【推荐1】Each new school year brings fresh reminders of what educators call the summer learning gap. Some call it the summer learning setback. Simply speaking, it means the longer kids are out of school, the more they forget. The only thing they might gain is weight.
Most American schools follow a traditional nine-month calendar. Students get winter and spring breaks and about ten weeks of summer vacation. Some schools follow a year-round calendar. They hold classes for about eight weeks at a time, with a few weeks off in between. The National Association for Year-Round Education says there were fewer than three thousand such schools at last count. They were spread among forty-six of the fifty states.
But many experts point out that the number of class days in a year-round school is generally the same as in a traditional school. Lead researcher Paul von Hippel said, "Year-round schools don't really solve the problem of the summer learning setback. They simply spread it out across the year."
Across the country, research shows that students from poor families fall farther behind over the summer than other students. Experts say this can be prevented. They note that many schools and local governments offer programs that can help.
But calling them "summer school" could be a problem. The director of the summer learning center at Johns Hopkins, Ron Fairchild, said research with groups of different parents in Chicago and Baltimore found that almost all strongly disliked the term summer school”. In American culture, the idea of summer vacation is connected to beliefs about freedom and the joys of childhood. The parents welcomed other terms like "summer camp," "enrichment," "extra time" and "hands-on learning."
1. According to the first paragraph the summer learning gap.

A．helps children to gain weight

B．leads children to work harder

C．improves children’s memories

D．affects children’s regular studies

2. Compared to traditional schools, students in the year-round ones.

A．perform better and have more learning gains

B．have much less time for relaxation every year

C．have generally the same number of class days

D．hold more classes with more free weeks off

3. Which of the following statements is true?

A．Students from poor families often fall behind after the vacation.

B．Year-round schools can solve the problem of the learning gap.

C．There are schools in each state following a year-round calendar.

D．Nothing can help the students who fall behind after the vacation.

4. Why did almost all parents dislike the term “summer school”?

A．They cherish the children’s rights of freedom very much.

B．They are worried about the quality of the “summer school”.

C．They want their children to be forced to make up the gap.

D．They can’t afford to the further study during vacation.

5. What would be the best title of this passage?

A．Opening Summer Camps

B．Forbidding Summer Schools

C．Spreading Year-Round Education

D．Minding the Summer Learning Cap

【推荐2】How to stay focused in class

    1     No matter how much you want to sit with your friends during the class, try your best to stay away from them. Talking with friends is not going to help you stay focused (集中注意力的) in class and will cause trouble, too.

Look at the teacher. Your teacher is not just standing up there talking — they’re trying to give you an acceptable education. Show the teacher that he or she has your full attention, by looking him or her in the eye.     2    

Take notes. By taking notes, you’ll be able to “get into” the lesson.     3     Listen for key phrases such as, “This is important,” “This is the main idea,” etc. This can help you listen more carefully; you’ll have something to do and focus on.

Join in class discussions. This is a wonderful way to become a more focused, successful student. When a teacher asks a question, offer to answer it.     4     This shows the teacher that you’re listening carefully during the class.

Ask a question.     5     This really shows your teacher that you want to be better, and can recognize the things you’re having difficulty with. Maybe someone else in the class has the same question but he or she is too afraid to ask. When the question is asked by you, he or she will be relaxed and so will you.

A．Do your best.

B．Don’t sit with friends.

C．Don’t try to finish your homework in class.

D．This person should have your full attention at all times in class.

E．Write down key points as your teacher speaks.

F．If you don’t understand something, never be afraid to ask.

G．When he or she asks for an opinion, share your own.

【推荐2】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3】Now, chemists have discovered new potential in abundant building blocks: Through a series of reactions, scientists have shown that conventional bricks can be transformed into energy storage devices powerful enough to turn on LED lights. “What we have demonstrated in our paper is sufficient enough for you to light up emergency lighting that's in a hallway or sensors that could be put inside the walls of a house, "said Julio M. D’ Arcy, an assistant professor of chemistry at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, and one of the study's authors. "The next step is trying to store more energy, so that you can power bigger devices--like maybe a laptop--directly from the walls of the house. ”

“Bricks have been prized by architects for their capacity to store heat, but using them to hold electricity has never been tried before, "D'Arcy said. To allow the bricks to store electricity, the researchers pumped a series of gases inside the brick. "The gases react with the brick's chemical components, coating them with a web of plastic nanofiber (纳米纤维）known as a PEDOT, which is a good conductor of electricity, "he said. Though PEDOT can store large amounts of energy, this supercapacitor (超级电容器）cannot hold onto that charge or deliver sustained energy over long periods of time like batteries can. “A battery will give you energy density that will allow you to drive 300 miles, but a supercapacitor will allow you to accelerate very quickly at a red light,” D’ Arcy said.

Still, scientists see potential in the bricks as a possible green energy solution. Right now, these "smart bricks" cannot compete with the energy storage potential of the lithium-ion (锂离子）batteries used in many solar power systems. However, there is hope that this new technology could be developed to provide a new storage method using readily available materials.

“The performance is a long way short of custom-made supercapacitors, but the principle is proven and there is significant room for improving the storage characteristics by optimizing the structure and chemistry of the bricks,” said Dan Brett, a professor of electrochemical engineering at University College London, who was not involved in the study.

1. What will the scientists do about the bricks next according to M. D'Arcy?

A．Put the bricks into commercial use.

B．Refer their paper to academic journals.

C．Expand the bricks' ability of storing power.

D．Develop new smart laptop with powered bricks.

2. What can we know about PEDOT?

A．It allows bricks to take up less space.

B．It can protect bricks with a powered coat.

C．It helps bricks store and conduct electricity.

D．It can make the powered vehicles travel farther.

3. What does Professor Brett think of the smart bricks?

A．They need much more development.

B．They are more environmentally-friendly.

C．They will be released into the market soon.

D．They can be made according to consumers' requirements.

4. Which of the following can replace the underlined word "optimizing" in the last paragraph?

A．Making the most of.	B．Trying out for.
C．Breaking up with.	D．Breaking away from.

【推荐1】I grew up in San Pedro. My dad was a fisherman, and he loved the sea. He had his own boat, but it was hard making a living on the sea. He worked hard and would stay out until he caught enough to feed the family. Not just enough for our family, but also for his mom and dad and the other kids that were still at home.

Dad was a big man, and he was strong from pulling the nets and fighting the sea for his catch. When you got close to him, you smelled the ocean.

When the weather was bad, he would drive me to school. He would pull right up in front, and it seemed like everybody would be standing around and watching. Then he would lean over and give me a big kiss on the cheek and tell me to be a good boy. It was so embarrassing for me. Here I was twelve years old, and my dad would lean over and kiss me goodbye!

I remembered the day I thought I was too old for a goodbye kiss. When we got to the school and came to a stop, he had his usual big smile. He started to lean toward me, but I put my hand up and said, “No, Dad.” It was the first time I had ever talked to him that way, and he had this surprised look on his face.

I said, “Dad, I’m too old for a goodbye kiss. I’m too old for any kind of kiss.” My dad looked at me for the longest time, and his eyes started to tear up. I had never seen him cry. He turned and looked at the windshield(挡风玻璃).“You’re right,” he said.“You are a big boy...a man. I won’t kiss you any more.”

It wasn’t long after that when my dad went to sea and never came back.

Guys, you don’t know what I would give to have my dad give me just one more kiss on the cheek...to feel his rough old face...to smell the ocean on him...to feel his arm around my neck. I wish I had been a man then. If I had been a man, I would be a man. I would never have told my dad I was too old for a goodbye kiss.

1. What does the first paragraph mainly talk about?

A．The writer’s father was a tall man.

B．Making a living on the sea was hard.

C．The writer’s father liked being a fisherman.

D．The writer’s father had a big family to support.

2. From the passage, we know that the writer’s father　　　.

A．was a successful businessman

B．had an accident and died at sea

C．was good at driving cars

D．drove the writer to school every day

3. It can be inferred from the last paragraph that the writer　　　.

A．wished his father to come back home soon

B．would give up what he had to look for his father

C．regretted having refused his father’s kiss

D．hoped to see his father and asked for another kiss

4. The writer wrote the passage in order to　　　.

A．tell readers about his father’s love for him

B．attract readers to visit his father

C．give a brief introduction to himself

D．ask readers to love their fathers before it is too late.

【推荐2】Darshan Karwat is making headlines for having maintained an incredibly plain and continued lifestyle during his student years. The man gave up fast food, new clothes, and even toilet paper, until he got to a point where his trash（垃圾）for an entire year fit in just two plastic bags!

Karwat, who is originally from India, started the trash-free experiment when he lived in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and managed to keep it going for two and a half years. In the first year, he produced only 7.5 pounds of trash, and in the second year, he brought that number down to 6 pounds, which is a mind-blowing 0.4 percent of the 1,500 pounds of yearly trash produced by the average American.

Looking back, Karwat says that his inspiration to start the project came from a radio show The Story, on which he heard of a British couple who lived trash-free.

His trash mostly consisted of a few chip bags, glass milk-bottle caps, fruit stickers, and broken glass. He obviously had to make lots of sacrifices to achieve this – he stopped buying any kind of packaged food including cheeses, only drank milk from recycled glass bottles, and gave up on buying new clothes or stuff for his home – no gadgets, furniture, or even cups. He began carrying his own fork, spoon, plate, and a bowl everywhere he went, just to avoid plastic cutlery（餐具）.

“I needed to change the way I lived, and I had to get creative,” he added. “When a restaurant furnished a napkin-wrapped（包纸的）fork and knife, I asked the server to change them for cutlery without the napkin. I’d remember to say “No straw!” after asking for water and to make sure the veggie（素食者）burger I ordered didn’t come with a wooden pick holding it together. I did what I had to do, and it was awkward.”

1. What is the passage mainly about?

A．How a person inspires others

B．How Darshan Karwat gets famous.

C．Darshan Karwat and his no trash experiment.

D．A plain and sustainable lifestyle attracts the public.

2. Why did Darshan Karwat have the idea of living trash-free?

A．Because he is from India.

B．Because he has been in university.

C．Because he heard a story on the radio.

D．Because a British couple reminded to do so.

3. What did Karwat buy when he was making no-trash experiment?

A．Cheeses.	B．Furniture.
C．Milk.	D．Gadgets.

4. What Karwat said in the last paragraph shows that       .

A．he seldom went to a restaurant

B．it wasn’t convenient to live the life

C．the server seemed cold to him

D．he was proud of what he had been doing

【推荐3】Frank Smithson woke up and leaned over to turn off the alarm clock. "Oh no!" he thought to himself. " Another day at that office; a boss who shouts at me all the time."
As Frank went downstairs his eyes fell on a large brown envelope by the door. He was overjoyed when he opened it and read the letter inside. "Bigwoods Football Pools(足球赌博公司)would like to congratulate you. You have won half a million pounds."
Frank suddenly came to life. The cigarette fell from his lips as he let out a shout that could be heard halfway down the street.
At 11:30 Frank arrived at work. "Please explain why you're so late," his boss said. "Go and jump in the lake," replied Frank. "I've just come into a little money so this is good-bye. Find yourself someone else to shout at."
That evening Frank was smoking a very expensive Havana cigar(雪茄) when a knock was heard on the door. He rushed to the door. Outside were two men, neatly(整洁) dressed in grey suits. "Mr. Smithson," one of them said, "we're from Bigwoods Football Pools. I'm afraid there's been a terrible mistake…"
1. What do we know about Frank?

A．He was a lazy man.

B．He made a lot of money.

C．He didn't get on well with his boss.

D．He was a lucky person.

2. When he heard the knock at the door, Frank probably thought_______.

A．someone had come to make an apology

B．someone had come to give him the money

C．his friends had come to ask about the football pools

D．his friends had come to congratulate him on his luck

3. On hearing "…there's been a terrible mistake…" Frank was most likely to be ______.

A．disappointed	B．worried
C．nervous	D．curious