【推荐1】Why do Chinese people love hot pot so much? As the winter months are coming in, more and more people are sitting around a table enjoying this kind of traditional meal. I find myself wondering what it is about this traditional meal, which has existed for more than 1,000 years. What makes it a Chinese food favourite? It seems that the answer lies beyond the dish itself.

Hot pot isn’t just designed to keep you warm during the cold months; it’s also a social experience. It’s a “theatre” cooked food that turns a meal into an event. There is a lot of fun for everyone to have in adding some foods to the hot pot.

Hot pot is eaten over two to three hours. For this reason, it is often considered an evening’s entertainment, and a time to spend with friends and families. However, many Westerners would be put off by the idea of other people sticking chopsticks in their food. When we come to eat at the table in the UK, we often have our own shares, although the experience is still a social one.

A similar experience to the hot pot can be found in Korean barbecue restaurants, which let you cook your own meat. This allows people to have their meat done however they want.

For most Westerners, the idea of going to a restaurant to cook their own food is very strange. But having a go, I find it’s now one of my favourite meals in Beijing. The steam from the pot left my clothes smelling of food when I got home, but perhaps this was also part of the experience. When the cold wind is blowing outside, I am sitting around with my good friends, eating and drinking. For me, it’s like a dinner party where my taste buds (味蕾) and my appetite are equally satisfied in the warm company of friends.

1. What is the main reason why hot pot is popular in China?

A．It has a history of over 1,000 years.	B．It is a fun social experience.
C．It serves people with many kinds of foods.	D．It keeps people very warm in winter.

2. How long do people spend in enjoying hot pot?

A．More than four hours.	B．Over one hour.
C．About three hours.	D．All the evening.

3. We can conclude from the article that British people generally 　　　.

A．enjoy cooking their own food in restaurants

B．prefer a Korean barbecue to Chinese hot pot

C．don’t like sharing food with others in restaurants

D．don’t mind the smell of food staying on their clothes

4. What is the author’s attitude to hot pot?

A．Serious.

B．Tired.

C．Humorous.

D．Appreciative.

【推荐2】In agrarian(农业的), pre-industrial Europe, “you’d want to wake up early, start working with the sunrise, have a break to have the largest meal, and then you’d go back to work,” says Ken Albala, a professor of history at the University of the Pacific. “Later, at 5 or 6, you’d have a smaller supper.”

This comfortable cycle, in which the rhythms of the day helped shape the rhythms of the meals, gave rise to the custom of the large midday meal, eaten with the extended family. “Meals are the foundation of the family,” says Carole Couniban, a professor at Millersville University in Pennsylvania, “so there was a very important interconnection between eating together and strengthening family ties.”

Since industrialization, maintaining such a slow cultural metabolism has been much harder, with the long midday meal shrinking to whatever could be stuffed into a lunch bucket or bought at a food stand. Certainly, there were benefits. Modern techniques for producing and shipping food led to greater variety and quantity, including a tremendous increase in the amount of animal protein and dairy products available, making us more energetic than our ancestors.

Yet plenty has been lost too, even in cultures that still live to eat. Take Italy. It’s no secret that the Mediterranean diet is healthy, but it was also a joy to prepare and eat. Italians, says Counihan, traditionally began the day with a small meal. The big meal came at around 1 p.m. In between the midday meal and a late, smaller dinner came a small snack. Today, when time zones have less and less meaning, there is little tolerance for offices’ closing for lunch, and worsening traffic in cities means workers can’t make it home and back fast enough anyway. So the formerly small supper after sundown becomes the big meal of the day, the only one at which the family has a chance to get together. “The evening meal carries the full burden that used to be spread over two meals,” says Counihan.

1. What does Professor Carole Counihan say about pre-industrial European families eating meals together？

A．It was helpful to maintaining a nation’s tradition.

B．It brought family members closer to each other.

C．It was characteristic of the agrarian culture.

D．It enabled families to save a lot of money.

2. What does “cultural metabolism”（Line 1, Para. 3) refer to？

A．Evolutionary adaptation.	B．Changes in lifestyle.
C．Social progress.	D．Pace of life.

3. What does the author think of the food people eat today?

A．Its quality is usually guaranteed.

B．It is varied, abundant and nutritious.

C．It is more costly than what our ancestors ate.

D．Its production depends too much on technology.

4. What does the author say about Italians of the old days?

A．They enjoyed cooking as well as eating.

B．They ate a big dinner late in the evening.

C．They ate three meals regularly every day.

D．They were expert at cooking meals.

【推荐2】The Double Ninth Festival falls on the ninth day of the ninth month in the Chinese lunar calendar. According to tradition, we should celebrate the festival by going mountain climbing. How many people today still keep this tradition?    1    However, they are an important part of Chinese culture, and we must protect and maintain them.

    2    The Dragon Boat Festival, for example, is celebrated in honour of Qu Yuan. By celebrating the Dragon Boat Festival with rice dumplings and dragon boat races, the story of Qu Yuan is passed down from generation to generation. Promoting traditional festivals helps spread knowledge about the past of our country. Moreover, traditional festivals enable us to learn more about fine Chinese values. Many festivals, such as the Mid-Autumn Festival, have a family-centred message at their heart.    3    With the celebrations of these festivals, younger generations learn to honour fine Chinese values.

Finally, traditional festivals area source of national pride and help shape (塑造) our national identity. For example, we celebrate the Hanshi Festival and the Lab a Festival with unique customs, and these shared experiences bring us together as a people.    4    

Traditional festivals have been passed down to us from previous generations. It is the duty of every one of us to protect them for generations to come.    5    We may even lose the festivals which belong to us.

A．Many young people celebrate western festivals.

B．Traditional festivals can help develop our economy.

C．Traditional festivals teach us a lot about our nation’s history.

D．People will come back home even if they live very far away.

E．Traditional festivals tell us who we are and fill us with pride in being Chinese.

F．In modern society, many traditional Chinese festivals are becoming less and less popular.

G．If we don’t pay much attention to these traditional festivals, some customs may fade away.

【推荐3】A new study explores the custom of tipping in the United States. Many Americans give tips to people who perform a job for them, especially workers in the service industry. They pay a little extra to people cutting their hair, driving them across town or serving them a meal at a restaurant.

The researchers found that men give bigger tips to restaurant workers than women. And people who live in the northern US are more generous with tips than those living in the South. People who earn $ 50, 000 or more a year give bigger tips than those who earn less than $50, 000. There is one likely reason: the wealthier Americans have more money to spend.

Michael Lynn is a professor of consumer behavior and marketing at the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration in New York. In other words, he knows a lot about the issue of tipping. In earlier surveys, Lynn said he found mixed results on the generosity of men and women when it comes to tipping. In some studies, men gave bigger tips than women. In others, women gave more money.

Lynn’s own research in American restaurants found that men give bigger tips when the restaurant server is a woman and women give more when the server is a man. Tips are very important to service employees. People who work at restaurants often get most of their earnings from tips.

Nationwide, Americans generally tip between 15 to 20 percent at restaurants and leave from $2 to S 10 a day for the people who clean their hotel rooms. Tips of 15 percent of the reading on the meter (计价器) are also common for people who drive taxis.

But here is something to keep in mind. If you are able to give the person serving you a tip or a bigger one than what is expected, your generosity will be welcome. Many service workers do not make much money, and even an extra dollar or two can make a difference in their lives.

1. What is paragraph I mainly about?

A．A study in a restaurant.	B．A job offering a lot of tips.
C．The service industry in the US.	D．The custom of tipping in the US.

2. What is Lynn’s finding in American restaurants?

A．People give more tips to the opposite sex server.

B．People are always more generous to service employers.

C．Men give the same tips to the women restaurant servers as women.

D．Men always give more tips to the men restaurant servers than women.

3. How much tips do Americans generally pay if the reading on the taximeter is $100?

A．$2.	B．$10.
C．$15.	D．$20.

4. What is the authors attitude towards tipping?

A．Doubtful.	B．Critical.
C．Uncaring.	D．Supportive.

【推荐3】Which animals are smart? Your answers may be dogs, apes or elephants.     1     Scientists from Cambridge University said that sheep could be trained to recognise familiar human faces, the BBC reported.

Before testing, scientists let the sheep take a look at pictures of four famous people, including former US President Barack Obama and British actress Emma Watson.     2     One screen showed a famous person while the other screen a random person. The sheep tended to walk toward the screen with the celebrity face. After discovering the animals’ ability to recognise famous people, researchers then gave them another new task. They wanted to see if the farm animals could recognize the same people from different angles.     3     Finally, the researchers wanted to know if the sheep could recognize their trainers from a photo. Images of their trainers were randomly shown on screens along with a series of unfamiliar faces.     4     The results show that the animals’ face-recognition abilities are similar to that of monkeys, apes and humans, according to the BBC.

    5     But sheep have big brains. When they see other sheep, they use this process to recognize one another, said Jenny Morton, the lead researcher, to The Guardian. The researchers said it might be interesting in the future to figure out whether sheep can identify different facial expressions made by humans.

A．Face recognition is a difficult process.

B．Then the sheep went into a room with two computer screens.

C．To their great amazement, the sheep could identify their trainers.

D．Now there is one more animal that can be added to the list: sheep.

E．Despite some conflict, most of the time the sheep could co-exist in harmony.

F．The animals could still identify them, though it took them longer to finish the job.

G．Surprisingly, the sheep had little interest in what the researchers kept saying to them.