【推荐2】CANYOUIMAGINEHOWHARDITWOULDBETOREADSENTENCESLIKETHIS? Every one of us gets so used to punctuation marks that not many of us give them a second thought. Actually, the ancient Greeks wrote this way. The lack of punctuation marks probably didn’t bother good readers, though. As they read, they just put pauses where they fit best. Also at this time, sentences switched directions. A sentence read from left to right. The next one read right to left, and then left to right again, etc. The ancient Romans sometimes punctuated like this: They • put • something • that • can • separate • words • in • a • sentence. The word punctuation actually comes from this idea and the Latin word punctum, which means a dot.
When the 5^th century arrived, there were just two punctuation marks: spaces and points. The spaces separated words while the points showed pauses in reading. Then in the 13^th century, a printer named Aldus Manutius tried to standardize punctuation. He always used a period for a complete stop at the end of a sentence. He used a slash (/) to indicate a short pause. Over time, that slash was shortened and curled, and it became the modern comma (逗号).
Since that time, other marks have enlarged the punctuation family. The exclamation mark (感叹号) comes from the Latin word io. It means “exclamation of joy.” The question mark originally started out as the Latin word questio, meaning question. Eventually, scholars put it at the end of a sentence to show a question.
Punctuation even keeps changing nowadays. New marks are coming into existence, and old punctuation marks are used in new ways. Take for example the “interrobang”. This 1962 invention combines the question mark and exclamation mark for times when writers want both. For example, “She did what?” or “How much did you pay for that dress?” Obviously, the interrobang is not widely used or recognized yet, but its invention shows that English is not yet finished with its punctuation.
1. From the first paragraph, we can know that _______.

A．good readers had trouble reading without punctuation marks

B．a sentence always read from left to right in ancient Greece

C．ancient Greeks switched the direction of punctuation marks

D．the use of punctuation marks can date back to ancient times

2. The passage is developed _______.

A．by time	B．by space
C．by comparison	D．by importance

3. We can learn from the passage that _______.

A．ancient Romans didn’t use any punctuation marks

B．exclamation and question marks came from Latin

C．spaces and slashes were already used before the 5th century

D．Aldus Manutius first started to use commas

4. What can be concluded from the last paragraph?

A．The combination of two marks will not work.

B．It takes time for people to accept new punctuation marks.

C．Old punctuation marks need to be standardized.

D．Punctuation marks are still changing today.

【推荐3】With the widespread use of smartphones, emojis(表情符号)have become a popular medium for expressing emotions and ideas. Researchers now believe these expressive symbols can play a significant role in medicine, increasing the response rate of health surveys(调查).

Scientists say that employing emojis in healthcare communications has several benefits, such as general recognition across diverse populations. So the study authors strongly support the use of emojis to bolster communication between patients and physicians.

“By promoting more effective communication between patients and care providers, as well as between physicians themselves, an emoji-based language system with a common agreement of meanings can be developed,” says Professor Kendrick Davis, who is an associate professor at the UCR School of Medicine. The professor has been working on creating an emoji-based measurement system for the past two years. And he has even conducted a study using emojis to measure health among college students.

Davis further explains that a significant part of medical communication includes surveys, which are often areas of communication breakdown. “Surveys are usually passed to patients in a variety of different stages of their care. But many surveys are explained with language that can introduce an obstacle. This is where emojis, which are friendly and widely used, come into play by replacing survey language that can be hard for some patients to understand,” he says. The authors also point out that while effective communication is important for successful treatment and care, certain health conditions such as brain injury can cause major obstacles. In such cases, emojis could be helpful.

However, Davis also acknowledges the importance of qualitative(定性的)methods. He expresses an interest in partnering researchers whose methodologies are heavily qualitative.

1. Why does the author mention the use of smartphones in paragraph 1?

A．To introduce the functions of emojis.

B．To explain why emojis develop fast.

C．To tell us where emojis are mainly used.

D．To show emojis have become widely used.

2. What does “bolster” underlined in paragraph 2 mean?

A．Improve.

B．Start.

C．Predict.

D．Suggest.

3. Which of the following may Professor Kendrick Davis agree with?

A．Emojis shouldn’t be used in letters from doctors.

B．Physicians are poor at communicating with patients.

C．Major obstacles can be caused by emojis sometimes.

D．Emojis can help patients finish medical surveys better.

【推荐1】How to be wiser?

Wisdom is something that's hard to define and yet somehow we know it when we see it. The wise people can be thoughtful and self­reflective. They can recognize the limits of their own knowledge, consider alternative perspectives, and remember that the world is always changing. The wise people tolerate uncertainty and remain optimistic that even tricky problems do have solutions. They can judge what is true or right.

Wisdom isn't an innate quality—we can be wise and unwise in different situations. Igor Grossman of the University of Waterloo in Canada found that some people appeared to be wise in one situation, but not in another. So why are there differences in different situations? People were wiser when they were with their friends. It made them more likely to have the bigger picture, to think of other perspectives and to recognize the limits of their own knowledge. When people were alone they seemed to get so involved in a situation that they didn't even think about alternatives. This means wisdom might be more common than we think.

Some people still displayed more wisdom than others and some were more foolish, but not across every situation. This provides hope. If we can be wise sometimes, maybe we can learn to be wise more often. The question is how to do it. For Cornell University psychologist Robert Sternberg, wisdom is all about balance. Following Sternberg's model, what you need to do is to remember to work out what all the different interests are in a given dilemma, both in the short and long term and to pay attention to the changing environment and how it might be shaped. Talking about yourself with another person can help. In a kind of school of wisdom, Grossman has experimented with different strategies in the lab. People were taught to take a different perspective by imagining they were taking a bird's­eye­view of the situation. The idea is to try to distance yourself from the immediate experience. So when I have a dilemma, I should be asking what others would do?

So can you set out to be wise? Yes, but there are lots of factors to remember. You need to take into account that people will have different goals, priorities and responses to your own. If you can juggle all that, you probably are showing wisdom. But the complexity shouldn't stop us from trying. As Grossman told me, “It's not that you suddenly become the next Buddha, but you do become a little bit wiser.”

How to be wiser?
1     of wise people	● They consider things carefully and have a reflection by themselves. ● They have a good     2     of their limits, alternative perspective, and the ever­changing world. ● They tolerate     3     things and believe they can solve the tricky problems. ● They can make a     4     about what is true or right.
Situational changes	● When staying with friends, people tend to be wiser and more     5    . ● When     6    , people get too involved in a situation to think of alternatives.
Suggestions from experts	● Be clear what the various     7     are and pay attention to the changing environment. ● Take a different perspective to     8     yourself from the present dilemma.
Reminders from the author	● You should     9     for the different goals, priorities and responses. ●     10     as it is, you should have faith in becoming a wiser.

【推荐2】The American dream is the faith held by many people in the United States of America that through hard work, courage, creativity and determination, they can achieve a better life for themselves. More specifically, they agree on how to get ahead in America: get a college education, find a reliable job, and buy their own house. But do Americans still believe in that path, and if they do, is it attainable?

The most recent National Journal poll asked participants about the American dream, what it takes to achieve their goal, and whether or not they felt the control over their ability to be successful. Obviously, the results show that today, the idea of the American dream and what it takes to achieve it looks quite different from it did in the late 20th century. Generally speaking, people felt that their actions and hard work not outside force deciding their lives. But the participants had definitely mixed feelings about what actions make for a better life in the current economy.

In the last seven years, Americans have grown more pessimistic(悲观的) about the power of education to lead to success. Even though they see going to college as a fairly achievable goal, a majority 52 percent think that young people do not need a 4-year college education in order to be successful.

Miguel Maeda, 42, who has a master’s degree and works in public health, was the first in his family to go to college, which has allowed him to achieve a sense of financial stability(稳定) his parents and grandparents never did. While some, like Maeda, emphasized the value of degree rather than the education itself, others still see college as a way to gain new viewpoints and life experiences. To Fendley, a sense of drive and purpose, as well as an effective high-school education, and basic life skills, like balancing a checkbook(支票簿), are the necessary elements for a successful life in America.

1. It used to be commonly acknowledged that to succeed in America, one had to have ____.

A．a sense of drive and purpose	B．an advanced academic degree
C．a firm belief in their dream	D．an ambition to get ahead

2. What is the finding of the latest National Journal poll concerning the American dream?

A．More and more Americans are finding it hard to realize.

B．It remains alive among the majority of American people.

C．An increasing number of young Americans are abandoning it.

D．Americans’ idea of it has changed over the past few decades.

3. What do Americans now think of the role of college education in achieving success?

A．It still remains open to debate.

B．It has proved to be beyond doubt.

C．It is much better understood now than ever.

D．It is no longer as important as it used to be.

4. How do some people view college education these days?

A．It helps broaden their minds.	B．It needs to be strengthened.
C．It widens cultural diversity.	D．It promotes gender equality.

【推荐2】Most city parks are places where you can escape from big, ugly structures of metal and stone. The Manhattan High Line is different. Raised 25 feet above the ground, this large metal structure once supported a rail line. The line opened in 1934 to bring trains directly into factories. It was hardly used after the 1960s, and much of it was torn down. However, one part remained in a region of Manhattan called Chelsea. Chelsea was becoming high-class as restaurants, art galleries and apartments were built, but the ugly railway structure remained as a dead weight. Everyone knew that at some time, it would have to be removed.

But the High Line was not destroyed. In fact, now the old rail line serves as one of the most peaceful places in the city. It holds an elevated park, with beautiful gardens and great views of the city. The idea to turn the rail line into a park came from Joshua David and Robert Hammond. In 1999, they attended a meeting to decide how to deal with the High Line. David and Hammond were the only people at the meeting interested in saving the historical structure. Later on, when they asked railway officials to take them up to look at the High Line, they saw a mile and a hall of wild flower growing in the middle of the city, and they realized that the High Line had potential to become a park. There was growing interest in improving city centers, and so the project quickly developed and money for construction was easily collected.

The first part of the High Line opened in 2009 and immediately became popular with tourists and locals alike. Each part of the park has a different atmosphere. Some areas are like balconies (阳台) with wonderful city views. Where the rail line goes between buildings, trees are thickly planted. Other sections have wide lawns (草坪) and walkways with wild flowers. Only the final section remains the way it has been for the last fifty years.

1. What is the text mainly about?

A．Closing a train line.	B．An unlikely place for a park.
C．Protection of cultural relics.	D．Improving city transport.

2. What does the underlined part “a dead weight” in paragraph 1 mean?

A．Something with historical interest.

B．Something with potential to be better.

C．Something useless which slows progress.

D．Something which is a danger to people.

3. Why did David and Hammond originally want to save the High Line?

A．They wanted to reopen the train line.

B．They thought it had historical value.

C．They were interested in improving the city.

D．They thought it would become a good park.

4. What can we learn about the High Line from the text?

A．Only part of the line remains.

B．The railway companies still use the line.

C．It began to become popular in the 1960.

D．It was designed by David and Hammond.

【推荐3】What if we had the power to control time, instead of moving from the past to the present to the future? What if we could jump and travel through time in a machine? What if we could go wherever and whenever we pleased?

This ability would allow us to witness historic wonders, change decisions and see people from the past. We could right wrongs and stop wars from starting.

The mysterious puzzle of time has kept people debating its nature for hundreds of years. Science fiction writers have turned it into imaginative stories. Some scientists have even attempted to explain it using math. This math tries to make the dream of time travel come true.

The scientist Albert Einstein said that time and space are one thing. He called it “spacetime”. Einstein said that there are three dimensions (维度) in space: height, width and depth. A scientist named Hermann Minkowski added time as a fourth dimension.

Einstein introduced two ideas that have led to theories about the possibility of time travel. The first is relativity (相对论). The idea of relativity is that the force of gravity causes space to bend, which causes time to twist. The second idea focuses on special relativity. The idea is that a traveler moving super-fast through flat spacetime will enter the future. Einstein considered time “relative” because it is measured based on where we are on Earth or in space.

Stephen Hawking is a famous scientist. He believes that a time machine will never be built. If it were possible, he thinks we would already know. If a time machine could be built, how come no one from the future has invaded us?

The first science fiction story with this theme is The Clock That Went Backward by Edward P. Mitchell, which was published in 1881. Since then, thousands of books, films and television shows have explored the idea of time travel, in which some tools such as phones, watches, photographs and old books take travelers backward and forward.

Will time travel ever happen? Who knows? Most important is to keep our eyes open and have a sense of wonder.

1. The three questions the author uses in Paragraph 1 are __________.

A．to show time and space are connected

B．to show people’s interest in time travel

C．to draw readers’ attention to time travel

D．to make people believe time travel is possible

2. Which of the following statement could Einstein agree with?

A．Time travel is possible in the future.	B．People can’t move faster than light.
C．Time travel is against scientific rules.	D．Spacetime is not a real thing in theory.

3. What is Paragraph 7 mainly about?

A．The first science fiction story.	B．Some tools used in time travel.
C．Edward P. Mitchell, the pioneer.	D．Different works about time travel.

4. What is the author’s attitude toward time travel?

A．Cautious.

B．Approving.

C．Doubtful.

D．Hopeful.