【推荐1】Your next car might drive itself. After years of trials on city streets, driverless vehicles are now nearing the production phase. Last month, a driverless bus began carrying passengers through Lyon, France. Most in the automobile industry think self-driving vehicles will be on the road by 2020 or before.

Driverless cars will at first be huddled with human-driven cars. But the first places where they will become dominant（占支配地位的）are dense urban areas-precisely the spots most damaged by the automobile age. Many advanced cities are already reducing the role of human-driven cars. Driverless cars will quicken that process and will bring us great benefits.

Driverless cars will reduce accidents by around 90 percent. That's big-the annual death toll on the world's roads is about 1.2 million a year. Pollution and carbon emissions will drop, because urban driverless cars will be electric. The old, otherwise they would stay at home most of the time and the disabled and teenagers will suddenly gain mobility.

On the other hand, driverless cars will bring catastrophe（灾难）.The best thing about the automobile age is that it employs tens of millions of people to make, market, insure and drive vehicles. Over the next 20 years, most men who now drive trucks, taxis and buses will see their jobs reduced. Carmakers are especially scared. A few cars in the future might be made by tech companies such as Apple, Baidu and Google. Imaging the impact on Germany, where the automotive sector is the largest industry.

Dramatic change is coming, and driverless cars could arrive by 2020. But governments have hardly begun thinking about it. Only 6 percent of the biggest US cities have factored them into their long-term planning.

A decade ago anyone hardly saw the smartphone coming. It has brought an epidemic of mass addiction. Let's hope we do a better job of handling the driverless car.

1. The underlined words "be huddled with "in Paragraph 2 can be replaced by "________".

A．show up with	B．exist together with
C．get rid of	D．take the place of

2. Why can driverless cars reduce pollution and carbon emissions?

A．Driverless cars reduce the number of human-driven cars.

B．Driverless cars will be powered by electricity.

C．Driverless cars save fuel by driving themselves.

D．Driverless cars will reduce too many accidents.

3. What can we know about driverless cars？

A．They will not hit the road until 2020.

B．They will only be used in urban areas.

C．They will not cause any road accident.

D．They aren't still seriously taken by governments.

4. What's the author's attitude toward driverless cars？

A．Doubtful.	B．Negative.
C．Objective.	D．Worried.

【推荐3】When Alex Lin was 11 years old, he read an alarming article in the newspaper, which said that people were burying old computers in backyards, throwing TVs into streams, and dumping (丢弃) cell phones in the garbage. This was dangerous because e-waste contains harmful chemicals that can leak into the environment, getting into crops, animals, water supplies and people.

Alex was really worried and decided to make it next project for WIN-the Westerly Innovations Network. Alex and six of his friends had formed this organization to help solve community problems two years before.

But what could they do about this project with e-waste? The team spent several weeks gathering information about the harmful chemicals in e-waste and their effects on humans. They learned how to dispose (处置) of e-waste properly and how it could be recycled. Then, they sent out a Survey and found only one in eight know what e-waste was, let alone how to properly dispose of it.

Alex and his friends went into action. They advertised in the local newspaper and distributed notices to students, asking residents to bring their unwanted electronics to the school parking lot. The drive lasted two days, and they collected over 9, 500 kilograms of e-waste. The next step was to set up a long-term e-waste drop-off center for the town. After some research, they’d learned that reusing is the best way to deal with electronic devices and it is seven times more efficient than recycling. So, they began learning to retrofit (翻新) computers themselves and distributed them to students who didn’t have their own. In this way, they could help students in the area and protect the environment at the same time.

For a lasting solution to e-waste, the drop-off center wasn’t enough. Laws would have to be passed. In 2016, WIN helped push for an e-waste bill in their town, which required companies that manufactured or sold electronics to take back e-waste. The bill clearly forbids the dumping of e-waste. Because of the work of WIN, more and more people, like Alex and his team, are getting the message about safe disposal of e-waste. As Alex says, “Today’s technology should not become tomorrow’s harmful garbage.”

1. What was Alex’s worry after he read the article?

A．The littering of e-waste.	B．The recycling of plastic.
C．The change of environment.	D．At 11 p.m. on Monday.

2. What did Alex do to start the project?

A．Set up WIN.	B．Collect information.
C．Ask friends for help.	D．The overuse of old computer.

3. Which can best describe the way Alex and his team did their work?

A．Traditional.

B．Competitive.

C．Scientific.

D．Convenient.

4. What message does the story convey?

A．There is no end to perfection.	B．success comes through failure.
C．Every positive attitude has a reward.	D．young people can make a big difference.

【推荐1】California researchers have found that oxygen levels and water temperatures play a key role in the health of deep-sea fish populations.

Scientists studied fish on the floor of the Gulf（海湾） of California. "This is an example of some of the video that we are analyzing for this research," said Natalya Gallo, a post-doctoral researcher at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. She pointed to a video taken along the seafloor on the Gulf of California near the Mexican coast. The film came from a remotely controlled submarine.

Researchers use the underwater tool to calculate the influence of a warming ocean on fish. “The really big question that we're trying to answer is how sensitive deep-sea communities（群落），and in general ocean communities are going to be to these changes,” Gallo said.

Gallo and the other researchers on the team studied the northern gulf, which is closer to normal ocean conditions and the southern gulf, which has one of the planet's most extreme low oxygen ocean zones.

The findings will help scientists understand changes in other places. As the ocean gets hotter, the warmer water is not capable of holding the same amount of oxygen. "We know that oxygen is declining in the ocean globally," said Lisa Levin, a Scripps Institution of Oceanography, biological oceanographer. "And that the really low oxygen zones, oxygen minimum zones are expanding as the ocean warms."

Scientists already expect certain outcomes from climate-related changes. "The body size of animals will get lower as the ocean warms and the oxygen declines and overall, the oceans will become less productive," Levin said. The research findings are published in the current edition of the Journal Marine Ecology Progress Series.

1. What is the purpose of Gallo's research?

A．To measure the temperature of sea water.

B．To show the body condition of deep-sea fish.

C．To calculate the amount of oxygen in the sea.

D．To evaluate the effect of ocean warming on fish.

2. Why do researchers study the southern gulf?

A．It has normal ocean conditions.	B．It has special ocean zones.
C．It has a relatively mild climate.	D．It has various kinds of fish.

3. What is the last paragraph mainly about?

A．The methods of protecting the sea.

B．The influence of the warmer oceans.

C．The steps of investigating the ocean.

D．The causes of the warming of sea water.

【推荐2】One of the most important things in the world is friendship. In order to have friends, you have to be a friend. But how can you be a good friend at school?

Listen

Listen when they are talking. Don’t say anything unless they ask you a question. Sometimes it’s not necessary for you to have anything to say. They just need someone to talk to about their feelings.

Help them

If your friend is ever in need of something, be there to help them. You should try to put them first, but make sure you don’t do everything they want you not to do. Try to take an extra pencil or pen with you to classes in case(以防)they forget to bring one. Have a little extra money in your pocket in case they forget something they need.

Be there for them

Try to make something for your friends to help make them feel better in hard times. Making cards and encouraging them are among the nicest things you can do for a friend. Marilyn Monroe, a famous US actor, once said, “I often make mistakes. Sometimes I am out of control. But if you can’t stay with me at my worst, you are sure not to deserve(值得)to be with me at my best. “If you don’t want to stay with your friends when they’re in hard times, then you don’t deserve to be with them when they’re in good times!

Make plans

Try to make plans with your friend. Go shopping, go for ice cream, have a party, go to a movie and so on. Take time to know each other even better by doing something you both enjoy. By planning things together, you both can have a good time. And you will remember these things when you’re old.

1. How should you listen to your friend?

A．Look around yourself when he or she is talking to you.

B．Ask them a lot of questions when listening to him or her.

C．Listen patiently and let him or her pour out their feelings.

D．Correct them from time to time when they say something wrong.

2. What can we learn from Marilyn Monroe’s words?

A．Nothing is hidden between true friends.

B．Allow friends to make mistakes and correct them.

C．True friends show respect for and admire each other.

D．True friends don’t leave each other when one is facing trouble.

3. What are you advised to do to make a plan with your friend?

A．Force your idea upon the other.

B．Let your friend make a decision.

C．Reach an agreement between you.

D．Turn to others for help if necessary.

【推荐3】One of the classic science-fiction treatments of the end of civilization was The Death of Grass, by John Christopher, in which a mysterious sickness struck down all the grasses on which most of the world’s agriculture is based, from rice to wheat. In the end, politics among the survivors of disease, war and famine were reduced to bitter fratricidal struggle over a defensible potato patch. Like most of the so-called “comfortable disaster” novels, this could be criticized for optimism. Depressing as a future of famine and the war of all against all might seem, the consequences were largely limited to humans.

However, the threatened extinction of insect populations around the world raises the prospect of a much less general disaster, which would involve plants, birds, fish, small mammals, and everything else depending on insects. That’s just the start. Other species, and we ourselves, depend on the animals and plants that need insects. When they go, we go. This is not just a greater disaster. It’s a much more reasonable one. The most recent study has concluded that insect biomass is decreasing around the world at a rate of 2.5% a year. At that rate, half the insects in the world will be gone in 50 years’ time, and all of them in a century — though no one will be keeping track of centuries then.

The chief driver of this disaster is unchecked human greed. For all our individual and even collective cleverness, we behave as a species with as little foresight as a colony of nematode worms that will consume everything that it can reach until all is gone and it dies off naturally. The challenge of behaving more intelligently than creatures that have no brain at all will not be easy. But unlike the nematodes, we know what to do. The UN convention on biodiversity was signed in 1992, alongside the convention on climate change. Giving it the strength to hold back our appetites is now urgent. Biodiversity is not an optional extra. It is the web that holds all life, including human life.

The two main expressions of greed that speed this apocalypse are global warming and industrial agriculture. It appears that most of the damage is being done in the developed world by farming practices. The use of giant fields, lacking in   shelter for insects of any sort at all, whether they are harmful to human interests or not, and where the plants are drenched in long-lasting pesticides, has been fatal for uncounted billions of insects. The effects of this kind of forming reach beyond the fields immediately affected, too. There has been a huge loss of aquatic insect species from the rivers into which the products of industrial agriculture arc flushed by rain. Even in German nature reserves, which are by definition protected from the use of pesticides, there have been sleep falls in insect populations because so many of the most widely used ones are persistent and prevent breeding.

1. Which of the following statements about The Death of Grass is true?

A．It gives a vivid account of the most serious famine in history.

B．It holds an optimistic attitude towards famine in the future.

C．It understates the severity of the disaster facing the world.

D．It demonstrates how evil human nature turns out to be.

2. In paragraph 2, the writer mentions the most recent study in order to________.

A．prove that the prediction about the great disaster makes sense

B．suggest a possible approach to increasing insect biomass

C．show how soon the insects worldwide will go extinct

D．argue for the necessity to protect insect populations

3. What can be inferred from the passage?

A．Humans are similar to nematode in that both of them lack foresight.

B．Modem farming is to blame for the threatened extinction of insects.

C．Germany sets a good example by minimizing the use of pesticides.

D．We haven’t done enough about maintaining biodiversity.

4. What will the author probably discuss after the last paragraph?

A．What we can do to deal with the situation.

B．How industrial agriculture brings about apocalypse.

C．What influence pesticides may have on people’s lives.

D．Why insect populations in Germany are on the decline.