Finally, there is some good news for older dads. A new study shows that their children and even grandchildren may get a health benefit because of their older age. It's based on research into something called telomeres--tips on the ends of chromosomes Some previous studies have connected having longer telomeres with better health and longer lives. Telomeres haven't been proven to cause those benefits in the general population, but a number of researchers think they may hold secrets for things like longevity and cancer. As you age, telomeres shorten. However, previous studies have shown that the older a man is when he becomes a father, the longer the telomeres his children tend to have. The new research confirms that and finds it's extended to the grandchildren. That's a cheerier result for older dads than some other studies in recent years that indicate their kids are at higher risk for things like autism Carol Greider of Johns Hopkins University, who shared a Nobel Prize in 2009 for telomere research but didn't participate in the new study, said it's no surprise that the telomere effect would extend beyond children to grandchildren. She also said that since older fathers also tend to pass more potentially harmful genetic mutations , it's "not at all clear" whether advanced paternal age gives an overall health benefit to children. In a statement, the researchers who conducted the study said their study shouldn't be taken as a recommendation that men reproduce at older ages because there's a risk of genetic mutations. Some previous studies of the impact of older fatherhood have been less encouraging. In 2010, for example, at least two big studies confirmed a link to having children with autism. In 2008, a big Swedish study strengthened evidence linking bipolar disorder to older paternal ages. What is the main idea of this passage? A) Older parents are greatly encouraged by some good news. B) Dads can have a great influence on their children's development. C) Older dads no longer need to worry about their children's health. D) Older dads might benefit the health of their children and grandchildren.
D
(Question)
By taking a few simple techniques, parents who read to their children can greatly develop their children's language skills.It is surprising but true.How parents talk to their children makes a big difference in the children''s language development.If a parent encourages the child to actively respond to what the parent is reading.the child's language skills increase. A study was done with 30 three-year-old children and their parents.Half of the children took part in the experimental study;the other half acted as the control group.In the experimental group,the parents were given a two-hour training and they were taught to ask open-ended questions rather than yes-or-no questions.For example,the parent should ask,"What is the doggie doing?" rather than "Is the doggie running away?" The patents in the experimental group were also instructed in how to help children find answers,how to suggest different possibilities and how to praise correct answers. At the beginning of the study,the children did not differ in measures of language development,but at the end of one month,the children in the experimental group showed 5.5 months ahead of the control group on a test of expression and vocabulary.Nine months later,the children in the experimental group still showed an advance of 6 months over the children in the control group. The difference between the control group and the experimental group was A) the training that parents received B) the age of the children C) the books that were read D) the number of the children
(Answer)
A
Ques: Being an astronaut sounds cool, doesn't it?In space, they get to do some pretty amazing things, like floating in zero gravity. However,there are also plenty of things that astronauts can't do because of their weightless environment, and that's very sad. What's worse, they can't even let their sadness show--because it's impossible to cry in zero gravity. Of course, astronauts can still produce tears. But crying is much more difficult in space,reported The Atlantic in January. Without gravity, tears don't flow downward out of the eyes like they do here on Earth. This means that when you cry in space, your tears have nowhere to go--they just stick to your eyes. In May 2011, astronaut Andrew Feustel experienced this during one of his spacewalks."Tears," he said, "don't fall off your eye... They just kind of stay there." Besides making your vision unclear, this can also cause physical pain. Back on Earth, tears are supposed to bring comfort to the eyes.But that's not the case in space.The space environment dries out astronauts' eyes, and when tears suddenly wet the eyes, it can cause pain rather than comfort. "My right eye is painful like crazy." Feustel told his teammate during the walk. Since gravity doesn't work in space, astronauts need some extra help to get rid of the tears.Feustel chose to rub his eyes against his helmet to wipe the tears away. Another choice is to just wait--"When the tears get big enough they simply break free of the eye and float around,"astronaut Ron Parise told The Atlantic. There are lots of small things--things like crying--that we are so used to on Earth. We usually take them for granted, until they become a problem in a totally different environment,like space. There, astronauts can't talk to each other directly. They also can't eat or drink in normal ways. They can't even burp , because there is no gravity to hold the food down in their stomach. If they do burp, they just end up throwing up everything in their stomach,according to the UK National Space Center. Thus, perhaps it's... What can the astronaut do to get rid of the tears? A) Rub his eyes against his helmet to let the tears float forward. B) Rub his eyes by hand to let the tears float around. C) Get the tears big enough to fall off of his eyes. D) Get the tears big enough to break away from his eyes.
Ans: D
Question: Except for the sun, the moon looks like the biggest object in the sky. Actually it is one of the smallest, and only looks big because it is so near to us. Its diameter is only 2,160 miles (3,389 km), or a little more than a quarter of the diameter of the earth. Once a month, or more exactly, once every 29.5 days, at the time we call "full moon," its whole _ looks bright. At other times only part of it appears bright, and we always find that this is the part which faces towards the sun, while the part racing away from the sun appears dark. People could make their pictures better if they kept this in mind -- only those parts of the moon which are lighted up by the sun are bright. This shows that the moon gives no light of its own. It only throws back the light of the sun, like a huge mirror hung in the sky. Yet the dark part of the moon's surface is not ly black; generally it is just light enough for us to be able to see its outline, so that we speak of seeing "the old moon in the new moon's arms." The light by which we see the old moon does not come from the sun, but from the earth. We know well how the surface of the sea or of snow, or even of a wet road, may throw back uncomfortably much of the sun's light onto our faces. In the same way the surface of the whole earth throws back enough of the sun's light on to the face of the moon for us to be able to see the parts of it which would otherwise be dark. Why is the dark part of the moon not completely black? A) Because the sun shines on the moon's surface. B) Because the earth throws back sunlight onto the moon. C) Because the moon throws back the light from the sun. D) Because the moon has light of its own.
Answer:
B