【推荐1】On Saturday 24 August 1918, it was raining cats and dogs and thundering over a city called Sunderland on the northeast coast of England. The storm lasted for only about ten minutes. People were surprised to see that it was not just rainwater falling from the sky. There were fish falling down, too! People came out to find out what was happening. They could not believe their own eyes. There were thousands of fish — sand eels— lying on the ground. They were about seven centimeters long, and all were frozen solid.

Sand eels swim together in large groups, often in sandy water, and are often found in large numbers in the North Sea, which reaches out to the east of Sunderland. How was it possible for these sand eels to fall from the sky and land on Sunderland?

Scientists believed the heavy thunderstorm that afternoon may have caused a waterspout. Waterspouts can be formed when strong winds move quickly in a circle over water. They are so powerful; anything less than one meter in length can be taken into them and forced into the clouds. The clouds carry whatever has been taken into them for long distances — sometimes over 150 kilometers. It’s very cold up there and everything soon freezes solid.

For hundreds of years there have been reports of small animals being taken into the sky through waterspouts. In 2009, dead tadpoles rained down on the city of Nanao in Japan. In 2012, fifty kilos of prawns fell from the sky over Sri Lanka. In 2017, fish fell on the coastal city of Tampico In Mexico.

It must be a very strange experience to see fish raining down on you. It would probably hurt if one fell on your head! With climate change, global warming and many reports of terrible natural disasters, will the time ever come when it may really begin to rain cats and dogs?

1. What was the rain like on 24 August 1918?

A．It was very heavy.	B．It fell around England.
C．It lasted quite a long time.	D．It caused many human deaths.

2. What do we know about the sand eels that landed on Sunderland?

A．They were few in number.	B．They came in different sizes.
C．They were still alive when landing.	D．They probably came from the North Sea.

3. What does the underlined word “them” in Paragraph 3 refer to?

A．Clouds.

B．Waterspouts.

C．Strong winds.

D．The waters of the sea.

4. In the end, what does the author probably care most about?

A．Our health.	B．Our environment.
C．The wild animals.	D．The news reports.

【推荐2】In life，once on a path，we tend to follow it，for better or worse.What's sad is that even if it's the latter，we often accept it anyway because we are so used to the way things are that wed don't even recognize that they could be different This is a phenomenon psychologist call functional fixedness.

This classic experiment will give you an idea of how it works and a sense of whether you may have fallen into the same trap: People are given a box of tacks (大头钉) and some matches and asked to find a way to attach a candle to a wall so that it burns properly.

Typically, the subjects try tacking the candle to the wall or lighting it to fix it with melted wax. The psychologists had, of course, arranged it so that neither of these obvious approaches would work. The tacks are too short, and the paraffin (石蜡) doesn't stick to the wall. So how can you complete the task? The successful technique is to use the tack box as a candle-holder. You empty it, tack it to the wall. and stand the candle inside it. To think of that, you have to look beyond the box's usual role as a receptacle just for tacks and re-imagine it serving an entirely new purpose. That is difficult because we all suffer to one degree or another from functional fixedness.

The inability to think in new ways affects people in every corner of society. The political theorist Hannah Arendt coined the phrase“frozen thoughts”to describe deeply held ideas that we no longer question but should. In Arendt's eyes, the self- content reliance on such accepted “truths”also made people blind to ideas that didn't fit their worldview, even when there was plenty of evidence for them.

Frozen thinking has nothing to do with intelligence, she said,“It can be found in highly intelligent people.”

1. What does the underlined word“it”in paragraph 2 refer to?

A．The experiment.	B．Functional fixedness.
C．The path.	D．The thinking.

2. Which way is hard to think of to complete the task?

A．Tacking the candle to the wall.

B．Fixing the candle with melted wax.

C．Using the tack box as a candle-holder.

D．Lighting the candle to stand it.

3. Which of the following statements will Hannah Arendt agree with?

A．People should question.

B．We should be used to the way things are.

C．People shouldn't accept the idea that doesn't fit their worldview.

D．The smarter people are，the more open to the new things they are.

4. What's the passage mainly about?

A．An interesting experiment

B．A psychological phenomenon.

C．A theory to be proved.

D．The opinion of Hannah Arendt.

【推荐3】Imagine you are opening your own company and want to hire a manager. You have two candidates and they are both capable and experienced, so who would you rather hire: Julia   Watson or Shobha Bhattacharva? Chances are that you would prefer Watson, right? But why?

“Easy names are evaluated as more familiar, less risky and less dangerous, ” Eryn Newman, a scientist at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, told Scientific American. As a result, people with easier names are often assumed to be more trustworthy. This is what Newman and her teammates have found in their recent study.

In the experiment, they picked 18 different foreign names, including difficult-to-pronounce ones like Yevgeni Dherzhinsky and easy names like Bodo Wallmeyer. They then attached each name with a statement such as “turtles are deaf” and “giraffes are the only mammals that cannot jump” and asked volunteers whether they thought the claims were true.

The results showed that claims connected to easier names were more often ranked as believable than those attributed to difficult names, regardless of what the truth really was. In fact, previous studies have already found that our judgments about products can be affected by their names. For example, we tend to think of a food additive (添加剂) with an easier name as safer and a stock with an easier name as more lucrative (利润丰厚的)，according to Medical Daily.

But researchers pointed out that this effect can change depending on where someone comes from. For example, a native British man may find “Yevgeni Dherzhinsky” hard to pronounce while Russian people could say it without effort. Newman hopes that this finding can make us better see our biases (偏见). It’s not just unfair to people that we make judgments based on gut feelings (直觉) rather than facts, and it can sometimes have serious consequences.

For example, we may choose to believe certain eyewitnesses in court simply because their names sound more trustworthy even if they are actually lying. Or, we may let go of qualified job candidates due to their “difficult” names.

Now, if you could make that decision again, would you still prefer Julia Watson to Shobha Bhattacharva?

1. What did Newman and her teammates discover in their experiment?

A．Volunteers with easier names were more likely to choose true claims.

B．A difficult name doesn’t influence the way the volunteers viewed the claims.

C．Volunteers trusted claims paired with easy names more often.

D．Volunteers trusted claims connected with difficult names.

2. The underlined words “this effect” in Paragraph 5 refer to the effect ______.

A．names have on peoples judgments

B．gut feelings have on people from different places

C．of decisions made based on facts

D．of people’s biases against certain types of people

3. What can we conclude from the last paragraph?

A．We should think twice before we make a decision.

B．The harder your name is to pronounce, the more likely it is you will get a job.

C．Judging people based on their names may cause serious problems.

D．Russians have less bias against people’s names than the British.

4. What is probably the best title for the text?

A．Names Affect Products

B．Employers Prefer Shobha Bhattacharva

C．Difficult Names are Trustworthy

D．Easy Names Win Out

【推荐1】Food festivals around the world
Stilton Cheese Rolling
May Day is a traditional day for celebrations, but the 2,000 English villagers of Stilton must be the only people in the world who include cheese rolling in their annual plans. Teams of four, dressed in a variety of strange and funny clothes , roll a complete cheese along a 50-metre course. On the way, they must not kick or throw their cheese, or go into their competitors' lane. Competition is fierce and the chief prize is a complete Stilton cheese weighing about four kilos (disappointingly, but understandably the cheeses used in the race are wooden ones). All the competitors are served with beer or port wine, the traditional accompaniment for Stilton cheese.
Fiery Foods Festival—The Hottest Festival on Earth
Every year more than 10,000 people head for the city of Albuquerque, New Mexico. They come from as far away as Australia, the Caribbean and China, but they all share a common addiction—food that is not just spicy ,but hot enough to make your mouth burn, your head spin and your eyes water. Their destination is the Fiery Food and BBQ Festival which is held over a period of three days every March. You might like to try a chocolate-covered habanero pepper—officially the hottest pepper in the world—or any one of the thousands of products that are on show. But one thing's for sure—if you don't like the feeling of a burning tongue, this festival isn't for you!
La Tomatina—The World's Biggest Food Fight
On the last Wednesday of every August, the Spanish town of Bunol hosts Ea Tomatina—the world's largest food fight. A week-long celebration leads up to an exciting tomato battle as the highlight of the week's events. The early morning sees the arrival of large trucks with tomatoes—official fight-starters get things going by casting tomatoes at the crowd.
The battle lasts little more than half an hour, in which time around 50,000 kilograms of tomatoes have been thrown at anyone or anything that moves, runs, or fights back. Then everyone heads down to the river to make friends again—and for a much-needed wash!
1. Where is the Fiery Food and BBQ Festival held?

A．In New Mexico.	B．In the Caribbean.
C．In Australia.	D．In China.

2. The celebration of La Tomatina lasts .

A．three days	B．seven days
C．less than three days	D．more than seven days

3. Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?

A．The chief prize for the Stilton cheese rolling competition is beer or port wine.

B．More than 10,000 Chinese take part in the Fiery Food and BBQ Festival.

C．Thousands of spicy foods are on show in the Fiery Food and BBQ Festival.

D．An exciting tomato battle takes place at the beginning of La Tomatina.

【推荐2】Many teens may feel anxious sometimes. It's the kind of nervousness that makes you bite your fingers before a big test. We spend more time online than we should. We feel good about ourselves or bad based on how many Likes and Followers we get on social media. Young people are developing a wrong view of life.

On the screen, we see what people want to show us. People usually only post photos where they are looking at their best. They meet friends around them and seem that they are having a great time. No one seems sad or lonely. In short, life is wonderful. But sooner or later, our young people compare their real life to it. They find that theirs doesn't seem as fun or exciting and grow worried that they may be missing out.

No wonder teachers are reporting more anxious students. It's reported that a lot more college students feel —too much anxiety. The percentage jumped from 50% in 2016 to 62% in 2021. Anxiety is now the most common mental-health problem in my country. It affects nearly one-third of teens and adults.

Certainly, we can't blame （责备）it on social media alone. We expect too much from our children and a lot of these expectations aren't reasonable. Their plans are packed with sports, clubs and homework. They don't have enough free time. We want our children to succeed, and we don't care how much it costs.

As parents, we must have more balance. On one hand, we push too hard, and on the other hand, we make life too easy for children. We shouldn't and can't promise our children that they will always be happy. We shouldn't try to protect them from the problems of everyday life. Let them solve the problems in person.

1. What does the underlined word “theirs” in Paragraph 2 refer to?

A．Young people's life.	B．Young people's friends.
C．Young people's photos.	D．Young people's parents.

2. What does the fourth paragraph concentrate on?

A．The cost from parents.	B．The duty of social media.
C．The hobbies of young people.	D．The expectations from parents.

3. What does the writer suggest parents do in the last paragraph?

A．Try to meet teens' expectations.	B．Help teens with their homework.
C．Give teens more free time to play sports.	D．Allow teens to solve their own problems in life.

4. Which is the best title for the text?

A．What Causes Teens' Nervousness	B．How to Deal with Teens' Anxiety
C．How to Treat Social Media Suitably	D．What a View of Life Means to People

【推荐3】Did you ever notice how your favorite clothes lose their color and seem thinner with time? Washing may be to blame.

According to a new study, clothes lose fewer dyes(染料) and fibers when washed in shorter cycles and in cool water. That means they will fade and thin less. These wash settings are greener, too—good for the environment.

As clothes are being washed in a washing machine, some of the fabric’s fibers loosen and are washed away. Clothes also lose some of dyes that colored them and the dyes and fibers lost in the water will end up in the environment.

“There is some sort of environmental impact as to almost everything you do,” says Lucy Cotton from the University of Leeds. Her research team put together two batches of clothes for tests. One had dark-colored T-shirts. The other had shirts in lighter colors. The team washed each batch in the same machine but used two different cycles. The first cycle lasted 30 minutes and used 25°C water. The second cycle used 40°C water and ran for 85 minutes.

After each cycle, the team collected fibers in the wash water and from an extra empty wash cycle afterward. They found that all shirts lost more color when washed in hot water in the longer cycle. Room-temperature water released fewer dyes than the hotter water did. The shirts also lost more tiny fibers in the longer, hotter cycle. Those microfibers matter because they give fabric its weight and strength. When the fabric loses too many microfibers, it will thin and weaken. Those microfibers will also pollute waterways.

And, just as microfibers add up to tons of waste, even small steps to cut waste will also add up. “Everything that you can do can make a difference,” Cotton says, “even if it is something as simple as changing your wash settings.”

1. What did the new study mainly express in the passage?

A．The advantages of washing clothes.	B．The frequency of washing clothes.
C．The results of washing clothes.	D．The results of washing time and water temperature.

2. From the passage, what can we learn about microfibers?

A．They are useless at all.	B．They are beneficial to fabric.
C．They can improve water quality.	D．They are good for the environment.

3. What can we know from the team’s experiment?

A．We should wash clothes as few as possible.

B．We should wash clothes in longer cycles.

C．We’d better use cool water when washing clothes.

D．We need a proper washing machine when washing clothes.

4. Which is the best title of the passage?

A．Wash Properly, Pollute Less	B．Wash Quickly, Spend Less
C．The Research on Microfibers	D．The Ways to Wash Clothes