【推荐1】The second little pig was unlucky. He built his house from sticks, which was blown away by a wolf. His brother, by contrast, built a wolf-proof house from bricks. The fairy tale could have been written by an agent for the construction industry, strongly favoring brick, concrete and steel. However, in the real world it would help reduce pollution and slow global warming if more builders copied the wood-loving second pig.

No other building material has environmental credentials (认证信息) as exciting and overlooked as wood. The energy required to produce a laminated wooden beam (层压木梁) is one-sixth of that required for a steel one of comparable strength. As trees take carbon out of the atmosphere when growing, wooden buildings contribute to negative emissions by storing the stuff. And for refitting older buildings to be more energy efficient, wood is a good insulator (绝缘体). A softwood window frame provides nearly 400 times as much insulation as a plain steel one of the same thickness and over a thousand times as much as an aluminium (铝) equivalent.

But such bigger stories are still uncommon. Governments can help push the industry to use more wood, particularly in the public sector — the construction industry’s biggest client. That would help wood-building specialists achieve greater scale and lower costs. Zero-carbon building regulations should be altered to take account of the emissions that are presented in materials.

Construction codes could be regulated to make building with wood easier. Here the direction of travel is wrong. Britain, for instance, is banning the use of timber on the outside of tall buildings after 72 people died in a tower fire in London in 2017. That is a nonsense. Grenfell Tower was covered in aluminium and plastic, not wood. Modern cross-laminated timber (交叉层叠木板) panels perform better in fire tests than steel ones do.

Carpentry alone will not bring the environmental cost of the world’s buildings into line. But using wood can do much more than is appreciated. The second little pig was not wrong, just before his time.

1. The purpose of the writer telling the story in the first paragraph is to _______.

A．attract the readers’ attention	B．make the argument more convincing
C．criticize the author of the tale	D．lead in the topic of the text

2. Paragraph 2 is intended to inform us _______.

A．wood is a good insulator

B．such skyscrapers with wood are uncommon currently

C．the unique advantages of wood material being friendly environmental

D．how wood reduces the emission of carbon dioxide

3. Which of the following does NOT belong to the governments’ measures to help the scheme?

A．To encourage the construction industry’s biggest client to use more wood.

B．To transform Zero-carbon building regulations.

C．To arouse the public’s awareness of protecting the woods.

D．To regulate the Construction codes.

4. The author may imply that _______.

A．the second pig in the tale was unlucky

B．the outside of tall buildings Grenfell Tower could have been constructed in wood

C．we haven’t appreciated the characteristics of using wood at all

D．wood-building specialists will achieve greater profits

【推荐2】Passage 1

As one of China's most popular and widely known legends，the Story of Monkey King is set to return to screens with 3D effects. It may feature many of the same leading actors from the earliest   1986 TV series Journey to the West.According to the producer，viewers can enjoy the 3D cinematic experience at home simply with a pair of special 3D glasses, which can be got easily in the market. The TV drama，with a total investment of 150 million yuan，will be aired on Sichuan TV. Almost 90 million yuan has been put into 3D effects with each 45­minute episode containing eight minutes of 3D. “The 3D effects not only cost us a lot of money but also a lot of time，” director Kan Weiping said. “We had to put off its broadcasting time，which was set at first this summer.”

Passage 2

The Solar Roadway is an intelligent road that provides clean renewable energy using power from the sun，while providing safer driving conditions along with power. American inventors of the Solar Road said that it will power itself，and reduce the country's carbon marks. Many panels are fixed on   the Solar Road. The top of the Solar Road panels is made of glass and the inventors are working together with top glass researchers to develop super­strong glass that would offer vehicles pulling power they need. The Solar Roadway creates and carries clean renewable electricity and, therefore, electric vehicles can be recharged at any rest stop，or at any business that uses solar road panels in their parking lots. Such parking lots will be safer at night with the light provided by LED within the road panels. The inventors say their solar roadway has many applications and advantages from main roads to driveways, parking lots, bike paths and runways.

1. What's Passage 1 mainly about?

A．The origin of the story about Monkey King.

B．Monkey King will return to screens with 3D effects.

C．The brief introduction to the TV series Journey to the West.

D．The amount of money invested on the 3D TV series Journey to the West.

2. About the 3D TV series Journey to the West we can learn that ________.

A．it contains 45 episodes in total

B．it will feature new actors completely

C．we could watch it on TV after the summer

D．we can enjoy it at home just with normal glasses

3. What can be inferred about the Solar Roadway from Passage 2?

A．It will have a bright future.

B．It can't work without electricity.

C．Its driving conditions aren't safe.

D．The electric vehicles can't be recharged on it.

【推荐3】A new study shows that rising levels of planet-warming gases may reduce important nutrients in food crops.

Researchers studied the effects of one such gas—carbon dioxide—on rice. The researchers grew rice plants in a controlled environment. They set carbon dioxide levels to what scientists are predicting for our planet by the end of the century. They found that the resulting rice crops had lower than normal levels of vitamins, minerals and protein. The researchers said the effects of planet-warming gases would be most severe for the poorest citizens in some of the least developed countries. These people generally eat the most rice and have the least complex diets, they noted.

In the experiment, scientists grew 18 kinds of rice in fields in China and Japan. They pumped carbon dioxide gas over the plants in an effort to create the atmosphere of the future. Rice grown under high carbon dioxide conditions had, on average, 13 to 30 percent lower levels of four B vitamins and 10 percent less protein. The crops also had 8 percent less iron and 5 percent less zinc（锌）an rice grown under normal conditions. However, vitamin E levels increased by about 13 percent on average.

The results are bad news, “especially for the nutrition of the poorer population in less-developed countries,” said the University of Tokyo’s Kazuhiko Kobayashi, who helped to write the report. That includes about 600 million people in Indonesia, Cambodia, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Laos and other nations, mainly in Southeast Asia, the report said.

One of the scientists is Sam Myers of Harvard University in the American state of Massachusetts. He said that findings like this are an example of the surprises climate change create. “My concern is there are many more surprises to come,” he said.

Myers noted that pollution, loss of some species, destruction of forests, and other human activities are likely to produce unexpected problems. He said that you cannot completely change all the natural systems that living organisms have grown to depend on over millions of years without having effects come back to affect our own health.

The new study suggests a way to lower the nutritional harm of climate change. One way, Kobayashi said, is grow different forms of rice that have shown to be more resistant to higher carbon dioxide levels.

1. Which county would be influenced most by planet-warming gases according to the text?

A．China

B．Britain

C．America

D．Myanmar

2. How is Paragraph 3 mainly developed?

A．By comparison.	B．By giving examples.
C．By analyzing causes.	D．By describing a process.

3. What does the underlined sentence in Paragraph 5 mean?

A．Climate change will be difficult to predict.

B．Climate change will lead to more good effects.

C．Climate change will be harmful to environment.

D．Climate change will cause more unexpected problems.

4. Which of the following statements is true according to the text?

A．Myers said we could change all the natural systems for the sake of our health.

B．The poorest people in all the least developed countries would be influenced most.

C．The researchers grew 18 kinds of rice in China and Japan in a controlled environment.

D．Protein in rice grown under high carbon dioxide conditions is increased by 10 percent.

【推荐1】A Vietnamese man hopes to raise the quality of education in his country by building "parent libraries" in rural schools. Nguyen Quang Thach provides libraries to the schools so books are more available in farming communities. He works with publishers in Hanoi to get the books at reduced rates for teachers and their students.

Mr. Thach says most schools have enough textbooks. But he says many poor families have few books at home and do not visit school libraries. He learned this by talking with farmers, workers and students.

More than 90 percent of Vietnam's population can read and write. But academic performance in the schools remains low compared to other Southeast Asian nations. Corruption is a big part of the problem. Vietnamese media often have stories about teachers giving high grades in exchange for money.

Some experts criticize teaching methods that depend heavily on dictation. They say asking students to repeat everything a teacher says to the class harms their ability to think for themselves.

Nguyen Quang Thach says he wants people to invest money in books for a better future. To date, almost 1,000 parent libraries have been built in Thai Binh Province, Hundreds of books are in each one. Several other provinces have copied this model.

For each school, Mr. Thach helps build libraries for up to four classes. Other people then follow his example. Parents of school children pay three dollars each for the first year and one dollar in other years.

The head of the An Duc Secondary School, Pham Duc Duong, told reporter Marianne Brown that Mr. Thach's work has improved the quality of education.

"He says students have been doing better in competitions, especially in social science."

Duong Le Nga heads the school youth group. She says that after the libraries were built, students started asking teachers more questions. The students also set up debating teams. She thinks Mr. Thach's example helps students think more creatively ----"outside the box."

The deputy head of the school, Uong Minh Thanh, says many students there will work in factories. But after seeing the influence of the new libraries, he hopes the children will set high goals for themselves.

1. We can learn from the passage that Vietnamese teachers       .

A．lack creative teaching methods

B．don't have a high salary to support family

C．make money by forcing students to attend classes

D．don't have enough books to read

2. How is the library project carried out?

A．Every school will be provided with four libraries.

B．Mr. Thach and parents co-fund for the libraries.

C．Parents pay three dollars every year.

D．Parents should pay four dollars in all.

3. In Duong Le Nga's opinion, students       .

A．have been doing better in compositions

B．need to have a box when thinking

C．are more creative in thinking than before

D．should set high goals for themselves

4. What's the main idea of the passage?

A．People think highly of Nguyen Quang Thach's “ parent libraries”project.

B．Vietnamese teachers' corruption is ruining the future of children.

C．Schools in Vietnam are in great need of libraries.

D．A Vietnamese helps the quality of education by a book revolution.

【推荐2】For every one article on some positive aspect, some positive element of life, wellbeing, satisfaction, joy, happiness, you get 21 articles on depression, anxiety and so on. Ratio of 21 to 1. Studies focus primarily on what doesn’t work. And this is not a new phenomenon. The science of psychology (心理) has been far more successful on the negative than on the positive side. It has revealed to us much more about man’s shortcomings, his illnesses, but little about his potentialities, his virtues or his psychological height. We study a lot of depression and anxiety, misjudgments and errors, very much focusing on this aspect and very little on the positive. If you had a person who 21 hours in a day was depressed and one hour in a day felt good or one day feeling good and then 21 days feeling anxious and depressed, you would say that this person would need help. And I think psychology needs help.

Today depression is 10 times higher than it was in 1960. Now part of it is because there’s more awareness, because we measure better. But that’s not all. It’s also simply because objectively there’s more depression. The average age for depression today is less than 15. Kids at very young age are introduced to the “information highway”. And very often, they are not prepared, not able to deal with it in an effective way.

As a result, when we look at this data, we say we do need more research to help people overcome depression or anxiety. And there seems nothing wrong about that.

According to the studies, 47% Harvard students over the past year have experienced depression to the point of not functioning. So they couldn’t leave home. They were really struggling to just basically get through the day. Now this is not unique to United States. We have a global epidemic here. And once again going back: Is the 21: 1 ratio good? How can we even think about studying happiness and well-being and love and joy?

What I’m going to argue for is that we do need to also focus on the positive. I am going to talk about three reasons why we should do that. The first reason is that it is important to focus on what works, because what works or what we focus on rather creates reality. If we focus on what is working, we’ll have more working in our world, more working in ourselves, more working in our relationships. The second reason why positive psychology as an independent field of study is important is that being happy is not just the negative statement of depression. It doesn’t mean just getting rid of depression or anxiety that I am experiencing so I spontaneously (自然而然) become happy. That’s not the case. That’s not how it works. And finally, prevention, which is the most effective way of preventing hardship, is actually realized by focusing on and cultivating the positive. So for these three reasons, we need positive psychology.

1. By using the ratio of 21 to 1, the author means in fact that ________.

A．on an average a person is depressed 21 hours a day and feels good one hour

B．most articles and studies focus primarily on what goes wrong

C．the science of psychology has revealed human’s nature

D．nearly half of Harvard and nationwide students suffer from depression

2. What is the main idea of Paragraph 2?

A．The reason for more measures.	B．The need for doing with depression.
C．The reason for more depression.	D．The need for taking some measures.

3. What is NOT closely related to positive psychology?

A．Prevention by focusing on and cultivating the positive feelings.

B．Offering various ways of overcoming the negative feelings.

C．Focusing on what is working to have more working in our life.

D．Being happy is not equal to avoiding being unhappy.

4. What might the author agree with in this article?

A．It is essential for our research to focus more on the bright side.

B．There is no need for the science of psychology to deal with the negative side.

C．The conflict between the negative psychology and positive one can’t be avoided.

D．We have to remove depression completely for the purpose of being happy.

【推荐3】Climate change will bring and has already brought a wide variety of threatening destruction to human existence. Some of these are well-known and already operative, like the wildfires racing along California’s freeways or the permanent droughts that have been upsetting Mediterranean farmers. But are these all terrible disasters we can come up with that are brought about by climate change?

Absolutely not. None of the challenges posed by our warming climate has appeared larger in the popular imagination than sea-level rise, as global populations and wealth are heavily concentrated in low-lying coastal cities. The best available models suggest that 37 million people currently live in places that will be below high tide by 2050-in an optimistic low-carbon-emissions scenario (设想).

Or rather, that’s what such models suggested before this week. On Tuesday, a new study revealed that those alarming statistics were wildly inaccurate. The actual impacts of sea-level rise are going to be much, much worse.

Previous estimates of the impact that rising tides would have on coastal cities relied on essentially a three-dimensional map of Earth obtained from satellite readings. But those readings were fundamentally unreliable because they often measured the planet’s upper surfaces — such as treetops and tall buildings — rather than its ground level. These mistakes led scientists to overestimate the elevation (海拔) of many regions of Earth.

In a new study published by the journal Nature Communications, scientists from Princeton, University detail this methodological problem, then use artificial intelligence to determine the previous literature’s error rate. Their research yields some amazing updates to our conventional understanding of what the next century has in store for our coastlines.

In its optimistic scenario, the Princeton study projects that lands currently occupied by 150 million people will lie below high tide in 2050. But as warming destroys many of the world’s agricultural regions, climate change could accelerate migration from rural areas to coastal cities.

The new study does include one piece of slightly encouraging news. While previous models suggested that 28 million humans currently live in places that already lie below high tide, the actual number is closer to 110 million — which means seawalls and other barriers have proven sufficient to keep many cities dry even as sea levels have risen around them. Still, the scale of barrier construction necessary to save low-lying cities from collapse is now, apparently, far greater than previously understood when the task already looked terribly expensive, particularly for developing countries.

If the Princeton researchers’ projections are correct, avoiding mass death and suffering in the coming decades will require not only rapidly reducing carbon emissions and strengthening construction of seawalls but also furthering mass migrations away from low-lying cities and islands and toward higher ground.

1. The first paragraph is mainly intended to ________.

A．lay emphasis on the seriousness of climate change	B．show various disasters caused by climate change
C．call on people to fix attention on climate change	D．introduce the topic of this passage

2. All the following statements are true EXCEPT ________.

A．the three-dimensional map produced by satellite is not accurate

B．the Princeton study reveals an optimistic picture of sea rising

C．some measures are mentioned by the writer to deal with sea rising

D．more people are likely to live in coastal cities in the coming years

3. We can see something encouraging from the Princeton study that ________.

A．it’s cheap to construct seawalls as well as other barriers

B．the scale of barrier construction is much greater than before

C．seawalls do have the function to prevent coastal cities being drowned

D．developed countries have less trouble in dealing with rising sea levels

4. What is the warning that the passage is sending out?

A．How to protect cities from rising seas.	B．Climate change is endangering human existence.
C．Rising seas are going to drown more cities.	D．Less emission of carbon, fewer fires and droughts.

【推荐2】How Should School Education Be Reformed?

The state of public school facilities in the United States is a matter of great concern to educators and administrators. While the mission of public schools has expanded beyond education to include social support and extra-curricular activities, the academic schedule has changed little in more than a century. A report on time and learning released today by the state education committee says saving school time for academic teaching and moving away from the time-limited tradition of education are crucial steps in the school reform process.

The committee’s report, entitled Time Prisoner, described fixed clocks and calendars in American education as a fundamental design problem that urgently needs to be changed. “Time should serve children instead of children serving time.” the report says. The two-year committee found that holding American students to world-class standards will require more time for classroom instruction. “We have been asking the impossible of our students that they learn as much as their foreign peers while spending half as much as in core academic subjects.” it states.

The committee compared the relationship between time and learning in Japan, Germany and the United States and found that American students received less than half of the basic academic education received by Japanese and German students. On average, American students can earn a high school diploma if they spend only 41 percent of their school time on academics, says the report. American students spend an average of three hours a day on core academics such as English, math, science, and history, the committee found. Their report recommends offering a minimum of 5.5 hours of academics every school day.

The nine-member committee also recommended extending the daily school hours beyond the traditional six hours. “If schools want to continue offering important activities outside the academic core, as well as serving as a center for family and community services, they should keep school doors open longer each day and each year.” says John Hodge Jones, education official of schools in Murfreesboro, Tenn., and chairman of the committee. The typical school year in American public schools is 180 days. Eleven states allow school years of 175 days or less, and only one state requires more than 180 days.

“For over a decade, education reformers have been working excitedly to improve our schools,” says Milton Goldberg, executive director of the committee. “But... if reform is to truly take hold, the six-hour, 180-day school year should go into museums — an exhibit from our education past.”

1. Compared with the academic courses more than a hundred years ago, the academic courses now ___________.

A．include some extra-curricular activities

B．remain much of what they used to be

C．demand students’ more contribution of time

D．focus more on education of social support

2. The researches by the committee mentioned in the passage are most concerned about __________.

A．the fashion of education management

B．the elements of school education

C．the changes in education in the recent century

D．the time devoted to academic learning

3. As it is mentioned in the passage, schools in the U.S.A do the following except __________.

A．provide important outside-academic activities

B．have competition with schools of other countries

C．arrange six-hour teaching and learning every day

D．serve social units such as family and community

4. Executive director of the committee Milton Goldberg would most probably disagree that ___________.

A．the time of school day and school year should be reduced

B．what the education reformers have done is not good enough

C．visiting museums can improve students’ academic learning ability

D．social support and extra-curricular activities should be cancelled

【推荐3】In the near future, we may be using our eyes to operate our smartphones and tablets, even when it comes to playing popular games like Fruit Ninja.

The Gaze Group has been developing eye controlled computer technology for nearly 20 years. But those devices have been firstly designed to help those with disabilities, and are very expensive.

“After a while, we figured out that probably the best way is to go for a mass market way,” says Gaze’s Sune Alstrup Johansen, “where everybody would have this available.”

Johansen and some of his colleagues have formed a new company, the Eye Tribe, which is hoping to develop the technology on a mass commercial level.

The technology works with the help of the computing device toward the user’s face. After making sure of the user’s eye movements, the technology is then able to easily find where a person’s eyes are moving, and then allow the eyes to control a cursor(光标).

“Our software can then determine the location of the eyes and know where you’re looking on the screen to make sure what you’re looking at,” reads an explanation on the Eye Tribe site.

There has been a gradual change toward hands free technology in recent years, particularly in the gaming world. Recently Xbox released the Kinect device, which lets users control their Xbox and play certain games using only their hands, legs and voices. But still, most of these devices have been more of a gimmick than a practical way to use one’s hands to control a mobile device. Johansen said a replaceable filter(滤光器) would be a cheap, convenient way for most consumers.

And even as companies like The Eye Tribe work to create such a product for the average user, making the eye controlled technology more accessible and less expensive will have similar benefits for physically disabled users.

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1. Which of the following is the main idea of the passage?

A．An introduction of a new device.

B．An introduction of smartphones.

C．An introduction of eye controlling technology.

D．An introduction of a new technology for the disabled.

2. The underlined word “gimmick” probably means ________.

A．a trick

B．a way

C．a lie

D．a dream

3. According to the passage,we can learn that ________.

A．the eye controlling technology was first developed for the blind

B．the present developing of the technology will bring no good

C．there is no such a phone as we can use only with our eyes at present

D．the eye controlling technology is only intended for the disabled people