【推荐1】If you want to fully enjoy your vacation, then you’d better check the Durban City Tours! This is actually one of the best choices in South Africa today.

There is nothing more relaxing than to think about that there is a place to go and relax, right? City life is strained, but you can escape this situation and be in the place where there is nothing but relaxation. Here in Durban you will get to see all the amazing tourist attractions. If you love animals and want to see some elephants wandering around the streets, then Durban is the place to go. You can even get to ride one if you want!

Here you will also get to taste all the delicious South African food. You can choose from Italian cooking to its native dishes. Durban is a great place to tour with your friends and family. You will learn a lot about its history through the landmarks you will see down the streets. Tourists and even the local villagers just can’t get enough of these treats!

However, it is important that you make the necessary arrangements. There are actually lots of tour guides that will help you as you make your journey along the streets of Durban. But if you prefer the best tour guides here in Durban, then you’d better settle for the Street Scene Tours. Their staff are all well­trained and professional. They will certainly make your stay here an unforgettable one. No wonder tourists prefer the Street Scene Tours when it comes to Durban City Tours.

1. The underlined word “strained” in Paragraph 2 means “________”.

A．easy

B．stressful

C．steady

D．casual

2. What is the main idea of Paragraph 2?

A．Durban is a relaxing city.	B．People don’t like city life.
C．It is good to have a place to relax.	D．One can have fun riding elephants.

3. What does the last sentence in Paragraph 3 show?

A．The food can’t satisfy them.	B．They are bored with the streets.
C．They are treated very well here.	D．They never get tired of the sights.

4. The author wrote the last paragraph mainly to ________.

A．attract tourists to Durban	B．help readers make arrangements
C．introduce the tour guides in Durban	D．persuade tourists to choose the Street Scene Tours

【推荐2】Lima, the capital of Peru (秘鲁), has countless museums that tourists can’t afford to miss. Now start packing up and prepare for your perfect Peruvian history exploration at these wonderful museums.

◆ Larco Museum

Stepping inside, visitors get to learn the 5000-year history of Peru through an unbelievable collection of objects. The best thing about the museum is that it keeps the door to the Storeroom open to visitors so that they can admire its collection closely.

◆ Gold Museum of Peru

If you like shiny objects or precious metals, then plan a trip to Gold Museum of Peru. In ancient times, the Peruvian people were celebrated for their skills with metals. And the museum is aimed at preserving this heritage.

◆ Lima Art Museum

Art experts are much pleased as the city is also home to Lima Art Museum. Its permanent exhibit of over 1,200 pieces is merely a small part of its amazing collection more than 17,000 artifacts. The highlight of the museum is its collection of Carlos Baca-Flor masterpieces, which is considered to be the most complete set in the world.

◆ Museum of Italian Art

Museum of Italian Art is a storehouse of classical and contemporary paintings and sculptures belonging to the 20th century. The property is easily accessible by a short walk from Lima Art Museum.

◆ Museum of Natural History

Last but certainly not the least is the Museum of Natural History. Giving a glimpse into the rich biodiversity in Peru, the museum has on display the skeletons of a sperm whale and fossils of several mammals.

1. In which museum can visitors enter the Storeroom?

A．Larco Museum.	B．Gold Museum of Peru.
C．Lima Art Museum.	D．Museum of Natural History.

2. What makes Gold Museum of Peru different from other museums?

A．Its exhibit of diversities of animals.	B．Its large collection of objects.
C．Its classical paintings and sculptures.	D．Its display of Peruvian skills with metals.

3. Which museum is the closest to Lima Art Museum?

A．Museum of Natural History.	B．Museum of Italian Art.
C．Larco Museum.	D．Gold Museum of Peru.

【推荐3】The Most Beautiful Seas in the World

Considering the most beautiful seas, it’s worth paying attention to the southern water bodies, although, without doubt, each sea is attractive and charming in its own way.

Coral Sea

If we consider the beauty of the seas, and not their coasts, then the first place should be given to the Coral Sea. The Coral Sea is a dangerous place for sailors, and at the same time one of the most beautiful places for diving, and all this is due to the unique coral reefs that are at its bottom.

Red Sea

The Red Sea is a truly magnificent place. It has rich fish stocks, a huge number of amazing creatures live in it, and the underwater world is exceptionally rich. Many corals live only here, and divers are strictly forbidden to break them.

Caribbean

This is the warmest exotic (异域风情的) place where not only the sea but also the plants on its coast please the eye. It’s located between North and South America, and on its shore there are a number of small countries. Many tourists come here, because rest here is inexpensive, and you can experience different cultural traditions.

Bali Sea

The Bali Sea is located in the Pacific Ocean. This is another paradise (天堂) for relaxation, receiving many tourists every season. The sea has a warm climate, creating ideal conditions for relaxing on the islands of Java, Sulawesi, Sumbawa, Madura.

1. Which places are suitable for diving?

A．Red Sea & Bali Sea.	B．Coral Sea & Red Sea.
C．Red Sea & Caribbean.	D．Caribbean & Bali Sea.

2. According to the author, which is No 1 in terms of the beauty of the seas?

A．Coral Sea.	B．Red Sea.
C．Caribbean.	D．Bali Sea.

3. Why are a lot of tourists attracted to Caribbean?

A．Because they can relax on the islands of Java, Sulawesi and so on.

B．Because they can admire the unique coral reefs.

C．Because they can see amazing creatures and underwater world.

D．Because they can appreciate various cultures with less expense.

【推荐1】Tours in Guizhou Province

Huangguoshu Waterfall Tour

Running: May lst through November 10^th

This tour transports you to one of Guizhou Province’s most fantastic attractions, the largest waterfall in China! Here you can enjoy the magnificent waterfall and large cave landscape. Then we will take you to have a free taste of local food.

Departing from Guiyang: 7:30 am and 8:30 am

Duration(持续时间) : 7 hours

Price: 250 yuan

One-Thousand-Household Miao Village of Xijiang Tour

Running: April 6^th through October 23^rd

This attractive tour takes you to the most special Miao village scenes of Guizhou. Enjoy the unique multistorey turret( 角楼) as you go through the traditional wooden houses town. Elegant Miao clothes are provided for you to take beautiful photos, and you can participate in their festivities if you are lucky enough.

Departing from Guiyang: 2:00 pm and 3:00 pm

Duration: 1.5 days

Advance reservations required.

Qianling Mountain Park Tour

Running: March lst through December 30^th

This tour goes through the whole mountain on its way to Hongfu Temple which is quite famous in the southern part of China. Here you can enjoy the history of the famous temple and the delicious vegetarian food (素食) offered.

Departing from the hotel: 8:00 am and 9:00 am.

Duration: 3 hours

Price : 40 yuan

Site of the Zunyi Conference Tour

Running: January 10^th through December 31^st

Join us for a history tour of China through the historical district. Enjoy the special design and construction of the site as you get into the historical spirit of the conference.

Departing from Guiyang: 1:00 pm and 2:00 pm.

Duration: 2 hours

Price: Available upon request

1. Which tour do you need to book in advance?

A．Huangguoshu Waterfall Tour.

B．Qianling Mountain Park Tour.

C．Site of the Zunyi Conference Tour.

D．One-Thousand-Household Miao Village of Xijiang Tour.

2. What will you do on the Site of the Zunyi Conference Tour?

A．Learn about Chinese history.

B．Enjoy the beautiful site.

C．Attend the important meeting.

D．Join in the special designing activity.

3. Where does this text most probably come from?

A．Science magazine.	B．A travel journal.
C．A teacher’s handbook.	D．A personal diary.

【推荐1】What do you think of your Chinese? If you think your Chinese is good enough, you can take part in the competition named Chinese Characters Dictation Competition（中国汉字听写大会）.

Today teenagers are using more and more smart phones. They spend too much time in shopping, chatting, playing games and so on. Many of them cannot stop using smart phones to help with their study. Overuse of smart phones will make students too lazy to think and write. Some of them even forget how to write Chinese characters by hand. Teachers and parents are very worried about it.

In order to draw people’s attention to the problems above, in 2013 CCTV held the first Chinese Characters Dictation Competition. About 200 students from 32 teams took part in it. They stood on the stage to write down Chinese characters by dictation. Lu Jialei, a 14-year-old girl from Zhejiang, got first place.

Since then, the competition has been popular among teenagers. Many people are interested in this kind of competition, too. They like to write down the characters while the competitors（参赛者）are writing them.

Can you be the next winner?

1. From Paragraph 2, we know that teenagers are using more and more _____．

A． cars

B．money

C．books

D．smart phones

2. The underlined word “Overuse” in Paragraph 2 probably means __________．

A．eating too much	B．walking too much
C．using too much	D．singing too much

3. How many students took part in the first competition?

A．About 400.

B．About 300.

C．About 200.

D．About 100.

4. Who got first place of the first competition?

A．Lu Jialei, a girl from Zhejiang.	B．Lu Jialei, a girl from Guangxi.
C．Liao Yilin, a girl from Zhejiang.	D．Liao Yilin, a girl from Guangxi.

【推荐2】How is it that the United States spends the most money on healthcare, and yet still has the one of the lowest life expectancies（预期寿命）of all developed nations? To find it out, researchers from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health looked at the great influence of healthy habits on life expectancy, using data on a huge number of people over a very long period of time.

What is a healthy lifestyle, exactly?

1. Healthy diet, which was calculated and rated based on the reported intake of healthy foods like vegetables, fruits, nuts, whole grains, healthy fats, and omega-3 fatty acids.

2. Healthy physical activity level, which was measured as at least 30 minutes per day of activity

3. Healthy body weight defined as a normal body mass index（BMI）（身体质量指数）which is between 18.5 and 24.9.

4. Smoking, well, there is no healthy amount of smoking. "Healthy" here meant never having smoked.

Does a healthy lifestyle make a difference?

Absolutely yes. According to this analysis, people who had all the four habits enjoyed impressively longer lives than those who had none: 14 years for women and 12 years for men（if they had these habits at age 50）. Just one healthy habit（and it didn't matter which one）...just one... increased life expectancy by two years in men and women. Not surprisingly, the more healthy habits people had, the longer their life.

So what's our（big）problem?

As the researchers point out, in the US we tend to spend more on developing fancy drugs and other treatments for diseases, rather than on trying to prevent them. This is a big problem.

Experts have suggested that the best way to help people make healthy diet and lifestyle change is through public health efforts and policy changes.

1. How did researchers study the influence of healthy habits on life expectancy?

A．By analysing data.

B．By raising questions.

C．By exchanging information

D．By comparing developed countries.

2. Which person might have a healthy lifestyle according to the passage?

A．A translator who exercises 2 hours a week.

B．A librarian who smokes, but not heavily.

C．A steward who drinks wine every day.

D．A shop assistant whose BMI is 19.5.

3. What is the big problem in the US according to the researchers?

A．Changing laws related to lifestyle.

B．Reducing money on treating patients.

C．Staying focused on drug development.

D．Spending much on disease prevention.

【推荐3】Nashville Vacation Packages

Create & Design a Music City Adventure

The chances for your Music City vacation are endless when you create and purchase a custom Vacation Package!

Best of Nashville TN Vacation

With this package, you’ll go on the Discover Nashville Tour where you’ll see the highlights of the city like historic downtown, the state capital, the Parthenon, and so much more. Also included is a Grand Ole Opry show and the General Jackson Evening Dinner Cruise. This package is the perfect one for your family！

Package Includes

— 5 Nights’ Accommodations in your choice of over 84 hotels

— Discover Nashville Tour

— General Jackson Evening Dinner Cruise

— Grand Ole Opry at Opry House Preferred Seating

Starting at $484 per adult*

Grand Ole Opry Package

With this package, you can visit the Grand Ole Opry, and see the General Jackson Showboat Dinner Cruise.

Package Includes

— 3 Nights’ Lodging in your choice of over 84 hotels.

— Grand Ole Opry

— General Jackson Showboat Dinner Cruise

Starting at $303 per adult*

Gaylord Opryland Resort Country Christmas

The Gaylord Opryland Resort County Christmas is stuffed full of holiday fun.

Package Includes

— 3 Nights’ Lodging in your choice of over 84 hotels.

Starting at $90 per adult*

Nashville Romantic Getaway Package

With this vacation package, you can experience stress-free activities with a personal chauffeur! Take a carriage tour around the city as well as visit the General Jackson Showboat Dinner Cruise where you are able to relax and take a break from your day-to-day life.

Package Includes

— 2 Nights’ Lodging in your choice of over 84 hotels.

— Standard Chauffeur 1-4 Passengers

— General Jackson Showboat Dinner Cruise

— 30 Minute Cinderella Carriage Tour

Starting at $313 per adult*

1. What is included in the package Best of Nashville TN Vacation?

A．Choosing 84 hotels to stay in.

B．Learning about history of cities.

C．Enjoying a dinner with Jackson.

D．Asking for a personal driver with you.

2. Which vacation package will you choose if you want to spend least?

A．Best of Nashville TN Vacation.

B．Grand Ole Opry Package.

C．Gaylord Opryland Resort Country Christmas.

D．Nashville Romantic Getaway Package.

3. What service do these four packages have in common?

A．You can visit Grand Ole Opry show.

B．You can take a boat to travel around.

C．Children could be charged for nothing.

D．Many hotels are offered to choose from.

【推荐1】Just picture your favorite Disney cartoon characters： Mickey Mouse， Minnie Mouse， Donald Duck， Goofy， Bugs Bunny， Pinocchio， etc． There's an extremely high chance that a whole host of Disney's most popular cartoon characters share a common fashion choice﹣they all wear a pair of white gloves． Although there are many surprising facts about Disney's most famous characters， putting gloves on animation（动画片）characters is actually a pretty reasonable move．

The creation of hand﹣drawn cartoons is a difficult and tiring process． It takes time and precision（精确度）to create the characters you know and love． At that time， animators wanted to make their job a touch faster with a few techniques． One of these techniques was using round edges（边）instead of angles（角）． So this also meant simplifying features， such as hands， to make the animation process quicker．

Still， in the age of black and white cartoons， separating characters' round﹣edged hands from their black bodies was hard． Gloves were an easy way to make their hands stand out． In fact， Walt Disney might have been the first to put gloves on his characters in The Opry House， starring Mickey Mouse． When animation moved away from black and white， Mickey and all of his friends still kept their signature white gloves．

Besides keeping the animation simple， Walt Disney told his biographer， Bob Thomas， that the gloves were also designed to anthropomorphize the mouse． "We didn't want him to have mouse hands because he was supposed to be more connected with people，" Disney told Thomas in 1957， according to The New York Times． "So we gave him gloves． Five fingers seemed like too much on such a little figure， so we took away one．" All this nostalgic Disney talk makes us want to go back and look at these 18 classic photos of Mickey Mouse．

1. Why did animators prefer round edges rather than angles？

A．Round edges look better．

B．Round edges are easier to draw．

C．Round edges can be more popular．

D．Round edges seem more reasonable．

2. What does the underlined word "anthropomorphize" mean？

A．Humanize．

B．Beautify．

C．Modernize．

D．Simplify．

3. What do we know about Mickey Mouse？

A．It first appeared in The Opry House．

B．It has only four fingers on each hand．

C．Its white gloves have its own signatures．

D．Its popularity was due to the black body．

4. What is the text mainly about？

A．Why Disney characters have little in common．

B．Why most Disney characters are so popular．

C．Why most Disney characters wear gloves．

D．Why Disney created its cartoon characters．

【推荐2】It was a lifesaving task as thrilling as any in the months-long battle against the wildfires that have torn through the Australian bush. But instead of a race to save humans or animals, a specialized team of Australian firefighters was bent on saving invaluable plant life: hidden groves (树林) of the Wollemi pine, a prehistoric tree species.

Wollemi pines peaked in abundance 34 million to 65 million years ago, before a steady decline. Today, only 200 of the trees exist in their natural environment. The trees are so rare that they were thought to die out until 1994. That’s the year when David Noble, an officer with the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service, came across a grove of large trees he didn’t recognize.

Noble brought back a few branches and showed them to other biologists and botanists. A month later, Noble returned to the grove with some scientists. It was then that they realized what they had found: “a prehistoric tree species that has outlived the dinosaurs.” the American Scientist explains. So when Australia’s wildfires started burning toward Wollemi National Park in recent weeks, firefighters from the parks and wildlife service put a carefully planned operation into action.

Large air tankers dropped fire retardant (阻燃剂) around the pines. Firefighters set up an irrigation (灌溉) system around the trees to keep them wet. “If the fire did go through, we wanted it to be a cool burn as opposed to a hot burn to give them the best chance of survival,” Kean said. The fire did sweep through the groves where these trees have somehow survived for millions of years. For a few days, the smoke was so thick that it wasn’t clear whether the plan had worked. At last the smoke eased off. A few trees had been burned by the flames, and two died. But the efforts had paid off. “Finally,” Kean said, “we were able to get in there and see that, thank goodness, the trees were saved.”

1. What do we know about Wollemi pines?

A．Scientists searched for them in the wild.

B．They used to grow in parts of Australia.

C．There were a considerable number of them long ago.

D．Firefighters and biologists cooperated to keep them alive.

2. Which of the following can best replace the underlined word “outlived” in Paragraph 3?

A．been superior to.	B．been related to.
C．died earlier than.	D．existed longer than.

3. What can be learned from the last paragraph?

A．It was cool to drop retardant over the fire.

B．It wasn’t clear whether the trees were saved.

C．It helped the trees survive to keep them wet.

D．It worked best for the trees to keep a hot burn.

4. What is the passage mainly about?

A．An investigation into Wollemi pines.

B．A hard-won battle against the wildfires.

C．Constructing a firefighting system for the trees.

D．Saving world’s rare pine species from wildfires.

【推荐3】How far would you go to make a good impression at a new job? A college student in Alabama walked 32 kilometers in the dark to get to his new job.

The story begins with Walter Carr's car breaking down the night before starting a new job. Carr was unable to find a ride. So, he figured out how long it would take to walk from his house to the job in Pelham-32 kilometers away. He left at midnight so that he could make it to the customer's house by 8：00 am the next morning.

Pelham police saw him walking along a highway at 4-00 am. So, they stopped to see if he needed help. After hearing his story, they took him to a restaurant for breakfast and then to a church where he could safely wait until 8：00 am. The police then took Carr to the home of customer Jenny Lamey. Lamey said that even though Carr had just walked the entire night, he refused her offer to rest. He just wanted to start working. While he worked, he talked with the customer, telling her how much he liked her kitchen.

Jenny Lamey later wrote this on Facebook："I just can't tell you how touched I was by Walter and his journey. He is kind and cheerful and he has big dreams! He is hardworking and tough. " She then started a GoFundMe page to help Walter with money to get his car fixed. When the CEO of Bellhops, Luke Marklin, learned of Carr's story, he drove from Tennessee to Alabama to give Walter his own 2014 Ford Escape.

Walter Carr's story touched many others around the United States. Within a few days, people gave over $ 73 ,000 to his GoFundMe page. Carr has decided to give a part of the donations to the Birmingham Education Foundation. And he has received more offers for jobs and scholarships for schools.

1. Why did Walter Carr decide to go to work on foot?

A．He wanted to challenge himself.	B．His car was damaged beyond repair.
C．He was unable to borrow a car.	D．He wished to be punctual for the job.

2. What can we infer from Paragraph 3?

A．He broke traffic regulations.	B．He was blamed by his customer.
C．He was committed to his job.	D．He started to work after a short break.

3. What kind of person does Lamey think Carr is?

A．Cautious.

B．Ambitious.

C．Generous.

D．Sensitive.

4. What message does the text really convey?

A．One has to suffer in order to get a good job.

B．A good impression is sure to bring one good money.

C．The efforts to leave a good impression are to pay off.

D．One has to give up something in return for donations.