【推荐1】Directions: Read the following passages. Fill in each blank with a proper sentence given in the box. Each sentence can be used only once. Note that there are two more sentences than you need.

Everyone , including members of Congress and Native American tribes (美国印第安土著部落), wants fewer wild horses on Western lands and tribal reservations.(土著保留地).    1    

The wild horses come from horses that were brought to America from Spain in the 16th century. By 1971, the number of wild horses had dropped sharply. So Congress passed a law to save them. Since then, the number of wild horses has increased three times in size.

Experts predict there will be 115,000 wild horses by 2020.An average adult wild horse eats more than two-and-a-half kilograms of grass and drinks 75 liters of water a day.    2    

The horses’ actions have also caused soil erosion (土壤侵蚀)around water sources, threatening water quality. Gillian Lyons is a wildlife expert at The Humane Society of the United States.

She said, “Originally, when the 1971 act passed, it allowed the Bureau of Land Management(国土管理局) to destroy healthy horses…if populations grew too large. “Since 1994, except for one year, the BLM has been prevented from destroying wild horses. The agency now captures and places them in holding facilities(收容所). A few horses are adopted, but not many. It costs about $50 million a year to care for the captured animals.     3    .If Congress approves the plan, the BLM would have to find other ways to manage horse populations. “They’re going to do that in a couple of ways,” said Lyons. “One is by reducing any use of fertility control(节育措施), which they use barely any of now. And the other way is by getting rid of horses in holding facilities.” Recently, a House committee(众议院监管委员会) voted to permit the BLM to kill the horses. But a Senate committee voted against another bill that would lift the ban(禁令) on horse killing. Native American tribes have struggled with the problem for years. Some support capturing the animals. But others, including leaders of the tribes, say the animals should be treated well and not killed.

The Northwest Tribal Horse Coalition(西北部落马联盟) is made up of five small groups and tribes in Idaho, Oregon and Washington. It says in the short term controlling the number of wild horse births will not stop overgrazing(草场的过度放牧). It supports the slaughter of horses at “humane(人造的) facilities.” An estimated 48,000 wild horses live on the Navajo Nation’s 7,000 square kilometers in Arizona, Utah and New Mexico. Duane “Chili” Yazzie is the president of the Nation in Shiprock. Yazzie has started a horse capture program he considers more humane.     4    He is also looking to train them as farm animals.

A．The wild horse is a vital component to ecological balance on the range lands.

B．President Donald Trump wants to cut the BLM budget by $ 10 million in 2018.

C．Only in this manner will wild horse numbers be in balance with all other forms of wildlife and predators of the wild horses.

D．But there is little agreement on how the number should be reduced.

E．The program would euthanize sick and old wild horses and sterilize healthy ones before returning them to the wild.

F．As a result, non-native plants begin growing in the affected areas.

【推荐2】Give yourself a test. Which way is the wind blowing? How many kinds of wildflowers can be seen from your front door? If your awareness is as sharp as it could be, you’ll have no trouble answering these questions.

Most of us observed much more as children than we do as adults. A child’s day is filled with fascination, newness and wonder. Curiosity gave us all a natural awareness. But distinctions that were sharp to us as children become unclear; we are numb(麻木的）to new stimulation(刺激), new ideas. Relearning the art of seeing the world around us is quite simple, although it takes practice and requires breaking some bad habits.

The first step in awakening senses is to stop predicting what we are going to see and feel before it occurs. This blocks awareness. One chilly night when I was hiking in the Rocky Mountains with some students, I mentioned that we were going to cross a mountain stream. The students began complaining about how cold it would be. We reached the stream, and they unwillingly walked ahead. They were almost knee-deep when they realized it was a hot spring. Later they all admitted they’d felt cold water at first.

Another block to awareness is the obsession(痴迷) many of us have with naming things. I saw bird watchers who spotted a bird, immediately looked it up in field guides, and said, a "ruby-crowned kinglet" and checked it off. They no longer paid attention to the bird and never learned what it was doing.

The pressures of "time" and "destination" are further blocks to awareness. I encountered many hikers who were headed to a distant camp-ground with just enough time to get there before dark. It seldom occurred to them to wander a bit, to take a moment to see what’s around them. I asked them what they’d seen. "Oh, a few birds," they said. They seemed bent on their destinations.

Nature seems to unfold to people who watch and wait. Next time you take a walk, no matter where it is, take in all the sights, sounds and sensations. Wander in this frame of mind and you will open a new dimension to your life.z.xxk

1. According to Paragraph 2, compared with adults, children are more ____________.

A．anxious to do wonders

B．sensitive to others’ feelings

C．likely to develop unpleasant habits

D．eager to explore the world around them

2. What idea does the author convey in Paragraph 3?

A．To avoid jumping to conclusions.

B．To stop complaining all the time.

C．To follow the teacher’s advice.

D．To admit mistakes honestly.

3. The bird watchers’ behavior shows that they __________.

A．are very patient in their observation

B．are really fascinated by nature

C．care only about the names of birds

D．question the accuracy of the field guides

4. Why do the hikers take no notice of the surroundings during the journey?

A．The natural beauty isn’t attractive to them.

B．They focus on arriving at the camp in time.

C．The forest in the dark is dangerous for them.

D．They are keen to see rare birds at the destination.

5. In the passage, the author intends to tell us we should __________.

A．fill our senses to feel the wonders of the world

B．get rid of some bad habits in our daily life

C．open our mind to new things and ideas

D．try our best to protect nature

【推荐1】Thirteen-year-old American Jessica Goldstone wants to be a fashion designer when she finishes school. She thinks her designs would be more exciting than clothes bought from stores. But until this month, Jessica has never touched a sewing machine(缝纫机).

After her first class, Jessica and six other girls aged 9 to 13 said that sewing was fun, cool and challenging.

These students at Fabrics’ Sew Fun class show that the sewing machine is becoming popular again.

“There have been a lot of teens getting excited about sewing,” said a sewing company worker Donna Smith. “Some of them come from the Project Runway TV show,” she said. This TV show is an exciting weekly contest to make a great fashion designer. Every week one contestant (参赛者) fails the test and has to leave the contest.

The number of people who joined sewing class summer camps grew by 10 percent this year. That’s good news for companies that make sewing machines and publish sewing magazines. The Singer Sewing Company sold nearly 3 million sewing machines in the United States last year. This is about twice as many as in 1999.

Sewing machines have been around for more than 150 years, but they have changed a lot since your grandmother was a girl.

Spencer Carmel started sewing lessons after getting a sewing machine for her 11^th birthday. She has sewn a lot by hand, but she wants to make more difficult things. Spencer’s class recently made hats.

Another member of the class, Kelsey Oen, 9 years old, needed time to get used to her machine, but soon she could use it well. By the end of the class, Kelsey was happy and wearing her new hat.

1. The passage is written to       .

A．teach how to sew clothes

B．advertise a kind of sewing machine

C．describe a popular American children’s hobby

D．encourage more people to start sewing

2. What do Jessica and her friends think of sewing?

A．They don’t really care much for it.

B．They are very interested in it.

C．They think it’s too easy to learn.

D．They think it’s only for younger kids.

3. According to the passage, “ Project Runway” is a       .

A．sewing class

B．sewing machine

C．fashion design class

D．fashion design contest

【推荐3】Is there a magic cutoff period when children become responsible for their own actions? Is there a wonderful moment when parents can become spectators in the lives of their children and shrug, “It’s their life,” and feel nothing?

When I was in my twenties, I stood in a hospital passage waiting for doctors to put a few stitches (缝线) in my son’s head. I asked, “When do you stop worry?” The nurse said, “When they get out of the accident stage.” My mother just smiled faintly and said nothing.

When I was in my thirties, I sat on a little chair in a classroom and heard how one of my children talked continually and disrupted the class. As if to read my mind, a teacher said. “Don’t worry, they all go through this stage and then you can sit back, relax and enjoy them.” My mother just smiled faintly and said nothing.

When I was in my forties, I spent a lifetime waiting for the phone to ring, the cars to come home, the front door to open. A friend said, “They’re trying to find themselves. Don’t worry, in a few years, you can stop worrying. They’ll adults.” My mother just smiled faintly and said nothing.

By the time I was 50, I was sick and tired of being weak. I was still worrying over my children, but there was a new wrinkle, there was nothing I could do about it. My mother just smiled faintly and said nothing.

I continued to suffer from their failures, and be absorbed in their disappointments. My friends said that when my kids got married, I could stop worrying and lead my own life. I wanted to believe that, but I was haunted by my mother’s warm smile and her occasional “You look pale. Are you all right? Call me the minute you get home. Are you depressed about something?” Can it be that parents are sentenced to a lifetime of worry?

One of my children telephoned me last month, saying, “Where were you? I’ve been calling for three days, and no one answered. I was worried.”

I smiled a warm smile.

1. The author intends to tell us in the passage that ________.

A．parents long for a period when they no longer worry about their children

B．there is no time when parents have no worry about their children

C．it’s parents’ duty to worry about their children

D．parents don’t have to worry their children

2. The author mentioned her ages of twenties, thirties, forties and fifty in order to show ________.

A．the hard times she experienced in her life

B．the different stages of her children

C．she had been worrying about her children in her life

D．the support she received from her mother

3. What can we infer from the last sentence “I smiled a warm smile”?

A．Finally the mother didn’t have to worry about her children.

B．The mother was pleased that her child began to worry about her, too.

C．At last the mother could live her own life without worry.

D．The mother felt satisfied that she had succeeded in turning her children into adults.

【推荐1】When I was small，my mother and I would walk to our local library in Franklin Square. As we didn't always have access to a reliable car，walking hand in hand was the most convenient way to get anywhere. It was at story time for children that both my mother and I made lasting friendships.

Today，I am fortunate to live around the corner from the Cold Coast Public Library in Glen Head and a short walk to the Sea Cliff Children's Library. My 18-imonth-old son，Colin，and I find ourselves in Sea Cliff several times a week，meeting and making friends. Well，that is what many people don't understand-a library is more than books；it's a community.

Sure，the library in Franklin Square was the place where I was introduced to Judy Blume novels. But it was also the place where I got my first email address in 1997. At the library，friends and I learned how to research colleges and search for scholarships on the Internet. The library was the place where we sometimes giggled（咯咯笑）too loudly，and where the librarians knew us by name. Their knowing our names wasn't a bad thing. When I came home from my first term at Binghamton University，Mary LaRosa，the librarian at the Franklin Square library，offered me my first teaching job.

I now teach reading at Nassau Community College. My students are often amazed that they can check out books via their smartphones and virtually（虚拟地）visit a variety of Long Island libraries. The app used by Nassau and Suffolk county public libraries，as well as the college library，makes their homework easier by helping them find resources. Even though they can't always easily visit their local libraries，the library is always with them.

1. Why does the author consider herself lucky today？

A．She has become her mother's best friend.

B．She has access to a reliable car now.

C．She can meet friends at the library.

D．She lives close to libraries.

2. What does the underlined word “that" in Paragraph 2 refer to？

A．Socializing in a library.

B．Reading books in a library.

C．Visiting a library with a family member.

D．Building parent-child friendship in a library.

3. What is the author's attitude to her students' way of visiting libraries？

A．Cautious.	B．Favorable.
C．Doubtful.	D．Disapproving.

4. Why does the author write the text?

A．To discuss why libraries are important.

B．To express her deep love for libraries.

C．To explain how libraries change.

D．To introduce her favorite libraries.

【推荐2】The age of adulthood is by definition arbitrary. If everyone matured at the same, fixed rate, it wouldn’t be a human process. Indeed, maturation happens at varying speeds across different categories within the same individual, so I’d say I was easily old enough to vote at 16, but nobody should have given me a credit card until I was 32, and I’ve got the county court judgment to prove it.

However, we broadly agree that there's a difference between a child and an adult, even if we might argue about the transition point. So the political theorist David Runciman's view that six-year-olds should be allowed to vote goes against any standard argument about the age of civic responsibility. Nobody would say that a six-year-old could be held criminally responsible, could be sent to war, could be capable of consent, could be given responsibility for anything. So allowing them the vote-along with, unavoidably, seven-year-olds who are even sillier, if anything-is quite an amusing proposal.

Runciman's argument is that this is the only way to rebalance political life, which is currently twisted in favor of the old, who don't (he added) ever need to demonstrate mental capacity, even long after they've lost it.

The first part of his case is self-evident: pensions are protected while children's centers are closed, concepts such as sovereignty(最高权威) are prioritized over the far more urgent business of the future: climate change. Nostalgia(怀念) for a past the young wouldn't even recognize plays a central role, which is completely unfair.

Most of the arguments against giving six-year-olds a vote are that children would end up voting for something damaging and chaotic, if someone made unrealistic promises to them, which could never be realized.

Well, it's not children's fault.

Having said that, children do tend towards the progressive, having a natural sense of justice (which kicks in at the age of six months, psychologists have shown, by creating scenes of great unfairness to babies, and making them cry) and an underdeveloped sense of self-interest. My kid, when he was six, made quite a forceful case against private property, on the basis that, since everybody needed a house, they shouldn't cost money, because nobody would want anyone else not to have one. Also, food should be free. It was a kind of pre-Marx communism, where you limit the coverage of the market to only those things that you wouldn't mind someone else not having.

On that particular day, when we were registered as voters, my kid was quite far to the left of me, but in the normal run of things, we're united, which brings us to the point of the problem: children obey you on almost nothing, but they do seem to believe in your politics until they're adolescent. So giving kids the vote is really just a way of giving parents extra votes. And what can stop us having even more children, once there's so much enfranchisement(选举权) in it for us?

Now, if parents could be trusted to use their influence wisely, and hammer into children the politics it will take to assure a better future, then I wouldn't necessarily have a problem with that, apart from, obviously, that culture is already wildly twisted towards parents, and I can imagine a few non-parents boiling with fierce anger. But that's not worth talking about anyway, because parents can't be trusted, otherwise we'd all already vote Green(绿党).

In short: no, six-year-olds should not get the vote; but while we're here, if any votes come up in the near future, which will have an impact on the next five decades of British political life, alongside EU migrants,16-year-olds certainly should be enfranchised.

1. The author refers to his age of adulthood to prove that .

A．people mature at different rates in various aspects

B．there's a common standard for the age of adulthood

C．a credit card is more difficult to get than the vote

D．certain rights are granted at different stages of life

2. People reject David Runciman's proposal because .

A．they don't think a child can grow into adulthood earlier

B．they are uncertain whether children can assume responsibility

C．they believe children are far from mature in many ways

D．they know the age to get the vote is not to be questioned

3. The author talks about his kid to indicate that .

A．children are good-natured and like to help people in need

B．children are simple-minded and can fall for an adult's trick

C．children are innocent and don't want to be involved in politics

D．children are in favor of a just society and tend to be idealistic

4. The author thinks allowing children the vote may lead to .

A．twisted culture	B．misuse of rights
C．parents' objections	D．unusual maturation

5. What is the main point of the passage?

A．Allowing children the vote is not altogether absurd.

B．There is a difference between adults and children.

C．Parents should introduce politics to their children.

D．The definition of adulthood is quite controversial.

【推荐3】Many people find that music lifts their spirits. Now a new research shows that music therapy (疗法) can be a useful treatment for depression.

The finding that music therapy offers a real medical benefit to depression sufferers comes from a review by the Cochrane Collaboration, a non-profit group that reviews health care issues. Some studies looked at the effects of providing music therapy to patients who were receiving drug treatment for depression. Others compared music therapy to traditional talk therapy. In four out of five of the trials, music therapy worked better at easing depression symptoms than therapies that did not employ music, the researchers found.

“While the evidence came from a few small studies, it suggests that this is an area that is well worth further investigation.” said lead author Anna Maratos. Ms. Maratos notes that music therapy might be particularly useful for adolescents who may reject a traditional form of counseling. Some older patients also may not be comfortable talking about their feelings but do tend to express themselves through songs.

There are two main types of music therapy. Sometimes, a therapist will listen to music with a patient and talk about the feelings or memories that it arouses. In another form, the therapist is a skilled musician and will improvise (即兴创作) music with the patient. If the patient doesn’t play an instrument, he or she might be given a simple percussion (击打) instrument and the therapist will play along.

Other studies have shown a benefit from music therapy in the treatment for dementia, learning disabilities, strokes and pain management during labor and birth. The problem is that there isn’t very much high-quality research. “It doesn’t easily attract serious research funding. It’s difficult to do high-quality, large-scale trials.” said Ms. Maratos.

1. Which of the following treatments is NOT mentioned in the research?

A．Drug treatment.

B．Talk therapy.

C．Music therapy.

D．Play therapy.

2. What’s the attitude of Anna Maratos to music therapy?

A．Positive.

B．Negative.

C．Indifferent.

D．Neutral.

3. According to the passage, music therapy might not be beneficial to a patient of _______.

A．depression

B．learning disabilities

C．heart attack

D．strokes

4. We can learn from the passage _______.

A．a middle-aged patient won’t benefit from music therapy

B．patients using music therapy must be able to play an instrument

C．only patients suffering from depression benefit from music therapy

D．high-quality research on the effects of music therapy is limited by funding

【推荐2】Traveling with kids is 90 percent reminding yourself to live in the moment and 10 percent making up your mind to never again leave your house.

I have an uncanny ability to forget this as soon as we return home from a trip and I've finished washing piles of dirty clothes in our luggage and cleaning all the messy caused by the kids. Extremely tired and annoyed, I would actually begin to miss the place we just left!

Family travel is like childbirth, I suppose. Painful, loud, messy, sort of awful, actually, but also wonderful. And you remember only the wonderful—until you’re back on a plane and your kids are fighting over who gets the aisle seat. Then you remember the bad stuff.

Last weekend, my kids and I flew to Texas for a trip we would have nothing to complain(抱怨) about—big hotel, wonderful view.

And yet—we found things to complain about. The pool was bigger in that other hotel! Why do you get to shower first? They call this coffee?! Luckily, I’ve learned to put my metaphorical coat of armor (盔甲) on as soon as we land somewhere, and it forces complaints to bounce off me and land in a pile at my feet.

For three days, genuine fun was had and annoying complaints were heard and ignored. Until it was time to catch a plane and fly home.

Unfortunately, our flight was canceled. We spent hours finding a hotel room. We hit the hotel pool before bed and swam well into the night, my kids making up songs and laughing so hard at their silly lyrics (歌词) and their crazy good fortune to be swimming at 10: 30 on a school night.

And that was when it hit me that family travel is all those things I said before but it’s also a lot more. It’s taking your kids to parts of the world that will open their eyes and finding that actually, yours need opening too. It’s remembering that joy and memories are where you make them, not where you find them.

1. The underlined word “uncanny” in Paragraph 2 is closest in meaning to      .

A．unknown.	B．uncertain.
C．unexpected.	D．unusual.

2. According to the passage, family travel is like childbirth in that      .

A．they both cause financial trouble and pain.

B．they are both hard as well as rewarding.

C．childhood memories come flooding back when they travel.

D．both of them need many preparations.

3. By saying “I’ve learned to put my metaphorical coat of armor on” in Paragraph 5, the author means that_     .

A．she tries to deal with the complaints more wisely and properly.

B．she turns those annoying complaints into a means to educate kids.

C．she has improved her language skills when handling the complaints.

D．she has succeeded in escaping kids’ fighting thanks to the armor.

4. From the author’s experience in the passage, we can NOT learn that      .

A．family vacation benefits her kids as well as her.

B．joy and memories should be created rather than discovered.

C．the most unforgettable memory for her is about the complaints.

D．she has to spend some time on housework after the family vacation.

【推荐3】Speaking, writing and reading are necessary to everyday life, where language is the major tool for expression and communication. Studying how people use language — what words they unconsciously choose and combine — can help us better understand ourselves and why we behave the way we do.

Linguists (语言学家) try to determine what is unique and universal about the language we use, how it is learned and the ways it changes over time. They consider language as a cultural, social and psychological phenomenon.

“Understanding why and how languages differ tells us about the range of what is human,”said Dan Jurafsky, chair of the Department of Linguistics at Stanford.

Stanford linguists and psychologists study how language is interpreted (理解) by people. Even the slightest differences in language use may show the biased (有偏见的) beliefs of the speakers, according to research.

For example, a relatively harmless sentence, such as“girls are as good as boys at math,” because of the statement’s grammatical structure (结构), suggests that being good at math is more common or natural for boys than girls, the researchers said. Language can play a big role in how we and others see the world, and linguists work to discover how words and phrases can influence us, unknowingly.

People speak about 7,000 languages worldwide. Although there is a lot in common among languages, each one is unique. Jurafsky said it’s important to study languages other than our own and how they develop over time because it can help linguists understand what lies at the foundation of humans' unique way of communicating with one another.

Linguists analyze how certain speech patterns influence particular behaviors, including how language can influence people’s buying decisions. Jurafsky said. “Understanding what different groups of people say and why is the first step in determining how we can help bring people together.”

1. What does the example mentioned in Paragraph 5 show?

A．Misunderstanding is common in daily life.

B．People should avoid using harmful sentences.

C．Speech patterns can show people’s biased beliefs.

D．Some grammatical structures are difficult to understand.

2. What does Jurafsky suggest in Paragraph 6?

A．Researching languages.

B．Learning from linguists.

C．Developing good learning habits.

D．Communicating with others frequently.

3. What is the main purpose of the text?

A．To show the power of language.

B．To give an introduction to Jurafsky.

C．To teach readers how to learn a language.

D．To call on readers to learn more languages.