【推荐2】A flexitarian is a person who mainly eats plant-based foods but occasionally eats meat or fish.     1    .That's why the name of this diet is a combination of the words "flexible" and "vegetarian". It has no clear-cut rules or recommended numbers of calories and macronutrients. In fact, it's more a lifestyle than a diet. Since there is no clear definition of this diet yet, it's hard to say what benefits it has.However, studies on vegetarian diets have shown that eating mostly fruits, vegetables, legumes( 豆科作物), whole grains and other less processed whole foods may promote health.     2    .

Reduce Heart Disease

A study which followed 45,000 adults for over 11 years showed that vegetarians had a 32% lower risk of heart disease than non-vegetarians. The study focused on vegetarian diets instead of the flexitarian diet. However, the flexitarian diet is meant to be mostly plant-based foods and will most likely have benefits similar to fully vegetarian diets.

Lose Weight

Eating more plant-based foods that are naturally lower in calories and limiting high-calorie processed foods are good for weight loss.     3    And those who follow vegan(严格素食主义者) diets tend to lose the most weight. Since the flexitarian diet is closer to a vegetarian diet than a vegan one, it may help with weight loss but possibly not as much as a vegan diet would.

Prevent Cancer

Foods like fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds and whole grains have nutrients and antioxidants that may help prevent cancer.     4    .

A 7-year study on 78,000 people who had suffered from colorectal cancer found that semi-vegetarians were 8% less likely to get this type of cancer, compared to non-vegetarians. Therefore, eating more vegetarian foods may reduce your cancer risk.

Lower the Incidence(发生率) of Diabetes

Type 2 diabetes is a global health problem.     5    .This is most probably because plant-based foods are high in fibre and low in unhealthy fat and added sugar, which helps weight loss. A study in over 60,000 participants found that the prevalence of type 2 diabetes was 1.5% lower in flexitarians compared to non-vegetarians.

A．Studies have shown that people who follow a vegetarian diet may lose more weight than those who do not

B．Eating more plant-based foods will also drive the demand for more land to be devoted to growing fruits and vegetables

C．The flexitarian diet is more flexible than fully vegetarian or vegan diets

D．Research suggests that vegetarian diets are associated with a lower overall incidence of all cancers

E．When flexitarian and other plant-based diets are well planned, they can be very healthy

F．Eating a healthy diet, especially more plant-based foods, may help prevent and manage this disease

G．So the flexitarian diet may provide the following possible health benefits

【推荐1】It should be one of the main goals in today's society to reduce plastic consumption. Though many believe recycling will solve the problem, it's actually the opposite. In 2013,254 million tons of trash was produced in the U.S. alone, and only around 30% was recycled. This means the rest ended up in a landfill and will stay there for up to 1000 years.

Recently, China has stopped importing trash from all over the world. Before this, over 30% of the world's waste would end up in China, causing a popular belief that Asian countries are those responsible for creating the majority of the waste in the world. Now, Asian countries are looking for new ideas to avoid the plastic. One of those ideas was a new, eco-friendly way to pack their goods by avoiding plastic packaging.

One of Perfect Homes Chiangmai's team members, Sam, noticed a creative way to reduce plastic that a supermarket called Rimping Supermarket was using and decided to capture their shelves with his phone. Little did he know that people all around the world would absolutely love this idea. “I just stepped in to get a few items while we were waiting to sign some contracts with our lawyer, who was delayed. I noticed the vegetables wrapped in banana leaves and simply liked the idea. So I took a few pictures and posted them online,” he said. With more than 3.5million views and over 17 thousand shares, the idea becomes something people can encourage more supermarkets to implement.

Some have noticed that not everything on the shelves is completely plastic-free. Many products come to the supermarkets pre-packaged and many companies are interested in wrapping their products in plastic since it is the cheapest and the easiest option. It's now up to the shoppers to show the supermarket which they prefer. If everyone opts for the banana leaf packaging, they will probably stop storing the items in plastic.

1. What can we learn from the first two paragraphs?

A．The majority of the trash produced in the U.S. was recycled.

B．Asian countries are to blame for creating most of the world's waste.

C．Nearly one third of the world's waste ended up in China until recently.

D．All of the U.S. trash will end up in a landfill and stay there for 1000 years.

2. Why did Sam go to Rimping Supermarket?

A．To buy some items.	B．To post their shelves online.
C．To take photos of the vegetables.	D．To sign some contracts with the shopkeeper.

3. What does the underlined phrase in the last paragraph probably mean?

A．measures.

B．chooses.

C．conveys.

D．exchanges.

4. What's the author's attitude towards leaf packaging?

A．Skeptical.

B．Objective.

C．Subjective.

D．Indifferent.

【推荐2】The South Bronx is one of the poorest and most polluted places in America, with smog-choked freeways and smelly wastewater treatment plants.

“We’re a dumping ground,” Omar explains. “All the garbage from the rest of New York City ends up here.”

But Omar started looking at garbage in a different way. “A lot of what people throw away is perfectly good,” he says. “Just look at that stuff from construction sites — doors, sinks, toilets. People will buy those things. It’s only called garbage because somebody threw it away.” Omar was just out of college and working for an environmental group called Sustainable South Bronx when he started considering how to get this “good garbage” to people who could use it. Instead of destroying old things, why not clean them up and resell them? Why not hire people in the community to do the work? Better yet, why not make this business a “cooperative,” which means the people working in the business own it and share the profits?

Out of this, Omar started the first cooperative in the country dedicated to reusing construction waste. To start his business, Omar put up flyers along the truck-jammed, trash-filled neighborhood streets, looking for people to work with him. He soon found fourother dedicated workers. They rented a warehouse and started looking for donations of used materials.

In April 2008, Omar’s cooperative, ReBuilders Source, opened its business and began selling construction supplies — at reasonable prices — to neighborhood builders and home owners. With the help of city officials, he also began planning a new training program to help local residents learn the skills to get good jobs that help the environment and even start their own cooperatives. Workers were trained to carefully take buildings apart so that things like doors and windows can be reused instead of being smashed and sent off to a landfill. Deconstructing buildings this way could be a huge industry with many good jobs for people who need them.

“If you have a use for something,” Omar says, “it’s no longer waste.”

1. What is the purpose of mentioning the South Bronx in the paragraph 1?

A．To catch readers’ eye.

B．To express the serious concern

C．To show the importance of destroying garbage.

D．To inform readers the background information.

2. Which was Not the reason for Omar’s creating a cooperative business?

A．To increase cooperation among neighbors.	B．To deal with dumped rubbish.
C．To provide jobs for local people.	D．To make money from garbage.

3. Which of the following words best describe Omar?

A．Devoted and iron-hearted.	B．Practical and self-focused.
C．Creative and action-oriented.	D．Idealistic and business-minded.

4. Which saying might interpret Omar’s action?

A．Kill two birds with one stone.	B．Knowledge starts with practice.
C．One good turn deserves another.	D．Four eyes see more than two.

【推荐3】With an abundance of sun and wind, Spain is positioning itself as Europe’s future leader in green hydrogen production to clean up heavy industries. But some energy experts express caution because this process relies on massive availability of zero-carbon electricity.

Green hydrogen is created when renewable energy sources power an electrical current that runs through water, separating its hydrogen and oxygen molecules (分子). The process doesn’t produce planet-warming carbon dioxide, but less than 0.1% of global hydrogen production is currently created in this way.

The separated hydrogen can be used in the production of steel, ammonia (氨) and chemical products, all of which require industrial processes that are harder to stop fossil fuels. Hydrogen also can be used as a transportation fuel, which could one day transform the highly polluting shipping and aviation sectors.

Spain’s large, windswept and thinly populated territory receives more than 2,500 hours of sunshine on average per year, providing ideal conditions for wind and solar energy, and therefore green hydrogen production.

“If you look at where hydrogen is going to be produced in Europe in the next million years, it’s in two countries, Spain and Portugal,” said Thierry Lepercq, the founder and president of HyDeal Ambition, an industry platform bringing together 30 companies. “Hydrogen is the new oil.”

Lepercq is working with companies like Spanish gas pipeline corporation Enagas and global steel giant ArcelorMittal to design an end-to-end model for hydrogen production, distribution and supply at a competitive price. Criticism has centered on green hydrogen’s higher cost compared with highly-polluting “gray hydrogen” drawn from natural gas. Lepercq argues that solar energy produced in Spain is priced low enough to compete.

Globally, Lepercq said, “Electricity is 20% of energy consumption. What about the 80% that is not electrified? ... You need to replace those fossil fuels. Not in 50 years’ time. You need to replace them now.”

1. Why are some experts cautious about green hydrogen production in Spain?

A．It needs large amounts of sun and wind.	B．It has an effect on heavy industries.
C．It causes conflicts among countries.	D．It uses lots of zero-carbon electricity.

2. What is the advantage of green hydrogen production in Spain?

A．Ideal geographical conditions.	B．The support from government.
C．Hydrogen production technology.	D．Well-developed public transports.

3. What can be inferred about green hydrogen in Spain according to Lepercq?

A．It is highly priced.	B．It is easy to store.
C．It is competitive.	D．It is highly-polluting.

4. What is the passage mainly about?

A．Spain manages to use zero-carbon electricity.	B．Spain struggles to lead EU in heavy industry.
C．Spain takes the lead in preventing air pollution.	D．Spain replaces fossil fuel with green hydrogen.

【推荐1】Digital reading appears to be destroying habits of “deep reading”. Astonishing numbers of people with years of schooling are actually illiterate and ignorant. This month’s Ljubljana Manifesto (宣言) explains: “The digital field may promote more reading than ever in history, but it also offers many temptations to read in a superficial(肤浅的)and scattered manner— or even not to read at all. This increasingly endangers higher-level reading.”

That’s frightening, because “higher-level reading” has been essential to civilization. It enabled the enlightenment and an international increase in empathy. Without it, we would suffer a lot. As the Ljubljana Manifesto notes, “one-third of Europeans struggle even with lower-level reading skills.” More than one-fifth of adults in the US “fall into the illiterate/functionally illiterate category”. Separately, post-pandemic reading scores for American 13-year-olds are the lowest in decades. And the Washington-based Center for Global Development recently estimated that literacy in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa among those with five years of schooling has decreased by 10% this past half century.

Experts in the Ljubljana Manifesto record the demerits of digital reading: “Recent studies of various kinds indicate a decline of critical and conscious reading, slow reading, non-strategic reading and long-form reading.” When you read a book on paper, you can be entirely inside the experience, absorb hundreds of pages of details thoroughly and begin to capture the world’s complexity. But online, says Maryanne Wolf of UCLA, we are “skimming, scanning, scrolling(滚屏)”. The medium is the message: doing deep reading on your phone is as hard as playing tennis with your phone. Recently, a bright 11-year-old told me I was wasting time on books: he absorbed more information faster from Wikipedia. He had a point. But digital readers also absorb more misinformation and seldom absorb fine perspectives.

In short, as professors from Northwestern University foresaw in 2005, we are returning to the days when only an elite (精英) “reading class” consumes long texts, which is a worrying problem.

1. What can we learn about digital reading from paragraph 1?

A．Digital reading has solved the problem of illiteracy.

B．Digital reading has lessened the practice of deep reading.

C．Digital reading has made deep reading accessible to wider readers.

D．Digital reading has aroused a greater appreciation for deep reading.

2. What is the purpose of the figures used in paragraph 2?

A．To display the popularity of digital reading.

B．To highlight the advantages of deep reading.

C．To present the unfavorable situation of literacy.

D．To stress the illiterate’s lower-level reading skills.

3. What does the underlined word “demerits” in paragraph 3 mean?

A．Effects.

B．functions

C．Features.

D．Drawbacks.

4. What might be talked about in the following paragraph?

A．Advantages of digital reading.	B．Benefits of higher-level reading.
C．Ways to encourage digital reading.	D．Measures to practice deep reading.

【推荐2】Predicting extreme weather events is a tricky business. Changing climate conditions have increased the frequency of severe storms, floods, and heatwaves, along with larger wildfires. As a result, scientists are using artificial intelligence (AI) techniques for more accurate forecasts that help to minimize damage and save lives.

Researchers at Pennsylvania State University have worked together with meteorologists (气象学家) to analyze more than 50,000 weather satellite images to quickly identify storms. They found comma-shaped cloud formations that often lead to severe weather such as hail, blizzards, high winds, and thunderstorms.

Computers were then taught using computer vision and machine learning to automatically detect these clouds from satellite images, with almost 100 percent accuracy, in less than a minute. By refocusing meteorologists’ attention on potential storm cloud formation the AI tool helped predict 64 percent of severe weather events and beat established detection systems.

Expensive supercomputers are often used to process vast amounts of data needed for accurate weather prediction. But powerful AI methods can run on smaller computers. Climate risk and planning company ClimateAI uses a technique to downscale global weather forecasts to a local scale, cutting down on costs and computing power.

It uses a machine learning technique that pits two neural networks against each other. The neural networks - designed to work like neurons connected in the brain - fight and train each other using global weather data until they get a result.

Using this method ClimateAI researchers generate highly accurate and inexpensive local forecasts for hours or days ahead. And because it is not as costly, it allows poorer countries affected by climate change to use forecasts to change the way they farm, build bridges, roads, or homes, and adapt to extreme weather.

Average costs associated with extreme weather events in the United States have increased steadily since 1980. These have costly impacts on cities’ basic services, infrastructure, housing, human livelihoods, and health. AI helps us to calculate that risk and can be used as a preventive measure.

1. What can be inferred from Para.1?

A．Inaccurate forecasts minimize the destruction.

B．AI enhances accuracy in making weather prediction.

C．Less natural disasters are caused by climate change.

D．Changeable climate decreased the frequency of serious storms.

2. Which is NOT an advantage of AI tool?

A．Being steadier.	B．Being cheaper.
C．Being quicker.	D．Being more precise.

3. What is the function of Para.5?

A．To explain how Climate AI works.

B．To introduce why AI methods are used.

C．To show where ClimateAI can be applied.

D．To identify what effects of the AI tool has.

4. What is the author’s attitude towards AI techniques in predicting extreme weather?

A．Critical.

B．Approving.

C．Objective.

D．Indifferent.

【推荐3】Deborah Cohen is a senior natural scientist at the Rand Corp and the author of the book A Big Fat Crisis: The Hidden Forces Behind the Obesity Epidemic and How We Can End It. According to the book, there are lots of misunderstandings of obesity.
1. If you’re obese, blame your genes.
Obesity rates have increased. Yet, between 1980 and 2000, the number of Americans who are obese has doubled—too quickly for genetic factors to be responsible.
At restaurants, a dollar puts more calories on our plates than ever before, because restaurant meals usually have more calories than what we prepare at home, so people who eat out more frequently have higher rates of obesity than those who eat out less.
2. If you’re obese, you lack self-control.
Research shows that if we are faced with too much information, we have a tendency to make poor dietary choices. Our world has become so rich in temptation that we can be led to consume too much in ways we can’t understand. Even the most vigilant(警觉的) people may not be up to the task of controlling themselves.
3. Lack of access to fresh fruits and vegetables is responsible for obesity.
Although the US Department of Agriculture estimates that fewer than 5 percent of Americans live in the “food deserts”, about 65 percent of the nation’s population is overweight or obese. For most of us, obesity is not related to access to more fresh fruits and vegetables, but to the choices we make in supermarkets.
4. The problem is not that we eat too much, but that we don’t exercise.
Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign is based on the idea that if kids exercise more, childhood obesity rates will decrease. But there was no significant decrease in physical activity levels as obesity rates climbed in the 1980s and 1990s. In fact, although a drop in work-related physical activity may account for up to 100 fewer calories burned, leisure physical activity appears to have increased. The problem is that we eat too much.
1. The author mentioned Deborah Cohen’s book in Paragraph 1 to _______.

A．draw readers’ attention

B．introduce the topic

C．introduce the author of the book

D．advertise the book

2. What is the relationship between obesity and the place where you eat?

A．The more you eat out, the higher rates of obesity you have.

B．The less you eat at home, the lower rates of obesity you have.

C．The less you eat out, the higher rates of obesity you have.

D．The more you eat at home, the higher rates of obesity you have.

3. What’s the best title of this passage?

A．Obesity leads to a big fat crisis.

B．Four rules to help you avoid obesity.

C．Four misunderstandings of obesity.

D．Lacking self-control leads to obesity.