【推荐1】It was late one evening. I can’t remember what it was about, but my dad and I had a very big argument when my mom was away. We both said things we didn’t mean, and in the end I said, “I’m leaving.” And he said, “Good. The sooner, the better.”

I threw a few things in a suitcase and closed the door angrily behind me, not knowing where I was going. After walking aimlessly for about 20 minutes, I stopped at a local supermarket. Then my phone rang. It was my mom calling. She said, “Hey, Mary. Where are you？Dad is worried about you.”

“How can he worry about me？I’ve been away for nearly half an hour, but he didn’t call,” I said with annoyance(气恼). My anger returned and I remembered all the hateful things he’d shouted to me. “Listen, Mom. You can tell Dad that I’m fine. I’ll call you tomorrow,” I said and hung up.

I walked around the store, trying to get my thoughts together. By the time I paid for my purchases, it had been much later than I used to be out alone. When I left the supermarket, a large piece of white paper was in front of me. On the piece of white paper were these words: “Please come home! I miss you and I’m worried about you！”

Then a car pulled up beside me. Hanging out of the window was my dad. Beside him, smiling gently, sat my mom. And that’s when I started laughing. I laughed so hard that I cried. Despite my best efforts to run away from home, my father finally managed to track me down. I couldn’t leave now, not with him sitting there with caring eyes.

1. Hearing Mary decided to leave home, Mary’s father was very ________.

A．worried	B．nervous
C．angry	D．surprised

2. After her mother called her, Mary ________.

A．became angrier than before	B．gave in to her father
C．cried and calmed down	D．agreed to go home

3. What does the underlined word “purchases” in Paragraph 4 mean?

A．Actions Mary regretted.	B．Goods Mary bought.
C．Telephone calls Mary made.	D．Lessons Mary learned.

4. What probably happened at the end of the story?

A．Mary’s mother hated her father.	B．Mary still refused to go home.
C．Mary’s father became angry again.	D．Mary returned home happily.

【推荐2】When my oldest son was in high school, he planned to attend a concert with his young friends. To my surprise, Aron invited me to go along. I quickly accepted. However, by the time the date of the concert arrived, my youngest son had been ill, and I was worried about him. My husband encouraged me to attend the concert, promising he would look after our youngest son. Finally, it hit me. Aron was 16 years old. How many years would I have to do something fun with him before he went to college? And how many youths invite their mothers to attend a concert with them that was clearly for teens? The decision was made. I’d not miss this chance.

At the concert, I sat with Aron in the third row, stuffing (填满) cotton in my ears to block out the loud music of the first performer. I stood when the kids stood, clapped (鼓掌) when they clapped, and never let anyone know how nervous I was to feel the floor shaking under my feet. Aron and his friends were amazed at my enthusiasm (热情).

When we left the concert, my ears were ringing, but it quickly passed. So did my son’s teenage years. Soon he was in college and away from home. I missed him more than I could say. On days when I was especially lonely for his happy smile, I would think back to the concert we attended and thank myself again that I didn’t miss a chance to spend time with my son.

Aron is now grown and has a family of his own, but we are still very close. Some days he calls just to chat and tell me about his day. I drop everything and enjoy the moment, knowing these times shall pass.

1. Why did Aron’s mother decide to attend a concert with Aron?

A．Because she showed great interest in a concert with loud music.

B．Because Aron’s father promised her to look after the sick 16-year-old child.

C．Because she valued the chance to spend time with her son.

D．Because it was not polite to refuse Aron’s rare invitation.

2. Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?

A．Aron’s mother loved Aron more than her youngest son.

B．Aron’s mother really enjoyed every minute of the concert.

C．Though Aron was very shy, his mother was still proud of him.

D．It was the loud music that led to the shaking of the floor during the concert.

3. What can we learn from the passage?

A．It’s necessary for parents to spend time with their children all the time.

B．Aron’s mother sometimes regretted attending the concert when thinking back.

C．Aron felt lonely from time to time after he attended college far from home.

D．Aron still has a close relationship with his mother even after he becomes an adult.

【推荐3】“The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.” When it comes to device addiction, this may very well be the case. If you believe that how you engage with your smartphone has no impact on your children, think again.

One study looked at 200 families and noted that the children of parents with phone addictions were much more likely to have behavior issues. In short, this addiction led to “technoference”or interruption of everyday interactions between parents and kids. In some cases, this interruption happened in face-to-face conversations, and in other cases, the devices disrupted（干扰） playtime or meals. When this type of “technoference” occurred, parents rated their children as displaying more behavior problems, including whining, losing temper, sulking（生闷气）, and becoming frustrated.

In addition, according to children development experts, there are bilateral（双边的） signaling systems that occur between adults and children, aiding the construction of the basic architecture of the brain. For example, babies and kids are highly engaged with the daily words of their parents that tend to happen with simplified grammar, a high-pitched tone, and exaggerated enthusiasm. This mode of relational conversation is incredibly important to a child's development.

With the arrival of smartphones, many parents are distracted and stuck in what experts are calling “continuous partial attention” mode. This leads to significant and repeated disruptions to the parent-child conversation flow, which can damage not only a child's language learning ability but also their school achievements overall.

While your habit may seem harmless, your kids may actually be copying your behavior and forming a dependence of their own. One study reported that some teenagers may spend up to 12 hours—half of an entire day—online and mindlessly swiping through social media apps without engaging in any one piece of content beyond a few seconds.

As a parent, the best thing you can do is lead by example. Try to limit time spent with technology, especially when it diverts（牵制） your attention from other priorities. Shut down smartphones at dinner. Set aside phone-free time each day to engage with your children without the distraction that technology brings. While you may not be able to completely cut ties with new modes of communication, you can be sure that your children get the one-on-one time they need to develop into healthy, happy adults.

1. Why does the writer start the passage with the quote “The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.”?

A．To stress children will follow parents' example.

B．To provide evidence of device addiction.

C．To show the close bond between parent and children.

D．To highlight the final solution to device addiction.

2. Which is TRUE according to the studies in the passage?

A．Children who use the phone tend to dose temper and become frustrated.

B．Children's poor school achievements are due to their addiction to social media.

C．The more engagement of parents, the better development of speech in children.

D．Children imitate parents' behavior but form their own harmless habits.

3. The underlined word “distracted” in the fourth paragraph means ________.

A．discouraged	B．absent-minded
C．disabled	D．abnormal

4. In what tone does the writer speak to parents in the last paragraph?

A．Disrespectful	B．Apologetic
C．Negative	D．Friendly

【推荐2】People laugh and people cry. But it is thought that emotions such as anger, or joy, typically make Americans feel uncomfortable and embarrassed. The shedder of tears(落泪者) is likely to apologize, even when a great tragedy was the cause. The observer of tears is likely to do everything possible to put an end to the emotional tears. But judging from recent studies of crying behavior, __________ to tears are often inappropriate and may even be counterproductive (适得其反).
Humans are the only animals clearly known to shed emotional tears. Since evolution has given rise to few purposeless physiological responses, it is logical to assume that crying has one or more functions that increase survival.
Although some observers have suggested that crying is a way to ask for assistance form others (as a crying baby might from its mother), the shedding of tears is hardly necessary to get help. Vo-cal (出声的) cries would have been quite enough, more likely than tears to gain attention. So, it appears that there must be something special about tears themselves.
Indeed, the new studies suggest that emotional tears may play a direct role in easing stress.     University of Minnesota researchers who are studying the chemical composition of tears have recently separated two important chemicals from emotional tears. Both chemicals are found only in tears that are shed in response to emotion. Tears shed because of exposure to cut onion would contain no such substance.
Other researchers are looking into the usefulness of tears as a means of diagnosing human ills and monitoring drugs. At Tulane University’s Teat Analysis Laboratory Dr. Peter Kastl and his colleagues report that they can use tears to detect drug abuse, to study the causes of "dry eye" syndrome(综合症) and the effects of eye surgery, and perhaps even to measure exposure to environmental pollutants.
1. What does the phrase "both those responses" in Paragraph 1 refer to?

A．Crying out of sorrow and shedding tears for happiness.

B．The embarrassment and unpleasant feelings of the observers.

C．Linking illness with crying and finding the chemical composition of tears.

D．The tear shedder’s apology and the observer’s effort to stop the crying.

2. It is known from the first paragraph that____.

A．shedding tears gives unpleasant feelings to Americans

B．crying may often result in tragedy

C．crying usually wins sympathy from other people

D．one who sheds tears in public will be blamed

3. What does the author say about crying?

A．It is a pointless physiological response to the environment.

B．It must have a role to play in man' s survival.

C．It is meant to get attention and assistance.

D．It usually produces the desired effect.

4. From the passage we can infer that____.

A．it is unnatural for people to shed tears

B．we can reduce our stress by shedding tears

C．shedders of tears can' t get help by crying loudly

D．unlike animals, humans can shed tears for survival

【推荐3】On December 26, 2004, hundreds of tourists relaxed on Sri Lanka’s Yale National Park’s beaches. But at mid-morning elephants in the park began crying wildly and charging away from the ocean and up a nearby hill. The puzzled keepers could tell the animals were worried about something. But what?

What the keepers did not know was that a 30-foot wall of water was headed straight toward them. This tsunami (海啸) had been caused by an earthquake more than 1, 000 miles away in the Indian Ocean. When the huge wave hit the coast, it caused severe damage. Many people died. The elephants, however, were not swept away by the water. They stood safely on the hill.

Scientists have long suspected that animals sense natural disasters before humans do. People have told stories of dogs refusing to go outside and sharks swimming to deeper waters before a hurricane. After the 2004 tsunami, people said they saw tigers, monkeys, and water buffalo escaping to higher ground before the waters rushed in. Even in the hardest-hit areas of southern Asia, there were few animal deaths.

It’s unlikely that an animal’s so-called sixth sense comes from some magical power to see into the future. Experts believe that animals may be more sensitive than humans to changes in temperature and other environmental conditions that take place before a natural disaster. The elephants in Sri Lanka, for example, may have picked up vibrations (震动) from within the Earth, a sign that danger was coming. Because vibrations in the ground travel much faster than an ocean wave, the elephants may have felt the earthquake that caused the tsunami well before the tsunami itself came to the coast.

A few scientists are calling for a system to track reports of strange behavior in people s pets, hoping that these reports can serve as a warning system that a natural disaster is about to happen. But Marina Haynes, an animal behavior scientist at the Philadelphia Zoo, says, “It would be an unreliable way to predict disasters. It can be difficult to know what an animal is doing. Is the animal nervous because an earthquake is about to happen or is it frightened because there is an enemy nearby?”

1. What happened to the elephants in Sri Lanka s Yala National Park on December 26, 2004?

A．They died in the natural disaster.

B．They were disturbed by the tourists.

C．They moved from the hill to the seaside.

D．They behaved strangely before the tsunami.

2. How did the author present animals sixth sense in Paragraph 3?

A．By giving examples.	B．By making comparisons.
C．By showing research findings.	D．By telling an interesting story.

3. What is the main idea of Paragraph 4?

A．The advantages of being sensitive.

B．The influences of the natural disaster.

C．How animals predict a natural disaster.

D．How elephants make use of their sixth sense.

4. What is Haynes attitude towards a warning system?

A．Delighted.

B．Doubtful.

C．Hopeful.

D．Disappointed.