【推荐1】Any 25th birthday is a cause for celebration. But it was even more so for Janus, a two-headed Greek tortoise (龟). Living in the Natural History Museum of Geneva, Switzerland, Janus is now believed to be the world’s oldest two-headed tortoise. The museum celebrated the special occasion with a day-long party filled with fun events, which included taking photos with the birthday “boy”.

In the wild, Greek tortoises can live up to two hundred years in their natural habitat. However, two-headed tortoises, like Janus, usually do not survive for that long. Unlike normal tortoises, they are unable to take back their two heads into their shell, making them highly easy to be attacked.

Janus, who has spent his entire life in the museum, faces no such danger. But life is not without challenges for the two-headed tortoise who also has two hearts and two pair s of lungs. Each head controls the front and back legs on its side of the body. The right head is more curious and more awake. The left head is more passive and loves to eat. This can lead to confusion when the two heads decide to go in different directions. To make matters worse, the two heads frequently rub against each other, resulting in skin sores (溃疡). Janus also has a hard time rolling back onto his feet when he accidentally turns over. If left on their backs for too long, tortoises can get sunburned, dehydrated (脱水的) and even die.

Fortunately, Janus has a special caregiver, Angelica Bourgoin, to make sure he lives along and health y life. The tortoise receives a daily massage and is bathed in green tea and flower water. He eats a special diet of organic fruits and vegetables, keeps active with walks, and rides on his custom skateboard. With such loving care, the two-headed tortoise will surely continue to break many more records for long life.

1. Why is it hard for two-headed tortoises to survive in the wild?

A．They can’t avoid biting each other.

B．They can’t find enough food to eat.

C．They can’t hide from their enemies.

D．They can’t run as fast as normal ones.

2. Where was Janus born?

A．In the museum.	B．In a pet store.
C．In the ocean.	D．In Bourgoin’s home.

3. What will be Janus’s biggest threat if he’s left alone on its back?

A．Different decisions.	B．The death of thirst.
C．The pain on his skin.	D．Two halves of body.

4. Which of the following can best describe Janus’s life?

A．Free.

B．Tough.

C．Boring.

D．Easy.

【推荐2】In recent years, the number of young adults returning to their parents’ homes after leaving has risen. This is the Boomerang Generation, becoming independent only to return to their parents’ homes like boomerangs. A boomerang is a curved(呈弯曲状的) stick that, when thrown in a particular way, comes back to the person who threw it.

One of our family members had a college roommate who dropped out(辍学) and went back to her parents because she was unable to wash her clothes. This is quite a funny example, but stories like these are plentiful. The dropout and many other young adults are often short of basic life skills, so they move out of the family home for a time and then boomerang right back.

We believe having more real-life learning in high school may solve young adults’ inability to become independent. This can be achieved through simply including extra Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills requirements for life skills. The TEKS would include learning about taxes(税), banking, health, voting(选举), job interviews, cooking, and many other important skills.

These areas of study happen to go with required courses. For learning how to do taxes, we would want to include a TEKS in math classes. In an economics class, we would require students to learn about banking and housing. In history class, students would have to learn about the importance of voting. In English class, students could learn about jobs. Cooking would be added to health class.

If in high school we can teach these skills, graduates going to college or trade school won’t need to worry about their living skills and can focus on their education. More students can finish their studies and get degrees. And once out of college or trade school, young people can focus on their jobs and responsibilities as adults. Thus jobs will be done better, people will better understand their role in society and be better rounded as both students and individuals(个人).

1. Which of the following best describes the Boomerang Generation?

A．They depend on their parents.	B．They show great interest in sports.
C．They like to take on new challenges.	D．They want to leave their parents’ homes.

2. Why does the author give the example in paragraph 2?

A．To attract readers with a funny story.

B．To offer some advice for college dropouts.

C．To explain the cause of boomeranging back.

D．To show the Boomerang Generation’s influence.

3. What does the author say about the TEKS?

A．It is easy for students to learn the TEKS.

B．They can be included in required courses.

C．More life skills should be added to the TEKS.

D．The TEKS proves to be important to students.

4. What would the author like high schools to do?

A．Teach students life skills.	B．Work together with parents.
C．Accept the Boomerang Generation.	D．Offer more support to trade schools.

【推荐3】The zoo allows us to observe the wild animals without actually going to the wild places. It’s an enjoyable and educational experience for us, but is it the best environment for the animals?

A long time ago, people could only see wild animals as dead exhibits in a museum. Later, live animals were caught by explorers, brought home and put on show to the public and conditions of the animals were terrible. But modern zoos and wildlife parks have improved the conditions and environments for animals, making bigger places, removing bars, and, to some extent, making it closer to their natural habitats (栖息地)

Some people have questioned the cruelty of keeping animals captive (关起来的) and using them just for entertainment, but zoos are glad to show they are here to help wildlife by educating us about protection. Well-managed zoos are now involved in supporting and funding (资助) protection programmes.

Probably the biggest claim from zoos today is that they help to protect species that are under threat in the wild due to climate change. Robert Young, Chair in Wildlife Protection at Salford University says: “There are quite a lot of different species around the planet which we wouldn’t have today if it wasn’t for zoos.” Some zoos have captive raising programmes which help to preserve the future of species that would otherwise die out. Actor Leonardo DiCaprio recently spoke highly of the protection work of Chester Zoo in the UK. It brought a “rare fish species back from the dead” after breeding and releasing a school of golden skiffia fish back into their native river.

While the debate about having zoos continues, new opportunities to meet wildlife are being explored, such as using virtual reality, and Jon Coe, a zoo designer, told the BBC: “Taking a walk through a herd of elephants in the Serengeti, I think, is going to be possible pretty soon.”

1. What can we learn from Paragraph 2?

A．No dead wild animals can be seen in the museums now.

B．Modern zoos have provided natural habitats for wild animals.

C．The conditions for wild animals in zoos have been gradually improved.

D．The number of wild animals caught by explorers is growing all the time.

2. What does the underlined word “preserve” in Paragraph 4 mean?

A．change

B．protect

C．predict

D．improve

3. What is Leonardo DiCaprio’s attitude towards the work of Chester Zoo?

A．positive

B．doubtful

C．negative

D．unclear

4. Which of the following is the best title for the passage?

A．Why do we have zoos?	B．The conservation efforts of zoos.
C．Should we have zoos?	D．The history and development of zoos.

【推荐2】A small device no bigger than a toaster has generated oxygen on the surface of Mars, bringing the chances of surviving on the red planet a step closer.

Research published in the journal Science Advances reported that The Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilisation Experiment, better known as Moxie, produced breathable oxygen in seven hour- long tests conducted in various weather and atmospheric conditions since landing last year.

During each test, the device produced six grams of oxygen, about the same as a small tree and enough to sustain an astronaut for 15 minutes. “This is the first demonstration of actually using resources on the surface of another planet’s body and transforming them chemically into something that would be useful for a human mission,” Jeffrey Hoffman, a retired astronaut, said.

Hoffman, 77, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) aeronautics department, said the results were “historic”. NASA and the MIT team are planning to build a bigger version of Moxie. They hope advanced models will produce enough oxygen to support a crewed mission to Mars and generate the gas needed to send a rocket back to Earth.

“To support a human mission to Mars we have to bring a lot of stuff from Earth.” Hoffman said. The thin atmosphere on Mars is 96 per cent carbon dioxide and much more variable than on Earth. “The density of the air can vary by a factor of two through the year, and the temperature can vary by 100 degrees,” Hoffman said. “One objective is to show we can run Moxie in all seasons.”

The device uses pumps that suck in carbon dioxide. The gas is healed to 800℃ and compressed to separate the carbon and oxygen. Carbon monoxide (一氧化碳) is emitted as waste while the pure oxygen is left behind.

Scaling up (按比例放大) the device to support a human mission to Mars presents challenges.

NASA and MIT say Moxie would need to run continuously for 400 days, a leap from the one-hour tests. The machine would require insulation, a special material, to control its internal temperature.

Moxie has proved durable (持久的) in the extreme conditions on Mars, however, and the team plans to assess the machine’s limits in the coming months.

1. Which word best describes Hoffman’s attitude to Moxie?

A．Skeptical.

B．Tolerant.

C．Positive.

D．Critical.

2. What is the last step of Moxie’s working?

A．To take in carbon dioxide.

B．To separate the carbon and oxygen.

C．To press the carbon dioxide together.

D．To heat the carbon dioxide to 800℃.

3. Why are NASA and the MIT planning to scale up Moxie?

A．To bring stuff to Mars.

B．To send rockets to Mars.

C．To control its internal temperature.

D．To support a human mission to Mars.

4. What is the passage mainly about?

A．Oxygen production on Mars makes it possible to survive there.

B．Moxie produced enough oxygen to support a human mission.

C．A toaster on the Mars produced breathable oxygen in the tests.

D．The team plans to assess Moxie’s limits in the coming months.

【推荐3】How you fold a paper airplane can determine how fast or how far it goes. A lot of people arrive at the best designs through trial and error, and perhaps a little bit of luck. But this question is no child’s play for the researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne.

“Seemingly a simple toy, the paper airplane actually shows complex aerodynamic (空气动力学的) behaviors which are most often ignored,” the researchers said. “When the paper airplane is launched, there are complex physical interactions between the paper structure and the surrounding air, leading to a particular flight behavior.”

To examine the relationship between a folding pattern and the flight, they developed a robotic system that can make various paper planes and then test, analyze, and model their flight behaviors. In this experiment, the robot made and launched over 500 paper airplanes with 50 different designs. Then it collected data on how far each design flew and the characteristics of that flight.

The researchers sorted different shapes roughly into three types of “behavioral groups”.

The first type follows a nosedive (俯冲) path, which means a short flight distance before landing on the ground. The second type does a glide (滑行), falling at a consistent and relatively controlled rate, and covers a longer distance than the nosedive. The third type is a recovery glide, falling steadily before leveling of and staying at a certain height above the ground.

“With the high precision and automation of the robotic system, large-scale experiments can be performed to improve design,” the researchers noted. “The robot designer can deepen our understanding and exploration of design problems, and could otherwise be challenging to observe any behavior.”

This insight can also apply to the changeable flight paths of small flying vehicles. “These models can be used to improve a real-world robotic design to identify wing shapes that fly a given distance,” the researchers said.

1. What can be inferred from the researchers’ words in Paragraph 2?

A．It is difficult to design a perfect paper airplane.

B．There is more to explore about paper airplanes.

C．The paper airplane is a popular toy for children.

D．It is likely to control paper airplanes’ behaviors.

2. What can the robotic system do?

A．Promote paper airplanes to fly much farther.

B．Leave paper airplanes high above the ground.

C．Create paper airplanes with different designs.

D．Change paper airplanes’ flight characteristics.

3. What did the researchers expect to do through the experiment?

A．Enhance the design of airplanes.

B．Prove the precision of airplanes.

C．Predict the development of airplanes.

D．Increase the automation of airplanes.

4. What is the main idea of the text?

A．Researchers test their innovative ideas on paper airplanes.

B．Researchers design a real-world robot with paper airplanes.

C．Researchers can design various wing shapes for paper airplanes.

D．Researchers create a robot to learn more about paper airplanes’ flight.