【推荐1】Personal computers and the Internet give people new choices about how to spend their time.

Some may use this freedom to share less time with certain friends or family members, but new technology will also let them stay in closer touch with those they care most about. I know this from personal experience.

E-mail makes it easy to work at home, which is where I now spend most weekends and evenings. My working hours aren’t necessarily much shorter than they once were but I spend fewer of them at the office. This lets me share more time with my young daughter than I might have if she’d been born before electronic mail became such a practical tool.

The Internet also makes it easy to share thoughts with a group of friends. Say you do something fun , see a great movie perhaps-and there are four or five friends who might want to hear about it. If you call each one, you may tire of telling the story.

With E-mail, you just write one note about your experience, at your convenience, and address it to all the friends you think might be interested. They can read your message when they have time, and read only as much as they want to. They can reply at their convenience, and you can read what they have to say at your convenience.

E-mail is also an inexpensive way stay in close touch with people who live far away. More than a few parents use E-mail to keep in touch, even daily touch, with their children off at college.

We just have to keep in mind that computers and the Internet offer another way of staying in touch. They don’t take the place of any of the old ways.

1. The purpose of this passage is to ________.

A．explain how to use the Internet

B．describe the writer’s joy of keeping up with the latest technology

C．tell the merits(价值) and usefulness of the Internet

D．introduce the reader to basic knowledge about personal computers and the Internet

2. The use of E-mail has made it possible for the writer to ________.

A．spend less time working

B．have more free time with his child

C．work at home on weekends

D．work at a speed comfortable to him

3. According to the writer, E-mail has an obvious advantage over the telephone because the former helps one ________.

A．reach a group of people at one time conveniently

B．keep one’s communication as personal as possible

C．pass on much more information than the later

D．get in touch with one’s friends faster than the later

4. The best title for this passage is ________.

A．Computer: New Technological Advances

B．Internet: New Tool to Maintain Good Friendship

C．Computers Have Made Life Easier

D．Internet: a Convenient Tool for Communication

【推荐2】Nowadays technologies benefit us a lot in our daily life, but if not properly used, they can affect our health．The bed is supposed to be reserved as a place for sleep, but people tend to read an iPad a lot in bed before they go to sleep．

Charles Czeisler, a professor at Harvard Medical School, and his colleagues got a small group of people for an experiment．For five days in a row, the people read either a paper book or an iPad for four hours before sleep．Their sleep patterns were monitored all night．Before and after each trial period, the people took hourly blood tests to paint a day-long picture of just how much melatonin（褪黑激素） was in their blood at any given time．

When subjects read on the iPad as compared to the paper books, they reported feeling less sleepy at night and less active the following morning．People also took longer to fall asleep on the iPad nights, and the blood tests showed that their melatonin secretion（分泌） was delayed by an hour and a half．

The researchers conclude in today's journal article that given the rise of e-readers and the increasingly widespread use of e-things among children and adolescents, more research into the long-term consequences of these devices on health and safety is urgently needed．Czeisler and colleagues go on, in the research paper, to note "Reading an iPad in bed may increase cancer risk"．

However, software has been developed that can reduce some of the blue light from the screens of phones and computers according to time of day, and there are also glasses that are made to filter（过滤） short wavelengths．While they seem like a logical solution for the nighttime tech users, it needs more research．

1. In Charles Czeisler's experiment, what were all the subjects asked to do?

A．Sit in a row and receive the strict tests．

B．Have their sleep patterns observed all night．

C．Read a paper book and an iPad at the same time．

D．Have their blood tested per hour during the trial．

2. What were the iPad readers likely to do according to the third paragraph?

A．They felt less sleepy and tired in the day．

B．They fell asleep more easily after reading．

C．They became less energetic the next morning．

D．They had a lot more melatonin secretions．

3. What can the special software recently developed do for e-readers?

A．It can remove the blue light from your devices completely．

B．It can help prevent eyes being harmed by short wavelengths．

C．It can weaken the harm done by doing nighttime e-reading．

D．It can be used in all the e-things widely and safely．

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

A．Wrong behaviors before bedtime．	B．New software for night e-readers．
C．No games on the iPad in bed．	D．No e-reading in bed before sleep．

【推荐3】Things to Know When You Write An E-mail Message

For most of the twentieth century, people communicated by telephone or by mail. This is now changing, and e-mail is becoming the preferred method of communication. It’s faster than traditional mail.     1    . As e-mail is becoming popular, here are several rules we need to know.

Be polite and friendly.

Start your message with a greeting. If you are writing to a friend, you can begin with Hi, Sandra. If you are writing to your teacher, begin your message with Dear Mr Atonso.     2    . Many people just type their names. Others say Bye, Cheers, or use abbreviations (缩写) like BFN (bye for now).

Look good.

When someone receives an e-mail message from you, they might not know anything about you. They will judge you from your e-mail message, so make yourself look good.     3    . Sometimes sentences seem clear when you write them, but don’t make sense when you read them back.

    4    .

If you start to use your e-mail several times a week, your message box will soon be filled with mail. After a few weeks, you can have a list of 60 or 70 messages! It is easy to delete the messages you don’t want anymore. If your messages are important, you can save them in folders.     5    . It only takes a few minutes to learn.

A．Organize your e-mail.

B．It’s cheaper than a phone call.

C．The e-mail must be addressed correctly.

D．Type your message, and then read it again.

E．You need a closing remark at the end of your e-mail.

F．If you don’t know how to do that, just ask a friend.

G．The most commonly used e-mails are business e-mails.

【推荐3】In the past few decades, parental fears over their children's “fragile” egos (脆弱的自我) have dominated thinking. Rather than using failure to improve, participation and effort have become what is celebrated. Parents now see failure as a terrible disaster with negative consequences as opposed to something their children could recover and grow from.

In a recent study, administrators at Harvard observed that despite awesome grades, the kids entering college seem unable to take care of themselves and think for themselves. The study points to the fact that for all their lives their parents have taken care of every need, told them what path to follow and if any difficulty occurs, have made sure to fix it for them. As a result, children have lost the ability to feel competent and to be in charge of their own lives.

I was a baseball player. When the opportunity to coach my son's team came up, I was in two minds. I wanted my kids to do activities without their dad hanging around. But an old friend happened to be the head coach and he convinced me to help out. I coached it well, rarely having a hand in training my son. I found out the learning opportunities on and off the field were even better than I had imagined.

Last season, our team lost 0-13. In the post-game meeting, my message was, “You have to learn how to lose if you ever want to win.” When saying this to the team, I was met with blank stares. When I said it to the parents, there was some nodding but not everyone was on board. Shouldn't I be praising the kids for their every action? Why didn't I put only the best players at the “important” positions? How come I didn't replace kids who were struggling with players who could do better?

Luckily, the parents eventually got my message and I didn't get any push-back at all. They desired to learn more about life lessons that failure could teach their kids. And the team began to win games after early losses.

1. What does children's failure mean to parents?

A．Children's self-reflection.

B．Destructive effects on children.

C．A steppingstone to children's success.

D．Parental irresponsibility in raising children.

2. What prevents children thinking independently based on the study?

A．The rapidly-developing society.

B．Parents' high expectations of children.

C．Children's wrong attitude towards failure.

D．Too much parental intervention in children's life.

3. How did the author feel when offered the chance to coach his son's team?

A．Excited.	B．Confident.
C．Hesitant.	D．Uninterested.

4. What do the three questions in paragraph 4 imply?

A．Some parents doubted the author's strategies.

B．The players felt confused about their failure.

C．The author was to blame for the team's defeat.

D．The author ignored the head coach's good advice.

【推荐2】In a large survey of people’s first memories, nearly 40% of participants reported a first memory that is likely to be fictional, according to findings published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

Current research indicates that people’s earliest memories date from around 3 to 3. 5 years of age. However, the study from researchers at City, University of London, the University of Bradford, and Nottingham Trent University found that 38.6% of 6, 641 participants claimed to have memories from age 2 or younger, with 893 people claiming memories from age 1 or younger. This was particularly prevalent among middle-aged and older adults.

As many of these memories dated before the age of 2 and younger, the authors suggest that these fictional memories are based on remembered fragments (碎片) of early experience — such as a pram (婴儿车), family relationships and feeling sad — and some facts or knowledge about their own infancy or childhood which may have been derived from photographs or family conversations.

“Further details may be unconsciously inferred or added” added Shazia Akhatr, first author on the study and Senior Research Associate at the University of Bradford.

“When we looked through the responses from participants we found that a lot of these first ‘memories’ were frequently related to infancy, and a typical example would be a memory based around a pram,” explained Martin Conway, Director at the Centre for Memory and Law at City, University of London and coauthor of the paper.

“For this person, this type of memory could have resulted from someone saying something like ‘mother and a large green pram’. The person then imagines what it would have looked like. Over time these fragments then become a memory and often the person will start to add things in such as a string of toys along the top,” he added.

“Crucially, the person remembering them doesn’t know this is fictional,” Conway noted. “In fact when people are told that their memories are false they often don’t believe it. This partly due to the fact that the systems that allow us to remember things are very complex, and it’s not until we’re 5 or 6 that we form adult-like memories due to the way that the brain develops and due to our maturing understanding of the world.”

1. What can be inferred from the study mentioned in the passage?

A．Some people have clear knowledge about their own infancy.

B．Added details are an important clue to recall the childhood.

C．Most people claimed to have memories from age 2 or younger.

D．Talks between family members affect the earliest memories.

2. How does Martin Conway show his opinion?

A．By making comparison.	B．By setting examples.
C．By analyzing data.	D．By referring to documents.

3. According to Martin Conway, why do people stick to false memories?

A．They have a strong desire to remember things accurately.

B．They have a tendency to trust their own memories without questioning them.

C．Their brain development makes it hard to distinguish real and false memories.

D．Their memories are closely related to complex things in life.

4. What is the text mainly about?

A．Many people’s earliest memories may be fictional.

B．People’s earliest memories can date back to 2 or younger.

C．The middle-aged and adults specialize in detailing their first memory.

D．Memories develop due to our maturing understanding of the world.

【推荐3】If humans were truly at home under the light of the moon and stars, we would go in darkness happily, the midnight world as visible to us as it is to the vast number of nocturnal(夜间活动的) species on this planet. Instead, we are diurnal creatures, with eyes adapted to living in the sun's light. This is a basic evolutionary fact, even though most of us don't think of ourselves as diurnal beings. Yet it's the only way to explain what we've done to the night: we've engineered it to receive us by filling it with light.

The benefits of this kind of engineering come with consequences—called light pollution—whose effects scientists are only now beginning to study. Light pollution is largely the result of bad lighting design, which allows artificial light to shine outward and upward into the sky. Ⅲ­designed lighting washes out the darkness of night and completely changes the light levels—and light rhythms—to which many forms of life, including ourselves, have adapted. Wherever human light spills into the natural world, some aspect of life is affected.

In most cities the sky looks as though it has been emptied of stars, leaving behind a vacant haze(霾) that mirrors our fear of the dark. We've grown so used to this orange haze that the original glory of an unlit night—dark enough for the planet Venus to throw shadows on Earth—is wholly，beyond our experience, beyond memory almost.

We've lit up the night as if it were an unoccupied country, when nothing could be further from the truth. Among mammals alone, the number of nocturnal species is astonishing. Light is a powerful biological force, and on many species it acts as a magnet (磁铁). The effect is so powerful that scientists speak of songbirds and seabirds being “captured” by searchlights on land or by the light from gas flares on marine oil platforms. Migrating at night, birds tend to collide with brightly lit tall buildings.

Frogs living near brightly lit highways suffer nocturnal light levels that are as much as a million times brighter than normal, throwing nearly every aspect of their behaviour out of joint, including their night­time breeding choruses. Humans are no less trapped by light pollution than the frogs. Like most other creatures, we do need darkness. Darkness is as essential to our biological welfare, to our internal clockwork, as light itself.

Living in a glare of our own making, we have cut ourselves off from our evolutionary and cultural heritage—the light of the stars and the rhythms of day and night. In a very real sense, light pollution causes us to lose sight of our true place in the universe, to forget the scale of our being, which is best measured against the dimensions of a deep night with the Milky Way—the edge of our galaxy—arching overhead.

1. What does “it”(Paragraph 1) most probably refer to?

A．The moon.	B．The night.
C．The sky.	D．The planet.

2. The writer mentions birds and frogs to ________.

A．provide examples of animal protection

B．show how light pollution affects animals

C．compare the living habits of both species

D．explain why the number of certain species has declined

3. It is implied in the last paragraph that ________.

A．light pollution does harm to the eyesight of animals

B．light pollution has destroyed some of the world heritages

C．human beings cannot go to the outer space

D．human beings should reflect on their position in the universe

4. What might be the best title for the passage?

A．The magic light	B．The disappearing night
C．The dimensions of a deep night	D．The rhythms of nature

【推荐2】Russia’s security chief has blamed an act of terror for the Russian A321 airliner crash in Egypt last month which killed 224 people . Whatever happened , the tragedy raises sad memories of horrific airplane crashes that have cost thousands of lives in recent decades .

Some of the worst such incidents—like four crashes in frightening succession into New York’s World Trade Center , the Pentagon and rural Pennsylvania on September 11 , 2001 ; the 1988 downing of Pan Am Flight 103 in Lockerbie , Scotland ; and a 1977 crash involving the apparent hijacking of a Malaysian Airlines jet that left 100 dead—involved terrorist activity . But there are many others that did not , with mechanical problems , pilot error or other reasons blamed for loss of life . Below are some examples of the latter : crashes that left at least 200 people dead in each incident .

March 27 , 1977 : A KLM Royal Dutch Airlines Boeing 747 beginning its takeoff crashed into Pan American World Airways Boeing 747 then still on the runway at the Los Rodeos Airport at Tenerife in the Canary Islands . A total of 574 people , aboard both planes , died .

July 11 , 1991 : The landing gear of a Nigeria Airways DC-8 catches fire shortly after takeoff Jeddah , Saudi Arabia . It doesn’t make it back to the airport , crashing nose-down less than 10,000 feet short of the runway and killing all 261 people aboard .

April 26 , 1994 : The pilot of a China Airlines’ Flight 140 alerts the control tower at Japan’s Nagoya Airport of his intention not to land and try another approach . But something goes wrong and , a short time later , the Airbus A300 crashes leading to 264 deaths—though a few passengers do survive .

September 2 , 1998 : A Swissair jetliner that had departed New York’s Kennedy airport on its way to Geneva , Switzerland , goes down off the coast of Nova Scotia , Canada ; none of the 229 people aboard Flight 111 make it . Investigators believe that the MD-11 lost all electrical power immediately before the crash .

June 1 , 2009 : Air France Flight 447 is on the way from Rio de Janiero to Paris when it and its 228 passengers and crew go missing somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean . It’s not until five days later that the first bodies are found about 600 miles off the northern coast of Brazil . Two years later , French authorities blame the crash on equipment breakdown .

1. The first paragraph is intended to __________ .

A．memorize those people aboard the Russian A321 airline .

B．direct attention to some disastrous air plane crashes .

C．show it is the most serious incident in history .

D．analyze the cause of the disaster and blame the airline company .

2. Which air crash resulted from terrorist attack ?

A．China Airlines’ Flight 140

B．Air France Flight 447

C．Pan Am Flight 103

D．Swissair Jetliner Flight 111

3. Which of the following statements is not true ?

A．Two planes of the same type hit each other on March 27 , 1977 .

B．There were over 264 people aboard China Airlines’ Flight 140 .

C．Swissair Jetliner Flight 111 crashed during its landing .

D．It took five days to find some bodies of Air France Flight 447 .

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

A．Russian Airlines Plane Crash	B．Air Crash Investigation
C．Deadliest Airline Crashes	D．Mysteries of Air crashes

【推荐3】When my best friend and I were teenagers, our favorite place to hang out was the Hallmark store. If we had money, we would choose a perfect card for each other and then share tears or smiles depending on what emotion the words expressed. In those coming years we developed a     friendship built on sincere feelings and we often found comfort in the words of a Hallmark card. I think it is perhaps since those years that I have become a greeting card collector.

The other day, while cleaning out the storage in my home, I came across the bag where I have kept greeting cards. They are the lasting messages that speak the meanings of my life. I pulled out a foolish-looking card. It has a stick drawing on the front that seems to be my portrait(肖像画), I laughed as I realized this is exactly how my oldest daughter saw her mum. Opening it up I saw a hand-drawn heart with eyes and a big smile. On the other side are some words “You are the best mum in the world!” This may be one card that Hallmark cards cannot compete with for it is a treasure more precious than gold. I can’t go back to where I’ve been but, from time to time, I can be taken into a welcomed memory trip.

These are the Hallmark moments of our lives. Words from once upon a time inspire us to appreciate the people in our lives who mean so much. When we sometimes have doubts, or when the world treats us unfairly, the encouraging words are there in black and white, sometimes drawn in a homemade stick drawing with a heart-shaped smiling face standing out from the rest.

Life is a Hallmark card when you care enough to send the very best.

1. What influence does the Hallmark card have on the author?

A．Finding her real hobby.

B．Becoming a greeting card donor.

C．Getting real friendship and comfort.

D．Learning to share the experience of making cards.

2. The author uses “a welcomed memory trip” in paragraph 2 to show that_______.

A．she often remembers her past trip

B．those cards are very meaningful for her

C．her daughter’s words moved her deeply

D．drawing herself on the cards is very meaningful

3. Why does the author think the words on the cards mean a lot?

A．Because they make her full of thanks.

B．Because they are written in different colors.

C．Because they can help her overcome doubts.

D．Because they always inform her of the card collector.

4. What can be the best title for the text?

A．Words on the cards	B．Collecting greeting cards is a hobby.
C．Life is a Hallmark card	D．Memory in the childhood