【推荐2】Two little girls,14-year-old Cindy and 12-year-old Lucy, wrote to a newspaper office, asking some fast food restaurants to stop giving away free plastic (塑料) toys. Many people read the letter and supported them.

“We have been learning all about the environment at school and the problem of plastic. It made us very sad to see how plastic harms wildlife and pollutes the ocean, and we want to change this.That’s why we want the fast food restaurants to think of the environment and stop giving away plastic toys with their kids meals.” the two girls wrote in their letter.

“We like to go to eat in fast food restaurants, but children only play with the plastic toys they give us for a few minutes before they get thrown away. In the end, they will harm animals and pollute the sea. We want anything they give us to be sustainable (可持续发展的), so we can protect the earth for us and for future humans,” they continued.

The letter made a large number of readers pay attention to them. The number of people who supported them almost doubled after reporters followed the two little girls.

Since the little girls’ story started being picked up by news reporters, the fast food restaurants had to give a reply to the newspaper office, telling about their plans for making their free toys more sustainable.

1. The two little girls wrote to the newspaper office in order to ________.

A．get some fast food

B．get some free presents

C．stop children having junk food

D．stop fast food restaurants giving away plastic toys

2. Where do the two girls learn about the environment?

A．At home.	B．At school.
C．In a restaurant.	D．In a library.

3. The underlined word “they” in Paragraph 3 refers to (指) ________ in the passage.

A．fast food restaurants	B．fast food
C．plastic toys	D．waste water

4. What may fast food restaurants most probably do to deal with free plastic toys?

A．They may stop giving away free plastic toys.

B．They may make free toys with paper and cloth.

C．They may sell their plastic toys to other countries.

D．They may make free plastic toys more sustainable.

【推荐3】Record sea ice loss caused a mass die-off of emperor penguin chicks in part of Antarctica last year, strengthening predictions that the world’s largest penguin will soon be in danger of extinction.

Unlike other penguins, emperors breed (繁殖) on sea ice rather than land.Male emperor penguins hatch the eggs during the Antarctic winter. The furry grey chicks need stable sea ice until December to grow their black waterproof feathers and gain enough muscle to swim. If they go into the water before they develop feathers, chicks can drown or freeze to death.

In February, the area of sea ice around Antarctica reached the lowest extent ever observed. After much of the ice began breaking up late last year, four out of five habitats in the hard-bit central and eastern Bellingshausen Sea suffered a total breeding failure, with no chicks surviving to the feather growing period. In mid-November, the sea ice there broke up, forcing the penguins to abandon the habitat and most if not all of their chicks.

A research team from Oxford Brookes University monitored populations by spotting penguin faeces (排泄物) in satellite photos. Emperor penguins tend to stay close, walking in a tight group to stay warm in temperatures as low as -60°C.The buildup of the habitat’s faeces stains the ice so brown that it can be seen from space. Once a habitat has been identified, researchers can count the individual penguins in very high-resolution satellite images.

The observations add weight to modelling predictions that 90 percent of emperor penguin habitats could be extinct or past the point of no return by 2100 if current rates of warming continue. While habitats can lose chicks in heavy storms or when severe winds break up the sea ice, this is the first-time widespread breeding failure has been linked to disappearing ice.

“Failure is the norm, but complete failure across a whole region, that’s not normal,” says Tim at Oxford Brookes University. “Will this impact the population? It really depends on how often it happens.”

1. What was the result of the ice breaking last year?

A．The area of the sea reached the lowest point ever.

B．Emperor penguins left the habitats with their chicks.

C．Emperor penguins had to search for food themselves.

D．Most emperor penguins chicks studied failed to survive.

2. How did the team identify a habitat in satellite images?

A．By counting the penguins.

B．By making the images clearer.

C．By spotting brown stained ice.

D．By collecting penguins’ faeces.

3. What can be inferred from the last two paragraphs?

A．The area suffered breeding failure for the first time.

B．Severe storms caused the extensive breeding failure.

C．The total failure has made emperor penguins extinct.

D．The frequency of ice breaking needs to be controlled.

4. What is the passage mainly about?

A．The main causes of global warming.

B．The exlinet emperor penguin habitats.

C．Emperor penguins’ severe breeding failure.

D．Health problems of emperor penguin chicks.

【推荐1】As a mother who had three kids in public schools, it always bothered me that the elementary school had a voluntary “reading club” in which students received prizes based on how much reading for pleasure they did each week. The message seems all wrong: We have to bribe (贿赂) you to read for fun.

A survey by the National Assessment for Educational Progress found that the numbers of 9- and 13-year-olds who say they read for enjoyment almost every day dropped from slightly more than half in 1984, to 42% during the 2019-20 school year. The trend among middle schoolers is worse. The percentage who frequently read for fun dropped by more than half, to 17%, while the percentage who seldom or never do more than tripled (增至三倍).

Meanwhile, a British study found that reading for pleasure had much wider benefits, resulting in better vocabulary, spelling and mathematical abilities. According to the nonprofit reading-advocacy group Kids Read Now, readers also learn better empathy (同理心), decision-making and social skills.

One contributor to this disappointing trend seems obvious: Social media and other digital activities are heavy draws and can consume hours of time. But some librarians and students point to other reasons as well: As students advance in school, required reading of textbooks and classroom-assigned literature increases. They may be reading more, but often enjoying it less.

Reading for pleasure isn’t the same as assigned reading because kids need to be able to relax with the reading material of their choice. As a child, my son used to finish his reading for school and then sigh (叹息) with pleasure, saying, “Now I can read.”

Parents play a key role in changing this situation, but many may not realize how important it is to expose their kids to books, magazines and the like. Giving older students more choices in what they read for class would help encourage pleasure reading too. The class could make group choices or students could pick from a menu of options instead of being assigned a single book. When there are just a few choices and we spoon-feed them to kids, we just deprive them of the experience of realizing there’s a bigger world of books out there for them to explore.

1. What made the author annoyed according to paragraph 1?

A．The messages sent by the reading club each week.

B．The lack of reading clubs in the elementary school.

C．The unrealistic reading goals set by the elementary school.

D．The way to encourage elementary school students to read for fun.

2. How does the author present the benefits of reading for pleasure to students?

A．By listing some persuasive figures.	B．By providing some research results.
C．By referring to some experts’ views.	D．By sharing her own parenting experience.

3. What does the author want to show by telling her son’s story?

A．It takes time to finish reading for school.

B．Parents should read together with their kids.

C．The reading for school is hardly fun for children.

D．Children have difficulty choosing reading materials.

4. What does the underlined part “deprive them of” in the last paragraph probably mean?

A．Keep them from.	B．Prepare them for.
C．Lead them to.	D．Fill them with.

【推荐3】Last year, Anna Johnson found herself using an electronic screen to pay for a pickup order at a bakery, a normal enough experience at many food businesses she frequents. But this time, she was puzzled (困惑) when the machine recommended that she tip as much as 35 percent—on cookies.

In the pandemic, Americans like her dug deeper into their pockets to recognize the hard work and health risks taken on by workers in every corner of the food business. For many customers, adding 15 percent or more for a takeout meal or grocery delivery felt like the least they could do to help ordinary workers.

Bryan Solar, who manages restaurant products at Square, said people were more generous in tipping early in the pandemic. In April 2020, the average tip at a quick-service food business was 23.5 percent, but that figure has gradually fallen since then, to 19.8 percent last month.

The ways of tipping have changed in many smaller businesses, where the tip box on the counter has been replaced by touch screens, which have become even more widespread during the pandemic. Leaving an amount that doesn’t fit the suggested percentages takes extra time and effort. And as the customer decides, the food-service worker is often standing there, looking on.

Still, Mr. Solar said a customer’s generosity drops when a business becomes too aggressive (激进) in asking for tips, as when some touch-screen systems start the tipping options at a minimum of 25 percent. “People will be generous to a certain point,” he said.

On social media, there are complaints that “tipping culture has gotten out of control,” with consumers complaining about being asked to leave a little extra.

Some restaurants have tried to solve the injustice of tipping by adding an automatic (自动的) tip to each bill. Others have tried to replace tipping by raising menu prices, and paying all workers by the hour.

1. What made Anna Johnson puzzled?

A．The electronic screen.	B．The pickup order.
C．The recommended tip.	D．The bakery.

2. Why were Americans willing to give tips early in the pandemic?

A．They liked to help those in need.

B．They had a lot of pocket money.

C．They wanted to improve fast food service.

D．They appreciated the efforts of the workers.

3. What makes it hard for customers to find an excuse for not tipping?

A．The application of touch screens.

B．The small amount of tips required.

C．The warnings from restaurant workers.

D．The good services from restaurants.

4. Which is the most suitable title for the text?

A．To Remove Tips or Not?	B．To Tip, or Not to Tip?
C．Why Americans Tip?	D．What to Do with Tips?

【推荐3】In a series of studies, researchers found highly trained dogs may be more successful than untrained pets in independently solving newly-presented problems.

Researchers have discovered that one of the factors underlying this process may be persistence (坚持). It involves reinforcement, the principle that behaviors that are rewarded become stronger and more frequent. The other side of this is extinction, which refers to the fact that behaviors that are not rewarded grow weaker and become less likely to appear. When extinction sets in, the animal will simply quit before the problem is solved. It is possible that highly trained dogs have learned to persist and thus have developed resistance to extinction, which would make them better problem solvers.

In this recent study, the researchers looked at 26 adult dogs divided into two groups, “trained dogs” and “pet dogs”. There were two tasks that the dogs were tested on. One was a social learning task where the dog had to learn to look directly into the experimenter’s eyes. Every time the dog stared at the experimenter’s face, they received a treat (reinforcement). Once the dogs were performing this task, the extinction stage began, and the staring behavior was no longer rewarded in order to see how persistent the newly learned behavior was.

The second task focused on problem-solving. It involved a flat disk that had bone-shaped plastic bones. The dogs had to learn to remove the plastic bones to obtain the treat hiding under each one. After the series of rewarded trials, the extinction stage began, and no more reinforcements were provided for removing the bones.

In the social learning task, the trained dogs gazed at the experimenters more than the pet dogs during extinction. While in the problem-solving task, the trained dogs picked up a larger number of bones during extinction. In other words, for dogs who had been trained, their newly learned behaviors persisted longer and were stronger than the behaviors of the pet dogs who received no training in any area.

1. How does the author introduce the topic?

A．By stating a fact.	B．By raising a doubt.
C．By making an assumption.	D．By presenting a conclusion.

2. Which of the following can be seen as “reinforcement”?

A．Chaining a dog up while walking it every day.

B．Giving a goat some grass every time it stands up.

C．Putting a fish back into the pool every time it jumps out.

D．Yelling at a cat every time it fails to catch a mouse.

3. How can dogs benefit from training in the experiment?

A．Their newly learned behaviors last longer.

B．They can grow stronger than untrained dogs.

C．They are more likely to live longer.

D．They are better at helping their friends.

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

A．How researchers carry out animal experiments

B．Why trained dogs don’t give up easily

C．Why persistent dogs make better pets

D．How to pick out a suitable pet dog