【推荐1】“There’s a mistake.   Moonlight you guys won best picture. ”

And with those words, producer Jordan Horowitz of La La Land,   told the cast and crew of a competing film that it had won the Oscars’ biggest award. Presenters Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway were given the wrong category’s envelope before they went on stage.

Beatty was clearly confused about what he saw when he opened the envelope, but Dunaway read the name of the film listed below Stone’s name. The actors and producers from La La Land left their seats and filled the stage to accept their Oscar statues. They gave many speeches before Horowitz interrupted. “This is not a joke. Moonlight has won best picture, ”he said. He took the card from Beatty and held it up for the cameras. “Moonlight. Best Picture, ”he said as the camera moved closer.

The show’s host, Jimmy Kimmel, made the best of the situation. He went up to Beatty, and exclaimed “Warren. What did you do? ” Kimmel also said, “Personally, I blame Steve Harvey. ”That was in reference to the mistake Harvey made in 2015 at the Miss Universe pageant. He announced the wrong winner, first saying it was the contestant from Colombia, and then realizing the correct winner was actually from the Philippines.

Once order had been restored, Beatty tried to explain what happened, saying he had been given the wrong envelope. Barry Jenkins is the writer and director of Moonlight.   Once he reached the stage, he said “Even in my dreams, this cannot be true. ” Stone, happy to have won the best actress award, later said,   “Is that the craziest Oscar moment of all time? Cool! ”

Many people are wondering how the mistake was made. The accounting firm Pricewaterhouse Coopers has been handling Oscar votes for over 80 years without any problems. The firm apologized to all of the people who were made uncomfortable by the mistake. It promised to investigate what caused the error.

Horowitz is being credited for staying calm and stopping the show to correct the error. People are calling him “gracious, ” “a great producer, ” and “classy. ”Even Jenkins said “much respect to that dude. ”

1. What can we know from the words of Horowitz?

A．La La Land won the best picture.

B．Beatty and Dunaway made a mistake.

C．The Oscars’ biggest award belongs to Moonlight.

D．Horowitz was given the wrong envelope.

2. How did Jimmy Kimmel deal with the situation?

A．He was confused and opened the envelope.

B．He saved the embarrassing occasion.

C．He made fun of the situation.

D．He pointed out Warren’s mistake.

3. It can be inferred from the text ________.

A．Beatty made the mistake

B．Barry Jenkins suspected the result

C．The fault is due to Pricewaterhouse Coopers

D．Horowitz is being respected for his reaction

4. The best title of the text should be “________”.

A．Who made the mistake?

B．The Oscars’ biggest award

C．A mix-up in the Academy Award

D．Pricewaterhouse takes the responsibility

【推荐2】Get out your shovels, your seeds, and your soil-it's almost April 22. Here are four fun ways to celebrate Earth Day with your kids.

Plant a tree.

Since the first Earth Day in 1970, planting trees has been a traditional way of celebrating the holiday. Try planting one in your own backyard, or attending a local tree-planting event. In its lifetime, that single tree will absorb approximately one ton of carbon dioxide.    1    .

Spend the day without a car.

    2    . Yet, challenge yourself to make your way through the day without hopping in the car. Walking, biking, or catching the bus will keep your carbon dioxide emissions down and show the kids there are other fun ways of traveling.

Take a walk in nature.

Perhaps the most obvious Earth Day activity is a nature walk. Make a list of things you'd like to find and check them off on your walk.    3    . Go through the colors of the rainbow and try and find an object in that color on your walk.

Attend a community activity.

Show your kids it's not just Mom and Dad who care about Earth Day. Tons of people will show up for local events as well!    4    . We guarantee you will find some activities like park cleanup, recycling demos, or tree-planting ceremony.

    5    .

When it comes to taking care of Earth, we all need to do our share. Take your kids to the local playground and give them each a pair of gloves and a small garbage bag. Task them with picking of scraps of trash as fast as they can-whoever fills up their bag first, wins. Once you get back home, enjoy some Earth Day movies.

A．Play the clean-up game

B．Remember that every day can be Earth Day

C．If you don't feel like making a list, try a color search

D．Check out your newspaper the week leading up to the holiday

E．On Earth Day, we realize what we can do to preserve our natural resources

F．And there are a lot more surprising facts about trees you can share with your kids

G．Depending on where you live, this will bring varying degrees of problem to travel

【推荐3】Brazil’s Famous Carnival Holiday

Carnival is the most famous holiday in Brazil. It is not about a big moment in history or about a famous person, but it is important for the people because it’s a time of friendship, freedom and almost a whole week without work.

People can choose between parties or rest, and most people choose parties, day after day, night after night.

    1     It’s based on the Christian calendar, but it isn’t approved by the Church very well.   

It lasts four days and four nights.     2     People put on their costumes and go out into the streets or to clubs.   

There are also the samba (桑巴舞) schools which make a parade showing their music and floats (彩车).     3     Every year the parade tells a different story. Each city has one or more schools like this.   

Carnival is celebrated in the south where by Wednesday everything comes back to normal. The problem is that it is not approved by the Church in the Northwest where carnival is more traditional.     4    

I like Carnival, but I don’t agree that the party should keep going on.     5     Unfortunately, some people aren’t serious and give it a bad name, leaving a bad impression of this holiday, but it is the only national holiday that moves all the country and its different kinds of people and cultures together.

A．They are followed by the people.

B．It starts forty days before Easter.

C．It starts on Saturday and finishes on Thursday.

D．The Carnival in Rio de Janeiro is the largest carnival in the world.

E．And, like at every other popular parties, people drink, dance and have fun.

F．There people don’t respect its end and continue to party until the next Sunday.

G．People often dress up or masquerade (化装) during the celebrations, which marks an overturning of daily life.

【推荐2】Artificial intelligence is set to benefit mankind in many ways. It will make everyday tasks easier and bring efficiency to various industries. It might just prove to be one of man’s greatest inventions. And yet, like any other technology, AI will also bring risks and dangers. When people mention that AI could be dangerous, most people think of scenarios from movies or books where an AI program decides to eliminate or conquer all humans.

In February 2018, a group of AI experts got together to discuss the potential misuse of AI. Their main concern was that criminals could use AI for a variety of evil purposes. Someone can use AI to create websites that could be used to steal people’s personal information. Another potential risk is faster hacking—AI programs could be taught to find loopholes in software and break into secure computer systems. Some of the risks were as dramatic as the ones we see in books and movies. For example, the experts mentioned automated terrorism (自动化的恐怖主义) by using drones or unmanned vehicles as weapons. Remote attacks using such devices could be made easier through the use of AI.

And finally, there were some concerns on the fact that AI can mimic voices as well. Last year US filmmaker Jordan Peele teamed up with BuzzFeed website to make a movie using AI techniques to copy former US president Barack Obama’s voice. They “had” him voice his opinions on the 2017 movie Black Panther and current US President Donald Trump. While in China, tech giant Baidu, has also developed a program called Deep Voice that can “copy” anyone’s voice by analyzing a 3.7-second audio sample.

Famous British physicist Stephen Hawking even thought AI could be the worst event in the history of our civilization. “Once humans develop artificial intelligence, it will take off and redesign itself at an alarming rate. Humans couldn’t compete and would be superseded,   he told the BBC. However, Hawking suggested “I believe we can create AI for the good of the world. We simply need to be aware of the dangers, identify them, employ the best possible practice and management, and prepare for its consequences well in advance.”

Actually, AI technology is making great progress in terms of the three-stage development of artificial intelligence. It is unlikely that fully developing AI would make it hard for mankind to survive. After all, without human intelligence, AI cannot even develop itself, let alone replace human civilization.

1. According to the text, which of the following is NOT the risk brought by AI?

A．AI can be used to create websites to steal people’s personal information.

B．AI can help criminals to break into secure computer systems without permission.

C．AI can be used by terrorists to carry out terrorist attacks.

D．AI can be used to clone humans.

2. What does the underlined word “mimic” in paragraph 3 mean?

A．imitate	B．disturb
C．record	D．change

3. What can we infer from Stephen Hawking’s words?

A．AI is the best invention in the history of our civilization.

B．AI is not as intelligent and creative as humans.

C．AI can identify the dangers in advance.

D．AI will benefit the world if under careful management.

4. Which best describes the author’s attitude towards the future of AI?

A．Worried.	B．Indifferent.
C．Positive.	D．Negative.

【推荐3】A new study led by researchers at the University of California, Riverside, has found exposure to third-hand smoke (THS) causes skin diseases.

The study — the first to look at humans exposed to THS — involved 10 healthy non-smokers wearing clothing with either filtered (过滤的) air or THS chemicals. The investigation lasted three hours, during which participants would either walk or run for 15 minutes per hour — this would make them sweat and increase the levels of THS potentially taken in through the skin. Blood samples were collected, which were measured to see whether THS may have caused cell or tissue damage.

“We found THS exposure caused damage to DNA, lipids (脂质) and proteins and the damage remained even after the exposure stopped,” said Shane Sakamaki-Ching, a doctor of biology and the first author of the study. “Cigarette smokers show the same result.” The study showed exposure to THS increases signals related with skin diseases, which makes sense: the organ most likely to come into contact with THS is your skin, and so it receives the biggest exposure to the harmful chemicals. “However, what’s even more worrying is the tendency to lead to cancer,” added Sakamaki-Ching.

“If you buy a used car previously owned by a smoker, you are putting yourself at some health risk,” said Prue Talbot, a professor of cell biology at UC Riverside and the corresponding author of the study. “If you go to a restaurant that allows smoking, you are exposing your skin to THS. The same applies to staying in a hotel room that was previously occupied by a smoker.”

Sakamaki-Ching said, “Our findings can assist physicians in checking patients exposed to THS and help develop policies improving indoor environments polluted by THS.”

1. Why were the participants in the study asked to take exercise?

A．To keep themselves energetic.	B．To speed up blood circulation.
C．To remove THS by sweating.	D．To absorb more THS through skin.

2. What does Sakamaki-Ching say about exposure to THS?

A．It tends to cause bad health consequences.	B．It only puts the victim’s skin at risk.
C．It is likely to change smokers’ DNA.	D．It will have a mild effect on health.

3. What message does Prue Talbot want to convey in paragraph 4?

A．Public places risk being polluted.	B．THS exists widely in our daily life.
C．Smokers should be punished.	D．Second-hand cars are banned from buying.

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

A．Causes of Skin Diseases	B．A Campaign to Quit Smoking
C．Potential Harm of THS	D．Danger of Indoor Environments

【推荐1】Much like a smartphone, your body will go to sleep when there are no new inputs. When you are on a bus, your senses will give you the same repetitive inputs. The streets will flow by, the engine adds constant white noise, you’re seated and not moving, and the smell... well you hope the smell doesn’t change.

Any repetitive input going to your brain will eventually be ignored and your brain will start going into a low energy state. The fact that you fall asleep quickly when closing your eyes on a bus is because you were already on the bus for a while and got used to all the repetitive sensory data.

When you go to bed, you have a lot of new changes. You are lying down, you wear different clothes, you feel the pressure of your covers, you go from bright to dark, noisy to quiet. All of these are new sensory inputs that your brain needs to get used to before going to sleep.

A laboratory experiment to investigate the effects of whole-body vibration (震动) on seated human alertness and sleepiness was carried out. Vibration was applied to the volunteers sitting on the vehicle seat on the vibration platform. Volunteers for this investigation included 18 young male and healthy university students. None of the volunteers had a history of neck pain, diseases of the cervical spine or musculoskeletal disorders. Seated volunteers were exposed to a Gaussian random vibration, with 1–15 Hz frequency bandwidth at 0.2 ms⁻² r.m.s., for 20-minutes.

The results suggest that exposure to vibration even for 20-minutes can cause significant sleepiness. The data clearly show that exposure to vibration has considerable influence on subjective sleepiness levels, and more importantly, human reaction times and decrease of attention.

Drowsy driving has been reported to account for approximately 20% of accidents worldwide. In Australia, 16.6% of total road deaths were caused by sleep-related accidents in 1998 alone. It is well established that sleepiness caused by extended hours of driving has considerable influence on driver performance, therefore, compromising transportation safety.

These findings need to be further proved particularly in relation to driving behavior. This line of research can then assist in the development of practical and relevant guidelines for limitation of vibration exposure in the automotive industry, in an effort to reduce the burden of road accidents. That’s something for both car manufacturers and road safety experts to think about.

1. According to the passage, why do we fall asleep quickly on the bus?

A．Because we meet a lot of new changes.

B．Because the surroundings become quiet.

C．Because we get used to the repetitive sensory data.

D．Because our senses give us different kinds of inputs.

2. What is the purpose of the experiment?

A．To investigate people’s sleeping hours and situation.

B．To research whether vibration can affect people’s health.

C．To study the relationship between inputs and people’s attention.

D．To find out how shaking affects people’s sleepiness in the vehicle.

3. What can be inferred from the passage?

A．Sleepy driving is the main cause of road accidents.

B．The research has helped to reduce the burden of road accidents.

C．The findings of the experiment have been recognized by road safety experts.

D．The research results can give some implications to the automobile production.

4. What is the author’s attitude towards the findings?

A．Positive.	B．Negative.
C．Disappointed.	D．Indifferent.

【推荐2】The owner of a dog has received a message saying her dog would be killed unless she paid 1,000 pounds. Cathryn Hussain said her Christmas had been “a washout” of “sick” prank (恶作剧) calls about her dog.

Five days before Christmas, Waffle, a six-month-old labradoodle, was stolen in St Austell while the owner Cathryn took him for a walk in Belmont. Cathryn said she was approached by a male holding what she believed to be a knife. The suspect was dressed in black and spoke with a foreign accent.

Sergeant Steve White from Devon and Cornwall Police said: “The family of Waffle are very upset at the theft of their pet dog. All of the officers at the police station dealing with this crime also feel very sad for the family over what is a cruel and mean-spirited crime, especially during the Christmas period.” Officers have been checking local CCTV and making enquiries into the theft of Waffle.

Waffle still hasn’t been found. Police are trawling through lots of CCTV.

“We are all just a bit fed up of the prank calls that all seem to go through to my daughter’s phone. We received a text from someone saying they wanted 1, 000 pounds or Waffle would be beheaded.” Police have traced the person who was a male and not from Cornwall. “How dare someone use Waffle’s disappearance to make money. ”

“Christmas was difficult as I’ve got a five-year-old grandson so I had to force a smile for him. We haven’t told him exactly what happened to Waffle yet. Christmas really was a washout and was extremely upsetting for us. We just want Waffle to go home and things to go back to normal.”

1. What does the underlined word “washout” mean?

A．Failure.

B．Surprise.

C．Shock.

D．Fortune.

2. How did the owner lose the pet dog?

A．A man stole the dog from the owner’s house.

B．The owner walked the dog and it ran away by itself.

C．The dog lost its way when wandering around.

D．Someone threatened the owner and the dog was stolen.

3. What do we know about the incident?

A．The family have been troubled by prank calls during Christmas.

B．The police have traced the person who was a female from Cornwall.

C．The grandson was upset when he knew the dog’s disappearance.

D．The family wanted to pay 1000 pounds to let the dog back.

4. What is the best title for the passage?

A．A sad owner of a pet dog	B．A valuable pet dog stolen at Christmas
C．Prank calls about a pet dog during Christmas	D．A lost pet dog found during Christmas

【推荐3】Annie slept in the front of the seat with her father drove through the darkness. ”We’re almost there!” Dad announced cheerfully. “Soon well be observing and counting owls at the state park.” Yawning, Annie nodded and smiled. The time was 4:30 a.m. Looking out into the darkness, Annie remembered learning in school that most owls are active at night, when they hunt for food. During the day they sleep in hard-to-find spots.
“Dad, why do you need to count owls?” she asked. “It’s important for the scientists to have current information about bird populations,” he explained. “We want to know which birds have decreased in number and whether any new kinds of birds are coming into a certain area. You and I will write down the kinds of birds that we see today and keep a record of how many times we see each kind. The we’ll send out a report to a scientific organization that is collecting about birds from people all over the county.”
Dad pulled into the parking lot of the state park. Then, with flashing in hand, they began their hike into the woods. Annie zipped up her coat and tried to keep from trembling. She had not expected the morning to be so frigid. Luckily her gloves were in her pocket.
Suddenly Annie’s father stooped and gestured for her to be still. Obeying, Annie did not take another step. She thought she heard a low crying up head. “That’s certainly a screech owl,” her father whispered. “Let’s get a look at it.” After looking more closely, Annie could see that it was a small owl. Sensing danger, the owl narrowed its eyes and pulled its feathers tightly against its body. Annie carefully wrote down in her notebook that they had seen a screech owl.
Walking a little farther, they came to a tall oak tree. “This looks like a perfect spot to attract owls,” Dad said. “I’m going to play a recording of common call of the barred owl. Maybe we can get one to answer.’ Annie could hardly believe her ear. The recorded all sounded as if the bird were asking, “who cooks for you?” Moments later Annie thought she heard a return call in distance. She held her breath and waited. Suddenly a huge bird landed very quietly on a branch above them.
Annie had long forgotten how cold it was. She stood in wonder, shining her flashlight on the bird and studying it carefully. The barred owl was nearly tow feet tall. Gray feathers surrounded its dark eyes. The bird did not matter. Annie would never forge the image of the powerful barred owl.
1. Annie and her father went to the state park to _________.

A．catch owls

B．collect information about owls

C．record the call of owls

D．carry out an experiment on owls

2. With the help of ________, Annie could study the barren owl carefully.

A．scientists

B．moonlight

C．flashlight

D．a recorder

3. How did Annie feel when she saw the barren owl?

A．Bored

B．Relaxed

C．Frightened

D．Amazed

4. What would be the best title?

A．The Owl Count

B．A Study on Owls

C．Observation of Birds

D．A Cheerful Early Morning