【推荐1】        Barditch High School decided to an All-School Reunion. Over 450 people came to the event. There were tours of the old school building and a picnic at Confederate Park. Several former teachers were on hand to tell stories about the old days. Ms. Mabel Yates, the English teacher for fifty years, was wheeled to the Park.

Some eyes rolled and there were a few low groans (嘟囔声) when Ms.Yates was about to speak. Many started looking at their watches and coming up with excuses to be anywhere instead of preparing to listen to a lecture from an old woman who had few kind words for her students and made them work harder than all the other teachers combined.

Then Ms. Yates started to speak:

“I can’t tell you how pleased I am to be here. I haven’t seen many of you since your graduation, but I have followed your careers and enjoyed your victories as well as crying for your tragedies. I have a large collection of newspaper photographs of my students. Although I haven’t appeared in person, I have attended your college graduations, weddings and even the birth your children, in my imagination.”

Ms. Yates paused and started crying a bit. Then she continued:

“It was my belief that if I pushed you as hard as I could, some of you would succeed to please me and others would succeed to annoy me. Regardless of our motives, I can see that you have all been successful in you chosen path.”

“There is no greater comfort for an educator than to see the end result of his or her years of work. You have all been a great source of pleasure and pride for me and I want you to know I love you all from the bottom of my heart.”

There was a silence over the crowd for a few seconds and then someone started clapping. The clapping turned into cheering, then into a deafening roar (呼喊). Lawyers, truck drivers, bankers and models were rubbing their eyes or crying openly with no shame all because of the words from a long forgotten English teacher from their hometown.

1. What activity was organized for the school reunion?

A．Sightseeing in the park.

B．A picnic on the school playground.

C．Telling stories about past events.

D．Graduates’ reports in the old building.

2. What can be inferred from Paragraph 2?

A．Some graduates were too busy to listen to Ms. Yates’ speech.

B．Many graduates disliked Ms. Yates’ ways of teaching.

C．Some people got tired from the reunion activities.

D．Most people had little interest in the reunion.

3. We can learn from Ms. Yates’ speech that she _____________.

A．kept track of her students’ progress

B．gave her students advice on their careers

C．attended her students’ college graduations

D．went to her students’ wedding ceremonies

4. What was Ms.Yates’ belief in teaching teenagers?

A．Teachers’ knowledge is the key to students’ achievements.

B．Pressure on students from teachers should be reduced.

C．Hard-pushed students are more likely to succeed.

D．Students’ respect is the best reward for teachers.

5. Which of the following can best describe Ms. Yates?

A．Reliable and devoted.	B．Tough and generous.
C．Proud but patient.	D．Strict but caring.

【推荐2】ABC News: Parents who want to pick up their kids at school in one New Jersey district now can submit to iris(虹膜)scans, as the technology that helps keep our nation’s airports and hotels safe begins to make its way further into American lives.

The Freehold Borough School District launched this high-techsecurity system on Monday with funding from the Department of Justice as part of a study on the system’s effectiveness.

As many as four adults can be authorized to pick up each child in the district, order to be authorized to come into school, they will be asked to register with the district’s iris recognition security and visitor management system. At this point, the New Jersey program is not a must.

If someone tries to slip in behind an authorized person, the system causes an alarm and red flashing lights in the front office. The entire process takes just seconds.

This kind of technology is already at work in airports around the country like Orlando International Airport, where the program has been in operation since July. It has 12,000 subscribers who pay $79.95 for the convenience of submitting to iris scans rather than going through lengthy security checks.

An iris scan is said to be more accurate than a fingerprint because it records 240 unique details- far more than the seven to twenty-four details that are analyzed in fingerprints. The chances of being misidentified by an iris scan are about one in 1.2 million and just one in 1. 44 trillion if you scan both eyes.

Phil Meara, the Freehold District official, said that although it was expensive, the program would help schools across the country move into a new frontier in child protection. “This is all part of a larger emphasis, here in New Jersey, on school, he said, We chose this school because we were looking for a typical slightly urban school to launch the system.”

Meara applied for a $369,000 grant on behalf of the school district and had the eye scanners installed in two grammar schools and one middle school. So far, 300 of the nearly 1, 500 individuals available to pick up a student from school have registered for the eye scan system.

1. Why does the Freehold Borough School District adopt the iris security system?

A．To ensure the school safety and efficiency of picking up children.

B．To encourage more students to register in New Jersey urban schools.

C．To test the effectiveness of school security and management system.

D．To collect the information of the children and their beloved parents.

2. What's the advantage of the eye scan system over fingerprints?

A．Having many more subscribers throughout the country.

B．Authorizing the adults to pick up children more flexibly.

C．Attracting parents in a larger proportion to register for it.

D．Making almost no mistakes in identifying the authorized.

3. How does Phil Meara help to ensure the safety of children?

A．By persuading people to register with the security system.

B．By applying for grant to install eye scanners in schools.

C．By asking the department of justice to fund the program.

D．By turning to Orlando International Airport for help.

4. What is the best title of this passage?

A．Parents Favor the Eye Scan System.

B．Security Management Needs Improving.

C．High Technology Comes to School.

D．Iris Scanners Are Invented in the Country.

【推荐3】Every year, students across the U.K.engage in the annual ritual (仪式) of telling college and university admissions officers why they deserve a seat at the school of their choice.However, this task is filled with anxiety and fear.    1     This, of course, leads many to ask the question: How should I write an essay about myself for college? Here are tips to keep in mind.

    2     For example, if all your friends are writing application essays about covid-19, that may be a good reason why you should avoid it.Unless, of course, you’ve had a vivid, life-changing experience that you are burning to share.Admissions counselors say that the best essays help them learn something about the candidate that they would never know from reading the rest of the application.

Keep your individuality in the spotlight.    3     What sets you apart from others? Tell your extraordinary story but remember not to oversell yourself.Your reader wants to see something personal about you, something that makes you stand out among others.Imagine how many applications the admissions committee reads per day, and think twice before writing some general information that doesn’t show your individuality.

Committees value authenticity.They want to hear your voice.This essay may give you the time and space to explain why a particular achievement means too much to you.But resist the urge to exaggerate: admission counselors read thousands of essays each year.    4              

Sound like yourself.Don’t use words you wouldn’t normally use.Don’t use fancy language you wouldn’t use in real life.Imagine yourself reading this essay out loud to a classroom full of people who have never met you.    5     Be on the lookout for words and phrases like ‘maybe’ ‘sort of’ ‘I think’ or anything else.

A．They can spot something unreal.

B．This rule works in all the aspects of your life.

C．Writing about oneself can be highly stressful.

D．Keep a confident tone even if you’re not feeling that way.

E．Remember, it’s all about you rather than a fashionable subject.

F．An informative and powerful essay focuses on the readers’ needs.

G．Experts often recommend looking for something unique of your life story.

【推荐1】You won't have any excuse to skip class anymore. French startup Open Classrooms is offering the first state-recognized bachelor degree in France that uses only MOOCs(massive open online courses). The startup partnered with IESA Multimedia to create this program.

There are three learning paths in engineering, design and marketing. Students will have to complete all the courses and required projects in order to get their degree.    1    IESA is already working on 40 different MOOCS for this program.

On average, it will take a year of hard work in order to complete all the classes. As always, it's hard to keep going when you sign up for a MOOC.    2    

This kind of degree has many key advantages. For IESA, it gives the school more students. IESA is a private school, and its end goal is to make as much money as possible. So with these new Mooc students, IESA will be able to get more money per teacher on average.

    3    The startup already offers a course for e20 per month, but you need to pay E300 per month for the Premium Plus offering to use the state-recognized program. it's unclear how much Open Classrooms will keep, but it should be more than €20 per month.

For students, it's a cheaper way to get a degree. Maybe you can't afford to study for three years at IESA and pay €6,950 per year.    4    Sure, it's probably a less enjoyable experience than going to your school and spending time with other students and teachers, but it makes sense for some students.

It's an interesting new direction for Open Classrooms, and I can't wait to see whether other schools will start working with the startup to provide online courses. It will be interesting to see whether the first students are satisfied with this kind of degree as well.

A．For OpenClassrooms, the company will certainly make profits as a technology provider.

B．And it can explain why more and more people tend to apply for online courses.

C．It's the exact same degree that you would get at IESA, except that you won't see any teachers.

D．That’s why every week, you will get to video chat with a teacher.

E．For Open Classrooms, the company will surely enjoy a reputation for its technology.

F．Open Classrooms lets you work and study at the same time, and pay a lot less.

【推荐2】In a recent announcement, Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology（MIT）said that they have joined forces to offer free online courses in an effort to attract millions of online learners worldwide.

Beginning this fall, a number of courses developed by teachers at both universities will be offered online through a new $60 million program, known as edX. “Anyone with an Internet connection anywhere in the world can use our online courses,” Harvard President Drew Faust said during a meeting to announce the plan.

MIT has offered a program called OpenCourseWare for ten years that makes materials from more than 2,000 classes free online. It has been used by more than 100 million people. In December, the school announced it also would begin offering a special certificate, known as MITx, for people who complete certain online courses. Harvard has long offered courses to a wider population through a similar program.

The MITx will serve as the foundation for the new learning platform.

MIT President Susan Hockfield said more than 120,000 people signed up for the first MITx course. She said Harvard and MIT hope other universities will join them in offering courses on the open-source edX platform.

“Fasten your seatbelts,” Hockfield said.

Other universities, including Stanford, Yale and Carnegie-Mellon, have been experimenting with teaching to a global population online.

The Harvard-MIT program will be monitored by a not-for-profit（非盈利的）organization based in Cambridge, to be owned equally by the two universities. Both MIT and Harvard have provided $30 million to start the program. They also plan to use the edX platform to research how students learn and which teaching methods and tools are most successful.

1. According to this text, edX is _______.

A．a part of the free MIT OpenCourseWare

B．a free computer program by MIT and Harvard

C．a Harvard-MIT platform of free online courses

D．a free program online for universities worldwide

2. What is said about online education in the text?

A．Universities have been trying online courses.

B．About 2,000 online courses have been offered.

C．Over 100 million people have finished courses online.

D．Stanford and Yale together have courses similar to edX.

3. The underlined part in the text probably means “         ”.

A．Get ready for the difficulties

B．Get ready for this educational change

C．Get prepared to complete the online courses

D．Get prepared to make materials for the edX courses

4. What can be said about MITx according to the text?

A．It is first offered as part of the edX learning program.

B．It is another free MIT-Harvard online learning program.

C．It is a standard to recognize online learners’ achievement.

D．It is a new kind of free online course of Harvard and MIT.

【推荐3】Imagine you are floating in space on a huge NASA spacecraft. A satellite is on a collision course with your spaceship. You have just been told by your commanders on Earth to evacuate. You and your teammates have to make rapid decisions for your escape and survival.

Engaging children in a NASA mission (任务) is a lesson that 23 pre-service teachers (职前教师)were taught to carry out at a recent Pre-Service Teacher Institute (PSTI) summer workshop (讲习班)at NASA’s Ames Research Center.

At this two-week workshop, these college students were given hands-on activities designed to increase their skills in teaching STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) . They were shown how to include NASA missions and research into their lesson plans. They met with NASA engineers and were given tours of NASA facilities (设施)by the latter to help them develop and teach a problem-based lesson to children.

“NASA is pleased to support college students who want to teach STEM to young children,” said Lewis Braxton, director of the research center. “It was exciting to see PSII students fully engaged in developing new skills in STEM to meet the challenges of a space-related teaching task,” said Steve Price, the principal investigator of PSTI at California State University, Fresno.

“PSTI has provided me with the necessary tools and techniques to fully develop my skills as a teacher. I’ll use what I’ve learned to help my students succeed in their studies,” said Elijah Carnillo, one of the pre-service teachers.

1. What does the underlined word “evacuate” in Paragraph 1 mean?

A．Withdraw.

B．Wait.

C．Follow.

D．Resist.

2. What is the purpose of the PSTI workshop?

A．To invite students to engage in NASA missions.

B．To encourage graduates to work at NASA.

C．To introduce the latest space technology.

D．To help with space-related STEM teaching.

3. What did NASA engineers do for the PSTI students?

A．They graded their homework.

B．They adjusted their work schedules.

C．They built them a spacecraft model.

D．They showed them some space equipment.

4. What is the best title for the text?

A．PSTI: Getting You Ready for Your Class

B．STEM: The Key to a Successful Career

C．Space: The Final Homework Frontier

D．NASA: The Home of Astronauts

【推荐1】Students were eating lunch when a fire broke out at Marysville School in Southeast Portland in 2016. The incident left a big mark on students, teachers and parents as they watched the school buried in flames. All the 460 students as well as the 50 staff were left unharmed but after school was destroyed, they had to move to another building in Portland.

Lana Penley, who had started her second year as a principal for Marysville, said everyone needed relief (缓解痛苦) from the accident. “We were already a school that struggled, and then adding the fire on top of it, we really thought we needed to find a social and emotional curriculum (课程) that connects to the heart to overcome our trauma (创伤),” Penley said.

It was after the school opened its doors again that Penley and her staff found a solution in the MindUP program, founded by the actress Goldie Hawn and the Hawn Foundation. MindUP helps kids who are suffering from a high level of stress develop skills they need to flourish (健康成长) in a complicated (复杂的) world. Penley used the program as a way to alleviate trauma from the fires, as well as support many of her students who live in poverty.

The program’s main focus is using neuroscience, mindful awareness and positive psychology as a channel (途径) for social-emotional learning. Penley and her staff noticed that the program helped lift the spirits of her students and after their first year with the program, they began to think about how they could bring this to the overall health of the school.

At the beginning of the day, teachers led students in a couple of breathing exercise in order to help them focus on staying present. Teachers greeted kids at the door, played soft music, and turned the lights down to create a relaxing environment. Students then discussed practices the school was working on together, such as mindfulness. Mindfulness had created the atmosphere of the entire school and students had used the concept as a way to really listen to each other.

Even teachers benefited from the program. Teachers got a “brain break” before staff meetings so they could recharge and focus on the task ahead. MindUP had made all the people in the school become positive. “Our teachers are happier, which is really important, and we have a ton of people applying to our school now because they’re interested in mindfulness,” Penley said.

MindUP is based on research. In a study looking at the positive benefits of the curriculum, Kimberly Schonert-Reichl, a professor from University of British Columbia, asked fourth and fifth graders about their experience. 82% of children said they had a more positive outlook, 81% developed ways to increase their happiness, and 58% of the kids expressed a desire to help their classmates more frequently.

“It really is a shift in the heart,” Penley said. “It’s a way of being and it’s going to change the feel of the school.”

1. What was the problem facing the school after the fire according to Lana Penley?

A．It was in great need of money to build a new school.

B．Injured students and teachers couldn’t be well treated.

C．The school couldn’t teach kids to deal with emergencies.

D．Students and teachers suffered and lacked emotional support.

2. The underlined world “alleviate” in Paragraph 3 can best be replaced by “________”.

A．get over

B．get up

C．get down

D．get on

3. What can we learn from the passage?

A．Some parents were visiting the school when the fire started.

B．The school was in very good condition before the fire started.

C．Lana Penley was one of the founders of the MindUP program.

D．Lana Penley made use of MindUP to help many poor students.

4. Thanks to the MindUP program, teachers became more ________.

A．interested in teaching	B．serious about stopping fires
C．satisfied with their job	D．enthusiastic about charity

5. The numbers in Paragraph 7 are used to show ________.

A．more students have been attracted to the school

B．MindUP has helped kids develop positive minds

C．fourth and fifth graders have got the most benefits

D．the benefits of MindUP see no scientific evidence

6. What would be the best title for the passage?

A．How to Rebuild a School After a Fire	B．What to Choose For Pain Relieving
C．How to Escape From a Fire At School	D．What to Prepare For Helping Poor Kids

【推荐2】It is a wonderful morning, as I write this: hot, but without being too hot. Outside my window, I can see the sunniest sky of the year reflected in a huge natural expand of water. It is the kind of sun that makes you well aware of summer’s temporary nature a reminder that if I am ever to go around to book this year’s holiday, time is running out.

It is now close to four years since I last took a holiday. This is because I have come to the conclusion, over the course of my adult life, that I am not very good at it. You might say this sounds like saying you are not very good at drinking tea or listening to music. What could possibly be difficult about the natural act of putting your working life on hold for a couple of weeks and going somewhere to do nothing?

So what is my problem? On the surface, I’m probably a bit of homebody. And I just find the pressure of being on holiday too severe: it always feels like having a gun held to my head and being forced to have fun. Somehow, packing a carefully itemized(详细列举的) list of possessions and meeting a scheduled flight has none of the excitement of suddenly deciding to take a day off and driving somewhere for the fun of it.

Thankfully, I am not alone. This summer, most of my friends have decided not to have a break. And a recent survey highlighted the downside(负面) of holidays, with the results showing that nearly two thirds of people found that the calming effects of a holiday wore off within 24 hours, as stress levels returned to normal. And this year’s the Idler magazine published its book, Awful Holidays. Here you will find a list of the five most ecologically-damaging vacations it’s possible to take, along with 50 horrible holidays experiences voted for on the idler website. Over the last decade, The Idler has become well known for promoting the idea of an easy, lazy life. The leisure(休闲) industry might seem an unlikely target of its criticism, but Dan Kienan, the book’s editor, says that he was flooded with entries from readers for his list of awful holidays.

1. According to the first paragraph we can know that the writer ________.

A．has a strong desire to book a holiday

B．wishes that the weather would change

C．finds it is too late to enjoy the sunshine

D．realizes it’s time to decide whether to go on a holiday

2. The reason why the writer dislikes going on holidays is that _________.

A．it usually costs too much money

B．he is tired of making preparations too much for holidays

C．it is far less enjoyable than breaks planned in advance

D．he feels embarrassed when other people are having fun but he isn’t

3. We can learn from the survey that _________.

A．most people pretend to enjoy their holiday

B．all people fail to relax while they are on holiday

C．a lot of people feel that the benefits of going on holidays are limited

D．many people have made the same decision as the writer and most of his friends

4. The writer takes the book of Awful Holidays as an example to ________.

A．damage the reputation of the magazine

B．prove the idea of living an easy, lazy life to be wrong

C．indicate that his dislike of holidays is widely shared

D．focus entirely on bad personal experiences of holidays

【推荐3】Many of China’s ancient architectural treasures smashed to dust before Lin Huiyin and Liang Sicheng began documenting them in the 1930s. The husband and wife team were among the first preservationists to operate in China, and by far the best known. Their efforts have since inspired generations of people to speak out for architecture threatened by the rush toward development.

Becoming China’s best architectural historians was no easy accomplishment. The buildings they wanted to save were centuries old located in distant parts of the country. In many cases, they had to journey through dangerous conditions in the Chinese countryside to reach them. Exploring China’s remote areas during the 1930s meant traveling muddy, poorly maintained roads by mule (骡子) or on foot. Inns were often dirty, food could be polluted, and there was always risk or violence from rebels, soldiers and robbers.

Their greatest discovery was the Temple of Buddha’s Light, in Wutai County, Shanxi Province. The breathtaking wooden temple was built in 857 A. D. , making it the oldest building known in China at the time.

Liang and Lin crawled into the temple’s most forbidding, forgotten areas to determine its age, including one hideaway inhibited by thousands of bats and millions of bedbugs, covered in dust and littered with dead bats. “In complete darkness and among the awful smell, hardly breathing, with thick masks covering our noses and mouths, we measured, drew, and photographed with flashlights for several hours. When at last we came out to take a breath of fresh air, we found hundreds of bedbugs in our bag. We ourselves had been badly bitten. Yet the importance and unexpectedness of our find made those the happiest hours of my years hunting for ancient architecture.” Liand wrote of the experience in an account included in “Liang and Lin; Partners in Exploring China’s Architectual Past.”

1. On their way to the ancient buildings, what kind of difficulties and risks do Liang and Lin face?

A．Poor accommodations and personal security.

B．Poor accommodations and smelly areas.

C．Broken vehicles and violence from robbers.

D．Broken vehicles and muddy roads.

2. Liang and Lin raised public awareness of ______.

A．documenting smashed historical buildings

B．rebuilding historically valuable buildings

C．saving the oldest temples in China

D．protecting historical buildings.

3. Which of the following is the best title for the passage?

A．Creativeness results in discovery

B．Difficulty produces achievement

C．Efforts contribute to happiness

D．Responsibilities contribute to development