The little girl is now 14 months old and should weigh at least 20 pounds. Yet she is still the size of a newborn baby, only reaching just over 7 pounds and a mere 19 inches.

Suraya has been examined by a whole team of experts in different fields. But doctors still have no idea why she refuses to grow, describing her condition as a “real mystery”. Experts have carried out all kinds of tests on her to find out what could be wrong with her. However, so far these have brought no optimistic results.

Her mother described that her daughter was like a real-life baby doll. “She cannot sit, talk or crawl and she has to be fed through a tube to keep her alive. But she just hasn’t been putting on any weight,” she said. “It’s very difficult because we don’t know what the future holds for Suraya. We hope the doctors will soon be able to find out the reason and that she will be able to live a normal life.”

Suraya was born four weeks earlier weighing 2.6 pounds. Experts say nine out of ten babies born at this stage will immediately start growing and put on weight. In Suraya’s case, she stayed at her birth weight for the first eight months and has only put on a small amount over the past six months.

Suraya has now been taken to London’s famous Great Ormond Street Hospital for further tests. Dr. Jide Menakaya said, “She is a very interesting little baby. Her case is highly unusual. For 17 years, I have certainly never seen anything like this. The fact that she still did not grow after we put the feeding tube directly into her veins (静脉) was unexpected and surprised us greatly. This is incredibly rare (罕见的). Now we are working on a new theory, but more research needs to be carried out.”

【小题1】What’s the matter with Suraya?

A．She caught a kind of common illness.	B．She was born 14 weeks earlier.
C．She isn’t getting any bigger.	D．There’s something wrong with her brain.

【小题2】What’s the doctors’ attitude to Suraya’s case?

A．Excited and optimistic.	B．Surprised and puzzled.
C．Interested but helpless.	D．Puzzled and hopeless.

【小题3】What can we know about Suraya from the passage?

A．Suraya’s mother is worried about Suraya’s future.

B．Suraya is lovelier than other girls.

C．Suraya can’t recover from the illness.

D．Doctors have to try their best to help Suraya.

【小题4】It can be inferred from the passage that __________.

A．it’s certain that Suraya could never live long

B．doctors have made great progress in Suraya’s illness

C．Suraya will be able to live a normal life in the future

D．it’s hard to predict what will happen to Suraya

While I will explain a bit about the science of stress and relaxation a little later simple way to think about it is that our body 's stress response works like a car alarm. Keep us safe by warning us of the presence of danger in our immediate environment.
But instead of warning us with a loud and annoying sound，our body alarm system lets us know that something is wrong by creating changes in our neurochemistry (神经化学）.If you've ever expe­rienced pain in your stomach，periods of extreme anger, inability to focus or even insomnia (失眠），chances are your body was paying the price in those moments for the brain chemistry of stress.
So if it's so uncomfortable，why not just get rid of stress altogether?
This is not only impractical，it would be dangerous. Let's go back to the metaphor (比喻说法）of the car alarm. If the alarm is turned off altogether，the car is exposed to continual danger without there being any way of your knowing about it until it is too late. It would be like walking through the jungle without any fear signal in the presence of a poisonous snake or other dangerous animals — while it might feel “nice” to be so relaxed，your body actually needs the stress response not only to remind you of danger but also to offer extra adrenaline (肾上腺素) for your heart and extra blood  and oxygen for your arms and legs.
However，if the car alarm goes off at any time，someone just looks at the car with a bit of an attitude，and it becomes equally useless. Not only do we stop paying attention to it，but it begins to drive us and everyone around us becomes a little bit crazy. In the case of our bodies，walking around in a constant state of alarm also has some pretty alarming health consequences，which we will explore in greater depth in the next chapter.
【小题1】Our body's stress response is compared to a car alarm in that   .

A．they work all the time	B．they both give a signal
C．they work in the same way	D．they both produce a sound

【小题2】When our body alarm system works，    .

A．we feel calm

B．we feel excited

C．some changes happen in our brain

D．some changes happen in our heart

【小题3】What would happen if stress were got rid of completely?

A．We'11 be free of worries.

B．We'11 achieve a sense of safety.

C．We'11 reach a perfect state of mind.

D．We'11 fail to realize the possible danger.

【小题4】What's the purpose of giving the example of walking through the Jungle in Paragraph 4?

A．To show the harm of stress.

B．To show the effect of stress.

C．To explain the function of stress response.

D．To explain the necessity of stress response.

语法填空

The Spanish flu 【小题1】（start）on a small military（军事的）base in central Kansas in 1918，【小题2】 one soldier came down with a fever. Within a few hours，about 100 soldiers were reported 【小题3】（have）the same illness.

By 1919，the flu had spread around the world，【小题4】（kill）up to 50 million people. The flu caused over 600，000 【小题5】（die）in the US，which included 195，000 just in the single month of October 1918.

The flu was 【小题6】（particular）serious because most of the victims were young，healthy people. In fact，more adults 【小题7】 the ages of 20 and 50 got sick and died from the flu than any other group.

What made people especially 【小题8】（terrify）was that the flu made people sick quickly. It was reported that many people who woke up with no flu symptoms got sick in the morning and were dead by nighttime. According to one story，four women played bridge late into the night，three of whom 【小题9】（find）dead the next morning.

It was not until three "waves" of illness later 【小题10】 the flu eventually ended.

   In the United States, heart disease continues to be the number one cause of death of both men and women. However,the numbers are not the same between the two genders（性别）: clearly more men than women are diagnosed with heart disease every year.
In a new study, researchers involved 17 male and female volunteers, a near-equal mix of both genders, and looked for the effects stress had on the blood flow of their hearts. The tests were taken in all the subjects at rest and also while they did three minutes of mental math where they were given a series of arithmetic problems. In order to increase the stress levels during performing this task, the researchers urged（敦促） the participants to solve the problems faster or told them that they gave the wrong answer even when the answer was correct. At the end of the task, all 17 volunteers went through the same three heart function tests again.
It turned out that at rest there were very few differences between the results of the three tests in both men and women. During the mental math experiment, all the participants showed an increase in heart rates and blood pressure, regardless of gender. However, researchers found that while men showed an increase in the blood flow of their hearts under stress, there was no change in women. Dr. Chester Ray, professor of medicine who led the research, said in the statement that the findings come as a surprise since previous（先前的） studies have shown that men have more greatly reduced the heart blood flow than women during the physical stress from exercising. He added that reduction of stress is important to any person, regardless of gender,but this new study shows how mental stress differently affects the hearts of women, putting them at higher risk of heart disease.
According to researchers, these new findings of their work show the influence of mental or emotional stress on a person's physical health, and could explain why the heart disease like losing a partner happens almost only in women. More studies on the matter are needed in order to find out the reason behind this gender difference in the body's response to stress more thoroughly. More research could lead to more effective treatments and better prevention efforts for women who are more likely to suffer heart disease.
【小题1】What did the researchers want to do by forcing the subjects to work faster?

A．To get them to feel more stressed physically.

B．To make them feel more worried emotionally.

C．To let them give the wrong answer on purpose.

D．To have them perform worse in the tests at last.

【小题2】From the passage we can know the previous studies ______.

A．have explained how physical activity increases men's heart blood flow

B．have shown the relationship between a person's mental stress and physical stress

C．have shown physical activity makes men's heart blood flow reduced more than women

D．have explained the importance of keeping mental and physical health regardless of gender

【小题3】What can be concluded from the passage?

A．Mental stress hurts men's hearts more than women's.

B．Mental stress has a gender difference at different time.

C．Women feel more heartbroken when losing a partner.

D．Women will benefit a lot from more related studies.

【小题4】Where can you most probably read this passage?

A．In a guidebook.

B．In a fiction book.

C．In a health magazine.

D．In a fashion magazine.

   Ever since I was seven years old, my body clock has been set to "nocturnal （夜间活动的） ". If I try to go to sleep earlier, I just lie awake, not sleepy at all. If I try to get up any earlier, it’s not a matter of being "a bit tired" ; I am hardly able to do anything. I feel groggy and find it hard to concentrate.

This caused lots of problems at school: I would wander around unconsciously, not taking anything in refused to go to school and my mum was blamed （责怪） for not being stricter about bedtime, but in reality there was nothing she could do. My mum would get annoyed but she knew that there was no point trying to sleep because she had the same problem.

Finally I was allowed to have classes in the afternoon with a tutor （家庭教师）. This enabled me to get a place at university, but the problems came up again. At first I forced myself to get up for 9 am lectures, but after five mornings I was crying from tiredness. I managed to pass my exams. It was a moment of success for me, proving I had imagination and determination after all these years of being misunderstood and called lazy.

But still I wondered why I couldn’t change my body clock. I have tried everything to change my sleeping habits — forcing myself by going to bed 15 minutes earlier every night, sitting in front of a light box in the morning, using blue candles and cutting out caffeine — but nothing has worked. I even tried sleeping pills, which put me to sleep earlier but didn’t help with the morning experience.

I was sad to discover there was no cure, but I wouldn’t give up.

【小题1】What is the meaning of the underlined word "groggy" in the first paragraph?

A．Tired and sleepy.

B．Excited and satisfied.

C．Sad and worried.

D．Energetic and happy.

【小题2】What does the second paragraph mainly talk about?

A．The author’s school teachers.

B．The author’s problems at school.

C．The author’s mom and school.

D．The author’s mom’s problems.

【小题3】All through the school years, the author ______.

A．managed to change her natural body clock

B．had to get up for 9 am lectures every day

C．was taught at home by a tutor

D．was referred to as a lazy student

【小题4】In order to change her body clock, the author did all of the following EXCEPT ______.

A．keeping herself awake with a light box in the morning

B．taking some pills and drinking less caffeine

C．making her bedtime a little later every night

D．changing her sleeping time