【推荐1】Keys to a Good Family Life

In posters and ads we often see pictures of happy families, but family life is not all smiles and laughter. All families are different and have problems, but you can make your family life better with hard work and determination.     1       

Spend time together as a family. Some people are too busy for family time. You have to set aside time xue to plan and spend special times together.     2     Make the conversation around ke the table pleasant and caring; maybe ask each person how their day was or what is happening wang in their school or work life. Doing household chores together also helps.

    3     Allow members of your family to express their own feelings and ideas. Maintain eye contact and don’t interrupt when someone is talking. Listen carefully to what they are saying, before you judge or disagree. Hearing someone else, and being heard by that person, is the foundation of a good relationship.     4     Try not to be angry at someone’s opinions. Even if you think that they are wrong, listen with an open mind to show that you care - and remember that no one is perfect.

Meet each other’s needs. Give time to each and every one of your family members. Know what is going on in their lives and what they need help with.     5     If they need help with something, set aside time to do so. To be aware of your family members’ emotional and physical needs, you need to communicate.

A．Listen to their problems.

B．Try applying the following steps.

C．Allow each person to be an individual.

D．So these steps will help you all get on well.

E．Respect your family members’ feelings and ideas.

F．Every day it should be eating at least one meal together.

G．Each family member has his or her own opinions or suggestions.

【推荐3】One evening last summer, when I asked my 14-year-old son, Ray, for help with dinner, his response shocked me. “What’s a colander (漏勺)?” he asked.

I could only blame myself. In the family, nobody else helped me in the kitchen. But that night, as I explained with a touch of panic that a colander is the thing with holes in it, I wondered what else I hadn’t prepared Ray for.

As parents, while we focus on our sons’ confidence and character, we perhaps don’t always consider that we are also raising someone’s future roommates, boyfriends, husbands, or fathers. I wanted to know that Pd raised a boy who would never ask the woman in his life, “What’s for dinner?” So I came up with a plan: I would offer Ray a private home course. I was delighted to find that he didn’t say no. For two hours, three days a week, Ray was all mine.

I knew that he would rather have been playing in the driveway than learning to mend socks with his mother-he tried to beg not to have sewing lessons, even though I insisted that one day, someone would find the sight of him fixing his own shirt very attractive- but it couldn’t be denied that he was learning, and more than just housekeeping. “I appreciate what you do as a mom,” he told me one day. Ray now understands the finer points of cooking, and more importantly, he realizes there’s nothing good about being helpless.

Now, not only can he make his own dinner, but also he can make a big meal for his family. That’s what I call a man. I’m glad that I prepared so great a present for my future daughter-in-law.

1. Why was the author shocked at her son’s response?

A．Because he was not well behaved.

B．Because he refused to help with dinner.

C．Because he didn’t know the common kitchen tools.

D．Because he was very curious about kitchen tools.

2. In the author’s opinion, some parents pay little attention to       .

A．building up children’s confidence

B．telling kids what is right and wrong

C．preparing children for their future life

D．making children live a hard life

3. After learning to do housework, Ray       .

A．fell in love with sewing

B．did other work in the house

C．began to be more hardworking

D．acknowledged his mother’s efforts

4. We can infer from the text that Ray       .

A．made great progress in cooking

B．always thought housework interesting

C．preferred sewing to cooking

D．was unwilling to learn cooking at first

【推荐1】Don’t like seeds in your tomatoes? You might be pleased to know that seedless ones have been created by gene editing.

This could create a wide range of seedless fruits, but few may ever be seen in the supermarket if regulators decide to treat gene-edited crops in the same way as genetically engineered ones.

Several seedless fruits, from bananas to grapes, are already available, but have mostly come about by luck rather than design. And although there are a few seedless varieties of tomatoes, they’ve taken researchers many years to create.

Now it can be done very quickly, as Keishi Osakabe at Tokushima University in Japan has shown. His team used the CRISPR gene editing technology to make fruits develop even though no seeds had begun to form. “We haven’t tasted them yet, but in theory they should taste the same,” says Osakabe.

There have been a few efforts to create seedless tomatoes using earlier genetic-engineering techniques. These methods take longer time compared with CRISPR.

Some “seedless” fruits just have very small seeds, and still require pollination (授粉). But completely seedless fruits like the edited tomato do not require pollination at all. Such plants could improve food security by reducing our reliance on smaller bee populations, says Saul Cunningham at the Australian National University. Many fruit growers buy bees to pollinate their crops.

There is a deficiency for farmers, however. Seedless plants usually have to be grown from cuttings, which involves more labor than planting seeds.

CRISPR could be used to develop other types of fruit that don’t require pollinator, as well as introduce beneficial mutations (突变), says Osakabe.

But to make it on to the supermarket, gene-edited plants may have to meet the same standards as genetically engineered plants, which would greatly increase costs. Some argue chat since gene editing is used to introduce mutations already found in some of the plants we eat, it should not require such strict regulations.

1. What has been the problem with tomatoes created in the past?

A．Their taste was not very good.	B．They still had a few big seeds.
C．Their genes could not be recognized.	D．They took quite a long time to create.

2. What did Keishi Osakabe’s team do?

A．They edited tomatoes’ genes.

B．They changed the taste of tomatoes.

C．They made seedless bananas and grapes.

D．They created genetically engineered tomatoes.

3. Why is CRISPR better than previous methods?

A．It will still require pollination.

B．It will remain unaffected without bees.

C．It will reduce people’s reliance on food security.

D．It will make many growers buy bees for pollination.

4. What does the underlined word “deficiency” in Paragraph probably mean?

A．Danger.	B．Disadvantage.
C．Benefit.	D．Solution.

【推荐3】Vinegar is great. It makes salad, fries and dumplings taste better, and you can even clean your windows with it. And now, according to scientists，it may even help the planet's population survive climate change. Researchers from the RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science （CSRS） in Japan proved that. They found growing plants in vinegar makes them more resistant to droughts. This could mean that in the future, worries about climate change affecting the world's supply of food will be much lower．

The discovery was made after the researchers studied the Arabidopsis, a plant known for its ability to survive in dry weather. It was found that when the plant was placed in drought-like conditions, it produced a chemical called acetate （醋酸盐）-the main component of vinegar．

After discovering this, the scientists experimented further by adding acetate to the soil of other plants before they stopped giving them water completely. After leaving the plants for 14 days, they found that the ones treated with acetate had survived, while the untreated plants had dried up and died．

It's hoped that this simple method of survival could soon be used to help farmers in dry countries keep their crops alive, "In the experiment, we targeted the staple foods of the world-rice, wheat and maize…and proved successful" Jong Myong Kim, co-author of the study, told Popular Science magazine．

Kim has already been in touch with people around the world who are interested in trying this simple and cost-effective method out for themselves from farmers to companies and amateur gardeners. "Now we are trying to cooperate with them to make a method to apply this system, and make the process as simple as possible," he said. Hopefully this means the end of hunger caused by bad weather in the future．

1. What did the researchers from the RIKEN Center prove?

A．Vinegar may help creatures survive bad weather.

B．Vinegar is found in plants by Japanese scientists．

C．Vinegar is very useful for cooking a good meal．

D．Vinegar is mainly used by people to clean houses．

2. How did Scientists find the effects of acetate on plant in the dry weather?

A．By studying the soil.	B．By studying the data.
C．By observing the plants.	D．By doing the experiment.

3. What can we infer from the last paragraph？

A．The method has a bright future especially in agriculture．

B．Keeping plants alive means a lot for scientists．

C．How to decrease the cost is the main issue.

D．It’s too difficult for farmers to accept the method．

4. Which of the following can be the best title for the text？

A．Vinegar and Food	B．Vinegar Could End Hunger
C．Japanese Scientists Find a Plant	D．Plants Need Water