【推荐1】Sports can help you keep fit and get in touch with nature. However, whether you are on the mountains, in the waves, or on the grassland, you should be aware that your sport of choice might have great influence on the environment.

Some sports are resource-hungry (消耗资源). Golf, as you may know, eats up not only large areas of countryside, but also tons of water. Besides, all sorts of chemicals and huge amounts of energy are used to keep its courses (球场) in good condition. This causes major environmental effects. For example, in the dry regions of Portugal and Spain, golf is often held responsible for serious water shortage in some local areas.

There are many environment-friendly sports. Power walking is one of them that you could take up today. You don’t need any special equipment except a good pair of shoes, and you don’t have to worry about resources and your purse. Simple and free, power walking can also keep you fit. If you walk regularly, it will be good for your heart and bones. Experts say that 20 minutes of power walking daily can make you feel less anxious, sleep well and have better weight control.

Whatever sport you take up, you can make it greener by using environment-friendly equipment and buying products made from recycled materials. But the final goal should be “green gyms”. They are better replacements (代替物) for traditional health clubs and modern sports centers. Members of green gyms play sports outdoors, in the countryside or other open spaces. There is no special requirement for you to start your membership. And best of all, it’s free.

1. Which of the following is the author most probably support?

A．Cycling around a lake.

B．Motor racing in the desert.

C．Playing basketball in a gym.

D．Swimming in a sports center.

2. What do we know about golf from the passage?

A．It pollutes the environment with all sorts of chemicals.

B．It needs water and other energy to keep its courses green.

C．It is very popular in Portugal and Spain.

D．It causes water shortages around the world.

3. Which of the following is NOT the advantage of power walking according to the passage?

A．It is environmentally-friendly.

B．It improves our health.

C．It is simple and free.

D．It can make you put on weight.

4. What does the underlined word “them” in the Paragraph 3 refer to?

A．Resource-hungry sports.

B．Outdoors sports.

C．Environment-friendly sports.

D．Indoors sports.

5. What is the main purpose of writing the passage?

A．To show us some major outdoor sports.

B．To encourage us to go in for green sports.

C．To discuss the influence of some popular sports.

D．To introduce some environmentally-friendly sports.

【推荐2】Exercise could not only benefit your body, but also improve your memory, researchers found recently. In their paper published on Monday, researchers from the University of California in the US and the University of Tsukuba in Japan introduced their experiment and conclusion.

Scientists invited 36 volunteers who were in their early 20s to do 10 minutes of light exercise before taking a memory test in which they were shown pictures like broccoli (西兰花) or picnic baskets and asked to recall them later. The same experiment was repeated with the same group of volunteers without exercising. “The memory task was really quite challenging,” said Michael Yassa, co-author of the study and a neuroscientist (神经科学家) at the University of California. “We used trickily similar items to see if they would remember whether it was this exact picnic basket or that picnic basket.”

Researchers also scanned some of the brains of the participants during the experiment. They found that the brains of those who exercised strengthened their ability to remember things. This suggested that just 10 minutes of light exercise like walking, yoga or Tai Chi might increase memory.

As all the volunteers in the experiment were relatively young, researchers are still working to look at the effects of light exercise on older people. “Our future goal is to try to develop an exercise prescription that can be used by older adults who might have disabilities or limited movements, but can still take very simple exercise and be able to, perhaps, put off the reduction of cognitive (认知的) skills slowly,” said Yassa.

1. What is the function of Paragraph 1?

A．To correct a mistake.	B．To introduce two universities.
C．To give practical advice.	D．To present a research result.

2. Why was the memory task quite challenging according to Yassa?

A．The people in the experiment were disabled.	B．The items to be chosen were extremely similar.
C．The time to solve the questions was too limited.	D．The questions to be asked were too complicated.

3. What is the underlined word “prescription” probably similar to?

A．Ability.

B．Benefit.

C．Method.

D．Detail.

4. What can be a suitable title for the text?

A．Exercise Can Improve Older People’s Cognitive Abilities

B．Ten Minutes of Exercise a Day Might Improve Memory

C．Exercise Is Beneficial to Both Young and Old

D．Advantages of Exercising Regularly

【推荐3】William Purkey, a well-known professor of education, said, “Dance like no one is watching, love like you'll never be hurt, sing like no one is listening, and live like it's heaven on earth.” It seems like the perfect life philosophy-- and one I've learned to apply to running over the year.

But I didn't always feel this way. In my early days, when I weighed 240 pounds, I ran like everyone was watching and judging. If I was on a run and saw a car approaching, 1'dstop and pretend I was looking for something I'd lost. I bought the high-tech gear and clothes that I thought would make people believe I was a runner. And I didn't have a clue if the expensive shoes I was wearing were the right kind for me --I just wanted to look like I fit in with this group.

To be honest, I felt a certain satisfaction in believing that someone was watching. I really thought that other people cared about my performance. The best example of this was a combined, two-lap marathon in Florence, Italy. As I approached the finishing line, the crowd began to cheer. I was surprised. Here I was, thousands of miles from home, and the Italians were shouting for “IIpenguino.”

About 20 yards from the finishing, the truth set in when the winner of the full marathon went past me as I was finishing the half-marathon. No one was cheering for me. No one probably even noticed that I was finishing. I couldn't help but smile at my own illusion of self-importance.

That's when I realized I had been running for every reason except the right one. I ran to make other people happy, ran to live up to their expectations. But no one was watching --no one cared. So I decided I was going to run for me, just me, and gained a new enjoyment from the sport I hadn't truly experienced yet. I've learned to run like no one is watching.

So if you see me at race, and I look like a 60-year-old guy waddling（蹒跚） along, don't worry. I'm fine. The miracle isn't that I finished. The miracle is that I had the courage to start.

1. The writer begins the passage by ________.

A．telling his running story	B．explaining a life philosophy
C．introducing quotations	D．listing some life rules

2. It can be inferred from paragraph 2 that the writer ________.

A．used sports clothes and shoes to attract attention

B．was concerned about what others thought of her

C．liked to be the focus of other runners

D．struggled to find the right shoes to fit her

3. When the writer was near the finishing line, ________.

A．she smiled at her own achievement	B．the crowd cheered for her madly
C．nobody really cared about her running	D．she realized the importance of confidence.

4. Now the writer thought that running is to ________.

A．live up to others expectation	B．create a miracle in her own life
C．run like no one is watching	D．enjoy the pleasure of running

5. By telling her own story, the writer wanted to ________.

A．tell us to live a life of our own	B．inspire more people to run
C．expect us to improve our health by running	D．stress the importance of determination

6. What does the underlined word “illusion” mean in the 4^Th paragraph?

A．misconception

B．expectation

C．fear

D．admiration

【推荐2】More than a score of Australian rare mammals have been killed by wild cats. These predators, which arrived with European settlers, still threaten native wildlife — and are too plentiful on the mainland to eliminate, as has been achieved on some small islands which were previously filled with them. But Alexandra Ross of the University of New South Wales thinks she has come up with a different way to deal with the problem. As she writes in a paper in the Journal of Applied Ecology, she is giving feline (猫科的) — awareness lessons to wild animals involved in re-introduction programs, in order to try to make them cat-conscious.

Many Australian mammals, though not actually extinct, are restricted to fragments of cat-free habitat. This will, however, put the forced migrants back in the sights of the cats that caused the problem in the first place. Training the migrants while they are in captivity, using stuffed models and the sorts of sounds made by cats, has proved expensive and ineffective. Ms Ross therefore wondered whether putting them in large natural enclosures with a scattering of predators might serve as a form of training camp to prepare them for introduction into their new, cat-ridden homes.

She tested this idea on a type of bandicoot (袋狸) that superficially resembles a rabbit. She and her colleagues raised two hundred bandicoots in a huge enclosure that also contained five wild cats. As a control, she raised a nearly identical population in a similar enclosure without the cats. She left the animals to get on with life for two years, which, given that bandicoots breed four times a year and live for around eight years, was a considerable period for them. After some predation (扑食) and probably some learning, she abstracted 21 bandicoots from each enclosure, attached radio transmitters to them and released them into a third enclosure that had ten hungry cats in it. She then monitored what happened next. The outcome was that the training worked. Over the subsequent 40 days, ten of the untrained animals were eaten by cats, but only four of the trained ones. One particular behavioral difference she noticed was that bandicoots brought up in a predator-free environment were much more likely to sleep alone than were those brought up around cats. And when cats are around, sleeping alone is dangerous. How well bandicoots that have undergone this extreme training will survive in the wild remains to be seen. But Ms Ross has at least provided reason for hope.

1. What can be learned from the first paragraph?

A．The feline-awareness lessons have proved ineffective.

B．There are too many wild cats to be killed in Australia.

C．Different ways have been tried to hunt and kill wildlife.

D．Native wildlife has been threatened by a growing population of wild cats.

2. The forced migrants in the second paragraph refer to ________.

A．Australian mammals restricted to certain areas

B．The wild cats tracking down the mammals

C．Wild animals involved in the program

D．The predators captured by the animal trainers

3. Which of the following is TRUE about the first two enclosures?

A．They were both closely monitored.	B．They had 200 bandicoots in total.
C．They had similar natural environment.	D．They both had wild cats in them.

4. What was the finding of Ms Ross’ research project?

A．Untrained bandicoots failed to identify cats.

B．Training bandicoots prepared them to fight cats.

C．Sleeping alone in the wild was dangerous.

D．Bandicoots could be trained to avoid predators.

【推荐1】Global Positioning Systems（GPS） are now a part of everyday driving in many countries. These satellite-based systems provide turn-by-turn directions to help people get to where they want to go. But, they can also cause a lot of problems, send you to the wrong place or leave you completely lost. Many times, the driver is to blame. Sometimes a GPS error is responsible. Most often, says Barry Brown, it is a combination of the two.
We spoke to Mr. Brown by Skype （网络电话软件）. He told us about an incident involving a friend who had flown to an airport in the eastern United States. There he borrowed a GPS-equipped car to use during his stay. BARRY BROWN: “And they just plugged in an address and then set off to their destination. And, then it wasn’t until they were driving for thirty minutes that they realized they actually put in a destination back on the West Coast where they lived. They actually put their home address in. So again, the GPS is kind of 'garbage in garbage out'.”
Mr Brown says this is a common human error. But, he says, what makes the problem worse has to do with some of the shortcomings, or failures, of GPS equipment. BARRY BROWN: “One problem with a lot of the GPS units is that they have a very small screen and they just tell you the next turn. Because they just give you the next turn, sometimes that means that it is not really giving you the overview that you would need to know that it’s going to the wrong place.”
Barry Brown formerly served as a professor with the University of California, San Diego. While there, he worked on a project with Eric Laurier from the University of Edinburgh. The two men studied the effects of GPS devices on driving by placing cameras in people’s cars. They wrote a paper based on their research. It is called “The Normal, Natural Troubles of Driving with GPS.”
It lists several areas where GPS systems can cause confusion for drivers. These include maps that are outdated, incorrect or difficult to understand. They also include timing issues(时机问题) related to when GPS commands are given.
Barry Brown says, “ To make GPS systems better we need a better understanding of how drivers, passengers and GPS systems work together.”
1. In paragraph 2, Mr. Brown mentioned his friend in the conversation to _______.

A．build up his own reputation

B．laugh at his stupid friend

C．prove the GPS system is only garbage

D．describe an example of human error

2. What is the disadvantage of small screens in GPS equipment according to the text?

A．They just provide the next turn.

B．They are harmful to eyes.

C．They make drivers tired easily.

D．They often break down suddenly.

3. Which of the following statements would Barry Brown most likely agree with?

A．GPS units are to blame for most GPS service failures.

B．We should introduce higher standards for the driving license.

C．Cameras are badly needed to help improve GPS systems.

D．Drivers, GPS systems and passengers should unite to improve GPS systems.

4. What is Mr. Brown’s attitude towards GPS?

A．Unconcerned.	B．subjective.
C．Objective.	D．Critical.

5. Which of the following statements can best describe the main idea of the passage?

A．Driving with GPS can be difficult.

B．Driving confusions can be caused by small screens.

C．Driving without GPS should be much more convenient.

D．GPS equipment in driving to be given up or improved

【推荐3】Have you ever imagined what it would be like to see the world through an animal’s eyes? For example, what a chimpanzee sees as it sits at the top of a tree, or a penguin’s view as it dives into the sea to catch its dinner?

These questions are answered in the nature documentary Animals with Cameras, produced by the BBC. The three-part series was first aired in the UK last month. To explore animal stories “told” by the animals themselves, the documentary’s filmmakers worked with scientists to develop cameras that wild animals could wear.

“Never before have we seen such high-quality footage (连续镜头) directly from the animal’s point of view,” BBC Nature executive producer Fred Kaufman told PBS. “This miniseries greatly expands our comprehension of animal behavior and this camera technology opens up new possibilities for discovering so much more.”

Indeed, the groundbreaking technology provides a new viewpoint of the animal kingdom. New cameras with enough battery life to shoot for hours at a time were designed to be comfortable enough for animals to wear, according to the documentary’s camera designer Chris Watts.

The technical challenges didn’t stop there. Some animals were very curious about the equipment, with some even fighting each other for the chance to wear a camera. In the case of chimpanzees, “we had to create dummy (仿造的) cameras, so that every chimpanzee could get one”, the miniseries’ wildlife cameraman Gordon Buchanan told Live Science.

For animals that were comfortable enough to be with human beings, the cameras could be fitted and removed by hand. But for others, the cameras came off automatically using a timed release and were collected afterward. This meant that the cameras needed to be as tough as possible.

To avoid disturbing the animals, scientists who were good at dealing with wildlife came to help by putting the cameras on the animals. “The last thing we want to do is cause them distress.” the documentary’s producer Dan Rees told the BBC. “To follow an animal in the first place, there had to be a clear benefit in terms of knowledge about it that might be useful to protecting a species in the future.”

Their efforts certainly paid off. “Footage that captures (捕捉) these rare and exciting glimpses of animals hidden habits is important to scientists, but documentaries like Animals with Cameras also resonate with (引起共鸣) audiences, connecting them with the beauty — and danger — of wildlife in their natural environments,” Live Science noted.

1. According to the text, Animals with Cameras ______.

A．is a documentary made by wildlife experts

B．presents high-quality footage of animals for the first time

C．shows wildlife from the unique viewpoint of animals

D．mainly records the life of chimpanzees and penguins

2. The case of chimpanzees is used to ______.

A．reflect the weakness of the camera technology

B．present how filmmakers put cameras on chimpanzees

C．explain why chimpanzees were attracted by the equipment

D．show how filmmakers dealt with the challenges in shooting

3. To avoid disturbing the animals, filmmakers ______.

A．set up a protected area for them to live in

B．invited scientists to help equip them with cameras

C．made the cameras look like animals in disguise

D．fitted and removed the cameras by hand

4. Why is Animals with Cameras important according to the text?

A．It could help scientists learn more about wild animals’ hidden habits.

B．It has contributed to the discovery of new species.

C．The camera technology shed light on future animal research.

D．It has raised people’s awareness of environmental protection.

【推荐1】Rats and other animals need to be highly tuned to social signals from others so that they can identify friends to cooperate with and enemies to avoid. To find out if this extends to non-living beings, Loleh Quinn at the University of California, San Diego, and her colleagues tested whether rats can detect social signals from robotic rats.

They housed eight adult rats with two types of robotic rat — one social and one asocial — for 5 days. The robots rats were quite minimalist, resembling a chunkier version of a computer mouse with wheels — to move around and colorful markings.

During the experiment, the social robot rat followed the living rats around, played with the same toys, and opened caged doors to let trapped rats escape. Meanwhile, the asocial robot simply moved forwards and backwards and side to side.

Next, the researchers trapped the robots in cages and gave the rats the opportunity to release them by pressing a lever.

Across 18 trials each, the living rats were 52 percent more likely on average to set the social robot free than the asocial one. This suggests that the rats perceived the social robot as a genuine social being. They may have bonded more with the social robot because it displayed behaviours like communal exploring and playing. This could lead to the rats better remembering having freed it earlier, and wanting the robot to return the favour when they get trapped, says Quinn.

The readiness of the rats to befriend the social robot was surprising given its minimal design. The robot was the same size as a regular rat but resembled a simple plastic box on wheels. "We'd assumed we'd have to give it a moving head and tail, facial features, and put a scene on it to make it smell like a real rat, but that wasn't necessary," says Janet Wiles at the University of Queensland in Australia, who helped with the research.

The finding shows how sensitive rats are to social cues, even when they come from basic robots. Similarly, children tend to treat robots as if they are fellow beings, even when they display only simple social signals. "We humans seem to be fascinated by robots, and it turns out other animals are too," says Wiles.

1. Quinn and her colleagues conducted a test to see if rats can ________.

A．send out warning messages to their fellow	B．distinguish a friendly rat from a hostile one
C．attain sociable traits through special training	D．pick up social signals from non-living rats

2. What did the asocial robot do during the experiment?

A．It followed the social robot.	B．It played with some toys.
C．It moved around alone.	D．It set the trapped rats free.

3. According to Quinn, the rats released the social robot because they ________.

A．tried to practice a means of escape	B．expected it to do the same in return
C．wanted to display their intelligence	D．considered that an interesting game

4. It can be learned from the text that ________.

A．rats are more sensitive to social cues than expected

B．rats are more socially active than other animals

C．rats behave differently from children in socializing

D．rats appear to be adaptable to new surroundings

【推荐2】Given the size of the country, the climate in Australia varies greatly from one zone to the next. Generally speaking, there are four seasons across most of the country while the Top End (including Darwin, Katherine, Kakadu and Arnhem Land), Broome, the Kimberley and Tropical North Queensland experience a ‘wet season’ ( November to April) and a ‘dry season’ (May to October).

It’s also important to remember that Australia’s seasons are at opposite times to those in the Northern Hemisphere (半球). So if you’re looking for an endless summer, just head Down Under as things start to cool off in the Northern Hemisphere.

Summer in Australia falls between December and February and is famous for sunny days with high temperatures. It’s the wet season in the tropical north (November to April), which is characterised by monsoonal (季风) rains. Many tourism operations are closed for the season, so are some national parks (such as Kakadu) due to flood risks. The same period is also the official hurricane season for areas around Cairns, although storms can also occur outside of this period.

For the ideal Australian summer, head to the southern parts of the country where you’ll find hot, sunny days to enjoy the unbelievable experiences on offer. The great weather encourages a steady flock of visitors to the country’s beautiful beaches to swim, surf or just relax. Celebrate the new year like a true Australian—with a beach barbecue—or visit Sydney for their internationally famous New Year’s Eve fireworks display. It’s a popular time for travel in Australia, both for local families and international visitors. Check the school holiday calendar for more information on break periods, and remember to book your accommodation in advance to avoid disappointment.

1. Which month is considered as a dry season in Broome?

A．April.	B．September.
C．November.	D．December.

2. What does the underlined part “Down Under” in Paragraph 2 refer to?

A．A club.	B．An airport.
C．Australia.	D．The Northern Hemisphere.

3. What is the main characteristic in the northern Australia in summer?

A．Bad weather.	B．The beach barbecue.
C．Fireworks.	D．Beautiful beaches.

【推荐3】When the weather gets cold, we can put on more clothes, stay next to a fireplace, turn on the air conditioner or simply travel to a warmer city to spend the winter – people have many different ways of coping with the cold.

But things are not as easy for plants. Unlike humans, plants can’t move to escape the cold or generate heat to keep themselves warm. So how do they manage to survive the freezing winter?

It turns out that plants have their own strategies too, said a study published on Dec 22 in the journal Nature.

According to researcher Amy Zanne of George Washington University, US, the cold is a big challenge for plants. Their living tissues can be damaged when they freeze. “It’s like a plant’s equivalent to frostbite (冻疮),” Zanne told Science Daily. Also, the process of freezing and thawing (解冻) can cause air bubbles to form in the plant’s water transport system. “If enough of these air bubbles come together as water thaws they can block the flow of water from the roots to the leaves and kill the plant,” she explained.

To live through cold weather, plants have developed three traits, according to the study. Some plants, such as oak trees, avoid freezing damage by dropping their leaves before the winter chill sets in – effectively shutting off the flow of water between roots and leaves – and growing new leaves and water transport cells when the warm spring returns.

Other plants, pine trees for example, protect themselves by narrowing their water transport cells, which makes it easier for cells to travel among air bubbles.

The third strategy is also the most extreme – some plants die on the ground in winter and start growing as new plants from seeds when conditions get warmer.

However, the study also found that these smart strategies were developed very slowly – over millions of years of evolution. This leads scientists to worry that plants may not be able to deal with human-caused climate change, which has only started occurring over the past few decades.

Scientists are hoping that this study can help people find possible ways to save plants from the threat of climate change.

1. What is the article mainly about?

A．Why plants are not afraid of the winter chill.

B．The ways that plants survive cold weather.

C．Changes in plants’ water transport system in winter.

D．How plants evolve to keep up with climate change.

2. According to the article, if a plant freezes in the winter, ______.

A．it produces more living tissues to stay alive

B．its leaves quickly fall out and its roots begin to die

C．its water transport cells are narrowed

D．its water transport system could be blocked

3. How do oak trees usually survive the cold winters?

A．By dropping their leaves before winter.

B．By narrowing their water transport cells.

C．By widening their water transport cells.

D．By dropping seeds on the ground so that the new trees can grow in the spring.

4. What are scientists worried about when it comes to plants according to the article?

A．Plants may not be able to adapt to the increasingly cold climate.

B．Human activities might have a great impact on the pace of plants’ evolution.

C．Plants may not be able to evolve fast enough to adapt to human-caused climate change.

D．The strategies plants develop are not good enough to protect them against cold.