【推荐1】Do you know an exciting computer game that is also educational? Malmo Software has four new games that will surprise you.

Space Pirate

It lets you go through the Galaxy (银河系) on your own starship. You will find interesting stars and learn science along the way.

Crazy Cooking

In Crazy Cooking, you can choose meat and vegetables, cook them in your video kitchen and ask your friends to eat with you. At the same time, you will learn math by working with lots of numbers and measurements (尺寸).

Time Machine

It lets you go back to any time in history to see what it was like. You can find out almost all things you want to know. You can meet George Washington or study a map with Columbus.

Word Search

It takes you on a trip through the English language — where it began, who started it, and why something is different now. On your trip, you will learn new words and spellings.

Each of these new games comes on CD-ROM and costs only $ 15.95. Or you can get all four games for only $ 50. These are the best new games! They will give you lots of fun, and you’ll learn many things from them. So don’t wait! Go to the shop now!

1. According to the passage, what can you learn by playing Crazy Cooking?

A．Science.	B．Math.
C．English.	D．Geography.

2. How much do you need to pay if you want to buy two games?

A．$ 50.	B．$ 31.9.
C．$ 25.	D．$ 15.95.

3. Why did the author write the passage?

A．To talk about computer games.	B．To tell readers how CD-ROM games work.
C．To ask readers to buy computer games.	D．To help readers play computer games.

4. The passage is probably from a ________.

A．newspaper	B．dictionary
C．storybook	D．diary

【推荐2】Summer is the most popular season to visit Texas since there is so much to see and to do. While visiting the Lone Star State this summer, don’t miss visiting some of these attractions and taking part in some of Texas’ best summer vacation activities.

Visit SeaWorld

There are sea life shows, adventure camps, thrilling rides and a water park. A great many activities are waiting for you at SeaWorld.

Windsurf (风帆冲浪) at South Padre

With miles of shallow (浅的), calm water in the Lower Laguna Madre and strong winds coming off the Gulf of Mexico, South Padre Island is a windsurfer’s dream.

Swim at Barton Springs

Barton Springs is in the famous Zilker Park. It was formed when Barton Creek was built. Since its opening, Barton Springs has become one of the most popular swimming pools in the state.

Take part in an outdoor adventure

In the scenic Texas Hill Country, Lake Buchanan Adventures offers different kinds of activities, including boating, hiking, camping and more.

Camp and hike in Big Bend Park

Big Bend offers a great number of outdoor activities in an old way. Backpacking, mountain biking, fishing, boating, hiking, nature watching and camping－you name it. If it can be done outdoors, it can be done in Big Bend.

Enjoy saltwater fishing

Saltwater fishing in Texas is as good as anywhere else in the USA. More and more fishermen have been discovering this in recent years and packing their bags and rods (鱼竿) to make good use of Texas’ world-class saltwater fishery.

1. The underlined phrase “the Lone Star State” in Paragraph 1 is another name for ________.

A．Texas	B．San Antonio
C．South Padre	D．Gulf of Mexico

2. From the text you know that _______.

A．Barton Springs is the most popular in the USA

B．Lake Buchanan Adventures offers indoor activities

C．Big Bend provides outdoor activities in an ancient way

D．Fishermen may get the best salt fish when fishing in Texas

【推荐2】You can pay a fortune to travel around the world. Or you can pay nothing at all. Here are some places you'll never regret visiting. They won't cost you a dime.

The British Museum, London(U.K.)

You need to go here to see the Egyptian mummies, the ancient Greek Marbles and so many other treasures. It's open every day, and unlike most other attractions in England that cost much money, it's completely free.

National Mall, Washington D.C.(U.S.A.)

You can walk a pathway from the Lincoln Memorial to the severe Vietnam Veterans Memorial and to the Washington Monument with other sights in between. Do you know you can go up in the elevator to the top of the Washington Monument? Tickets are free, but pay a small fee to reserve them in advance to avoid being disappointed.

Notre-Dame Cathedral, Paris(France) .

This great treasure of the world simply can't be missed. The great stained-glass rose window alone is worth the visit. The Sunday Mass with the Gregorian chant was like stepping back in time. Admission is free every day, but you're welcome to leave a donation. There are also free tours a few times each week. You'll pay extra for tours of the bell tower or the crypt.

National Museum of Ireland , Dublin and Mayo (Ireland)

Want to see bog bodies, gold ornaments, Viking artifacts and learn about rural Irish life? All four branches of this museum are free to visit, including museums devoted to archaeology, natural history, decorative arts and history and country life. The museum of country life in Tur lough Park, Mayo, is devoted to Irish rural traditions, while the natural history museum is especially famous for its collection of insects.

1. Where can you visit the ancient Greek marbles from the passage?

A．National Mall, Washington D.C.	B．The British Museum, London.
C．Notre-Dame Cathedral, Paris.	D．National Museum of Ireland, Dublin and Mayo.

2. Which place do you need to pay for an appointment?

A．Lincoln Memorial.	B．Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
C．Notre-Dame Cathedral.	D．The top of the Washington Monument.

3. If you do a study on how a worm turns into a butterfly, you probably go to ________.

A．National Museum of Ireland, Dublin and Mayo.	B．The British Museum, London.
C．Notre-Dame Cathedral, Paris.	D．National Mall, Washington D.C.

【推荐1】In summer holiday, the kids are out of school, so it is a good time to plan for a family travel. However, it's not easy to prepare for a family travel. Here are four travel apps(应用程序) to make your trip more relaxing.

Yuggler

Search nearby for family-friendly activities, from free events to worthwhile attractions. Use Yuggler to plan for what to do each day, based on the weather or the type of entertainment your kids want or need, and look through reviews written by parents who've been there. So instead of paying $20 per person for entrance to the big museum, you can locate just-as-fun spots with zero admission, saving a family of $80.

Sit or Squat

Held by Charmin, this app uses your phone's built-in location finder to find out the closest public restrooms. Perhaps more importantly, Sit or Squat provides the restrooms' cleanliness scores, which are made by the users who have been there. It is quite convenient.

My Disney Experience

The official Walt Disney World app' s interactive map(互动地图), which uses your tool' s GPS, helps you find restaurants, restrooms, and attractions nearby. You can also access real-time wait times for popular rides and character appearances, meaning you're making the most of your time.

Wi-Fi Finder

Find free Internet near your current location in a minute. Wi-Fi Finder works offline too. Before you head out, download the offline database(数据库) to your phone, so you won't waste data while searching for a hotspot, which is key during an international trip. You'll save as much as $15 off the hotel Wi-Fi cost.

1. Which app can be used to Save entrance fare?

A．Yuggler.	B．Sit or Squat.
C．Wi-Fi Finder.	D．My Disney Experience.

2. According to the passage, how can you find WC quickly while travelling?

A．Asking for the guide.

B．Turning to Yuggler apps.

C．Downloading database to your phone.

D．Putting a built-in location finder in your phone.

3. Which of the following is likely to help avoid wasting time during travelling according to the passage?

A．The location guide.	B．A family-friendly plan.
C．The interactive map.	D．Paying $20 more per person.

4. What is the best free way to surf the Internet?

A．Searching for the hotspot.	B．Using your tool's GPS.
C．Going to the Internet bar.	D．Finding free Internet in location.

【推荐2】In 2011, the old style Malta buses were taken off the road and replaced by modern vehicles. Most of the old buses were deserted, a few were sold, and about 100 of them were put into storage in the hope of showing them in a museum at some stage.

A pre-2011 visit to Malta wouldn’t have been complete without a ride on one of the colorful buses. Until 1973 you could tell the destination of the bus just by looking at its color — Sliema was green and white, Zabbar was red and white with a blue stripe(条纹)etc. . Later, the buses all had numbers. For a while, they were all painted green and white before the ‘final’ orange, yellow and white.

In their prime, walking around the Triton fountain at the Valletta bus station, you would have found it very difficult to see two buses of exactly the same design. Most of them had locally built bodies. On the front of the buses carried names like Dodge, Leyland, Bedford etc. . You were equally likely to find football pennants(锦旗)and the like decorating the cabs. Real bus experts would have recognized that these were there mainly for decorative reasons, and were seldom an accurate reflection of the vehicle’s origins.

Nowadays much more modern buses are to be found at the Floriana bus station. They are more environmentally friendly and possibly even more comfortable than the older types. However, I miss the old buses. I remember, when you boarded your bus, you had to prepare the correct change to pay the usually bad-tempered driver as you got on. If you were seated anywhere near the front, you would have noticed that most drivers sat well to the right of their steering wheel. The reason for this, as any Maltese would tell you, was to leave space for their pet to sit alongside them. I wonder where the pet sits these days.

1. What makes a pre-2011 visit to Malta special according to Paragraph 2?

A．Traveling in colorful buses.

B．Using buses with stripes.

C．Painting buses bright colors.

D．Telling destinations by different colors.

2. Which of the following best explains “prime” underlined in Paragraph 3?

A．Painful time.	B．Exciting time.
C．Moment of fantasy.	D．Moment of glory.

3. What can we learn about Malta buses when they were popular?

A．They were of the same pattern.

B．The decorations reflected their origin.

C．Most were uniquely designed.

D．Only football pennants decorated the cabs.

4. How would the author feel about the old style Malta buses?

A．Comfortable.	B．Environment-friendly.
C．Safe.	D．Memorable.

【推荐3】Do you still remember the scene in the famous movie Titanic, directed by Cameron, where Jack was frozen to death in the icy cold water so that Rose could survive on the floating door alone? It broke many people’s heart.

Two decades later, people are still asking the question, “wasn’t there enough room on the door for both of them?”

Cameron once responded by saying it wasn’t a question of room, but buoyancy—if both of them had tried to stay on the raft, he argued, the whole thing would sink.

But several guys from “Mythbusters”, an Australian-American science entertainment television program, decided to test the theory themselves. They discovered that if Rose had took off her life jacket to the bottom of the raft, there would have been enough buoyancy to keep both of them afloat.

When they presented their findings to Cameron, the director insisted that Jack couldn’t be saved.

“The answer is very simple,” Cameron said. “Because it says on page 147 of the script that Jack dies. To Cameron, it was an artistic choice to have the beloved character of millions, Jack drown into the cold sea. Jack had to die because Cameron thought it would be best if we did.

“It was an artistic choice, the thing was just big enough to hold her, and not big enough to hold him,” Cameron said. “I think it’s all kind of silly, really, that we’re having this discussion 20 years later. But it does show that the film was effective in making Jack so endearing to the audience that it hurts them to see him die. The film is about death and separation; he had to die.”

Since Jack was doomed to die, Cameron said, it could have happened in a variety of different ways. It’s not about the door not being big enough: that’s just a practical method for his death. “Whether it was that, or whether a chimney fell on him, he was going down,” Cameron said. “It’s called art: things happen for artistic reasons, not for physics reasons.”

1. What do we know about the character Jack according to the text?

A．He intended to kill himself.	B．He sacrificed himself to save Rose.
C．He didn’t have money to buy ticket.	D．He lacked basic knowledge of physics.

2. According to Cameron, why did the audience argue about Jack’s death for 20 years?

A．They are fragile people.	B．They don’t like the movie.
C．They love the character Jack.	D．They are crazy about physics.

3. Why was a chimney mentioned in the last paragraph?

A．To introduce the structure of the ship.	B．To show the original plan of the movie.
C．To present the missing part of the movie.	D．To explain the unchangeable fate of Jack.

4. What is best title of the text?

A．Jack in Titanic Must Die.	B．Big Enough for Both.
C．Cameron is Wrong.	D．Jack could Survive.

【推荐1】Leaving junior high school,and going up to the high school was a very frightening change for me. I went there with no friends. The only two people who came from my previous school were two girls, Donna Davis and Sakjinda Rai, but I developed little friendship with them. At first I was scared and looked stupid. But after a few months, I tried keeping my arms open and making friends with people around me.

After an unsuccessful relationship with Amit Sharmar, who ran away from me whenever I said hello to him, Sher Bhachu joined me, and we seemed to have a bit in common. So I made my first friend, and I wasn’t on my own any more! But after a few days, he broke his leg,and was off for a couple of months! I was on my own again!

Anyway, when Sher finally did return, I introduced him to another friend of mine, Graeme Parker. They got on like a house on fire, but unfortunately that little threesome (三人一组) only managed to last about a week or two before they had a bit of fight, and poor Graeme went his own way. Shortly after that we met and later joined with another gang. Others later joined at various stages,including: Chris Elemen, Venay Maru, Amandeep Vidhani, Yaser Ghauri and Paul Barrance. It was with these people that I spent most of my life in senior high school.

1. Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the passage?

A．The author didn't like Sakjinda Rai at all.

B．The author's junior high school was not very good.

C．The author felt frightened in the new school with no friends.

D．The author had tried his best to make friends with Donna Davis.

2. After a short time,the author was alone without friends again because 　　　.

A．they quarrelled about something	B．his friend was off because of injury
C．the author moved to another school	D．they found they had nothing to share

3. According to the last paragraph,we can learn that 　　　.

A．the author made more friends as time went on

B．the author missed his little threesome

C．the author and Graeme had a fight

D．Graeme Parker and Sher Bhachu were close friends

4. The real purpose of the author in writing this passage is to 　　　.

A．introduce some friends to readers

B．prove senior high school life is hard

C．tell readers his friendship in senior high school

D．show his attitudes toward life in senior high school

【推荐2】Disasters are like a mirror. They show both our bright and dark sides, as individuals and as a society. As citizens in China and beyond continue to fight against the coronavirus(新冠状病毒),the daily lives of many have gone through changes - from simple routine adjustments to complete devotion from volunteers.

People have consciously chosen to stay at home to prevent further human-to-human spread. However, that didn't stop employees and students from working and studying at home. On Feb 17, the scheduled first school day, many teachers started to give online lessons. Bored at home, many people began to learn new things to fill their newly-found time, such as baking or knitting.

The film named Contagion,2011 shows the worst-case that might happen after a worldwide epidemic. Fortunately, the situation in China couldn't be more different than the movie. Rather than violence and food shortage, everything has worked out rather well in China so far.

Scientists isolated (分离) the first virus strain, more than 30,000 medical workers in over 100 medical teams gathered and thousands of construction workers came to build hospitals in Wuhan, Hubei province. Thousands of volunteers are working nonstop to help deliver supplies and assist the affected regions.

Sociologists once debated whether volunteer service is common to see around the world. Indeed, more than 30 years of research—exploring disasters in Europe, Asia, and America—confirmed that the need to help is universal wherever disaster strikes.

“It's normal that when disasters happen, people will fall into panic. In reality, we're more likely to rush in to help others than run them over to save ourselves,” wrote American psychologist Kelly Caldwell in Pacific Standard. “It's an exercise in mass healing.”

1. What is the main purpose of the first paragraph?

A．To tell readers a lesson.

B．To show the effect of a disaster.

C．To introduce the topic of the text.

D．To raise the readers' interest in the mirror.

2. What is the second paragraph mainly about?

A．People chose to stay at home to avoid panic.

B．People tried every means to learn new things.

C．Online working and studying became more popular.

D．People adjusted to their routines to avoid infection.

3. Which does the underlined part in Paragraph3 mean?

A．China's situation was the same with the movie.

B．China experienced violence and food shortage.

C．Chinese people have gone through many changes.

D．China's situation was quite different from the movie.

4. From which is the text probably taken?

A．A newspaper.	B．A science fiction.
C．A medical journal.	D．A science report.

【推荐3】High speeds, cool looks, and unusual names are what a typical American looks for when buying a car. This is a wasteful method because the cars we buy don’t fit our lifestyles of thriftiness（节俭）. But we feel powerful when we drive huge cars, so that’s why we buy them.

More people should drive hybrids, which are powered by a gas engine but also keeps a charge in a bank of batteries. As a result, they burn less gas and save more energy. You may complain, “They are not cool.” But what are you going to say when your planet gets so fouled up（弄乱）that you need a gas mask just to go outside? Well, that’s what’s going to happen if we don’t act soon. Hybrids may cost more, but they will end up saving our life one day.

Gasoline cars are inefficient ones that chew up cash. The best ones get only around 40 miles per gallon. We need to change our habits or we are going to run out of fossil fuel, and then no cars will be traveling down the street. Gasoline cars also pollute the air and create breathing problems.

Some problems we will have in the future if we continue using gasoline cars are high levels of air pollution and groundwater toxicity. We will also use up our supply of fossil fuels. We may cause a large increase in the speed of global warming, which will result in a rise in temperature and in turn bake our planet and all its living things.

Cars should be bought not based on looks, but because they work well and help save the environment. Hybrids fulfill this. If enough people used them, we wouldn’t be as worried about global warming. We are at a point where we can only do one thing: reduce the amount of fossil fuels we use. If we don’t, we may spell our own doom and end up creating natural disasters that we cannot control.

1. According to the passage, hybrids ______.

A．make the air smell bad	B．pollute the groundwater
C．increase the speed of global warming	D．are more costly

2. The underlined word “doom” in the last paragraph probably means “______”.

A．a bad fortune	B．a strong wish
C．a happy moment	D．a normal need

3. In the author’s opinion, we should buy a car which ______.

A．runs faster	B．looks beautiful
C．is environmentally friendly	D．costs a fortune

4. The purpose of this passage is to ______.

A．introduce what kind of car uses less gas

B．give people advice on how to buy a cool car

C．remind people of some problems they will have in the future

D．expect people to consider the environmental problems when buying a car