【推荐1】“Fast fashion” means clothes that are inexpensive but look like the latest designs. One reason for the success of fast fashion is social networking. A report by the investment research firm Bernstein found that millennials — people born in the 1980s and 90s — wanted to wear a variety of clothes in the photos they posted on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. As a result, many businesses that offer trend, low - cost clothes are growing.

But the situation is changing now. Maxine Bedat, a woman who is in her early 30s, looks in her closet full of clothes, but she has nothing to wear. She says she hates always shopping for what is in style . Instead, she says, she wants to buy fewer clothes that she can wear over and over. Other people want the same thing, she says.

So Ms. Bedat and a business partner, Soraya Darabi, started a “slow fashion” clothing company calltd Zady. “Slow fashion” means clothes that last a long time. They are often classic colors and shapes, and are made from natural materials that are biodegradable (可生物降解的) over time.

The terms “fast fashion” and “slow fashion” are related to “fast food” and “slow food: fast food is still popular in the US, but many restaurants increasingly offer higher - quality, more expensive and relaxed meals.

Like slow food, slow fashion also aims to use sources that are good for the environment and workers. Maxine Bedat says people in her generation want to know where their clothes come from and who is making them. To answer millennials’demand for information about the products they buy, Ms. Bedat’s company, Zady, includes details about the history of the brands. It also describes the process in which the clothes are made. Ms Bedat says Zady aims to tell shoppers where their clothes come from, where they go, and how they impact the world.

1. What can we know about millennials from Paragraph 1?

A．They tend to buy clothes with lower price.

B．They all like to share photos on the Internet.

C．They spend money in buying the latest designs

D．They show their interests in wearing different clothes.

2. What makes Mexine Bedat establish Zady?

A．She has nothing to wear.

B．She likes the classic clothes.

C．She longs for “slow fashion” clothes.

D．She prefers clothes with natural materials.

3. Like “slow food”, “slow fashion” should ________.

A．be high - quality and expensive

B．be friendly to the environment

C．tell the shoppers the history of the brands

D．describe the process of making the clothes

4. What does the text mainly talk about?

A．How “fast fashion” becomes popular.

B．“Slow fashion” is becoming popular now.

C．Many businesses are selling trendy and cheap clothes.

D．The differences between “fast fashion” and “slow fashion”.

【推荐2】Harvard researchers have created a tough, low-cost, biodegradable(可生物降解的) material inspired by insects’ hard outer shells. The material’s inventors say it has a number of possible uses and some day could provide a more environmentally friendly alternative（可替代的） to plastic. The material, made from shrimp shells and proteins produced from silk, is called “shrilk”. It is thin, clear, flexible（柔韧性的） and strong.

A major benefit of the material is its biodegradability. Plastic’s toughness and flexibility represented a revolution in materials science during the 1950s and 1960s. Decades later, however, plastic’s durability(耐用性) is raising questions about how appropriate it is for one-time products such as plastic bags, or short-lived consumer goods, used in the home for a few years and then cast into a landfill where they will degrade for centuries. What is the point of making something that lasts 1,000 years?

Shrilk not only will degrade in a landfill, but its basic components are used as fertilizer, and so will enrich the soil. Shrilk has great potential, the inventors said. Materials from which it is made are plentiful in nature, found in everything ranging from shrimp shells, insect bodies to living plants. That makes shrilk low cost, and its mass production possible if it should be used for products demanding a lot of material.

Work on shrilk is continuing in the lab. The inventors said the material becomes flexible when wet, so they’re exploring ways to use it in wet environments. They’re also developing simpler production processes, which could be used for non-medical products, like for computer cases and other products inside the home. They’re even exploring combining it with other materials, like carbon fibers, to give it new properties.

1. Paragraph 1 of the passage is mainly about shrink’s           .

A．remarkable design	B．interesting name
C．major features	D．basic elements

2. According to the inventors, shrilk has great potential partly because           .

A．it can help plastic degrade

B．it can be found in living things

C．its mass production has been realized

D．its raw materials are abundant in nature

3. What are the inventors doing in the lab?

A．Replacing carbon fibers with shrilk.

B．Testing shrilk’s use in wet conditions.

C．Making shrilk out of used household goods.

D．Improving shrilk’s flexibility for medical purposes.

4. Which of the following can be the best title for the passage?

A．Recent Progress in Environmental Protection.

B．Benefits of Insects in Scientific Research.

C．The Harm of One-time Products.

D．A Possible Alternative to Plastic.

【推荐3】France, which prides itself as the global innovator of fashion, has decided its fashion industry has lost an absolute right to define physical beauty for women. Its lawmakers gave approval last week to a law that would make it a crime to employ ultra (过分的)-thin models on runways.

The parliament also agreed to ban websites that “ encourage unreasonable thinness” by promoting extreme dieting.

Such measures ;have a couple of uplifting motives. They suggest beauty should not be defined by looks that end up impinging on health. That’s a start. And the ban on ultrathin models seems to go beyond protecting models from starving themselves to death - as some have done.

The bans, if fully carried out, would suggest to women (and many men) that they should not let others be arbiters (仲裁人) of their beauty. And perhaps faintly, they hint that people should look to qualities like character and intellect rather than dieting their way to size zero.

The French measures, however, rely too much on severe punishment to change a culture that still regards beauty as skin-deep and bone-showing. Under the law, using a fashion model that does not meet a government-defined index of body mass could result in a $85,000 fine and six months in prison.

In contrast to France’s actions, Denmark’s fashion industry agreed last month on rules regarding the age, health, and. other characteristics of models. The newly revised Danish Fashion Ethical Charter clearly states: “We are aware of and take responsibility for the impact the fashion industry has on body ideals, especially on young people.” The charter’s main tool of enforcement (执行) is to deny access for designers and modeling agencies to Copenhagen Fashion Week, which is run by the Danish Fashion Institute.

Relying on moral persuasion rather than law to address the misuse of body ideals may be the best step. Even better would be to help uplift notions (观念) of beauty beyond the material standards of a particular industry.

1. According to the first paragraph, what would happen in France?

A．Physical beauty would be redefined.

B．New runways would be constructed.

C．Websites about dieting would develop.

D．The fashion industry would decline.

2. The phrase “impinging on "in Paragraph 3 is closest in meaning to ________.

A．heightening the value of

B．indicating the state of

C．losing faith in

D．doing harm to

3. A designer is most likely to be rejected by CFW for ________.

A．using extravagant material

B．caring too much about models’ character.

C．showing little concern for models’ health

D．pursuing the perfect physical conditions of models

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

A．The Great Threats to the Fashion Industry

B．Beauty Is Skin-deep

C．A Campaign for Promoting True Beauty in France

D．A Challenge to the Fashion Industry’s Body Ideals

【推荐1】Imagine a school that expected its students to become literate without any formal instruction. Most parents would be alarmed by such an approach, which would leave their children confused and with gaps in their understanding. This, however, has been the philosophy on character development in many of our schools. Why is the development of character seen as somehow different from the other skills that we teach?

Of course there will always be learning by osmosis (耳濡目染) in any school, but as a teacher and primary school head I have found that a child’s moral literacy is strengthened when they acquire the building blocks of good character such as consideration, courage and honor: qualities which are commonly known as virtue.

I personally find that exploring a virtue over a two-week period provides a simple and effective program that allows for the creative input of both teacher and student and a chance for the virtue to embed (使融入) itself. Once a lesson on a virtue such as honesty has been completed we need to allow time for children to practice this concept just as would be the case with fractions or verbs. Allowing children to role play a situation such as making up excuses to cover a mistake can be enormously interesting, and the drama can be frozen allowing the characters to be questioned about their feelings and motives. It’s also a safe way for children to experience for themselves how a lie usually goes out of control.

Our role as educators is also to look for opportunities to help our students as they attempt to strengthen their characters. When something goes wrong we guide the young person to the virtue that will prevent it from happening again. For instance, when a student thoughtlessly disturbs the calm atmosphere of the library, instead of a response such as, “that was really disrespectful and selfish of you!” we draw out from them the required virtue: “When you’re walking through the library, what virtues do you need to use?”

1. The underlined word “philosophy” in the first paragraph is closest in meaning to __________.

A．study	B．subject
C．motto	D．viewpoint

2. We can infer from the first paragraph that _________.

A．there tends to be disagreement about what character education is

B．most parents are not satisfied with the teaching methods adopted in schools

C．the approach to character education is generally considered different from the approaches to other skills

D．more and more schools are adopting strategies to improve school attendance

3. Children’s moral literacy get improved when _____________.

A．they have gradually learnt to imitate.

B．they have learnt the importance of role play.

C．they have learnt specific moral qualities one by one.

D．they are given enough time to practice.

4. Which of the following is NOT mentioned in the passage as a way to build character in children?

A．Story readings and discussions.	B．Osmosis.
C．Taking every opportunity to teach character.	D．Role play.

5. Which of the following is the main idea of this passage?

A．Teaching morals and values has been a frequently discussed topic in the past few years.

B．The author advocates putting virtues into lessons and school life to encourage character development in children.

C．Kids throughout the population face the same needs, the same challenges, and the same realities in their lives.

D．Role plays are an excellent way of getting students to practice their English.

【推荐3】The Intelligent Plant. That is the title of a recent article in The New Yorker, and new research is showing that plants have surprising abilities to sense and react to the world.

But can a plant be intelligent? Some plant scientists insist they are since they can sense, learn, remember and even react in ways that would be familiar to humans.

Michael Pollan, author of “The Botany of Desire,” says for the longest time, people who have long talked to their plants or played music for them were being considered “mad.”

The new research, he says, is in a field called plant neurobiology(神经生物学), which is not a proper name, because even scientists in the field don’t argue that plants have neurons(神经) or brains.

“They have analogous structures as humans,” Pollan explains. “Plants have all the same senses as humans. They have ways of taking all the sensory data they gather in their everyday lives, integrate it and then behave in an appropriate way in response.” In addition to hearing, taste, for example, they can sense gravity, the presence of water, or even feel that an obstacle(障碍物) is in the way of its roots, before coming into contact with it. Plant roots will change direction, he says, to avoid obstacles.

So what about pain? Do plants feel? Pollan says they do respond to anesthetics (麻醉剂). “You can put a plant out with a human anesthetic. And not only that, plants produce their own compounds that are anesthetic to us.” But scientists are unwilling to go as far as to say they are responding to pain.

How plants sense and react is still somewhat unknown. They don’t have nerve cells like humans, but they do have a system for sending electrical signals and even produce neurotransmitters (神经递质) and other chemicals the human brain uses to send signals.

1. Why does the author mention the article The Intelligent Plant in the first paragraph?

A．To support his opinion.	B．To introduce the topic.
C．To give an example.	D．To make comparison.

2. People who usually talked to their plants would be thought           .

A．Intelligent.

B．Crazy.

C．Patient.

D．Comforting.

3. What does the underlined word “analogous” in paragraph 5 mean?

A．Simple.

B．False.

C．Flexible.

D．Similar.

4. What can we learn about plants according to the last two paragraphs?

A．Plants can feel and react to pain.	B．Plants send two kinds of signals.
C．Plants are able to sense and react.	D．Plants have their own brains.