Taking a shower is relaxing. You can hum a song, daydream or think about nothing, leaving the real world behind you. But did you know that showering can also benefit your mind?
A research by Scott Barry Kaufman, a psychologist from Yale University in the US interviewed over 3,000 people around the world. It turned out that nearly two-thirds of the interviewees said they had experienced new ideas in the shower and were more likely to have them in the shower than at work.
So why does a simple shower have such magic power? Science can explain it.
Showering can help to raise our level of dopamine, a hormone (荷尔蒙) closely related to our creativity. “People vary in terms of their level of creativity according to the activity of dopamine”, explained Alice Flaherty, a famous American neuroscientist. “Taking a warm shower can make us feel relaxed and therefore make the dopamine level rise and bring ‘Aha!' moment to us.”
Besides the chemical changes, showering may give you a break from what you feel you have been stuck with. Especially when you have thought hard all day about a problem, jumping into the shower can keep you from the outside world so that you can focus on your inner feelings and memories. In this way, according to American psychologist Shelley H. Carson, author of Your Creative Brain, “a showering hour may turn into an ‘incubation (孵化) period’ for your ideas.”
Compared with sitting in front of a computer, taking a shower is something we do less frequently in our daily life. When showering, we get a fresh experience with the change of location, temperature and humidity. “New and unexpected experiences can lead to positive changes in thinking,” explained Kaufman. “Getting off the couch and jumping in the shower may create a distance and force you to think from a new point of view.”
Showering allows us to enjoy the creative juices of our minds, but it needn't just be the bathroom where you get your inspiration. For instance, Gertrude Stein, a female American writer and poet, got new ideas by driving around a farm and stopping at different cows until she found the one that most inspired her. So try to create your own way to free your mind, whether it's a walk near the ocean, a country drive or reading a book at home.
1.According to the article, what changes can showering cause?
A. Bringing the terrible moment to us.
B. Increasing the level of dopamine.
C. Leading to boredom or tiredness.
D. Setting the creative part of the brain free.
2.If one has focused on something all day, showering can help _______.
A. turn one’s attention inwards
B. draw one’s attention to the outside world
C. one make an important breakthrough
D. many chemical changes to take place
3.It can be inferred from the article that _______.
A. changes in the frequency of an action can create a new perspective
B. it is a good idea to talk with others about their sources of inspiration
C. our lives might feel longer and fuller if we frequently try new things
D. it is helpful to try something different rather than stay focused on a difficult task
4.The example of Gertrude Stein in the last paragraph is used to _______.
A. encourage readers to find their own ways of getting inspiration
B. point out to readers that it's hard to find inspiration
C. explain how to link inspiration with readers’ daily lives
D. show that creativity often comes from strange places
科目：高中英语 来源：2017届甘肃会宁县一中高三上第一次9月考英语试卷（解析版） 题型：语法填空
阅读下面材料，在空白处填入适当的内容（不多于3个单词）或括号内单词的正确形式。
An elderly teacher，with a pupil by his side，took a walk through a forest. Suddenly he_1.__(stop) and pointed to four plants close at hand. The first was just beginning to appear slowly above the ground，the second had rooted itself pretty well into the earth，the third was a small short tree，while the fourth was__2.__ full-sized tree. The tutor said to his young__3.__(company)，“Pull up the first plant. ” The boy did so eagerly，__4.__(use) only his fingers.
“Now pull up the second.” The youth obeyed __5.__ found that the task was__6.__(difficult)．
“Do the same__7.__ the third，” he urged. The boy had to use all his strength to uproot it.
“Now，” said the instructor，“try your hand with the fourth. ” The pupil put his arms around the trunk of the tall tree and couldn't even shake__8._ leaves. “This，my son，is just_9.__ happens with our bad habits. When they are young，we can remove them easily；but when they are old，it's hard to pull them out of the ground，__10.__ we pray and struggle ever so sincerely！”
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科目：高中英语 来源：2017届西藏拉萨中学高三上期第一次月考英语试卷（解析版） 题型：完形填空
阅读下面短文，从短文后各题所给的四个选项（A, B, C和D）中，选出可以填入空白处的最佳选项，并在答题卡上将该项涂黑。
When I moved into an empty dormitory for the first time two years ago, I was certain of a few things. Firstly, I realized that I didn’t ________ anybody at the school. Secondly, I knew that I wanted to work hard at my lessons and ________ something useful. And thirdly, I wanted to have a good time with new classmates, without my parents around.
The first ________ frightened me in the beginning. But that ________ quickly disappeared. It was the other two goals ________ ended up being my difficulties.
I knew that it was ________ to devote enough time to class and to social efforts. But I wanted to ________ in both. I knew this would be a ________, but I didn’t realize how much until classes began.
I got on well with the other girls who lived in my dorm. ________, instead of finishing my homework ________ it was due, I went upstairs and had ice cream with my neighbor. I always finished it the next day between classes.
I knew ________ wasn’t very good and the grade I ________ showed my lack of effort. I was ________ that I needed to find some sort of balance.
So I created a schedule that would ________ my time up between going to class, doing homework, and relaxing. It seemed like a good idea, ________ I was only able to ________ it for a few days. A schedule like that was too much pressure.
So I tried another ________. Each week I made a list of everything I had to get done during that week. Then, under the list of things I had to get done, I ________ a list of things I could do if I had time.
This is the method I have used since then. I’m glad that I’ve learned to ________ things and it has ________ prepare me for what is to come after graduation.
1.A. knowB. recognizeC. realizeD. like
2.A. understandB. learnC. tryD. tell
3.A. teacherB. dayC. classD. realization
4.A. happinessB. excitementC. fearD. desire
5.A. whichB. whatC. thatD. who
6.A. hardB. easyC. interestingD. nice
7.A. winB. succeedC. getD. wish
8.A. chanceB. jobC. challengeD. time
9.A. OftenB. SeldomC. UnluckilyD. Fortunately
10.A. becauseB. whenC. afterD. before
11.A. itB. oneC. theseD. I
12.A. demandedB. tookC. acceptedD. received
13.A. asleepB. awakeC. ashamedD. aware
14.A. fixB. divideC. putD. build
15.A. soB. andC. butD. however
16.A. useB. keepC. followD. make
17.A. planB. energyC. pressureD. effort
18.A. madeB. foundC. pickedD. brought
19.A. doB. controlC. balanceD. hold
20.A. hadB. helpedC. letD. forced
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科目：高中英语 来源：2017届贵州遵义四中高三上期第一次月考英语试卷（解析版） 题型：完形填空
阅读下面短文，掌握其大意，然后从21~40各题所给的A、B、C和D项中，选出最佳选项，并在答题卡上将该项涂黑。
It was a moving story. There was a ________ boy named Roy Freetz in a 30-student classroom who was really hungry and had ________ to eat. He felt jealous of all of his ________ when they were eating and enjoying their food. One day, he was ________ in one of the corners of the classroom as usual when his classmates had lunch. At that moment, a girl came to him and gave him all the food in her ________. The boy was surprised and tried to ________, but the girl left. Then the girl dropped out of the school and went to another town. The boy didn’t see the girl again.
Many years had passed, and the girl was ________ as a meat vendor in her town. There was a ________ when she was walking to and from the market. But everything changed when she was ________ by a car. She was taken to the hospital at once. She was badly ________ and the doctors did everything they could to ________ her.
After ________ for five days, she woke up and cried because her family had no money to ________ the hospital bill. At that moment, the nurse came and gave her the hospital bill. It ________: “Everything is paid by one box of food many years ago.” It was ________ by Roy Freetz. The girl cried and ________ everyone in the room. Then, when she looked at the ________ of the bill, she saw the words:“WILL YOU MARRY ME?” She was very ________ at this. And at that moment, the doctor came and gave her a ________. The girl ________ his proposal and they lived a happy life from then on.
1.A. naughtyB. poorC. niceD. mean
2.A. anythingB. somethingC. anythingD. nothing
3.A. friendsB. classmatesC. relativesD. colleagues
4.A. stayingB. screamingC. complainingD. singing
5.A. bagB. carC. boxD. basket
6.A. packB. changeC. sellD. refuse
7.A. paintingB. workingC. teachingD. studying
8.A. monthB. secondC. timeD. minute
9.A. hitB. beatenC. foughtD. caught
10.A. damagedB. woundedC. destroyedD. injured
11.A. raiseB. saveC. supportD. educate
12.A. sleepingB. lyingC. strugglingD. dreaming
13.A. costB. spendC. payD. give
14.A. issuedB. actedC. displayedD. stated
15.A. permittedB. promisedC. admittedD. signed
16.A. thankedB. pleasedC. awardedD. praised
17.A. surfaceB. coverC. middleD. back
18.A. alertB. surprisedC. sensitiveD. amused
19.A. medicineB. adviceC. ringD. dollar
20.A. testedB. consideredC. acceptedD. believed
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科目：高中英语 来源：2017届黑龙江哈尔滨师范大学附中高三上第二次月考英语卷（解析版） 题型：翻译
每句中只有一处错误。每处错误仅涉及一个单词的增加、删除或修改。
增加：在缺词处加一个漏字符号（∧），并在其下面写出该加的词。
删除：把多余的词用斜线（\）划掉。
修改：在错的词下划一横线，并在该词下面写出修改后的词。
Two people were arrested yesterday at Paris airport for bringing animals into Europe from South America illegal. One customs officer saw a woman walking in front of a group. Then he saw feather falling under her coat. Having seen this, the customs officer ask the woman to come over to his desk. He was surprised to find ten birds inside his coat. There was a short, fat gentleman followed her. Another customs officer called him over when it was seemed that he had a moving stomach. On taking down his jacket, they found a tortoise. He had traveled on the plane as this, keeping the tortoise hiding in a blanket.
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科目：高中英语 来源：2017届黑龙江省高三上9月考英语卷（解析版） 题型：短文改错
短文改错
假定英语课上老师要求同桌之间交换修改作文，请你修改你同桌写的以下作文。文中共有10处语言错误，每句中最多有两处。每处错误仅涉及一个单词的增加、删除或修改。
增加：在此处加一个漏字符号（∧），并在下面写出增加的词；
删除：把多余的词用斜线（﹨）划掉；
修改：在错的词下划一横线，并在该词下面写出修改后的词。
只允许修改10处，多者（从11处起）不计分。
One day a lady saw a mouse running across his kitchen floor. She was very afraid of mice, so she ran out of the house, getting on a bus and went to a nearby shop. Here she bought a mousetrap and was advised to put any cheese in it. The lady went home with her mousetrap, and could not find any cheese. She had no choice but cut a picture of some cheese out of a magazine and put it in the trap. Surprising, the picture of the cheese is quite “successful”! When the lady came down to the kitchen in the next morning, she found a picture of a mouse in the trap besides the picture of the cheese!
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科目：高中英语 来源：2017届黑龙江省高三上9月考英语卷（解析版） 题型：阅读理解
10th Annual Hospitality （餐饮服务业）Student Conference
Tuesday March 4, 2016
Conference Schedule
8:00-8:45 Breakfast and welcome 8:45-9:15 Dat Phan, Comedian 9:15-9:25 Break 9:25-10:10 Tour 1 10:20-11:05 Tour 2 11:15-12:00 Tour 3 12:00-1:00 Lunch, Prize giveaways and wrap-up (总结) |
Tour 1: Tour of Hotel and Resort
Go on a behind-the-scenes tour of Barona, a luxury hotel and resort. Your tour guides will be actual employees who can give you the inside sight about running this great business and what it takes to get an exciting career in hospitality industry.
Tour 2: Cooking demonstration
Who want to be a top chef? Watch and smell as award winning chefs demonstrate their cooking art and share some of their kitchen secrets with you.
Tour 3: Opportunities fair
Take advantage of this opportunity to speak with various professionals from hotels, schools and other businesses in the hospitality industry. Learn about education and career options; and don’t forget to stop by the interview skills workshop.
Dat Phan
Dat was born in Saigon, Vietnam and grew up struggling and poor in California. He worked at Barona Resort before he made it big as a comedian!
His culturally insightful （发人深省的）comedy inspects ridiculous stereotypes, and shared his experience of being a regular American guy with a Vietnamese heritage （文化遗产）. He has been honored as “The Top 10 Most Influential Vietnamese-Americans”.
Dat Phan aims to create a more positive image of Asian-Americans in the world of entertainment and Hollywood. “We want to be seen as more than just martial artists （武术家）, or bad stereotype roles in American TV & Movies.”
1.The majority of the people present at the conference are probably _______.
A. tourists from other cities
B. students who plan to work in hotels or restaurants
C. news reporters of a local TV station
D. managers who wish to take in some new staff
2.What is the right order of the activities?
a. Enjoy the funny show.
b. Give away prizes.
c. Watch a cooking demonstration.
d. Talk about interview skills.
e. Take a tour around an expensive hotel and resort.
A. a―e―c―d―b B. a―d―c―e―b
C. d―e―a―c―b D. c―d―b―a―e
3.All the following can be learnt from the conference EXCEPT ______.
A. how to run a big hotel and resort
B. what it takes to be a great chef
C. how to behave better in an interview
D. what jobs are available in the local hotels
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科目：高中英语 来源：2016-2017学年陕西西安一中高二10月考英语试卷（解析版） 题型：阅读理解
“Indeed,” George Washington wrote in his diary in 1785, “some kind of fly, or bug, had begun to eat the leaves before I left home.” But the father of America was not the father of bug. When Washington wrote that, Englishmen had been referring to insects as bugs for more than a century, and Americans had already created lightning-bug(萤火虫). But the English were soon to stop using the bugs in their language, leaving it to the Americans to call a bug a bug in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
The American bug could also be a person, referring to someone who was crazy about a particular activity. Although fan became the usual term, sports fans used to be called racing bugs, baseball bugs, and the like.
Or the bug could be a small machine or object, for example, a bug-shaped car. The bug could also be a burglar alarm, from which comes the expression to bug, that is, “to install (安装) an alarm”. Now it means a small piece of equipment that people use for listening secretly to others’ conversation. Since the 1840s, to bug has long meant “to cheat”, and since the 1940s it has been annoying.
We also know the bug as a flaw in a computer program or other design. That meaning dates back to the time of Thomas Edison. In 1878 he explained bugs as “little problems and difficulties” that required months of study and labor to overcome in developing a successful product. In 1889 it was recorded that Edison “had been up the two previous nights discovering ‘a bug’ in his invented record player.”
1.We learn from Paragraph 1 that ________.
A. Americans had difficulty in learning to use the word bug
B. George Washington was the first person to call an insect a bug
C. the word bug was still popularly used in English in the nineteenth century
D. both Englishman and Americans used the word bug in the eighteenth century
2.What does the word “flaw” in the last paragraph probably mean?
A. Explanation.B. Finding.C. Origin.D. Fault.
3.The passage is mainly concerned with ________.
A. the misunderstanding of the word bug
B. the development of the word bug
C. the public views of the word bug
D. the special characteristics of the word bug
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科目：高中英语 来源：2017届江西师范大学附中高三10月考英语试卷（解析版） 题型：完形填空
阅读下面短文，从短文后各题所给的四个选项（A、B、C 和 D）中选出可以填入空白处的最佳选项，并在答题卡上将该项涂黑。
One of the qualities that most people admire in others is the willingness to admit one’s mistakes. It is extremely hard sometimes to say a (n) ________ thing like “I was wrong about that,” and it is even harder to say, “I was wrong, and you were right about that.”
And I had an experience recently with someone ________ to me that he had made a mistake fifteen years ago. He told me he had been the ________ of a certain grocery store in the neighborhood where I grew up, and he asked me ________ I remembered the egg boxes. Then he ________ an incident and I began to remember vaguely the incident he was describing.
I was about eight years old ________, and I had wandered into the store with my mother to do the weekly grocery shopping. On that ________ day, I must have found my way to the dairy food department ________ the incident took place. There must have been a special ________ on eggs that day because there was an impressive display of eggs in dozen and half-dozen boxes. The boxes were ________ three or four feet high. I must have stopped in front of them to ________ the boxes. Just then a woman came by pushing her grocery cart, ________ the boxes and left. For some reason, I ________ that it was up to me to put the display back together even though it was not my ________, so I began to work.
The manager heard the ________ and came rushing over to see what had happened. When he appeared, I was on my ________ checking some of the boxes to see if any of the eggs were broken, but to him it looked as if I was the wrongdoer. He severely ________ me and wanted me to pay for any broken eggs to ________ the loss. I protested my innocence and tried to explain, but it did ________ good. Even though I quickly forgot all about the incident, ________ the manager did not.
1.A. pleasantB. enjoyableC. simpleD. difficult
2.A. arguingB. notingC. promisingD. admitting
3.A. bossB. cleanerC. cashierD. manager
4.A. ifB. howC. whyD. when
5.A. imaginedB. rememberedC. performedD. related
6.A. at a timeB. at the timeC. at timesD. at one time
7.A. usualB. luckyC. wonderfulD. particular
8.A. whereB. afterC. untilD. though
9.A. displayB. exhibitionC. saleD. design
10.A. piledB. decoratedC. wrappedD. packed
11.A. inspectB. admireC. arrangeD. destroy
12.A. knocked onB. knocked overC. knocked offD. knocked at
13.A. declaredB. pretendedC. decidedD. regretted
14.A. faultB. taskC. goalD. plan
15.A. screamB. alarmC. noiseD. call
16.A. back B. kneesC. stomachD. head
17.A. praisedB. hitC. shoutedD. scolded
18.A. set asideB. sort outC. make up forD. pick up
19.A. nothingB. noC. anyD. something
20.A. obviouslyB. frequentlyC. unfortunatelyD. unnecessarily
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