You know how every November the cooking magazines are full of articles on how you should shake up the traditional Thanksgiving meal and make it new and exciting? Out with the boring mashed potatoes, in with the roasted smashed potatoes! And who wants to roast a whole turkey? Why not braise (焖烧) the turkey legs instead?
I used to think these ideas were great until this year when we tried some of them. In fact, we reinvented it so much that it wasn’t even Thanksgiving dinner anymore. We ate chicken with a Parmesan panko crust, roasted carrots, and a salad. For dessert (饭后甜点) we had bourbon pound cake with ice cream. In other words, it was like any other nice meal I’d have at my parents’ house.
We had to do this out of necessity. My family runs a wood-fired pizza company that usually shuts down at the beginning of September, but this fall, it stayed open until Thanksgiving. Its last day of operation (营业) was Saturday, and we had our traditional Thanksgiving meal on Sunday. My whole family were so tired from pizza-making that we had no energy left for a feast. Then our ‘lazy’ Thanksgiving dinner was made with what we already had.
As usual the meal was delicious and the company pleasant, but it wasn’t until after the weekend that I was left with a sense of loss, as if something were missing. That’s when I realized that, for me, Thanksgiving is very much about the food, and no just the lovely people who share the dinner with me. It’s my one chance to taste dishes that I don’t eat at any other time of year, and that is truly why it’s so special.
1. According to the author, what do cooking magazines usually do every November?| A．Call for a change in cooking. | B．Hunt for articles from readers. |
| C．Help readers in potato cooking. | D．Introduce recipes for roast turkey. |
| A．Fancy. | B．Common. |
| C．Long-awaited. | D．Well-balanced. |
| A．His family background. |
| B．His way to make a Thanksgiving pizza. |
| C．How his family-run pizza company works. |
| D．How he celebrated this year’s Thanksgiving. |
| A．It is a way to kill a sense of loss. |
| B．It is an occasion to enjoy once-a-year dishes. |
| C．It is a chance to spread festival happiness. |
| D．It is an opportunity for the whole family to gather. |
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【推荐1】Brent is a full-time designer who has been working for a company since 2002. He has come up with a way to inspire his son during his lunchtime break at school. The devoted dad does a special thing — drawing different cartoon characters alongside some words of wisdom for John each day.
Brent, who runs a blog called Designer Daddy, packs his son’s lunchbox a note every day, along with his sandwiches and snacks. His artistic behavior has quickly garnered thousands of people, which makes Brent very popular in his hometown.
Brent’s creations require nothing more than cartoon characters and inspiring messages. The characters come from various cartoons and movies, all of whom Brent has relied on to help deliver his meaningful messages. “My son started preschool last year. For the first day of school, I drew a soldier on a note and wrote ‘Be brave like him, John’. And then, I kept putting in notes for the first week. He really liked it. So I just kept doing it after that. It gives him comfort and happiness as well as me, which makes me know I’m with him in a way. We watch a lot of cartoons and movies together. There are so many different ways to introduce kids to characters, but my rules are that I never use one that he isn’t familiar with,” Brent said.
Besides, Brent also tries to keep up-to-date with new characters and does his own research to ensure he will know when it comes to popular culture and what characters his son might like to see. Brent had intended to stick with superheroes. However, as John was also attracted by other cartoons, he decided to broaden his idea and began to include Star Wars figures and Disney characters into the mix.
According to Brent, each drawing takes about half an hour to complete. Brent likes to keep the drawings topical (热门的) and often marks milestones including birthdays and holidays, with special artistic creations. He will also adjust the characters depending on the time of year. Brent says John loves to receive the notes, and the boy often shares them with teachers and classmates at school. But despite the attention his creative notes are receiving, he says he never loses sight of who they are for.
1. Why does Brent do the special thing?| A．To have his son encouraged. | B．To draw his son’s attention. |
| C．To design a blog for his son. | D．To accompany his son. |
| A．Brent’ s behavior was inspired by a blog. |
| B．Completing every drawing is a complex process. |
| C．The special creations benefit both John and Brent. |
| D．Brent prefers to create new cartoon characters for John. |
| A．Influenced. | B．Inspired. |
| C．Urged. | D．Gathered. |
| A．A Popular Designer | B．A Loving Father |
| C．A Precious Lunch Box | D．An Impressive Note |
【推荐2】I stand outside waving at the car pulling slowly out of our driveway. I force a smile, hoping it will cover up my tearing eyes, but I know it’s not working. I run into the house, slam the door behind me, and begin crying. It’s just occurred to me that I can’t see my elder sister, Monsura, in the next four months.
I ask myself why it is that I’m crying when I know she's doing something good for herself. I feel selfish for thinking about it but I’d be lying if I said I was happy for her choosing to study in a university in Boston. When my brother, Shafat, left for college, it was different. I still had one sibling at home to call me the stupidest person on a daily basis.
I am reminded of the things we did together as kids. In our old two-bed-room apartment, our parents gave in to our constant begging and traded rooms with us for one night. It was like being part of the amusement park, using our parents’ big bed as a trampoline (蹦床).It was during the first night that I witnessed a full moon. My sister and I believed my brother. He said that the moon was yellow because it was made from cheese. We made plans to visit the moon so we could melt a part of it and make cheese dip. But now I laugh at myself for being so innocent.
Sitting in front of my computer, I listen to songs that remind me of my two best friends. I come to terms with the fact that there's no longer anyone here to laugh uncontrollably with me or to turn to at night when I have a nightmare.
I’m shaken into reality by the sound of my cell phone ringing. Shafat is calling. I pick up and he immediately says “Thank you for such a great childhood.'' Those few words mean the world to me. We three-way call Monsura and spend the next hour reliving memory after memory, and by the end, I forget that I’m alone at home.
1. Why does the writer feel very sad?| A．She isn't admitted to a university. |
| B．She has no one to accompany her at home. |
| C．Monsura thinks she is stupid. |
| D．Monsura and Shafat didn’t go to the same college. |
| A．they hoped to sleep in one room |
| B．they expected to see a fall moon |
| C．they could play together on their parents’ bed |
| D．they wanted to make plans to visit the moon |
| A．That the writer’s brother left home for college. |
| B．That the writer cried hard on the day when Monsura left. |
| C．That the writer listened to songs that remind her of something. |
| D．That the writer talked with her sister and brother on the phone, |
| A．My childhood | B．A very sad day |
| C．A hard-won family union | D．The most precious family love |
【推荐3】Many children first learn the value of money by receiving an allowance. The purpose is to let children learn from experience at an age when financial mistakes are not very costly.
The amount of money that parents give to their children to spend as they wish differs from family to family. Timing is another consideration. Some children get a weekly allowance. Others get a monthly allowance.
In any case, parents should make clear what, if anything, the child is expected to pay for with the money.
At first, young children may spend all of their allowance soon after they receive it. If they do this, they will learn the hard way that spending must be done within a budget. Parents are usually advised not to offer more money until the next allowance.
The object is to show young people that a budget demands choices between spending and saving. Older children may be responsible enough to save money for larger costs, like clothing or electronics.
Many people who have written on the subject of allowances say it is not a good idea to pay your child for work around the home. These jobs are a normal part of family life.
Paying children to do extra work around the house, however, can be useful. It can even provide an understanding of how a business works.
Allowances give children a chance to experience the three things they can do with money. They can share it in the form of gifts or giving it to a good cause. They can spend it by buying things they want. Or they can save it.
1. What is special about children learning financial management by experience?| A．They learn more quickly. |
| B．They are not as likely to make mistakes. |
| C．Their mistakes won't matter so much. |
| D．They have plans made by their parents. |
| A．they will know how hard it is to learn budget |
| B．they will have an easy time learning the lesson |
| C．what they will learn is absolutely true |
| D．their parents will teach them a hard lesson |
| A．regularly twice every month |
| B．whenever he has run out of money |
| C．telling him to ask for permission before spending |
| D．without telling him what to spend on |
| A．borrow money from others | B．ask their parents for more money |
| C．get paid for their household routines | D．earn money by extra work |
【推荐1】More than one billion pounds of pumpkins are grown in the U.S. every year, and after they’ve been used for Halloween, millions of them will end up in a waste yard.
“Driving around after Halloween, you see so many pumpkins on top of their garbage cans. All of them will go to a waste yard and become methane gas(沼气),” says Kay McKeen, director of an environmental education organization based in Illinois.
Methane is a greenhouse gas. Compared to CO2, it warms the atmosphere in a shorter amount of time, which means it’s a most important cause of climate change. And waste yards—where we send as much as 40 percent of the food we produce—take up 14 percent of methane produced in the US every year.
That’s why, in 2014, McKeen began a collection event where local people can bring their waste pumpkins to 69 different locations to send them off to the bins, and—of course—smash them to pieces.
“It puts nutrients(营养) back in our soil, it saves water, it doesn’t make methane gas—it’s just a win-win,” says McKeen.
But not everyone has access to pumpkin smashing events, so we asked our newsletter readers how they reduce their pumpkin waste. The answers are various, ranging from baking sweet treats to bringing a pumpkin treat to farm animals.
1. What happens after Halloween?| A．A lot of pumpkins are thrown away. |
| B．People are busy cleaning up garbage. |
| C．It is the best time for pumpkin harvest. |
| D．People use pumpkins to make methane gas. |
| A．Pumpkins cause the climate change. |
| B．Illinois people waste half of their food. |
| C．Both methane and CO2 are greenhouse gases. |
| D．Methane is the only reason for climate change. |
| A．Burn. | B．Shake. | C．Break. | D．Press. |
| A．A letter. | B．A speech. | C．A news report. | D．A health report. |
【推荐2】It may seem as if Mother’s Day was invented by a company named Hallmark, but people have been giving a shout-out to Mom for a long time. A more recent tradition was Mothering Sunday, which developed in the British Isles during the 16th century. On the fourth Sunday in April, young men and women who were living and working apart from their families were advised to return to their mothers’ houses.
Mother’s Day as it is observed in the United States started in the 1850s with Ann Jarvis, a West Virginia woman who held “Mothers’ Work Days” to promote health and hygiene at home and in the workplace. During the Civil War, Jarvis organized women to improve sanitary conditions for soldiers on both sides, and after the war she became a peacemaker, bringing together mothers of Union and Confederate soldiers and promoting a Mother’s Day holiday.
Jarvis’s work inspired another 19th-century woman, Julia Ward Howe. In 1870, Howe published her “Mother’s Day Proclamation”, which envisioned the day not as appreciation of mothers by their children but as an opportunity for women to exercise their collective power for peace. Howe started holding annual Mother’s Day celebrations in Boston, her hometown, but after about a decade the tradition faded away.
It was Jarvis’s daughter, Anna, who succeeded in getting Mother’s Day recognized as a national holiday. After her mother died in 1905, Anna started holding yearly ceremony on the anniversary. In 1912, West Virginia and a few other states adopted Mother’s Day. Two years later, Woodrow Wilson signed a resolution naming the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day, making it an official US holiday.
It wasn’t long before whatever ideals the day was supposed to celebrate were buried under an amount of greeting cards and candy. By the 1920s, Anna Jarvis was campaigning against the holiday she had created. “I wanted it to be a day of emotionalism, not profit,” she said.
1. Who plays the most important role in creating Mother’s Day?| A．Ann Jarvis. | B．Julia Ward Howe. | C．Woodrow Wilson. | D．Anna Jarvis. |
| A．In 1914. | B．In 1912. | C．In 1905. | D．In 1870. |
| A．Because the festival was not profitable. |
| B．Because the festival made her feel emotional. |
| C．Because the celebrations went against the original spirit. |
| D．Because she had no passion on holding celebration activities. |
| A．The Objection to Mother’s Day |
| B．The Argument on Celebrating Mother’s Day |
| C．The Story Behind the Creation of Mother’s Day |
| D．Different Forms of Celebrations on Mother’s Day |
【推荐3】While the UK’s music festivals are world-famous, there are much more to celebrate in the country.
Burns Night, Scotland
On 25 January, the Scots celebrate the life and works of Scotland’s national poet Robert Burns by holding a special Bums Supper. This can be a casual gathering of friends or a huge formal dinner. Guests take it in turn to recite Burns’ poems or sing one of his songs.
Hay Festival, Hay-on-Wye, Wales
For 10 days from May to June each year, the small town of Hay-on-Wye on the edge of the Brecon Beacons National Park in Wales is filled with writers, filmmakers, musicians, comedians, politicians and people who come to hear them talk and exchange ideas. The festival celebrates great writing of all genres (体裁) and it all takes place in a tented village in the town.
Camp Bestival, Dorset
As a branch of a festival held in Dorset, it’s one of the best family festivals in the UK. Held in July every year in the grounds of the historic Lulworth Castle in Dorset, the festival includes top live music acts, with a wide variety of entertainments and workshops for kids.
Guy Fawkes Day or Bonfire Night
All over the UK on 5 November, the British light bonfires and set off fireworks in their back gardens or, more commonly these days, at organized events in public parks. They celebrate Guy Fawkes’ failed attempt to blow up the Houses of Parliament on 5 November, 1605.
1. Which festivals are related to literature?| A．Burns Night and Hay Festival. | B．Hay Festival and Camp Bestival. |
| C．Burns Night and Guy Fawkes Day. | D．Camp Bestival and Guy Fawkes Day. |
| A．In January. | B．In May. | C．In July. | D．In November. |
| A．A historical event. | B．A successful explosion. |
| C．An organized strike. | D．An impressive building. |
【推荐1】When I first set foot in Western Australia’s Pilbara, a landscape holding 3.5-billion-year-old clues to the beginning of life, I was very disappointed. The year was 1994. I drove excitedly out of the west coast town of Port Hedland, but all I saw for the first 150 kilometers were a few dead trees and smoky dust across the burnt, flat plain. And the heat!! I’d never experienced anything this terrible before. Or breathed air so thick with biting flies.
But as we continued to head south on the highway to. Marble Bar—the hottest town in Australia—some low, broad hills started to rise from the horizon. As we continued down a dirt track into the hills, the burnt plains gave way to grass-covered hills. This grass is called spinifex, an amazing but cruel creation. It grows as bushes up to one meter in diameter (直径), with round, fine leaves with needle-sharp tips. The tips will go through just about any piece of cloth. My guide wore thick gaiters (护腿) to protect his legs. But he had failed to inform me of the risk. Without any gaiters, my skin was covered with needle tips that remained in my legs for months.
The land, ultimately, proved worth the discomfort. Here I was walking over some of Earth’s oldest, best-preserved rocks that contain evidence of life from almost the very beginnings of time on our planet.
This area had changed much from when it was first formed 3.5 billion years ago. Back then it would have been a black volcanic land, with no color from vegetation. Over the hills I might have seen a green, iron-rich sea under an orange sky heavy with carbon dioxide and without oxygen. Several billion years after that, the world would turn cold and become covered in a global ice sheet, destroying almost every living thing. When it melted away, oxygen levels rose again. Life really got going. Animals slowly occupied the land, so did new types of plants. The greening of our planet began, and a wide variety of organisms (有机体) appeared including. unfortunately for me, spinifex.
1. What was the author’s first reaction to the Pilbara landscape?| A．Dissatisfaction. | B．Excitement. | C．Amusement. | D．Confusion. |
| A．It was no easy task to set foot on the land. |
| B．He had never seen spinifex on any other land. |
| C．The trip was valuable despite all the suffering. |
| D．The tips remaining in his flesh were not that uncomfortable. |
| A．It is where life began. | B．It is still a black volcanic land. |
| C．It is home to many unique plants. | D．It contains almost no living things. |
| A．How Life Started on Earth | B．Pilbara: Rich in Organisms |
| C．An Abandoned but Lively Land | D．Journey to a Land across Time |
【推荐2】After high school English teacher Larry Abrams started his teaching career in a far suburb outside of Philadelphia, he found he taught in a book desert (荒漠). Many of the kids in school simply struggled (挣扎) with reading and then writing .
In 2017, when one of his students told him she had no book to read to her 2-year-old daughter, Abrams took action. He put forward a call to friends and family asking for gently used children’s books, and in no time, he had more than 1, 000 of them. He began handing out the books to young moms and local elementary schools. That was the start of his nonprofit, BookSmiles, which has since collected, sorted, and handed out hundreds of thousands of books throughout New Jersey and the Philadelphia area — and will soon reach 1 million.
BookSmiles calls on people to help collect books and drop them off in the group’s large collection boxes, which are painted with literary-themed artwork and put outside local businesses, houses of worship, schools, and people’s homes. Books are often handed out through teachers, who come to the book bank and choose as many books as they want.
Larry Abrams thinks children should be read to because it’s something joyful that creates a bond (纽带) between the parent and the child in such an important way. Reading books creates a moment that will never die off and always stay with the child. And what’s more, reading books to kids gives them power. The most important tool that they get is words. There are some kids who grow up hearing lots of words because they’re read to every single night. They are used to hearing sentences connected together when they’re babies. And then there are other kids who never get that. Reading and books help level that playing field. It gives words, millions of words, to these babies who really, really need them.
1. What did Larry Abrams find about his working environment?| A．He had to live a hard life in a desert. |
| B．His students were very short of books. |
| C．His students couldn’t read or write at all. |
| D．His school was struggling to make ends meet. |
| A．His student’s trouble. | B．His school’s requirement. |
| C．His daughter’s need for books. | D．His close friend’s request. |
| A．What books BookSmiles hands out. | B．Where BookSmiles’s boxes are. |
| C．How busy BookSmiles’s workers are. | D．How BookSmiles works. |
| A．It helps parents and children to kill time. |
| B．It makes children depend more on their parents. |
| C．It puts children far ahead of those without being read to. |
| D．It develops children’s language skills by parent-child behavior. |
【推荐3】Everyone gathered around and Paddy read out loud, slowly, his tone growing sadder and sadder. The little headline said: BOXER RECEIVES LIFE SENTENCE.
Frank Cleary, aged 26, professional boxer, was today found guilty of the murder of Albert Cumming, aged 32, laborer, last July. The jury (陪审团) reached its decision after only ten minutes, recommending the most severe punishment the court could give out. It was, said the judge, a simple case. Cumming and Cleary had quarreled violently at the Harbour Hotel on July 23rd and police saw Cleary kicking at the head of the unconscious Cumming. When arrested, Cleary was drunk but clear-thinking…
Cleary was sentenced to life imprisonment with hard labour. Asked if he had anything to say, Cleary answered, “Just don’t tell my mother.”
“It happened over three years ago,” Paddy said helplessly. No one answered him or moved, for no one knew what to do. “Just don’t tell my mother,” said Fee numbly. “And no one did! Oh. God! My poor, poor Frank!”
Paddy wiped the tears from his face and said, “Fee, dear, pack your things. We’ll go to see him.”
She half-rose before sinking back. Her eyes in her small white face stared as if dead. “I can’t go.” she said without a hint of pain, yet making everyone feel that the pain was there. “It would kill him to see me. I know him so well — his pride, his ambition. Let him bear the shame alone, it’s what he wants. We’ve got to help him keep his secret. What good will it do him to see us?”
Paddy was still weeping, but not for Frank; for the life which had gone from Fee’s face, for the dying in her eyes. Frank had always brought bitterness and misfortune, always stood between Fee and himself. He was the cause of her withdrawal from his heart and the hearts of his children. Every time it looked as if there might be happenings for Fee, Frank took it away. But Paddy’s love for her was as deep and impossibile to wipe out as hers was for Frank.
So he said, “Well, Fee, we won’t go. But we must make sure he is taken care of. How about if I write to Father Jones and ask him to look out for Frank?”
The eyes didn’t liven, but a faint pink stole into her cheeks. “Yes. Paddy, do that. Only make sure he knows not to tell Frank we found out. Perhaps it would ease Frank to think for certain that we don’t know.”
1. Which of the following is true according to the passage?| A．Frank was found guilty of murder because he was a professional boxer. |
| B．The family didn’t find out what happened to Frank until three years later |
| C．The jury and the judge disagreed on whether Frank had committed murder. |
| D．Frank didn’t want his family to find out what happened because Paddy disliked him. |
| A．Frank did kill someone and deserved the punihment |
| B．Frank should have told Fee what had happened |
| C．what had happened to Frank was killing Fee |
| D．Frank had always been a man of bad moral character |
| A．Fee was so heart-broken that she could hardly stand up |
| B．Fee didn’t want to upset Paddy by visiting Frank |
| C．Fee couldn’t leave her family to go to see Frank |
| D．Fee struggled between wanting to See Frank and respecting his wish |
| A．Son and brother. | B．Son and husband. |
| C．Brothcr and lover. | D．Lover and husband. |
