【推荐2】Terrific New Technologies

•A fashionable smart speaker

The new Amazon Echo smart speaker has the same popular feature as the original--an always listening voice assistant ready to play music and news, set timers, and use third-party apps. Only now it's actually stylish.The $120 speaker comes in different finishes, including fabric and wood.

•A helping hand for parents

10 Suzy Snooze helps babies and kids sleep so parents can catch up on their own sleep. It's a sound machine and a nightlight. It connects with an app over wi-fi and turns into an audio monitor. If a kid cries at midnight, it'll detect the sound and try to calm him back to sleep. It can also let early risers know when it's OK to get out of bed. Made by Bleep Bleeps, the $249"smart nightlight"has an adorable little face.

•Safety for ding dongs

Doorbells used to just ring, ding, and dong. But thanks to modern technology, doorbells can now double as Internet-connected- surveillance(监视) devices.Rings $249 Video Doorbell Pro can record HD video of your front steps, even at night. It includes motion sensors and two-way audio, so you can yell "get off my lawn" from anywhere. You can also use the app to see what's going on in front of your house while you're at work or in the backyard.

•The must-have kitchen gadget

The Instant Pot makes food fast in one pot. The surprise kitchen hit is a combination of pressure cooker, rice cooker, slow cooker and even yogurt maker. It has sensors and settings to make cooking as safe as possible. Starting at $80, an Instant Pot can make dishes in less time than it typically takes to cook them.

1. What can Suzy Snooze do for parents?

A．Provide sunlight.

B．Play with babies.

C．Comfort crying babies.

D．Remind parents to wake up kids.

2. What is the advantage of the Video Doorbell Pro compared with traditional doorbells?

A．It can play HD videos.

B．It can make a sound of ding-dong.

C．It can communicate with the users.

D．It can take on the work of a monitor.

3. Who are most probably interested in the Instant Pot?

A．Those who love fast food.

B．Those who enjoy cooking.

C．Those who are busy working.

D．Those who like going camping.

【推荐3】When Belquer first joined a team to make a better live music experience for deaf and hard-of-hearing people, he was struck by how they had developed more solutions to enjoy concerts. “What they were doing at the time was holding balloons to feel the vibrations (震动) through theirfingers,” Belquer said. He thought the team could make something to help hard-of-hearing people enjoy live music even more with the technology now available.

Belquer, who is also a musician and theater artist, is now the “Chief Vibration Officer” of Music: Not Impossible, which uses new technology to address social issues like poverty and disability access. His team started by tying different vibrating cell phone motors to bodies, but that didn’t quite work. The vibrations were all the same. Eventually, they worked with engineers to develop a light haptic (触觉的) suit with a total of 24 vibrating plates. There are 20 of them tied to a undershirt that fits tightly around the body like a hiking backpack, plus one that ties to each wrist and ankle. When you wear the suit, it’s surprising how it feels.

The vibrations are mixed by a haptic DJ who controls the location, frequency and intensity of feeling across the suits, just as a music DJ mixes sounds in an artful way. “What we’re doing is selecting and mixing what we want and send it to different parts of the body,” said the DJ. The haptic suits were just one component of the event. There were American Sign Language interpreters; the music was displayed on a screen on the stage.

The suits are the star attraction. Lily Lipman, who has auditory processing disorder, lit up when asked about her experience. “It’s cool, because I’m never quite sure if I’m hearing what other people are hearing, so it’s amazing to get the music in my body.”

1. What surprised Belquer about people with hearing problems?

A．The attitude they held to life.	B．The way they enjoyed music.
C．The love they had for balloons.	D．The frequency they vibrated fingers.

2. Why did the team’s initial attempt fail?

A．The vibrations lacked variety.	B．The vibrations were irregular.
C．The motors were the same.	D．The motors hardly worked.

3. What is paragraph 3 of the text mainly about?

A．Displaying music on the stage.

B．Selecting proper suits for participants.

C．Mixed methods helping people feel the music.

D．Interpreters with excellent sign language skills.

4. What does Lily Lipman think of the suit?

A．It’s comforting.

B．It’s challenging.

C．It’s satisfying.

D．It’s disturbing.

【推荐1】Macao is only forty miles from Hong Kong and it is easy to reach. You can get there by sea. It is an interesting place and it has a long history. Macao is part of China and most people living there are Chinese.
The first Europeans in Macao came from Portugal. More than four hundred years ago the Portuguese went there to trade with China. Some settled and made their homes there. They built strong forts（要塞）to guard the city and the harbor. They also built churches, schools, hospitals and other places. Slowly the city grew. People from many other countries came to live and work in Macao.
Today many people live in Macao. Some only go there to watch dog-racing or motor-racing or to gamble（赌博）with their money. But Macao is a quiet and peaceful place. It is pleasant just to walk around and look at the old buildings and forts. You feel you are back in the old days. Of course，some of the buildings are now in ruins. The Church of St. Paul has only the front wall with many steps leading up to it. But it is still interesting to see.
When you are hot and tired, there are small cool gardens to rest in. When you are hungry, there are good restaurants with many kinds of food. Nearby are some islands, which are also nice to visit and are easy to get in. There are certainly a lot to see and to do in Macao.
1. Macao is easy to get to because it is ________.

A．part of China and most people living there are Chinese

B．an interesting place

C．very fast and cheap by sea

D．not far away from Hong Kong

2. You feel in Macao you are back in the old days because ________.

A．some of the buildings are now in ruins

B．you can watch dog-racing or motor-racing

C．you can find the old buildings and forts

D．it is a silent and peaceful place

3. The writer's idea is that ________.

A．people from many countries came to live and work in Macao

B．the Portuguese were willing to do business in China

C．people in Macao serve good food

D．Macao is a quiet and peaceful place with a lot to see and to do

【推荐2】We are all interested in equality, but while some people try to protect the school and examination system in the name of equality, others, still in the name of equality, want only to destroy it.
Any society which is interested in equality of opportunity and standards of achievement must regularly test its pupils. The standards may be changed—no examination is perfect — but to have no tests or examinations would mean the end of equality and of standards. There are groups of people who oppose this view and who do not believe either in examinations or in any controls in schools or on teachers. This would mean that everything would depend on luck since every pupil would depend on the efficiency, the values and the purpose of each teacher.
Without examinations, employers will look for employees from the highly respected schools and from families known to them--- a form of favoritism will replace equality. At the moment, the bright child from ill-respected school can show certificates to prove he or she is suitable for the job, while the lack of certificate indicates the unsuitability of a dull child attending a well-respected school. This defence of excellence and opportunity would disappear if examinations were taken away, and the bright child from a poor family would be a prisoner of his or her school’s reputation, unable to compete with the child from the favored school.
The opponents of the examination system suggest that examinations are an evil force because they show differences between pupils. According to these people, there must be no special, different, academic class. They have even suggested that there should be no form of difference in sport or any other area: all jobs or posts should be filled by unsystematic selection. The selection would be made by people who themselves are probably selected by some computer.
1. The underlined word “favoritism” in paragraph three is used to describe the phenomenon that _______.

A．bright children also need certificate to get satisfying jobs.

B．children from well-respected schools tend to have good jobs.

C．poor children with certificates are favored in job markets.

D．children attending ordinary schools achieve great success.

2. What would happen if examinations were taken away according to the author?

A．Schools for bright children would lose their reputation.

B．There would be more opportunities and excellence.

C．Children from poor families would be able to change their schools.

D．Children’s job opportunity would be affected by their school reputation.

3. The opponents of the examination system will agree that _______.

A．jobs should not be assigned by systematic selection.

B．computers should be selected to take over many jobs.

C．special classes are necessary to keep the school standards.

D．schools that win academic subjects should be done away with.

4. The passage mainly focuses on __________.

A．schools and certificates.	B．examination and equality.
C．opportunity and employment.	D．standards and reputation.

【推荐3】       How fit are your teeth? Are you lazy about brushing them? Never fear: An inventor is on the case. An electric toothbrush senses how long and how well you brush, and it lets you track(跟踪) your performance on your phone.
       The Kolibree toothbrush was exhibited at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week. It senses how it is moved and can send the information to an Android phone or iPhone via a Bluetooth wireless connection.
       The toothbrush will be able to teach you to brush right (don’t forget the insides of the teeth!) and make sure you’re brushing long enough. “It’s kind of like having a dentist actually watch your brushing on a day-to-day basis,” says Thomas Serval, the French inventor.
       The toothbrush will also be able to talk to other applications on your phone, so developers could, for example, create a game controlled by your toothbrush. You could score points for beating monsters among your teeth. “We try to make it smart and fun,” Serval says.
       Serval says he was inspired by his experience as a father. He would come home from work and ask his kids if they had brushed their teeth. They said “yes,” but Serval would find their toothbrush heads dry. He decided he needed a brush that really told him how well his children brushed.
       The company says the Kolibree will go on sale this summer, from $99 to $199, and the U.S. is the first target market.
1. All of the following statements are wrong except ____________.

A．It can track users’ school performance.

B．It can sense how users brush their teeth.

C．It can check users’ fear of seeing a dentist.

D．It can help users find their phones.

2. What can we learn from Serval’s words in Paragraph 3?

A．You will find it enjoyable to see a dentist.

B．You should see your dentist on a day-to-day basis.

C．You’d like a dentist to watch you brush your teeth every day.

D．You can brush with the Kolibree as if guided by a dentist.

3. What can we infer about Serval’s children?

A．They were unwilling to brush their teeth.

B．They often failed to clean their toothbrushes.

C．They preferred to use a toothbrush with a dry head.

D．They liked brushing their teeth after Serval came home.

【推荐1】As a child, I had a library phobia. I associated going to the library with doing research for a school project or a book report. I defined reading as work, and books came from the library, so going to the library for fun was out of the range of my thinking. As hard as they tried, my parents could not get me interested in reading. They purchased a few of the Hardy Boys series.

The books collected dust. The closest I came to wanting to read was The Big Green Book by Robert Graves, with illustrations by Maurice Sendak, a gift from my aunt. Its lead character, a boy of about 8, my age, discovered a book of magic spells. I was fascinated spells were not in the book, but I drew an imaginary magic circle with a long stick in my bedroom, stood inside the circle, took three deep breaths and made up my own spell. I never became invisible, which was my goal. This was my favorite book. I read it again and again. Certainly no need to go to the library.

Eventually, I started reading novels in my 20s. To avoid going to the library, which was only seven blocks from my Brooklyn home, I joined various book clubs. I didn’t mind having to buy a book a month as long as I didn’t have to go to the library.

My library phobia was cured 23 years ago when my family moved to Long Island. The East Meadow Public Library, a two-block walk from our home, became a regular destination for me and my family. My children were introduced to books through the children’s section with free programs that even my wife and I enjoyed. My children made friends, and my wife and I made friends with the parents.

My library card is faded, the edges are ragged and I renew my membership time and time again. I have given up mail-order books, and when I go to a store that sells books, I snap pictures of the book jackets that enthral me and put the book on reserve at the library.

1. What can we learn about the book The Big Green Book?

A．It inspired the author with some ideas.	B．It appealed to the author’s parents.
C．It contained some magic spells.	D．It is a gift from the author’s uncle.

2. What did the author prefer to do rather than go to the library?

A．To go to book clubs.	B．To read novels.
C．To start a school.	D．To purchase books on his own.

3. What made the author fall in love with the library at last?

A．He formed a new family.	B．He moved to a new place.
C．He wanted to meet targeted people.	D．He came to know more about his family.

4. Which can replace the underlined word “enthral” in the last paragraph?

A．Puzzle.

B．Frighten.

C．Attract.

D．Escape.

【推荐2】Timetable

Mondays to Fridays

Oxford                                                                   London-Paddington Oxford to London-Paddington                                 London- Paddington to Oxford 09:05—10:01                                                            11:15—12:14 09:48—10:42                                                            11:45—12:44 10:05—11:04                                                            12:00—12:56 10:35—11:34                                                            12:15—13:14

U.S. Families with a Laptop（Percentage）

Menu

◇ French Slam                                        $4.29 French toast, two eggs any style, two pieces of bacon and two sausage links. ◇ Sandwich with Salad or Soup                    $4.35 Chicken breast on bread. Served with your choice of garden salad, Caesar salad, vegetable beef or soup of the day. ◇ The Classic Hamburger                           $4.99 Over 1/3 pound. Topped with tomato, red onions and cheese.

◇ Chicken Fried Steak                                 $5.09 A southern style Golden fried and covered with French cheese. ◇ The Super Bird                                 $5.49 Thin flat pieces of chicken breast with Swiss cheese, bacon and tomato on bread. ◇ Chinese Chicken Salad                           $5.99 Chicken breast, mushrooms, green peppers, and onions. Topped with tomatoes and fried noodles. Served with bread.

1. If you would like to have some vegetable beef, what may be your choice?

A．French Slam.	B．Chicken Fried Steak.
C．Sandwich with Salad or Soup.	D．The Super Bird.

2. If one wants to attend a business lunch in London at 12:00, the latest train that he should take at Oxford leaves at ______.

A．09:48	B．10:35
C．11:15	D．11:45

3. The chart shows that from 2008 to 2013, ______.

A．the percentage of the Spanish families with a laptop rose 60 points

B．the percentage of the White families with a laptop remained unchanged

C．the number of the Black families with a laptop was on the decrease

D．the number of the Asian families with a laptop showed the sharpest increase

【推荐3】Researchers all over the world have been dreaming of “lab-grown” or “cultured” meat, for years. Today, their dream took one step closer to reality as the cultured chicken meat from the US company, Eat Just, has been allowed for sale in Singapore.

Lab-grown chicken is made of real chicken cells, but it's grown in a lab instead of growing in a live chicken.(Cultured meat is different from plant-based meats like the Impossible Burger, Beyond Meat or Quorn, which use plant proteins to create products that just taste very similar to the products made from real meat.)

To grow cultured chicken meat, cells are taken from a real chicken. These cells are then put in a special kind of water that encourages the cells to grow in the lab until they've produced chicken meat——without the chicken.

But many technical challenges of bringing lab-grown meat to the table are far from solved. No one has yet found out how to produce cultured meat even with the same texture and structure of real meat. Even replacing chicken products with lab-grown chicken products that are not very strict with such texture and structure would be a big success for the world.

The existing projects, like Eat Just's in Singapore, can only produce a very small amount of meat for special dishes, while the meat industry kills tens of billions of animals each year. Matching that will be a challenge.

The next challenge is cost. Lab-grown meat is much more expensive than factory farming. "Factory-farmed meat is unbelievably cheap," said Lewis Bollard, who researches animals at the Open Philanthropy Project. “The meat industry doesn't pay for the environmental and the public health problems they have caused. They have managed to produce a product that is just artificially cheap and hard to compete with.”

Although there are still many challenges ahead, today's success in Singapore is cause for celebration.

1. Which company's product is made of animal cells?

A．Quorn.

B．Eat Just.

C．Beyond Meat.

D．Impossible Burger.

2. What can we say about the cultured chicken meat?

A．It has been grown in a live chicken.	B．It has the same texture of real meat.
C．It still tastes different from real meat.	D．It has been produced in huge amounts.

3. What does Lewis Bollard mean?

A．Researchers have had a big success in Singapore.

B．There are many technical challenges to be solved.

C．Cultured meat still cannot compete with real meat.

D．Factory-farmed meat is very harmful to our health.

4. What can be a suitable title for the text?

A．Cultured Meat Still Faces Too Many Problems

B．When Will Lab-grown Meat Become Reality?

C．How to Grow Cultured Chicken Meat in a Lab?

D．The First Lab-grown Meat to Be on Sale in Singapore

【推荐1】Are you afraid of going to the dentist(牙医)?If so, you’re not alone.

These fears could just be in our heads, however. According to a recent survey by Martin Tickle, a professor at the University of Manchester in the UK, the pain isn’t felt most of the time in dental surgeries(牙科手术). In fact, among the 451 interviewed patients, 75％reported no pain at all during their visits, including situations when they had their teeth pulled out.

Could it be the sound of the drill(钻头)then?

“I found that the sound of drilling can evoke deep worry in dental patients. Actually they don’t have any pain, ”Hiroyuki Karibe, a scientist at Nippon Dental University in Tokyo, told The Guardian.

To find the reason why a drill might bring on a racing heart, Karibe divided the volunteers into low-fear and high-fear groups based on how much they feared a trip to the dentist. Volunteers were played the sound of a drill while their brain activities were watched by a machine.

What Karibe found in the low-fear group was increased activity in the areas of the brain relative to auditory processing(听觉处理), which means, for these people, the sound of dental drills is no different from other sounds.

In the high-fear group, however, the brain area that was activated(激活)was different. It was the area that carries out a number of duties, including learning, feelings and, most importantly, memory. This means that these volunteers not only heard the sound, but they remembered it——they made connections between the sound of a drill and the worry it produced in the past, causing their worry to return.

Understanding how brains reply to the sounds of dentists’ drills could help scientists find ways to make patients more relaxed, according to Karibe, because patients who worry about going to the dentist might keep putting off their visits. But the best way is to keep your teeth healthy.

1. How does the writer explain that the pain isn’t felt most of the time in dental surgeries?

A．By showing facts with numbers.	B．By asking questions one by one.
C．By giving examples group by group.	D．By comparing results of patients.

2. According to the fourth paragraph，what does the word“evoke”mean in Chinese?

A．reduce	B．arouse
C．show	D．stop

3. How did the sound of drilling produce different results to the volunteers in the study?

A．It produced some worry in the volunteers in the low-fear group.

B．For the low-fear group, it activated the brain area dealing with learning, feelings and memory.

C．For the high-fear group，it caused more activities in the brain area relative to auditory processing.

D．It made people in the high-fear group remember their past uncomfortable memories.

4. What is the last paragraph mainly about?

A．How the study might be useful.

B．Some new ways to treat teeth.

C．The proper way to treat dental patients.

D．The importance of keeping our teeth healthy.

【推荐2】Seal Island is a 200-meter-long island in South Africa, which is surrounded by 55 to 57 degrees Fahrenheit waters and covered with over 60,000 seals and some birds. This island has been home to many birds and seals. You may think this island is a paradise. In fact, the island is not famous for the seals or birds. However, the real stars are the great white sharks that leap out of the water to catch the seals they are hunting.

You may think that there is no way for a 15-foot long, 3,000-pound shark to hurl its body out of the water and catch a seal in midair. Actually, these sharks are called “Air Jaws”.

Over the years, the seals have gotten smarter. Now, they go out in groups of seven and eight to feed. They swim down on the sea floor, which gives them extra camouflage (掩饰). When they have to swim near the water surface, they swim in a zigzag (之字形的) pattern. But with all these tricks, they can still be outwitted (以智取胜) by the sharks. Usually, the sharks will take one seal away from its group and force it to swim on the surface, where it is easy to hunt. Sometimes, the seal is lucky and gets away, but most of them die in the process of trying to survive.

Every year, tourists go to see these amazing animals leap out of the water, sometimes flinging (抛) their whole bodies into the air when they want to catch the seals. Some people even want to go into shark cages to see the action from below! This is the reason why this island attracts thousands of tourists around the world every year.

1. What probably makes Seal Island famous?

A．The large number of seals in the water.

B．The way the great white sharks hunt.

C．The beautiful scenery of the island.

D．The special position of the island.

2. Why do the seals swim in a zigzag pattern?

A．To save energy.

B．To warm themselves.

C．To look for food.

D．To avoid the white sharks.

3. What can we infer from the third paragraph?

A．White sharks are dangerous animals.

B．The seals are cleverer than the white sharks.

C．The sharks are successful in hunting the seals.

D．It is easier for the sharks to hunt the seals on the sea floor.

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

A．To explain why Seal Island is famous.

B．To show how white sharks hunt seals.

C．To advise us to visit Seal Island.

D．To ask us to protect animals.

【推荐3】In 1974, after filling out fifty applications, going through four interviews, and winning one offer, I took what I could get—a teaching job at what I considered a distant wild area: western New Jersey. My characteristic optimism was alive only when I reminded myself that I would be doing what I had wanted to do since I was fourteen—teaching English.

School started, but I felt more and more as if I were in a foreign country. Was this rural area really New Jersey? My students took a week off when hunting season began. I was told they were also frequently absent in late October to help their fathers make hay on the farms. I was a young woman from New York City, who thought that “Make hay while the sun shines” just meant to have a good time.

But, still, I was teaching English. I worked hard, taking time off only to eat and sleep. And then there was my sixth-grade class—seventeen boys and five girls who were only six years younger than me. I had a problem long before I knew it. I was struggling in my work as a young idealistic teacher. I wanted to make literature come alive and to promote a love of the written word. The students wanted to throw spitballs and whisper dirty words in the back of the room.

In college I had been taught that a successful educator should ignore bad behavior. So I did, confident that, as the textbook had said, the bad behavior would disappear as I gave my students positive attention. It sounds reasonable, but the text obviously ignored the fact that humans, particularly teenagers, rarely seems reasonable. By the time my boss, who was also my taskmaster, known to be the strictest, most demanding, most quick to fire inexperienced teachers, came into the classroom to observe me, the students exhibited very little good behavior to praise.

My boss sat in the back of the room. The boys in the class were making animal noises, hitting each other while the girls filed their nails or read magazines. I just pretended it all wasn’t happening, and went on lecturing and tried to ask some inspiring questions. My boss, sitting in the back of the room, seemed to be growing bigger and bigger. After twenty minutes he left, silently. Visions of unemployment marched before my eyes.

I felt mildly victorious that I got through the rest of class without crying, but at my next free period I had to face him. I wondered if he would let me finish out the day. I walked to his office, took a deep breath, and opened the door.

He was sitting in his chair, and he looked at me long and hard. I said nothing. All I could think of was that I was not an English teacher; I had been lying to myself, pretending that everything was fine.

When he spoke, he said simply, without accusation, “You had nothing to say to them.”

“You had nothing to say to them.” he repeated, “No wonder they are bored. Why not get to the meat of literature and stop talking about symbolism. Talk with them, not at them. And more important, why do you ignore their bad behavior?” We talked. He named my problems and offered solutions. We role-played. He was the bad student, and I was the forceful, yet, warm, teacher.

As the year progressed, we spent many hours discussing literature and ideas about human beings and their motivations. He helped me identify my weaknesses and strengths. In short, he made a teacher of me by teaching me the reality of Emerson’s words: “The secret to education lies in respecting the pupil!”

Fifteen years later I still drive that same winding road to the same school. Thanks to the help I received that difficult first year, the school is my home now.

1. It can be inferred from the story that in 1974 ________.

A．the writer became an optimistic person

B．it was rather difficult to get a job in the USA

C．the writer was very happy about her new job

D．it was easy to get a teaching job in New Jersey

2. According to the passage, which of the following is most probably the writer’s problem as a new teacher?

A．She didn’t ask experienced teachers for advice.

B．She took too much time off to eat and sleep.

C．She had blind trust in what she learnt at college.

D．She didn’t like teaching English literature.

3. What is the writer’s biggest worry after her taskmaster’s observation of her class?

A．She might lose her teaching job

B．She might lose her students’ respect.

C．She couldn’t teach the same class any more.

D．She couldn’t ignore her students’ bad behavior any more.

4. Which of the following gives the writer a sense of mild victory?

A．Her talk about symbolism sounded convincing.

B．She managed to finish the class without crying.

C．Her students behaved a little better than usual.

D．She was invited for a talk by her boss after class.

5. The students behaved badly in the writer’s classes because ________.

A．she didn’t really understand them

B．they were keen to embarrass her

C．they didn’t regard her as a good teacher

D．she didn’t have the fluency of English

6. Which of the following is probably the best title for this passage?

A．My successful and smooth teaching career

B．The fierce competition in the job market

C．Useful suggestions on how to be an excellent English teacher

D．The challenging but unforgettable start of my teaching career