【推荐1】

With the Reading Day coming, I'd like to recommend a couple of books to you.

A License to Heal by Steven Bentley

It describes the real world of emergency medicine from the viewpoint of a practicing emergency physician, Bentley. In the world of emergency medicine, there's lots of pain, blood and sadness in our daily life, but there's also hope, excitement and a surprising amount of humor—for both the patients and the staff. The narrative(叙述) writing is effective, for Bentley appears as the doctor everyone needs in a medical emergency.

Battering Rocks over the Barn by Lawn Griffiths

An Iowa farm boy's Odyssey. The rhythm of rural life during the 1950s and 1960s comes alive through the eyes of a boy who grew up to become a newspaper journalist and farm editor. Follow his journey in this book.

Imperfect Family by Leyland A.king

This is a novel describing an ordinary family's union, strength, ambition and determination that contribute to the great possibility for one generation to climb the shabby ladder from the low class to the American middle class.

Walking the Stones of Time by Oswald Brown

This is a tale of two lovers separated by social status in primitive Scotland. It unfolds as a young man makes it his task to free a beautiful young girl from slavery. What follows is an adventurous story of disloyalty（不忠实）overcome by courage.

Honeyball by Pete Liebengood

Rachel's father hands her a minor league baseball team. She hired an all female staff and created a highly successful marketing campaign called honeyball. The book Honeyball offers an entertaining perspective(视角) of the league baseball where a group of women pull together in a campaign to find success at the box office while their leader finally finds the love of Rachel's life.

1. What can we know about A License to Heal?

A．It tells readers stories about patients.

B．It's about a humor story of a physician.

C．It impresses readers with a heart-broken story.

D．It's convincing because of its narrative writing style.

2. Which book is about country life?

A．Honeyball

B．Battering Rocks over the Barn

C．Walking the Stones of Time

D．Imperfect Family

3. What can we learn from the passage?

A．The writer of A License to Heal is a humorous doctor.

B．Imperfect Family describes an amazing women baseball Learn.

C．There're love stories in Walking the Stones of Time and Honeyball.

D．Battering Rocks over the Barn describes the city life of a journalist.

【推荐2】A Walk In The Woods is one of the most unique and funny comedy books released（发行）in the last 25 years. The book follows the story of the author, Bill Bryson, recollecting his time spent on the Appalachian Trail with his old friend, Stephen Katz, going through all the struggles hiking a two-thousand mile long trail.

The book starts off with Bill Bryson randomly（随意地）deciding to go on the Appalachian Trail. He had decided that he wanted to hike the trail so that he would have an experience to write a book about. He invites his old friend Stephen Katz and this is where the story begins.

I think that the way that he writes about the problems in a comedic（喜剧的）way makes me somehow care more about the problems. Whether he was talking about acid rain, invasive plants or the hunting of songbirds, he writes about the situations in a way that actually makes you care about them. In this book, he writes about the problem, gives all the reasons why it's a problem and everything that the problem affects, then only sometimes gives you a solution to the problem, which makes you actually think about the situations in the book. It is all a mix of humor and seriousness and it is a very unique way of getting the reader to actually care about problems

The two friends grow a lot throughout the course of the book. They learn that they are not necessarily as weak as they think they are, when they come out of the woods into the tourist trap of a town called Gatlinburg after spending hours hiking in the Smoky Mountains and they see all the tourists who are eating ice-cream and thinking that a half-mile walk through the center of town is the hardest thing they've ever done. They also learn that they are kind of okay at hiking because people are dropping out of the trail all the time around them, while Bryson and Katz just keep on powering through.

In the end, this book completely exceeded（超越）my expectations when I read it. I had heard people say it was a good book, but I had never expected how good of a book it would be. The book is much better than the movie, so if you didn't like the movie, you will probably still like this book. If you liked the movie, you will love this book. Bill Bryson's humor mixed with the fact that this is a true story makes this book one of the best comedy books ever written.

1. Why did Bill Bryson hike the Appalachian Trail?

A．To recollect his time spent on it	B．To change his writing style.
C．To spend time with his old friend.	D．To write a book about the experience

2. What is written at the beginning of the book?

A．Bryson faces struggles when hiking.

B．Bryson decides to hike the Appalachian Trail.

C．Bryson is caught in acid rain.

D．Bryson learns he is not so weak as he thinks.

3. What happens to the two friends during the hiking?

A．They spend several months in the Smoky Mountain

B．They eat ice-cream in the woods.

C．They keep on hiking while some people give up.

D．They don't want to leave Gatlinburg

4. The author writes this passage to          .

A．recommend a book	B．present environmental problems in the trail
C．introduce a writer	D．provide solutions to damage in the trail

【推荐3】A Wild Child's Guide to Endangered Animals

From New York Times bestselling author Millie Marotta comes this gorgeous celebration of the animal kingdom. Highlighting 43 endangered species, the book takes readers on a trip around the world while learning about rare and well-known animals and their habitats.

Marcovaldo

Marcovaldo is a collection of 20 short stories written by Italo Calvino. Describing the life of a poor rural man living in northern Italy, the stories unfold according to the seasonal cycle of a year. Common themes in the stories include pollution, failure and poverty.

The Art of Mondo

Over the years, Mondo has received global recognition for its incredible art posters that bring to life classic films, television shows, and comics such as Jurassic Park. For the first time, The Art of Mondo brings together this highly sought-after art in one volume that showcases the incredible creativity of the studio's artists whose vastly different styles are united by one guiding principle: limitless passion for their subject matters.

The Coming of the Third Reich

There is no story in 20th-century history more important to understand than Hitler's rise to power and the collapse(坍塌) of civilization in Nazi Germany. The Coming of the Third Reich, by Richard Evans, offers a masterful combination of academic work, important new research and interpretations.

Patriarchy and Capitalism

Chizuko Ueno, a leading Japanese sociologist, feminist critic and public intellectual, has been a pioneer in women's studies and the author of many books, including Patriarchy and Capitalism.

1. Which book will you choose if you are interested in art?

A．Marcovaldo.	B．The Art of Mondo.
C．The Coming of the Third Reich.	D．Patriarchy and Capitalism.

2. Who cares about women's rights and interests?

A．Millie Marotta.	B．Italo Calvino.
C．Richard Evans.	D．Chizuko Ueno.

3. What is the main purpose of the text?

A．To introduce art forms.	B．To remember five writers.
C．To recommend quality books.	D．To compare different cultures.

【推荐1】When a leafy plant is under attack, it doesn’t sit quietly. Back in 1983, two scientists, Jack Schultz and Ian Baldwin, reported that young maple trees getting bitten by insects send out a particular smell that neighboring plants can get. These chemicals come from the injured parts of the plant and seem to be an alarm. What the plants pump through the air is a mixture of chemicals known as volatile organic compounds, VOCs for short.

Scientists have found that all kinds of plants give out VOCs when being attacked. It’s a plant’s way of crying out. But is anyone listening? Apparently. Because we can watch the neighbours react.

Some plants pump out smelly chemicals to keep insects away. But others do double duty. They pump out perfumes designed to attract different insects who are natural enemies to the attackers. Once they arrive, the tables are turned. The attacker who was lunching now becomes lunch.

In study after study, it appears that these chemical conversations help the neighbors .The damage is usually more serious on the first plant, but the neighbors, relatively speaking, stay safer because they heard the alarm and knew what to do.

Does this mean that plants talk to each other? Scientists don’t know. Maybe the first plant just made a cry of pain or was sending a message to its own branches, and so, in effect, was talking to itself. Perhaps the neighbors just happened to “overhear” the cry. So information was exchanged, but it wasn’t a true, intentional back and forth. Charles Darwin, over 150 years ago, imagined a world far busier, noisier and more intimate (亲密的) than the world we can see and hear. Our senses are weak. There’s a whole lot going on.

1. What does a plant do when it is under attack?

A．It makes noises.	B．It gets help from other plants.
C．It stands quietly	D．It sends out certain chemicals.

2. What does the author mean by “the tables are turned” in paragraph 3?

A．The attackers get attacked.

B．The insects gather under the table.

C．The plants get ready to fight back.

D．The perfumes attract natural enemies.

3. Scientists find from their studies that plants can ________.

A．predict natural disasters

B．protect themselves against insects

C．talk to one another intentionally

D．help their neighbors when necessary

4. What can we infer from the last paragraph?

A．The world is changing faster than ever.

B．People have stronger senses than before

C．The world is more complex than it seems

D．People in Darwin’s time were imaginative.

【推荐2】To persist, life must reproduce. Scientists at the University of Vermont, Tufts University, and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University have discovered an entirely new form of biological reproduction and applied their discovery to create the first-ever, self-replicating (自我复制的) living robots.

Named Xenobots after the African clawed frog from which scientists take their stem cells, the machines are less than 0.04 inches wide—small enough to travel inside human bodies. They can walk and swim, survive for weeks without food, and work together in groups. They even have regenerative capabilities; when the scientists sliced into one robot, it healed by itself and kept moving.

The Xenobots could potentially be used toward a host of tasks. Xenobots could be used to clean up radioactive waste and collect microplastics in the oceans. Some Xepobots had holes in their center, which could potentially be used to transport drugs or medicines. “Traditional robots degrade (降解) over time and can produce harmful ecological and health side effects,” researchers said in the study, which was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. As biological machines, Xenobots are more environmentally friendly and safer for human health. Aside from these immediate practical tasks, Xenobots could also help researchers to learn more about cell biology—opening the doors to future advancement in human health and longevity.

While the prospect of self-replicating biotechnology could spark concern, the researchers said that the living machines were entirely contained in a lab and easily destroyed, as they are biodegradable and regulated by experts. “There are many things that are possible if we take advantage of this kind of plasticity (可塑性) and ability of cells to solve problems,” said Joshua Bongard, one of the lead researchers at the University of Vermont.

1. What can we learn about Xenobots from Paragraph 3?

A．They can be widely applied to curing diseases.

B．They can serve well the research on human health.

C．They are specially designed to collect radioactive waste.

D．They are harmless to the environment by degrading plastics.

2. What is Bongard’s attitude towards the self-replicating biotechnology?

A．Positive.

B．Indifferent.

C．Doubtful.

D．Ambiguous.

3. What does the text mainly talk about?

A．A new application of a machine in medicine.

B．The latest trend of developing biotechnology.

C．The invention of the first self-reproduction robots.

D．An experiment on cells from African clawed frogs.

4. In which column of a newspaper may the text appear?

A．Entertainment.

B．Health.

C．Sports

D．Science.