【推荐1】          Grown-ups are often surprised by how well they remember something they learned as children but have never practiced ever since. A man who has not had a chance to go swimming for years can still swim as well as ever when he gets back in the water. He can get on a bicycle after many years and still ride away. He can play catch and hit a ball as well as his son. A mother who has not thought about the words for years can teach her daughter the poem that begins "Twinkle, twinkle, little star" or remember the story of Cinderella or Goldilocks and the Three Bears.
          One explanation is the law of overlearning, which can be stated as follows: Once we have learned something, additional learning trials(尝试) increase the length of time we will remember it.

In childhood we usually continue to practice such skills as swimming, bicycle riding, and playing baseball long after we have learned them. We continue to listen to and remind ourselves of words such as "Twinkle, twinkle, little star" and childhood tales such as Cinderella and Goldilocks. We not only learn but overlearn.

The multiplication tables(乘法口诀表) are an exception to the general rule that we forget rather quickly the things that we learn in school, because they are another of the things we overlearn in childhood.

The law of overlearning explains why cramming(突击学习)for an examination, though it may result in a passing grade, is not a satisfactory way to learn a college course. By cramming, a student may learn the subject well enough to get by on the examination, but he is likely soon to forget almost everything he learned. A little overlearning, on the other hand, is really necessary for one's future development.

1. What is the main idea of paragraph 1?

A．People remember well what they learned in childhood.

B．Children have a better memory than grown-ups.

C．Poem reading is a good way to learn words.

D．Stories for children are easy to remember.

2. The author explains the law of overlearning by_________.

A．presenting research findings

B．setting down general rules

C．making a comparison

D．using examples

3. According to the author, being able to use multiplication tables is_______.

A．a result of overlearning

B．a special case of cramming

C．a skill to deal with math problems

D．a basic step towards advanced studies

4. What does the word "they" in Paragraph 4 refer to?

A．Commonly accepted rules.

B．The multiplication tables.

C．Things easily forgotten.

D．School subjects.

5. What is the author's opinion on cramming?

A．It leads to failure in college exams.

B．It's helpful only in a limited way.

C．It's possible to result in poor memory.

D．It increases students' learning interest.

【推荐2】I have frequently taught Research Methods and Design to college students at several institutions. I love teaching this course. One reason, of course, is that I enjoy thinking about research methodology (方法学) and sharing it with others. The other reason, however, is the obvious impact that it has on students. Every term, one (if not more) student tells me how taking this course has affected him/her: “I used to just read articles and believe what they said, but now I find myself asking ‘Is this true? How do they know? Is this a well designed study?’ ” That is what I want the students to achieve in this course.

This brings to mind something written by Dorothy L. Sayers in 1948. One of her books, The Lost Tools of Learning speaks to Sayers’ thoughts on education. “By teaching our young men and women to read, we have left them at the mercy of the printed words. By the invention of the film and the radio, we have made certain that no dislike for reading shall protect them from the constant battery of words, words, words. They do not know what the words mean: they are victims to words in their emotions instead of being the masters of them in their intelligence.”

We are well past the 1940s, but her observation is still relevant. Sayers’ point is well taken. In the world of 24-hour news and social media that often resembles the Wild West, the ability to carry out evaluations has never been more important. In order to resist the distortions with which we are constantly bombed in the media, as well as be able to present a persuasive argument, we must be able to reason well, and think and give a judgement carefully.

When my students begin the Research Methods and Design course, they are generally not content to read all those research article I give. However, by the end of the course, they are excited about their newly obtained abilities.

1. What is the author’s course goal for her students?

A．Reading more books.	B．Thinking critically.
C．Designing studies well.	D．Questioning themselves.

2. What did Sayers imply about education?

A．It was beneficial to learners’ development.

B．It was conventional by teaching learners to read.

C．It was satisfying with the invention of film and video.

D．It was worrying because learners were subject to words.

3. What does the underlined word “distortions” in paragraph 3 refer to?

A．Popular news.	B．Various evaluations.
C．Misleading information.	D．Persuasive arguments.

4. What’s the purpose of the text?

A．To review a book.	B．To introduce a writer.
C．To criticize social media.	D．To suggest a practical skill.

【推荐1】Strange Baby-Naming Laws
Germany Parents are banned by law from using last names and the names of objects and products as first names. A child’s first name must clearly indicate his or her sex, and all names must be approved by the office of vital statistics in the area in which the child was born.
Iceland The country’s naming committee consults the National Register of Persons to determine if a name is acceptable. If parents want to go off-list, they must apply for approval and pay a fee, and the name must contain only letters in the Icelandic alphabet.
New Zealand The country’s Births, Deaths, and Marriages Registration Act of 1995 prohibits parents from choosing a name that “ might cause offense to a reasonable person; is unreasonably long; or is, includes, or resembles an official title or rank,” including, apparently, Adolf Hitler and Yeah Detroit—both names recently rejected.
Denmark If Danish parents prefer a moniker not on the list of 7,000 preapproved baby names, they must get permission from local church and government officials. Fifteen to 20 percent of the 1,100 reviewed names—including creative spellings of common names, last names as first names, and unusual names—are rejected each year.
1. You can tell whether a baby is a girl or a boy according to the first name in _____.

A．Germany	B．New Zealand
C．Iceland	D．Denmark

2. In Iceland, the names should _____.

A．be approved by the office of vital statistics.

B．be accepted by the National Register of Persons.

C．contain only letters in the Roman alphabet.

D．be paid for some money.

3. Which name is accepted in New Zealand?

A．Bin Laden	B．Talula Does The Hula
C．John Smith	D．Keenan Got Lucky

4. According to the passage, which of the following is true?

A．Parents should pay a fee for babies’ names if the names are rejected.

B．Each year about 150-200 reviewed names are rejected in Denmark.

C．Adolf Hitler is banned in Iceland.

D．Danish babies’ names should be on the list if parents can’t get the permission.

【推荐3】Hibernation

For people who aren’t fans of winter, animals that hibernate seem to have the right idea: It’s the equivalent of burying your head under the covers until spring comes — isn't it? Not quite.

“Most of the physiological functions are extremely slowed down,” says Marina Blanco, a postdoctoral associate at the Duke Lemur (狐猴) Center in Durham, North Carolina. For example, when lemurs hibernate, they reduce their heart rates from over 300 beats per minute to fewer than six, says Blanco. And instead of breathing about every second, they can go up to 10 minutes without taking a breath. Their brain activity “becomes undetectable.” This is very different from sleep, which is gentle resting state where unconscious functions are still performed.

Put simply: “Hibernation is a means of energy conservation,” says Kelly Drew, a neuropharmacologist   at the University of Alaska Fairbanks who studies the brain chemistry of hibernating Arctic ground squirrels.While hibernation is often seen as a seasonal behavior, it’s not limited to cold-weather animals. There are tropical hibernators that may do so to beat the heat. And “some species hibernate in response to food shortages,” notes Drew. For example, echidnas ( 针 鼹 ) in Australia will hibernate after fires, waiting until food resources rebound to resume normal activities.

To slow their metabolism (新陈代谢), animals cool their bodies by 5 to 10 °C on average. The Arctic ground squirrels Drew works on can take this much further, supercooling to subfreezing temperatures. Drew’s research has shown that cooling is likely regulated by levels of adenosine (腺苷) in the brain. Not only does adenosine increase in winter in ground squirrels, the receptors for the molecule become more sensitive to it.

But species don’t stay in their cold, sleeping state for the duration of their dormant period. About 80 percent of their energy is spent intermittently (间歇地) waking and warming up. Why they do this is “one of the greatest mysteries” of the field, says Thomas Ruf, a professor of animal physiology at the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna. Some think they need to turn back on their immune systems to fight disease, while others think they may simply awaken so they can sleep.

One bird and a variety of amphibians(两栖动物), reptiles and insects also exhibit hibernation-like states. There is even at least one fish — the Antarctic cod — that slows down its metabolism in winter, becoming   20 times less active. And, of course, there are lots of mammals. While bears might be the first that come to mind, most mammalian hibernators are on the smaller side. “The average hibernator weighs only 70 grams,” says Ruf. That’s because little bodies have high surface area to volume ratios, making it more taxing for   them to stay warm in cold weather — so they need the seasonal energy savings more than larger animals.

1. How does the author distinguish between hibernation and sleep?

A．By highlighting reasons.	B．By presenting definitions.
C．By introducing arguments.	D．By comparing the data.

2. “Echidnas” in Paragraph 3 is introduced to show ______.

A．animals cool their bodies by 5 to 10°C on average

B．tropical hibernators may hibernate to beat the heat

C．some species hibernate in response to food shortage

D．hibernation is most often seen as a seasonal behavior

3. The last paragraph mainly discusses ______.

A．when certain animals hibernate	B．what kinds of animals hibernate
C．why some animals hibernate	D．how animals hibernate

4. The passage implies that ______.

A．It is harder for smaller animals to keep warm in winter.

B．The cooling of bodies may influence the levels of adenosine.

C．Scientists don’t agree on the reasons of intermittent hibernation.

D．Body functions are still unconsciously performed during hibernation.

【推荐1】The government of India has announced that it will replace the single-use plastic cups used for tea in 7,000 train stations around the country with traditional clay cups called kulhads. This will reduce the amount of waste thrown away every day, thus helping further the government's goal of making India free from single-use plastics, and it will provide much-needed employment for two million potters.

Jaya Jaitly, a politician and handicrafts expert, has advocated since the early 1990s for clay cups to be reintroduced in train stations. She explained that employing potters to provide these cups was a way to support them at a time when they lost jobs due to "new Internet technology."

It is reported that a potter's average monthly income will increase from $34 to $135 a month. The government is distributing electric wheels to those who do not have them and funding a switch from wood-fueled to gas-fueled kilns(窑炉)in villages that already have gas devices for cooking. Jaitly said this would reduce smoke pollution.

She also said that one reason why earlier efforts to reintroduce kulhads failed was that the government was unwilling to accept non-standardized sizes and shapes of cups. This time they will have to accept it because the handmade pieces cannot possibly be the same, particularly with production being so scattered(分散). Variation in appearance is a small price to pay for the environmental benefits.

This is happy, hopeful news from India, a country that has long struggled to deal with plastic waste, partly because of its huge population and inadequate waste processing infrastructure across vast rural regions. This policy is an excellent example of getting at the root cause of a problem and fixing it, rather than just trying to clean up the mess afterward. To use the bathtub metaphor(比喻) that's commonly cited when talking about plastic pollution, this is like turning off the plastic-producing tap, instead of wasting time trying to mop up the overflow, wishing it would go away.

1. What is special about the policy announced by Indian government?

A．It promotes awareness of traffic issues.

B．It collects enough revenue to fight poverty.

C．It promises to be eco-friendly and favorable.

D．It rids India of the long-term unemployment.

2. What can we learn from Paragraph 2?

A．Jaya Jaitly is a short-sighted politician and economist.

B．Advances in Internet technology cost potters their jobs.

C．Clay cups were first introduced in Indian railway stations.

D．Potters were employed at stations to get financial support.

3. What effort does the government make for the potters?

A．It raises their monthly income.

B．It offers new cooking devices to them.

C．It standardizes the size of clay cups for them.

D．It provides funds for them to upgrade their devices.

4. Which of the following is similar to the bathtub metaphor?

A．Put the cart before the horse.

B．Treat the foot when the foot hurts.

C．Stop the boiling by taking off the fire.

D．Kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.

【推荐2】Fading beauty

She is widely seen as proof that good looks can last for ever. But, at nearly 500 years of age, time is catching up with the Mona Lisa.

The health of the famous picture, painted by Leonardo Da Vinci in 1505, is getting worse by the year, according to the Louvre Museum(卢浮宫博物馆) where it is housed.

“The thin, wooden panel on which the Mona Lisa is painted in oil has changed shape since experts checked it two years ago,” the museum said. Visitors have noticed changes but repairing the world’s most famous painting is not easy. Experts are not sure about the materials the Italian artist used and their current chemical state(化学状态).

Nearly 6 million people go to see the Mona Lisa every year, many attracted by the mystery of her smile. “It is very interesting that when you’re not looking at her, she seems to be smiling, and then you look at her and she stops,” said Professor Margaret Livingstone of Harvard University. “It’s because direct vision (视觉) is excellent at picking up detail, but less suited to looking at shadows. Da Vinci painted the smile in shadows.”[

However, the actual history of the Mona Lisa is just as mysterious as the smile. Da Vinci himself loved it so much that he always carried it with him, until it was eventually sold to France’s King Francis I in 1519.

In 1911, the painting was stolen from the Louvre by a former employee, who took it out of the museum hidden under his coat. He said he planned to return it to Italy. The painting was sent back to France two years later.

During World War II, French hid the painting in small towns to keep it out of the hands of German forces.

Like many old ladies, the Mona Lisa has some interesting stories to tell.

1. What does the writer mean by “time is catching up with the Mona Lisa”?

A．The painting woman is not so beautiful any more.

B．Ageing is something that affects us all.

C．The painting needs repairing.

D． At such an old age, she is no longer popular.

2. What makes the repair work difficult?

A．The wooden panel is thin and old.

B．No one knows exactly what materials were used to create the painting and how it might respond to treatment.

C．The health of the painting is suffering.

D．Experts can’t agree on how to carry out repairs.

3. What makes her so mysterious according to Professor Livingston?

A．The materials the Italian artist used.	B．The way she smiles.
C．The way Da Vinci painted the smile.	D．It plays a trick upon the human eyes

【推荐3】There’re currently 21.5 million students in America, and many will be funding their college on borrowed money. Given that there’s now over $1.3 trillion in student loans on the books, it's pretty clear that many students are far from sensible. The average student’s debt upon graduation now approaches $40, 000, and as college becomes ever more expensive, calls to make it “free” are multiplying. Even Hillary Clinton says that when it comes to college, “Costs won’t be a barrier.”

But the only way college could be free is if the faculty and staff donated their time, the buildings required no maintenance, and campuses required no utilities. As long as it's impossible to produce something from nothing, costs are absolutely a barrier.

The actual question we debate is who should pay for people to go to college. If taxpayers are to bear the cost of forgiving student loans, shouldn’t they have a say in how their money is used?

At least taxpayers should be able to decide what students will study on the public dime. If we're going to force taxpayers to foot the bill for college degrees, students should only study those subjects that are of greatest benefit to taxpayers. After all, students making their own choices in this respect is what caused the problem in the first place. We simply don’t need more poetry, gender studies, or sociology majors. How do we know which subjects benefit society? Easy.

Average starting salaries give a clear indication of what type of training society needs its new workers to have. Certainly, there’re benefits to a college major beyond the job a student can perform. But if we’re talking about the benefits to society, the only thing that matters is what the major enables the student to produce for society. And the value of what the student can produce is reflected in the wage employers are willing to pay the student to produce it.

A low wage for elementary school teachers, however, doesn’t mean elementary education isn’t important. It simply means there’re too many elementary school teachers already.

Meanwhile, there’re few who’re willing and able to perform jobs requiring a petroleum engineering major, so the value of one more of those people is very high.

So we can have taxpayers pick up students’ tuition in exchange for dictating what those students will study. Or we can allow students both to choose their majors and pay for their education themselves. But in the end, one of two things is true:

Either a college major is worth its cost or it isn’t. If yes, taxpayer financing isn’t needed. If not, taxpayer financing isn’t desirable. Either way, taxpayers have no business paying for students’ college education.

1. What does the author think of college students funding their education through loans?

A．They only expect to get huge returns.

B．They are acting in an unwise way.

C．They benefit at taxpayers’ expense.

D．They will regret doing so someday.

2. What should students do if taxpayers are to bear their college costs?

A．Work even harder to repay society.

B．Choose their subjects more carefully.

C．Choose majors that will serve society’s practical need.

D．Allow taxpayers to participate in college administration.

3. What does the author say about the value of a student’s college education?

A．It is well reflected in their average starting salary.

B．It is to be proved by what they can do on the job.

C．It is underestimated by profit-seeking employers.

D．It is reflected in how they remove social barriers.

4. What message does the author want to convey in the passage?

A．Students should think carefully whether to go to college

B．Taxpayers should only finance the most gifted students.

C．The worth of a college education is open to debate.

D．College students should fund their own education.

【推荐1】Archeology （考古学）isn't the dusty science it was a generation ago. New technologies that once seemed out of sci-fi are now locating buried traces of buildings and revealing the ruins of cities.

For more than a decade, Sarah Parcak and her team have been on the front line of this revolution. They use satellite images to find and explore ancient sites around the globe. Now they're about to take on a new challenge as they focus Global Xplorer citizen-science project on India.

In 2017, Parcak launched an online platform, called Global Xplorer, to crowd source （群众外包）the initial assessment of satellite images for signs of cultures from long ago. Anyone in the world with a computer and Internet access could help discover and protect remains of Peru's rich cultural heritage. The results have been surprising. About 80,000 participants from a hundred countries have identified 19,000 sites that were not in Peru's database. The platform for Peru is still running.

If all goes well, the work in India could last for years. "India has had relatively little archaeological work done," Parcak says. Also, the full extent of India's archaeological work has never been mapped completely. Parcak expects her project to make up that. ^“Wherever we end up going, the crowd's going to be able to see extraordinary things," Parcak says.

Thirty six India's cultural heritage relics are already listed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Parcak thinks there could be tens of thousands of as yet unknown sites mapped as part of this project. The discoveries promise to be amazing across the land that has seen a parade of cultures come and go.

In the future, she hopes other countries will contact her to launch their own satellite surveys. The possibilities are huge. Parcak estimates that there are at least 12 million potential archaeological sites yet to be discovered. That means the sky is the limit for her project now that it has gotten off the ground successfully.

1. What's the purpose of   Parcak's   project?

A．To interview citizens via the Internet.

B．To dig out more remains of ancient cities.

C．To build databases for unknown cultural heritage.

D．To identify unknown ancient sites through joint efforts.

2. What do we know about the participants in Peru project?

A．They are Internet-equipped volunteers.

B．They are well-trained voluntary scholars.

C．They are mostly fans of archeology in Peru.

D．They are all archaeologists all over the world.

3. Why is Parcak's project important to India?

A．India lacks thorough archaeological work.

B．Indians call for the protection of their rich cultures.

C．There's no amazing archaeological discovery in India.

D．India needs more relics listed as World Heritage Sites.

4. What does the underlined sentence "The possibilities are huge. " in Paragraph 6 mean?

A．Parcak's project will become successful.

B．Few countries will start satellite surveys.

C．There will be amazing discoveries in India.

D．More archaeological sites will be identified.

【推荐2】“Data is the new oil.” Like the sticky black thing, all those Is and 0s are of little use until they are processed into something more valuable. That something is you.

Five of the world’s ten most valuable companies are built on a foundation of tying data to human beings. Google and Facebook want to find out as much as possible about their users’ interests, activities, friends and family. Amazon has a detailed history of consumer behavior. Tencent and Alibaba are the digital wallets for hundreds of millions of Chinese; both know enough about consumers to provide widely used credit scores. Those with a good Zhima credit score, provided by Alibaba, enjoy discounts. Those without receive few offers. In other words, data are used to decide what sort of access people have to services.

That data are valuable is increasingly well-understood by individuals, too, especially because personal information is so often leaked（泄露）or stolen. The list of companies that have suffered some sort of data leak in 2018 alone reads like a roll call of household names: Facebook, Google, British Airways and so on. Such events have caused a switch in the public understanding of data collection. People have started to take notice of all the data they are giving away.

Yet few people have changed their online behavior or exercised what few digital rights they possess. Partly this is because managing your own data is time-consuming and complex. But it is more because of a misunderstanding of what is at risk. “Data” is an abstract concept. Far more solid is the idea of identity. It is only when “data” is understood to mean “people” that individuals will demand responsibility from those who seek to know them.

The fossils of past actions fuel future economic and social outcomes. Privacy rules and data-protection regulations are extremely important in protecting the rights of individuals. But the first step towards ensuring the fairness of the new information age is to understand that it is not data that are valuable. It is you.

1. The example of Zhima credit scores is mentioned to show __________.

A．data help companies target their services

B．credit scores change people’s way of life

C．Alibaba gains popularity among customers

D．people prefer to be offered discounts

2. What has caused a change in the public understanding of data collection?

A．The development of companies.	B．The history of consumption.
C．Cases of data leak and theft.	D．Lists of household names.

3. People don’t protect their data well mainly because __________.

A．they find it time-consuming and complex

B．they are not fully aware of its importance

C．they have no access to their personal data

D．they are afraid of taking responsibility

4. What is the author’s purpose in writing the text?

A．To defend companies’ use of data.

B．To show the economic value of data.

C．To call for more regulations to protect data.

D．To advocate a new way of thinking about data.

【推荐3】My sister and I were taught at a very early age to write thank-you letters for birthday and Christmas gifts. We carefully copied addresses from our mom’s address book into our own pretty little books, and a new box of stationery（信笺，信封）was always among my gifts under the tree. We wrote our letters on December 26 at the latest every year. It was an important tradition in our home, and it has turned me into an avid（热情）thank-you-letter writer as an adult.

I still send a great deal of personal mail, and I am extremely interested in all of the trappings of letter writing: unique stamps, beautiful stationery, fountain pens（自来水笔）. I feel a mad rush of satisfaction sticking a stamp on a carefully penned thank-you letter and sending it off in the mail.

Several years ago, I even sent my mom a thank-you letter to thank her for teaching me to count my blessings on paper. Sending letters of thanks out into the world has made me more grateful for the love, support and kindness I receive daily.

My father died when I was twenty-seven. Even then, I found comfort in writing letters of thanks for the gifts of words I received. At a time when all I wanted to do was retreat（退缩）into my own sadness, the act of giving thanks forced me to stay connected to the world and to the lives of the living.

And while it may seem unimportant, my belief in well-written thank-you letters has protected my popularity. Since real thank-you letters are extremely few and far between, my social graces（风度）are considered as a charming difference from other people, and my friends and family always seem truly moved by my efforts.

1. What can we learn about the author’s family?

A．Her family liked to collect stationery.

B．Her family had a thank-you-letter writing tradition.

C．She often copied addresses for her mother.

D．They wrote thank-you letters on Dec 26.

2. How did the author feel when writing thank-you letters?

A．Satisfied.

B．Tired.

C．Excited.

D．Bored.

3. What can we infer from the fourth paragraph?

A．The author felt happy to receive gifts from others.

B．The author’s father died when she was very young.

C．Writing thank-you letters made the author lead an active life.

D．Writing thank-you letters forced the author to talk with others.

4. What does the author intend to tell us?

A．Expressing thanks can protect what we have.

B．Receiving thank-you letters is truly moving.

C．Writing thank-you letters is difficult work.

D．Being grateful can help gain the respect.