【推荐1】We’ve all experienced that feeling that comes when your phone makes a sound to tell you that its battery level is low. It often comes at the worst times – when you’re out on a trip and don’t have a charger, or when you’re expecting an important phone call.

Indeed, this feeling is so common that South Korean electronics manufacturer LG has given it a name: low battery anxiety.

According to a survey of 2,000 US adults conducted by the company last year, 90 percent of respondents said that they panic if their battery level reaches 20 percent or lower.

And last month, UK telecommunications service provider 02 found that around 15.5 million Britons live in “constant fear” of their mobile phones running out of power, according to a survey by the company.

“The problem is not about being unable to make calls, but is rooted in the fact that smartphones are now where we store digital memories,” noted the Daily Mail.

However, battery worries don’t just affect smartphone lovers. Many owners of electric vehicles also suffer from so-called “range anxiety”. This refers to the concern that the vehicle may not make it to its destination before the power runs out.

Meanwhile, it isn’t just low power that people worry about. A study carried out by South Korea’s Sungkyunkwan University and China’s City University of Hong Kong found that many of us also worry about not having constant access to our phone.

This condition is known as nomophobia, short for “no mobile phone phobia（恐惧症）”. Symptoms include feeling uncomfortable when access to one’s phone isn’t possible, being unable to turn off your phone, and constantly topping up the battery to make sure it never dies.

So, why do so many people treat their smartphone with such importance? The underlying reason may be that they keep us connected to the people around us, and if we’re unable to use our phone, we feel like we’re cut off from our social life.

With products with bigger batteries being released all the time though - such as Xiaomi’s Mi Max smartphone range or Tesla’s Model S cars – battery anxiety may hopefully soon be a thing of the past.

1. The major reason for people’s “low battery anxiety” lies in ________.

A．They cannot afford to miss important calls.

B．They may lose contact with their friends when they’re out on a trip.

C．The charger is not available when needed.

D．They have no access to the digital memories stored in the phone.

2. The following conditions indicate that you are likely to experience “nomophobia” EXCEPT that ________.

A．you attach great importance to connecting with the outside world

B．you find yourself searching for your phone when it is not at hand

C．you constantly charge your phone to almost full

D．you always keep your phone on

3. What can we learn from the passage?

A．All of the respondents do not panic when their battery level is lower than 20%.

B．People who experience “range anxiety” worry about the quality of their car.

C．People value their phone because they want to participate in more social activities.

D．All these problems will be solved if products with bigger batteries are released.

4. What’s the writer’s attitude towards the solution to low battery anxiety?

A．Unconcerned.	B．Skeptical.
C．Positive.	D．Disapproving.

【推荐2】Electrical devices(仪器) could soon use power made by human energy. Scientists say they have developed an experimental device that produces electricity from the physical movement of a person walking. British scientist Max Donelan and other scientists             in Canada and the United States developed the device.

The device connects to a person’s knee. As the person walks, the device captures energy each time the person slows down. To do this, the device helps with the slowing down movement of the leg. The movements of the walking person push parts of a small             machine that produces electricity. Using the device, an adult walking quickly could produce thirteen watts of electricity in just a minute. Donelan says walking at that speed could produce enough power to operate a laptop computer for six minutes.

There are several possible uses for the device. Developers say it could help people who work in areas without electricity to operate small computers. The device could also be used in hospitals to operate heart pacemakers(起搏器). It could even be used             to assist in the movement of robotic arms and legs.

The experimental version of the device weighs about one and a half kilograms, but it is too costly for most people to buy. But the researchers hope to make a lighter, less costly version. An improved version should be ready in one year.

The developers hope the device will one day help developing countries. Nearly twenty five percent of people around the world live without electric power.

A similar product was invented in 2005 by Larry Rome of the University of Pennsylvania. He created a bag carried on a person’s back that also produces power from walking.

The knee device does not produce as much electricity as the bag. But the bag requires the walker to carry a load of twenty to thirty kilograms.

1. The second paragraph mainly talks about     .

A．who developed the device

B．how the device works

C．several possible uses for the devices

D．how much electricity the device can produce

2. Compared with the device designed by Larry Rome, this new device     .

A．produces power without adding more loads to the walker

B．can produce more power in a much shorter time

C．needs to be equipped with a battery

D．can help the walker walk faster

3. From the passage, we can learn that the electrical device can     .

A．help housewives operate the washing machine

B．make it much easier for us to go online

C．produce more electricity than that invented by Larry Rome

D．be applied in medicine to operate heart pacemakers

4. What would be the best title for the passage?

A．First device powered by walking will soon be on the market

B．Advanced technology brings in a new way to operate heart pacemakers

C．Device gives new meaning to the idea of power walking

D．Human energy will become a main source of electricity

【推荐3】Imagine that you are in a remote village somewhere with no medical clinic.     1    Once the doctors get to you, they examine you and take blood samples, but they won't be able to help you until they take the samples back to the hospital to find out what is wrong.    2     Thanks to engineer Andy Ozcan, many people may never be in this situation. He has invented an app that turns your mobile phone into a diagnostic(诊断的)tool.

Ozcan's invention is important because it is very accurate and easy to use. In many remote places, even if doctors have microscopes and other instruments to help them make diagnoses, there may still be other problems. Many doctors, for example, don’t have enough training to correctly interpret what they see.    3    With Ozcan's mobile phone app, health workers can take a special photo of a blood sample and send it to a central computer at a hospital. The computer will then automatically interpret the photo and send a diagnosis back in a few minutes.

    4    His technology only requires a mobile phone and an Internet connection. As more than four billion people already have cell phones, the cost of establishing the diagnostic system is fairly low.

By inventing a medical tool that uses existing technology---mobile phones---Ozcan has developed a medical tool that is both practical and economical. Therefore, it can be effectively almost anywhere.    5    

A．Another reason that Ozcan's invention is important is that it is inexpensive.

B．Even though you may only have a simple infection (感染), you might die because of the delay.

C．People are trying to reduce the cost of this new medical tool.

D．Ozcan's simple, cost-effective tool might just save millions of lives around the world.

E．This tool has become much more popular all around the world.

F．You become very sick and must wait days until a mobile medical unit arrives to help.

G．As a result, they may diagnose illnesses incorrectly.

【推荐2】ABC News: Parents who want to pick up their kids at school in one New Jersey district now can submit to iris(虹膜)scans, as the technology that helps keep our nation’s airports and hotels safe begins to make its way further into American lives.

The Freehold Borough School District launched this high-techsecurity system on Monday with funding from the Department of Justice as part of a study on the system’s effectiveness.

As many as four adults can be authorized to pick up each child in the district, order to be authorized to come into school, they will be asked to register with the district’s iris recognition security and visitor management system. At this point, the New Jersey program is not a must.

If someone tries to slip in behind an authorized person, the system causes an alarm and red flashing lights in the front office. The entire process takes just seconds.

This kind of technology is already at work in airports around the country like Orlando International Airport, where the program has been in operation since July. It has 12,000 subscribers who pay $79.95 for the convenience of submitting to iris scans rather than going through lengthy security checks.

An iris scan is said to be more accurate than a fingerprint because it records 240 unique details- far more than the seven to twenty-four details that are analyzed in fingerprints. The chances of being misidentified by an iris scan are about one in 1.2 million and just one in 1. 44 trillion if you scan both eyes.

Phil Meara, the Freehold District official, said that although it was expensive, the program would help schools across the country move into a new frontier in child protection. “This is all part of a larger emphasis, here in New Jersey, on school, he said, We chose this school because we were looking for a typical slightly urban school to launch the system.”

Meara applied for a $369,000 grant on behalf of the school district and had the eye scanners installed in two grammar schools and one middle school. So far, 300 of the nearly 1, 500 individuals available to pick up a student from school have registered for the eye scan system.

1. Why does the Freehold Borough School District adopt the iris security system?

A．To ensure the school safety and efficiency of picking up children.

B．To encourage more students to register in New Jersey urban schools.

C．To test the effectiveness of school security and management system.

D．To collect the information of the children and their beloved parents.

2. What's the advantage of the eye scan system over fingerprints?

A．Having many more subscribers throughout the country.

B．Authorizing the adults to pick up children more flexibly.

C．Attracting parents in a larger proportion to register for it.

D．Making almost no mistakes in identifying the authorized.

3. How does Phil Meara help to ensure the safety of children?

A．By persuading people to register with the security system.

B．By applying for grant to install eye scanners in schools.

C．By asking the department of justice to fund the program.

D．By turning to Orlando International Airport for help.

4. What is the best title of this passage?

A．Parents Favor the Eye Scan System.

B．Security Management Needs Improving.

C．High Technology Comes to School.

D．Iris Scanners Are Invented in the Country.

【推荐1】2017 was an influential year for artificial intelligence, not just in terms of the advancement of the technology itself, but also for the development of our understanding of AI’s influence on our society.

When we talk about AI, often we focus on the belief that it is going to take away certain types of jobs. However, we often ignore the fact that this technology will also slowly spread into most of our lives during work.

I refer to this as the difference between AI and IA: artificial intelligence vs. intelligence augmentation (智能增强). Despite the great steps we’ve made in AI development and will continue to make in 2018, we are still years away from AI fully replacing human jobs. However, we are much closer to seeing the influence of AI spread into almost every job and the growth in human intelligence.

Take a doctor for example: AI will soon be able to test and diagnose (诊断) common diseases more quickly and accurately than humans. Now, doctors can spend more of their time explaining the possible diagnoses, communicating with patients and developing unique, reliable treatment plans that are most effective for each specific patient.

Algorithms (算法) are desirable for their ability-to make well-informed decisions quickly and accurately, allowing us to focus on the parts of our job that are most important. But that same power allows algorithms that are making incorrect decisions to do so with greater speed and widespread influence than humans have ever had.

2018 will be the year that companies purchasing AI products don’t just ask about the predictive power of an algorithm-they will make sure that algorithms are tested in advance, greatly reducing their potential unexpected influence.

1. What do most people mainly focus on AI?

A．AI can be completely controlled.

B．AI will replace certain human jobs.

C．AI is advanced technology.

D．AI will gradually spread into our lives.

2. Why does the author mention the doctor?

A．To prove AI will make more doctors unemployed.

B．To prove AI always makes right decisions.

C．To prove AI will change the way we work.

D．To prove AI can make treatment plans.

3. What is the author’s attitude towards AI and IA?

A．Objective.	B．Negative.
C．Optimistic.	D．Uninterested.

4. What will probably the following paragraph refer to?

A．To tell the readers how AI can be closely controlled.

B．To compare the very difference between AI and IA.

C．To explain to us why an Algorithm is so important.

D．To predict the development of AI in the year of 2018.

【推荐2】For generations, the standard way to learn how to ride a bicycle was with training wheels. But in recent years, many parents prefer to train their kids with balance bikes, two-wheelers that enable children to develop the competence needed for bicycling.

Given the benefits of balance bikes, why did it take so long for them to replace training wheels? There are plenty of other examples in which ignored solutions that involve subtraction(减法) turn out to be better alternatives. In some European cities, for example, urban planners have gotten rid of traffic lights and road signs to make streets safer.

Leidy Klotz, an engineer at the University of Virginia, noticed that reformative designs, in which elements are removed from an existing model, were uncommon. So he reached out to Adams, a social psychologist, to try to figure out why this was the case. The two researchers hypothesized(假设) that there might be an explanation: when faced with a problem, people tend to select solutions that involve adding new elements rather than taking existing components away.

Adams, Klotz and their colleagues set out to test if their hypothesis was correct. The researchers first carried out a set of studies. In one, they asked 91 participants to make a pattern symmetrical(对称的) by either adding or removing colored boxes. Only 18 people used subtraction. In another, the team scanned through ideas for improvement submitted to an incoming university president and found that only 11 percent of 651 project plans involved getting rid of an existing regulation, practice or program.

These findings suggest that “additive solutions have sort of a priority”, says Benjamin Converse, a co-author of the study. “Subtractive solutions are not necessarily harder to consider, but they take more effort to find.”

For now the team hopes that these findings will encourage people across various fields to think about subtractive options that might be typically ignored. “The hope is that, just by getting people to think about this more, maybe it will help inspire some other ignored subtractions,” Converse says.

1. What is the purpose of paragraph 1?

A．To present a problem.	B．To introduce the topic.
C．To give some examples.	D．To put forward a concept.

2. What can we learn from the first two paragraphs?

A．Balance bikes are not good for training kids.

B．People used to learn riding bikes effortlessly.

C．Parents now train kids to ride bikes pointedly.

D．Some European cities ignore their governance.

3. What does Converse say about subtractive solutions?

A．They are superior to additive solutions.

B．They are often harmful for creativity.

C．They are always overlooked by our brain.

D．They are often preferred by conservatives.

4. Which of the following could be the best title for the text?

A．A New Way of Management

B．A Trend of Avoiding Regulations

C．A New Concept of Problem-solving

D．A Study on Problem–solving Methods

【推荐3】Winter solstice(冬至), an important solar term in the traditional Chinese calendar, as the name implies, means the coming of winter. It generally occurs between December 21st and 23rd. According to the traditional Chinese calendar, one year is divided into twenty-four solar terms. On this day, in the Northern Hemisphere the period of daytime is the shortest of the year and the period of night is the longest.

In Northern China there is a custom of eating dumplings during winter solstice. The tradition of eating dumplings during winter solstice has its origin in early times. It is said that dumplings were invented by Zhang Zhongjing, a well-known doctor from the Eastern-Han Dynasty.

One winter, he noticed that many people’s ears were frozen, which made him sad. In order to prevent and cure the freezing injury caused by the cold, he asked his followers to boil mutton, chilies and other ingredients with medicinal properties in a pot for fending off cold. After these were boiled, they ladled(舀取) the mutton and other ingredients out of the pot, cut them into pieces, and then wrapped them with dough skins in the shape of ears. Afterward, they put these into pots to boil again.

On the day of the winter solstice, the people whose ears were frozen were sent to eat the dumplings. People who ate it felt warm from head to toe and had their cold injury healed. Thereafter, every winter solstice people ate dumplings. Then there became a saying that if you eat dumplings during the winter solstice, then you won’t freeze your ears off.

Afterwards, Zhang Zhongjing died on the day of winter solstice. In order to honor him, every year on the day of the winter solstice every household makes dumplings.

1. Which of the following should be the best title of the passage?

A．The Custom Of Eating Dumplings	B．The Inventor Of Dumplings
C．The Importance Of Eating Dumplings	D．The Origin Of Winter Solstice

2. According to the passage, people make dumplings to eat every winter solstice because __________.

A．they want to honor Zhang Zhongjing, who invented dumplings to cure peoples freezing injury

B．they want to celebrate the important solar term in the traditional Chinese calendar

C．dumplings boiled with mutton, chilies and other ingredients with medicinal properties taste delicious

D．they can feel warm from head to toe and have their freezing injury healed

3. What does the underlined phrase “fending off” in Paragraph 3 probably mean?

A．Put off.	B．Put out.
C．Keep up.	D．Keep out.

4. According to the passage, which is TRUE about the following description?

A．Winter solstice is the most important among twenty-four solar terms.

B．Australia in the Southern Hemisphere has the longest period of daytime on Winter Solstice.

C．If people don’t eat dumplings, they will have their ears frozen off.

D．China has the longest period of daytime on Winter Solstice.