work was negatively affected by health issues. The survey suggests that between 3 and 4.5 working days each year are lost as a consequence of workers being physically inactive. This is between 1.3% and 2% of annual working time. Most of this was down to presenteeism.
Another potential gain from improved fitness is reduced health-care costs. In America, where health care is often provided through employment-based systems, firms could benefit. RAND estimates that total American health savings could be $6bn a year by 2025. But the study’s authors conclude that if people met certain exercise targets, global GDP could be around 0.17-0.24% higher by 2050. Nothing to laugh at in a world of slowing growth.
How to encourage workers to become more active? Rewards are useful but only if they have conditions; giving all employees free gym membership does not seem to work. Another RAND Europe study examined an experiment in which workers were each given an Apple watch, payable in instalments (分期付款) at a discounted price—but only to those who agreed to have their physical activity monitored. Monthly repayments depended on how much exercise they took.
The problem is that many people are too optimistic about their health, ignoring the risks they face. This means that participation in workplace exercise plans tends to be low, around 7% in the sample studied by RAND. Firms are not the only ones that can encourage a healthier lifestyle; friends and families are likely to be more important. But businesses can play a bigger role.
If RAND is right, this may bring them financial benefits. Company taskmasters may yet grow fond of an adapted saying: mens sana in corporate sano.
1.What is the conclusion of the RAND report in Paragraph 1?
A.Greater physical activity may be beneficial to economy.
B.Physical health definitely results in mental health.
C.Team sports open up opportunities of career building.
D.Income affects the popularity of gym among workers
2.The measure of presenteeism indicates that ________.
A.recovery from sickness guarantees company time
B.health conditions influence staff productivity
C.physically active staff can increase working hours
D.sick employees are supposed to take time off
3.Why does the writer list the figures in Paragraph 3?
A.To highlight the urgency to reduce health-care cost.
B.To predict the trend of global GDP by the year 2050.
C.To clarify the benefit of improved fitness to economy.
D.To warn against the slowing down of world finance.
4.Which method proves useful in making employees more active?
A.Educating employees on the benefits of regular exercise.
B.Offering employees fancy sports equipment free of charge.
C.Monitoring employees’ physical activities every month.
D.Rewarding exercise takers with reduced repayment.
5.The organization of the paragraphs is best illustrated as ________.
A.
B.
C.
D.
For several decades, there has been an organized campaign intended to produce distrust in science, funded by those whose interests are threatened by the findings of modern science. In response, scientists have tended to stress the success of science. After all, scientists have been right about most things, from the structure of the universe to the relativity of time and space.
Stressing successes isn’t wrong, but for many people it’s not persuasive. An alternative answer to the question “Why trust science?” is that scientists use the so-called scientific method. But what is called the scientific method isn’t what scientists actually do. Science is dynamic: new methods get invented; old ones get abandoned; and at any particular point, scientists can be found doing many different things. False theories sometimes lead to true results, so even if an experiment works, it doesn’t prove that the theory it was designed to test is true.
If there is no specific scientific method, then what is the basis for trust in science? The answer is the methods by which those claims are evaluated. A scientific claim is never accepted as true until it has gone through a long process of examination by fellow scientists. Scientists draft the initial version of a paper and then send it to colleagues for suggestions. Until this point, scientific feedback is typically fairly friendly. But the next step is different: the revised paper is submitted to a scientific journal, where things get a whole lot tougher. Editors deliberately send scientific papers to people who are not friends or colleagues of the authors, and the job of the reviewer is to find errors or other faults. We call this process “peer review” because the reviewers are scientific peers—experts in the same field—but they act in the role of a superior who has both the right and the responsibility to find fault. It is only after the reviewers and the editor are satisfied that any problems have been fixed that the paper will be printed in the journal and enters the body of “science.”
Some people argue that we should not trust science because scientists are “always changing their minds.” While examples of truly settled science being overturned are far fewer than is sometimes claimed, they do exist. But the beauty of this scientific process is that science produces both creativity and stability. New observations, ideas, explanations and attempts to combine competing claims introduce creativity; transformative questioning leads to collective decisions and the stability of scientific knowledge. Scientists do change their minds in the face of new evidence, but this is a strength of science, not a weakness.
1.Scientists stress the success of science in order to ________.
A.promote basic knowledge of science
B.remind people of scientific achievements
C.remove possible doubts about science
D.show their attitude towards the campaign
2.What can we learn about the so-called scientific method?
A.It’s an easy job to prove its existence.
B.It usually agrees with scientists’ ideas.
C.It hardly gets mixed with false theories.
D.It constantly changes and progresses.
3.What can we learn about “peer” review?
A.It seldom gives negative evaluation of a paper.
B.It is usually conducted by unfriendly experts.
C.It aims to perfect the paper to be published.
D.It happens at the beginning of the evaluation process.
4.The underlined sentence in the last paragraph implies that ________.
A.it is not uncommon for science to be overturned
B.scientists are very strong in changing their minds
C.people lose faith in those changeable scientists
D.changes bring creativity and stability to science
The term “crocodile tears” refers to insincere sadness. This term has an etymology dating back several centuries. As early as the fourth century, crocodile tears are referenced in the literature with the meaning of insincere sorrow. It is said that crocodiles weep while eating their hunted animals because they are sad; however, this sadness is not honest.
The term crocodile tears became widely popular after it was documented in a fifteenth-century book titled The Voyage and Travel of Sir John Mandeville, Knight. A passage from the book reads: “These crocodiles kill men and they eat them weeping.”
As you may already know, crocodilians(鳄目动物) likely feel bad about little—especially feeding. However, the assumption of the crocodile-tears metaphor may be true. In a 2007 paper published in BioScience titled “Crocodile Tears: And they eat them weeping”, researchers observed 7 crocodilians in cages during feeding time at a reserve (4 caimans and 3 American alligators). The researchers observed the crocodilians outside of water at feeding stations to better find out whether tearing developed.
Five of the 7 crocodilians developed something like tears in their eyes before, during or after feeding. The researchers suggest that these crocodile tears occur because a crocodilian hisses (发出嘶嘶声) while it eats, and this hissing forces air through the spaces in the bone behind the nose and out the eye, in the process picking up nasolacrimal secretions (鼻泪管分泌物.)
In humans, crocodile tears is a medical condition that causes a person to tear up while eating. Crocodile tears typically occur because of a temporary loss of facial control due to damage of the facial nerve. Specifically, when the facial nerve grows again, it does so incorrectly thus resulting in tears during chewing food.
1.The underlined word “etymology” in Paragraph 1 refers to ________.
A.a reference book containing articles on various topics
B.the origin and history of a particular term
C.a printed sheet of paper that arc given free to advertise
D.the application and influence of a new theory
2.The term “crocodile tears” ________.
A.is a medical condition that causes a crocodile to tear up
B.became widely popular as early as the fourth century
C.refers to pretended sadness
D.proved to be only an assumption
3.From the 2007 paper published in BioScience, we can know that ________.
A.crocodilians especially feel bad about feeding
B.not all the 7 crocodilians developed tearing
C.the crocodilians were carefully observed inside water
D.crocodile tears occur because a crocodilian hisses after it eats
4.The passage is mainly about ________.
A.what the real truth is about crocodile tears
B.when the term “crocodile tears” got popular in literature
C.how researchers made the experiment on crocodilians
D.why crocodile tears typically occur in humans
Islands that could disappear in your lifetime Island vacations are dreams for many tourists, but climate change has lifted ocean temperatures, raised sea levels and worsened storm severity. As a result, some islands are threatened and could disappear in the coming decades. | |
Federal States of Micronesia 2019 Population: 112,640 The average rate of sea-level rise worldwide has been 3.1 mm per year since 1993. But the rate around Federated States of Micronesia is three times faster. The country is at risk of disappearing because of coastal flooding, erosion, and frequent storms. | Tuvalu 2019 Population: 11,508. Tuvalu is a small chain of islands in the Pacific Ocean. For more than 25 years, its representatives have raised alarms that climate change could raise sea levels enough to flood the islands. Even if waters never get that high, Tuvalu could still become uninhabitable as rising sea levels have polluted the nation’s groundwater resources with salt. |
Marshall Islands 2019 Population: 58413 Residents of Marshall Islands, a chain of volcanic islands and coral atolls in the central Pacific Ocean, have known for years that they have to either build new artificial islands to relocate or raise the existing ones. | Shishmaref Alaska 2019 Population: 617 In 2016, people living in Shishmaref, Alaska, located near the Bering Strait, voted to relocate before melting ice and land erosion would forced them to. Alaska had granted the city $8 million toward the move, but officials say it will cost $200 million. |
1.The sea level around Federal States of Micronesia is rising as much as ______ or so a year.
A.1.1 mm B.3.1 mm C.6.6 mm D.9.3 mm
2.Which island has been granted some funds to relocate by the state government?
A.Federal States of Micronesia B.Tuvalu
C.Marshall Islands D.Shishmaref
My father was a Jamaican(牙买加) immigrant while my mother was a white woman. They never got married but I was born. However, my father never _______ his family about my existence. Whatever the case, I didn’t know I was a _______ until my thirteenth birthday.
Walking into my aunt’s apartment brought a lot of emotions. What if my _______ didn’t want anything to do with me because I was half white? How _______ can I learn the jokes that my family members told? Should I _______ them for all the years they didn’t spend with me? My mind was full of thoughts when I was _______ to everyone, trying desperately to understand family members who almost were _______ strangers. Meanwhile, I was _______ to just remember everybody’s name.
One of my aunts, who’d been quiet for most of the morning looked at me with tearful eyes. She mentioned how _______ she was for my father to have a daughter, saying, “He’s always dreamt of having a daughter”. However, she then expressed her ________ towards my father for keeping the family in the ________ about me. From this ________, I have learned more about what it means to be biracial (代表两种人种的). Can I still ________ myself Jamaican even though my first time trying curry goat, a traditional dish, was not until my teenage years?
I’ve become aware that no matter how much DNA you might ________ with a particular race, you won’t feel truly connected if you did not ________ with that culture’s customs. I believe this event has ________ me into becoming a more understanding person when analyzing someone’s actions. I have realized that I am far from a ________. I am determined to prove that I’m here for a reason by using my talents to ________ those around me. I have grown to not ________ on my parents and families to tell me who I am, but I have understood my uniqueness and ________ my real self. I really feel proud that among strangers I eventually know who I am!
1.A.told B.said C.talked D.spoke
2.A.success B.secret C.failure D.burden
3.A.father B.mother C.family D.aunt
4.A.often B.badly C.quickly D.strangely
5.A.praise B.blame C.miss D.invite
6.A.offered B.devoted C.delivered D.introduced
7.A.complete B.strict C.kind D.helpful
8.A.pretending B.struggling C.competing D.cheering
9.A.nervous B.shameful C.embarrassed D.happy
10.A.anxiety B.anger C.excitement D.enthusiasm
11.A.hope B.regret C.dark D.future
12.A.accident B.program C.coincidence D.experience
13.A.consider B.imagine C.leave D.teach
14.A.share B.replace C.deposit D.exchange
15.A.pick up B.take up C.grow up D.make up
16.A.frightened B.cheated C.tricked D.turned
17.A.mistake B.master C.milestone D.miracle
18.A.tolerate B.dismiss C.hate D.benefit
19.A.agreeing B.relying C.working D.passing
20.A.protected B.saved C.found D.forgiven
——John has resigned from his post to seek his fortune in Shanghai.
―_____? He got promoted last month!
A.How come B.Who cares C.Why not D.What’s on
