【推荐1】Father’s Day
The United States is one of the few countries in the world that has an official day on which fathers are honored by their children. On the third Sunday in June, fathers all across the United States are given presents, treated to dinner or otherwise made to feel special.
However, the idea for creating a day for children to honor their fathers began in Spokane, Washington. A woman by the name of Sonora Smart Dodd thought of the idea for Father’s Day while listening to a Mother’s Day sermon in 1909. Having been raised by her father, Henry Jackson Smart, after her mother died, Sonora wanted her father to know how special he was to her. It was her father that made all the parental sacrifices and was, in the eyes of his daughter, a selfless and loving man. Sonora’s father was born in June, so she chose to hold the first Father’s Day celebration in Spikane, Washington on the 19th of June, 1910.
In 1924 President Calvin Coolidge declared the third Sunday in June as Father’s Day. Roses are the Father’s Day flowers: red to be worn for a living father and white if the father has died.
When children can’t visit their fathers or take them out to dinner, they send a greeting card. Traditionally, fathers prefer greeting cards that are not too sentimental. Most greeting cards are too special so fathers laugh when they open them. Some give heartfelt thanks for being there whenever the child needed Dad.
1. At first, Father’s Day was fixed on June 19th because ______.

A．Sonora honored her father on her father’s birthday

B．Sonora’s birthday was June 19

C．it was decided by the president at that time

D．her mother died on June 19

2. How many years has passed before Father’s Day became an official day since the father’s day was celebrated?

A．4

B．10

C．14

D．24

3. According to the passage, on Father’s Day,   ______.

A．people will wear the same flowers to honor their fathers

B．only daughters wear red flowers to honor their fathers

C．children must go home to honor their fathers

D．fathers are often honored in different ways

4. According to the passage, we can infer that Henry Jackson Smart ______.

A．was very kind to anyone

B．did a lot for his daughter

C．was the first father honored in 1924

D．always helped others by giving money

【推荐2】Mary Dickins had been a member of the audience at poetry nights before and knew “the poetry clap”. She made a polite tapping of fingers. But when she made her debut (首次演出) as a performer at the age of 62 at the legendary Bang Said the Gun night in south London, she said, “It was so wild — like nothing I had ever seen before.” The audience stamped their feet and shook shakers. “It felt transformative. I thought, ‘I’ve got to have more of this,’ ” Dickins said. Becoming a performance poet has given her a place on a stage of her own making.

All her life she has written is mostly without being seen or heard. Her mother died when she was nine, and, after she went into a care home at 13, Dickins’ writing stayed in notebooks. Really, she says, a lot of her adult life has been about getting over childhood shyness. At university — she studied education — she met her husband of 40 years, but in three years of seminars she did not say a word. Some of these results from her years at the children’s home. She says, “It gave me a sense of what it’s like to be excluded. I never fitted in anywhere.”

After she graduated, she discovered that she loved working with people with learning disabilities. She became an expert in inclusive education. “That was my niche (称心的职业),” she says. She published books and returned to the University of North London as a senior lecturer in early childhood studies.

Dickins now sees that in adulthood she has been giving herself permission to be silly. “The sillier I allow myself to be, the better the writing is,” she says. Her observations are humorous.

“Putting things into words and giving shape to your emotions is an important part of coming to terms with the things that happen in life,” she says.

Does she still feel like an outsider?

“I think I’ve made it into a virtue. I celebrate the fact that I don’t fit into a box. Finally! You have to wait till you’re 62 to feel confident!” she says. “But I have a sense of who I am and I’m proud of it. I wouldn’t be anyone else now — and it took me a long time to say that.”

1. How did Dickins feel about her debut?

A．Nervous.

B．Anxious.

C．Encouraged.

D．Relieved.

2. Why was Dickins lacking in a sense of belonging?

A．Her early stay at the care home.

B．Her inexperienced writing skills.

C．Her struggle with her university studies.

D．Her poor relationship with her husband.

3. How does writing benefit Dickins?

A．It helps her land a good job.

B．It develops her sense of humor.

C．It makes her overcome her learning disabilities.

D．It enables her to get on well with her life.

4. Which of the following can be the best title for the text?

A．Mary Dickins’ First Performance

B．Mary Dickins’ New Start after 60

C．Mary Dickins’ Troubled Writing Career

D．Mary Dickins’ Influence on Performance Poets

【推荐3】Working at a bank in New York City in the mid-2010s, Anna Sacks was not living the life she wanted. Sure, she was happy. But she wanted to do something that felt important.

Some people seeking meaning might read a self-help book or perhaps volunteer a few hours a week. Sacks packed up her life and moved to Connecticut to participate in Adamah, a farming program that focuses on sustainable living and growing sustainable food. When she returned to New York, her life was with a new purpose and many new skills to make her dreams a reality.

“One of the things that really stuck with me from Adamah was how little waste they produced and how they handled the waste they did have, primarily through composting (堆肥),” she says. The Adamah program opened Sacks’ eyes to the damage consumer culture is doing on a local, national, and global level, and the need to find solutions. So in 2017, she began what she calls “trash walking”.

During tours around her community, Sacks picks through garbage to look for reusable items. Soon, her “trash walking” expanded to include corporate trash along with residential trash. Surprisingly, she discovered a wide range of really great stuff-like clothing, decorations, and food -all of which she documents on TikTok.

Under the name The Trash Walker, Sacks quickly gained popularity for her videos that highlight the problems with consumerism. “The root issue is overproduction, which leads to overconsumption, which leads to a large amount of waste,” she says.

The fact is, companies often choose to trash items rather than give them away to people who might need them. A big reason for this waste is the way our current tax laws are structured, Sacks says. Sellers who destroy goods can claim the cost as a loss on their taxes and be refunded. If they give away goods, they can claim only a small amount as a charitable reduction on their taxes.

Sacks’ main focus is simply getting people to pay attention to how many unnecessary things they buy and then throw away. “Once you become aware of the way you consume, you can see ways you improve, ”she says.

1. Why did Anna Sacks leave New York?

A．To learn how to grow food.	B．To pursue a more meaningful life.
C．To realize her dream as a volunteer.	D．To accept the invitation from a program.

2. What impressed Anna Sacks most about the Adamah program?

A．The significance of trash walking.	B．The hard truth of consumer culture.
C．The sustainable food people produced.	D．The way people there dealt with the waste.

3. What makes companies prefer to throw out goods as trash?

A．The tax refund.	B．The tax reduction.
C．The overproduction.	D．The poor quality of goods.

4. What can we learn from Anna Sacks’ story?

A．Consumer culture accounts for wasting.	B．Corporate trash outweighs residential trash.
C．Turning to farming leads to sustainable living.	D．Trash walking is the key to becoming wealthy.

【推荐2】From political problems to environmental protection, the following books cover all kinds of topics. There is no doubt that they have become a must for young adults who show great interest in these matters.

An Inconvenient Truth by AI Gore

AI Gore caught the attention of the world with his book An Inconvenient Truth, which later was adapted (改编) for a movie. Based on his lecture tour on global warming, the work explains climate change in a user-friendly way and opens the public’s eyes to our planet.

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

When John Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize in Literature, he was praised for his great writings, including The Grapes of Wrath. It focuses on a family of farmers who are forced off their land during the Great Depression. While it touches on the important problems such as agricultural industry changes, it also explores universal themes of power, family and self-interest.

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

Focusing on the meat-packing industry in Chicago, Upton Sinclair’s novel The Jungle explores the life of immigrant workers in the early 20th century. The best-selling work forced President Theodore Roosevelt to pass a law about food safety.

The Conscience of a Liberal by Paul Rrugman

Economist Paul Krugman tells 80 years of American history in The Conscience of a Liberal, which examines the fall and rise of economic and political situations. Many believe the2007 book was a clear call to take control of the country’s economic future.

1. Which book tells something about climate change?

A．The Jungle.	B．An Inconvenient Truth.
C．The Grapes of Wrath.	D．The Conscience of a Liberal.

2. What do we know about The Grapes of Wrath?

A．It was adapted for a movie.

B．Its author won the Nobel Prize.

C．It is about the economic development.

D．It explores the value of a happy family.

3. What role did The Jungle play in history?

A．It helped bring a new law into effect.

B．It changed the life of immigrant workers.

C．It forced people to care about meat-packing.

D．It helped develop the meat-packing industry.

【推荐3】What if you could fly like a bird just by thinking happy thoughts? Or you could disappear to a faraway land, never grow old and fight pirates every day? For Peter Pan and his friends, the Lost Boys, these dreams come true.
More than 100 years after this playful boy was “born”, Peter Pan and his friends are to continue their adventure in a sequel(续集)to J.M. Barrie’s original novel. “Peter Pan in Scarlet”(重返梦幻岛),written by British author Geraldine McCaughrean, was published earlier this month.
The sequel brings all the original characters back. Peter Pan’s friends, the Lost Boys, are now grown up and live in the real world. What’s more, at the end of the first book, Peter Pan thinks he has killed his enemy, Captain Hook. But ,new readers discover he is not so dead at all.
For those who are unfamiliar with the original story, Peter Pan lives in faraway Neverland with a group of orphans. But they are eager for a real mother and Peter Pan flies to London with a fairy(仙女), Tinkerbell, to find one. They visit a young girl, Wendy, who loves to read stories, and bring her and her two brothers back to Neverland to live with them. In Neverland, children never have to grow up, and there are no parents to tell them what to do.
Many teenagers dream of a world where they don’t have to grow old and take responsibility. But, the author explains such a world is not the paradise(乐园)when it first appears: adventures can be scary and often dangerous, and, though we all sometimes dream of running away, we all need someone to love and look after us too.
1. The passage is written to ________.

A．tell you about an unrealistic dream

B．introduce novels about Peter Pan

C．analyze the difficulties of growing up

D．explain why Peter Pan can’t grow old

2. “Peter Pan in Scarlet” is about _________.

A．how some children fought against the pirate–Captain Hook

B．the care–free life the children led in Neverland

C．how peter Pan looked for a real mother for the Lost Boys

D．how the Lost Boys return to Neverland for more adventures

3. The stories of Peter Pan and the Lost Boys reflect that those at their age ________.

A．are ready to shoulder responsibility

B．choose adventures in faraway places

C．long for independence but also need someone to love them

D．can’t wait to grow up

4. The place Peter Pan and his friend stay is named Neverland probably because .

A．they never have to grow up

B．they don’t have parents

C．they never have troubles

D．they never need to worry

5. Peter Pan flies to London _________.

A．to find a fairy	B．to visit a young girl
C．to find a real mother	D．to earn money