【推荐1】Instead of going on a trip or buying herself new clothes, Xiao Tong from Wuhan, Hubei province, chose to celebrate her senior high school graduation in a different way. She went to a beauty clinic to undergo plastic surgery (整容手术)on her nose.

“I want to make a good impression and start my university life with a brand new look, ” the 18-year-old told Changjiang Daily. Like Xiao Tong, many young Chinese are anxious about their looks, and subject (使经受)themselves to cosmetic surgery. A medical beauty industry white paper by Research Global said 19 percent of Chinese medical beauty consumers in 2020 were aged 18 or under.

Young people have cosmetic surgery for different reasons, and improving self-confidence is one of them. Wang Fang, 18, from Beijing, felt that her eyes were too small. In 2019, after she got in university, Wang had a minor operation done on her eyelids. “Before I had the surgery, I had a negative idea of myself. Therefore, I had low self-esteem and no confidence, ‌”   Wang told Beijing Youth Daily. “The cosmetic surgery changed the situation. I was comfortable with that. ‌”

But Jiang Wenxiu of the Department of Psychiatry, Zhongda Hospital, Southeast University in Jiangsu, advised that people should think twice before going under the knife. “Medical beauty apps only show how great plastic surgery can be, ” Jiang told China Daily. “They leave out all the negative stuff. ”

Today beauty clinics that see students as profitable plastic surgery customers are well aware that these young people are mostly short of money, so they use summer discounts,   installment (分期付款) plans and other ways to attract their attention.Xiao Zhen, 17, from Chengdu, Sichuan province, is one of the victims.She took out a loan (贷款) of about 20, 000 yuan to get cosmetic surgery. But the large sum of money became a big burden. She had to drop out of school and go to work to pay off the loan. Besides the financial burden, potential health risks of plastic surgery also need to be considered. “If you have big problems with your look, you should wait until you are a full adult, then decide if you want to do something about it, ” Jiang said. “Then, with a stable mind, you can consider inner and outer beauty, and whether plastic surgery is for you. ”

1. Why is Xiao Tong’s experience mentioned in the beginning?

A．To introduce a different graduation celebration.

B．To describe how important appearances are to youths.

C．To give an example of students choosing plastic surgery.

D．To show the rising popularity of plastic surgery in China.

2. Why did Wang Fang have an operation on her eyelids?

A．To feel better about herself.

B．To have a perfect appearance.

C．To avoid others’ bad comments.

D．To have a comfortable university life.

3. What did Jiang Wenxiu point out?

A．Most cases of plastic surgery are successful.

B．You need a loan to cover plastic surgery costs.

C．The number of students having plastic surgery is rising.

D．Promotions of plastic surgery do not give a full picture.

4. What can we infer about Jiang’s words in the last paragraph?

A．Inner beauty matters much more than outer beauty.

B．Risks of plastic surgery may affect your adult life.

C．People don’t need to be anxious about their looks.

D．Whether to have plastic surgery is decided when you are an adult.

【推荐2】Heart disease is one of the major killers in the world today. Many who suffer from it must have heart transplants(移植). However, it's difficult to get a suitable heart donation, and even if a patient survives the wait, his or her body often rejects the heart.

But there is now new hope for sufferers of heart disease. According to a study published in the journal Advanced Science, researchers from Israel's Tel Aviv University printed a 3D human heart on April 15, 2019.

“This is the first time anyone anywhere has successfully engineered and printed an entire heart,” Professor Tal Dvir told CNN.

Unlike the previous 3D-printed heart structure, the new heart is complete with cells, blood vessels(血管), chambers(心室) and other structures a heart needs to function normally. But scientists still have more to figure out before the 3D-printed heart can be fitted into the body. For one thing, the experimental heart is only the size of a thumb. And, although it can contract(收缩) like a muscle, it cannot pump out blood like a real one. At present, the heart prototype(样品) is like a tiny airplane that has all of the right parts, but can't fly.

However, the development is still regarded as a major breakthrough in medicine.

In the experiment, the researchers turned human fat tissue(脂肪组织) into human heart tissue with stem cell(干细胞) technology. The tissue was then turned into “bio-ink” for a 3D printer to ensure that tissue in the heart came from the patients themselves. So ideally, if it were to be placed in the body of someone in need of a transplant, there would be less risk of organ rejection.

“Patients will no longer have to wait for transplants or take medications to prevent their rejection,” researchers told USA Today. “Instead, the needed heart will be printed, fully personalized(个性化的) for every patient.”

“Maybe, in 10 years, there will be organ printers in the finest hospitals around the world and these procedures will be conducted routinely,” Dvir said.

1. Why is the 3D-printed heart important?

A．It will be used on a patient.	B．It is the first 3D-printed heart.
C．It will replace a heart donation.	D．It has a complete heart structure.

2. What problem do 3D-printed hearts have?

A．They cost too much.	B．They are too small.
C．They can't contract.	D．They are hard to produce.

3. Why would there be less risk of organ rejection with the 3D-printed heart?

A．It would be made with stem cell technology.

B．It would be made from human fat tissue.

C．It would come from a patient's body.

D．It would be printed according to the patient's condition.

【推荐3】CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation 心肺复苏术) and first aid are related topics. It could be said that first aid is the more general of the two, and training in first aid might include instructions and practice on how to respond to a variety of medical emergencies that could be causing danger to life or to a part of a person’s body. One such medical emergency could be the stopping of breathing or heartbeat, and the right response, in this case, might be to perform CPR. Thus, CPR can be seen as a type of first-aid response.

There can be differences in the amount of first-aid training people learn, and courses can sometimes be broken down into emergency and standard training. Standard training is actually the more extensive of the two, and would include teaching and learning how to handle a variety of medical situations like bites from insects or animals, broken bones, poisoning, childbirth, and care of wounds. Emergency first aid tends to be limited to the teaching of CPR, how to handle choking emergencies, and instructions on wound care for heavy bleeding.

CPR and first aid may be taught together or are sometimes taken as separate courses. People may need a whole day of practice or longer before getting CPR certification, which should be obtained from recognized agencies like the Red Cross. The big difference between CPR and first aid, in terms of taking classes, is that CPR focuses only on learning to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation and recognize those situations as soon as possible in which it should be performed, while first-aid classes may teach this too, but they will teach in the broader context of how people need to respond to lots of different injuries or illness.

The issue of CPR and first aid may get confusing when people are asked to get training in one or both of these. Some people may be asked to take a first-aid course and have CPR training. Those who need more extensive training in standard first aid certainly won’t satisfy this need by only taking a CPR course. Those confused about what training they need should get this issue clear with the person (usually an employer) requesting the training.

Being able to respond first in a medical emergency usually means needing to know CPR, but other knowledge could be just as necessary. For instance, how to stop uncontrollable bleeding or how to handle an episode of anaphylactic shock (过敏性休克) could be vital too.

1. What is the purpose of performing CPR?

A．To be qualified as a first-aid trainer.	B．To make a person’s heart start beating again.
C．To deal with all the medical emergencies.	D．To gain practical knowledge of first aid.

2. What can we learn from Paragraph 2?

A．CPR works faster when someone breaks his leg.

B．CPR includes most courses of emergency training.

C．Emergency first aid is more useful than CPR.

D．Standard training deals with more medical cases.

3. When can people get the chance to obtain CPR certification?

A．When practicing a whole day in Red Cross.

B．After saving someone with CPR.

C．After finishing the CPR training.

D．When getting instructions from recognized agencies.

4. Where is this text probably taken from?

A．A book review.	B．An academic report.
C．A health magazine.	D．A maths exam paper.

【推荐1】We face problems in our everyday life.     1    Don't worry. As long as you are breathing, you can solve problems.

Be aware of problem

First of all, it is important to know and understand the problem clearly.     2    . Following questions like why, what,  how, when, where and who will take you to the root cause of the problem.

Analyze the problem

Analyzing the problem will give you time to think of a proper solution.     3    . They can be diagrams(图表),  flowcharts or a lists, etc.

Plan a strategy(策略)

Planning a strategy will help you waste less energy and time in attempting all the solutions. This step includes knowing the advantages and disadvantages of applying a solution. In this way, you can abandon the strategy that you don't find worthy to apply.

    4    

Leave out the information that is not required for the solving of the problem. You need to be accurate with the details. Keeping the unrelated information can sometimes complicate the simple problems as we tend to overlook the important information.

Carry out the solution

Putting the solution into effect in a correct way to get the result expected is important while solving a problem. You need to be creative while actualizing(实施)a solution just in case some other problem arises while applying the solution.     5    

A．Remove unrelated information.

B．You can use various tools to study the problem.

C．Use yes or no questions to get better information.

D．Knowing the problem means solving half the problem itself.

E．They can be social problems, relationship problems, or problems at work.

F．Being ready with alternatives is also important in case a solution works only half way.

G．Spend 10% of the time analyzing the problem and 90% on the solution, not the opposite.

【推荐2】When you go to the doctor, you like to come away with a prescription(诊断). It makes you feel better to know you will get some medicine. But the doctor knows that medicine is not always needed. Sometimes all a sick person needs is some reassurance that all will be well. In such cases the doctor may prescribe a placebo.

A placebo is a sugar pill, a harmless shot, or an empty capsule. Even though they have no medicine in them, these things seem to make people well. The patient thinks it is medicine and begins to get better. How does this happen?

The study of the placebo opens up new knowledge about the way the human body can heal itself. It is as if there was a doctor in each of us. The doctor will heal the body for us if we let it. But it is not yet known just how the placebo works to heal the body. Some people say it works because the human mind fools itself. These people say that if the mind is fooled into thinking it got medicine, then it will act as if it did, and the body will feel better.

Placebos do not always work. The success of this treatment seems to rest a lot with the relationship between the patient and the doctor. If the patient has a lot of trust in the doctor and if the doctor really wants to help the patient, then the placebo is more likely to work. So in a way, the doctor is the most powerful placebo of all.

A placebo can also have bad effects. If patients expect a bad reaction to medicine, then they will also show a bad reaction to the placebo. This would seem to show that a lot of how you react to medicine is in your mind rather than in your body. Some doctors still think that if the placebo can have bad effects it should never be used. They think there is still not enough known about it.        

The strange power of the placebo does seem to suggest that the human mind is stronger than we think it is. There are people who say you can heal your body by using your mind. And the interesting thing is that even people who swear this is not possible have been healed by a placebo.

1. What do we know about placebo according to the passage?

A．It contains some sort of medicine.

B．It won't function if you are negative about medicine and doctors.

C．People who believe placebo can be healed by it.

D．Patients and doctors know clearly how it helps to heal the body.

2. Why is the doctor sometimes the most powerful placebo?

A．The patient needs help badly.

B．The patient believes in the doctor.

C．The doctor knows better about your body.

D．The doctor has carefully studied medicine.

3. What is the passage mainly about?

A．Placebo: Work on Your Mind	B．Placebo: The Most Powerful Medicine
C．Placebo: The Best Doctor	D．Placebo: Heal Your Body

【推荐1】People who give, live longer, studies have shown. Now, a new study by University of Michigan shows that why people volunteer—not whether they volunteer—is what really counts.

For the study, Konrath and colleagues analyzed data collected in 2008 and 2012 aiming at the same random samples of 3,376 people. Overall, they found that just 2.3 percent of those who once worked as volunteers had died, compared to 4.3 percent of non-volunteers. They further found that how much people volunteered mattered as well—only 1.8 percent of regular volunteers died, compared with 2.5 percent of occasional volunteers.

But what really made a difference were people’s motives for volunteering. The researchers asked people to rate how important they found various reasons for volunteering, and they found that the more important people rated reasons such as feeling pity for people in need, the more likely they were to be alive. Those who rated motives related to personal benefit as more important were more likely to have died, and just as likely to die as those who didn’t volunteer at all. These reasons included volunteering because they enjoyed the social contact, to escape their own problems, or to explore their own strengths.

Konrath says the current findings suggest it may be a poor idea to encourage people to volunteer because it’s good for them. “Volunteering is increasingly being encouraged in schools and organizations. Some groups say that it’s okay to want benefits for yourself, and encourage people to think of volunteering as an exchange for personal interests. Some groups emphasize the health benefits received through volunteering.” Konrath added, “Of course, it’s reasonable for volunteers to expect benefits for themselves. But the potential health benefits of volunteering are significantly reduced if self-benefit becomes a person’s main motive.”

1. What does the new study mainly find?

A．How we volunteer makes sense to others.	B．How often we volunteer makes a difference.
C．Whether we volunteer decides our well-being.	D．Why we volunteer has an impact on our health.

2. How did the researchers do the study?

A．By analyzing statistics.	B．By rating volunteers’ performances.
C．By doing lab experiments.	D．By grouping participants randomly.

3. Which of the following motives will probably contribute to a longer life?

A．To develop abilities.	B．To make more friends.
C．To help the poor people.	D．To solve personal problems.

4. What is the last paragraph mainly about?

A．Practical suggestions on further studies.	B．A further explanation of the current findings.
C．Potential applications of the research method.	D．A reasonable doubt about the research results.

【推荐3】You watch a sad film and get caught up in your emotions. You cry your eyes out at the dramatic plot — you feel sad for the characters if they suffer, or happy for them when they are successful. It is only when the movie is over that you realize that what you were watching is not real.

But why couldn’t you accept that when you were so absorbed in the movie? It was reported in Science Daily this week that scientists at Case Western Reserve University, US, discovered that people simply cannot think emotionally and logically at the same time.

It has long been known that something different goes on in our brain when we use logic, rather than responding to something emotionally. Thinking logically is a step-by-step process, in which people make decisions through reasoning and find answers rationally. When we think emotionally or empathize (有同感) we look at things from someone else’s point of view and try to feel their pain.

Now scientists have found that thinking logically and emotionally are like the two ends of a seesaw (跷跷板) — when we’re busy empathizing, the part of the brain used for cold-hard analysis is suppressed (抑制). And it’s also true the other way round.

To come to this conclusion, scientists gathered 45 people — men and women — to take brain scans as they solved different kinds of puzzles. Some of the puzzles were tough and involved math and physics and others were social problems that required participants to put themselves in other people’s shoes.

Scientists found that when participants were doing a math problem, the region in their brain that is associated with logical thinking lit up, and when asked to make emotional decisions, the region for emotional thinking lit up. But the most interesting part is that when asked to solve problems that required both logical and emotional responses, the participants always used one of the regions at a time while the other one went dark.

“Empathetic and analytic thinking are…mutually (相互之间地) exclusive (排斥的) in the brain,” said Anthony Jack, leader of the study. “You don’t have to favor one, but cycle efficiently between them, and employ the right network at the right time.”

However, people sometimes ended up using the wrong one. This explains why some people are good at solving complex math problems but have poor social skills. And why even the smartest people get taken in by fake but touching stories.

1. Why does the author mention watching movies at the beginning of the article?

A．To show that we are easily moved by things that are not real.

B．To show that sometimes we only use emotional thinking.

C．To prove that emotional thinking is powerful.

D．To introduce the research based on this kind of experiences.

2. Scientists at Case Western Reserve University proved through their recent tests that ______.

A．logical thinking works differently from emotional thinking

B．logical thinking and emotional thinking take turns to function independently

C．logical thinking is much more efficient than emotional thinking

D．logical thinking and emotional thinking could work together

3. We can conclude from the last two paragraphs that ______.

A．people have to frequently switch between different types of thinking

B．adopting the wrong thinking mode could have bad results

C．people could only either have excellent logical thinking or emotional thinking

D．people who think logically could easily be manipulated (操纵)

4. What is probably the best title?

A．Movies and Your Emotions

B．Math and Physics

C．Your Heart vs Your Mind

D．Logical Thinking

【推荐1】A UPS (United Parcel Service) driver Ryan Arens was making his rounds near a pond in Bozeman, Montana, when he heard a sound. “Like a cry for help,” he told the Dodo. It was December 2019, and about 15 feet from the frozen banks was the source of that cry-a struggling dog with half of its body underwater, trying to stick to a thin layer of ice. How she got there no one knows, but an elderly man was already on the scene, determined to save her. He’d entered the pond in a rowboat and was trying hard to cut the ice with a rock to create a path to the dog. It was slowly going, and Arens,44, thought he stood a better chance.

“Animals are my weakness,” he told the Great Falls Tribune, explaining why he took off his clothes without hesitation, even though the temperature was in the 30s, and took over the rowboat.

His heart beating wildly, Arens slid closer to the dog and used the other man’s rock to smash away at the ice. He gave one too strong hit and slipped off the boat, falling into 16 feet of icy water.

He resurfaced in time to see the dog going under. Using nervous energy to keep warm, he swam about five feet toward her, took hold of her collar, and pulled her to the ice. He then lifted the dog into the boat and slid it back to the shore, where anxious bystanders carried the dog to the home of the elderly man, a retired animal doctor. Once in the house himself, Arens jumped into a warm shower with the dog until they both felt warm. A few more minutes in the pond，the doctor told Arens, and she would have likely suffered cardiac arrest(心脏骤停).

The next day, Arens was back working in the same neighborhood when the dog’s owner came over to thank him for saving Sadie. “Would you like to meet her?” he asked. He opened the door to his pickup, and immediately out raced Sadie. She went straight to Arens, leaping on him and bathing him in wet kisses. “That special delivery”，says Arens, “was the highlight of my UPS career.”

1. What happened to the dog?

A．It lost its way home.	B．It was caught in an accident.
C．It fell into a pond.	D．It was trapped in a truck.

2. What does the underlined sentence in Paragraph 2 tell us?

A．He can’t help helping animals in trouble	B．Dogs are too weak to stand the cold.
C．He is good at raising weak animals.	D．He is too weak to save the dog.

3. What was the weather like when it happened?

A．Warm

B．Cold

C．Cool

D．Hot.

4. Who saved the dog in the end?

A．The animal doctor.	B．Ryan Arens
C．A bystander.	D．A reporter.

5. What can we conclude from the end of the story?

A．Sadie went to live with the person who saved her.

B．The dog owner was not a responsible master.

C．Dogs should be kept indoors in cold weather.

D．Arens was proud of what he had done.

【推荐2】Awe is generally defined as the sense that you are in the presence of something larger and more consequential than yourself. According to a study called “awe walks”, people who took a fresh look at the world around them during brief, weekly walks felt more upbeat and hopeful in general than walkers who did not. Feeling a sense of awe also seems to up our overall feelings of gladness and improve health.

Previous studies have linked increased physical activity to greater happiness and reduced risks for anxiety, depression and other mental illnesses. But no studies had looked into whether mixing awe and activity might increase the benefits of or, on the other hand, reduce them. So, for the new study, scientists concentrated on people in their 60s, 70s and 80s, an age when some people can face risks for declining mental health.

The scientists asked 52 study volunteers to add a weekly 15-minute walk to their normal schedules. All of them were physically healthy and psychologically well-adjusted, with little anxiety or depression. Then they were randomly divided into two groups. One, as a control group, was asked to start walking, preferably outside, but given few other requirements. The other group was not only asked to walk once a week, but also were instructed in how to cultivate awe as they walked. “Basically, we told them to try to go and walk somewhere new, since novelty helps to cultivate awe,” says Virginia Sturm, an associate professor who led the new study.

Both groups were asked to take a few selfies (自拍) during their walks and upload them to a lab website and also complete a daily online assessment of their current mood. After eight weeks, the scientists compared the groups’ responses and photos. Not surprisingly, the awe walkers felt happier, less upset and more socially connected than the control group members.

The findings are subjective, though, since awe, like other emotions, is difficult to quantify, but Dr. Sturm thinks awe walks could be a simple thing for small wonders without any downside.

1. What makes the new study different from the previous ones?

A．It concentrated on older people.

B．It found the solution to mental health.

C．It associated physical exercise with happiness.

D．It took both activity and awe into consideration.

2. What can we learn from paragraph 3?

A．The volunteers were suffering mental diseases.

B．Only the control group practiced weekly walks.

C．The study volunteers were divided by age.

D．Novelty can produce awe feelings.

3. Why are the findings regarded subjective?

A．The number of volunteers is small.

B．The awe emotion is hard to measure.

C．The daily assessments are difficult to complete.

D．The period of the experiment isn’t long enough.

4. What is the attitude of Dr. Sturm to “awe walks”?

A．Skeptical.

B．Supportive.

C．Indifferent.

D．Critical.

【推荐3】In July, 2015, NASA's Kepler mission has confirmed the first near-Earth-size planet in the "habitable zone" around a sun-like star. This discovery and the introduction of 11other new small habitable zone candidate planets mark another milestone in the journey to finding another "Earth"

The newly discovered Kepler-452b is the smallest planet to date discovered orbiting in the habitable zone—the area around à star where liquid water could pool on the surface of an orbiting planet—of a G2-type star, like our sun. The confirmation of Kepler-452b brings the total number of confirmed planets to 1,030.

"On the 20th anniversary year of the discovery that proved other suns' host planets the Kepler has discovered a planet and star which most closely resemble the Earth and our Sun," said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. “This exciting result brings us one step closer to finding an Earth 2.0.”

Kepler-452b is 60 percent larger in diameter than Earth arid is considered a super-Earth-size planet. While its mass and composition are not yet determined, previous research suggests that planets the size of Kepler-452b have-a good chance of being rocky.

While Kepler-452b is larger than Earth, ' its 385-day orbit is only 5 percent longer. The planet is 5 percent farther from its parent star Kepler-452 than the earth is from the sun. Kepler-452 is 6 billion years old, 1.5 billion years older than our sun, has the same temperature, and is 20 percent brighter and has a diameter 10 percent larger.

"We can think of Kepler-452b as an older, bigger cousin to Earth, providing an opportunity to understand and reflect upon Earth's evolving environment," said Jon Jenkins, who led the team that discovered Kepler-452b. "If all the necessary ingredients and conditions for life should exist on this planet, there would be a good opportunity for life to arise."

To help confirm the finding and better determine the properties of the Kepler-452 system, the 'team conducted a series of ground-based observations: These measurements were the key for the researchers to confirm the planetary nature of Kepler-452b and to better pin down(确定)the size of the planet and its orbit.

1. When was the first host planet found in another solar system?

A．In 2015.	B．In 1985.
C．In 2005.	D．In 1995.

2. Which of the following statements about kepler-452b is NOT true?

A．Whether there is life on Kepler-452b remains unknown.

B．Kepler-452b is 10 percent larger in diameter than the sun.

C．Judging from its size, it is very likely that Kepler-452b is rocky.

D．Kepler-452b is a planet orbiting in the habitable zone.

3. Scientists have conducted a series of ground-based observations to find out _____________.

A．which Kepler-452b resembles more, the earth or the sun

B．more mysteries in our solar system

C．the planetary nature of Kepler-452b

D．the significance of NASA's Kepler mission

4. The passage is mainly about_________________.

A．the discovery of a new Earth-like planet

B．the discovery of a new solar system

C．the origin of the universe

D．the comparison, between the earth and Kepler-452b