【推荐1】British historian Jacob Bronowski once wrote, “Man masters nature not by force, but by understanding.” This is especially for extreme climber Alex Honnold, who climbed California's El Capitan by himself, without any safety ropes(绳子), in 2017. The New York Times called it“one of the greatest athletic feats（功绩）of any kind, ever.”

Now you can watch him do it. The documentary Free Solo, which hit Chinese mainland cinemas on Sept 6, shows Honnold’s brave journey up the 914-meter high mountain. The film won the 2019 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in February. In it, Honnold gives us some useful advice:“You’ll always feel fear, but over time you’ll realize the only way to truly manage your fear is to broaden your comfort zone. It means that challenging yourself is important.”

In fact, free climbing requires perseverance, control, and concentration. “I’m not thinking about anything when I’m climbing,” Honnold said, “I’m focused on doing what’s in front of me.” This strong focus on the present is a sort of meditation (冥想) that we can use in our daily routines.

While the documentary seemingly praises extreme athletes for pushing the limits of human potential, some are concerned about Honnold risking his own life. “His deed puts great stress on his loved ones, even when he succeeds,” Climbing Magazine noted.

Free Solo seems to say that with enough courage and dedication, one can achieve any goal. However, the movie may also be viewed as the disturbing story of a climber who went against all better judgment and got away with it.

1. What do we know about Free Solo?

A．It won an Academy Award in 2017.

B．It was adapted from a book about mountain climbing.

C．It introduces famous extreme climbers around the world.

D．It shows how Honnold climbed El Capitan without any protection.

2. How does Honnold deal with his fear?

A．He practices meditation regularly.

B．He does different exercises to help him relax.

C．He keeps taking on new challenges.

D．He asks experienced climbers for advice.

3. What do Honnold’s loved ones think of him, according to Climbing Magazine?

A．They believe he should value his own life.

B．They think he will reach even greater achievements.

C．They think he should have done more training.

D．They see him as an idol.

【推荐2】Directions: Complete the following passage by using the sentences given below. Each sentences can be used only once. Note that there are two more sentences than you need.

The Benefits of a Summer Job

Have you ever had a summer job? For many young people, summer is an exciting period where education stops and fun begins.     1     And the very group who have the time to benefit from the fun summer has to offer may not have the funds to do so. The solution? A summer job.

The concept of students and younger members of society being gainfully employed over the summer period is not a new one. And there are opportunities out there for those who want to earn.     2     In many cases, the jobs only pay minimum wages, which may only help you out. But the money is not the only thing that’s gained.

    3     Indeed, when talking about their experiences of summer jobs, people said they got “invaluable training” and learnt skills such as punctuality, tolerance, and the importance of hard work. These opportunities are thought to be so important that the UK government has placed 20,000 summer job vacancies on its Find a Job website.

    4     The percentage of young people working while studying has more than halved since 1997, falling from 42% to 18% in 2014. Those are the findings of a UK government report on the death of the Saturday job. Ester McVey believes this is because young people are choosing to focus more on education rather than earning extra money.

A．Summer and Saturday jobs prepare young people for successful careers in later life, teaching vital soft skills.

B．Students take summer jobs mainly to cover their tuition and this practice is highly appreciated by their parents.

C．That said, holidays, festivals and time spent with friends cost money.

D．This move comes at a time of apparent need.

E．Soft skills are so essential to students’ future career that they have to take summer jobs to acquire them.

F．Vacancies can range from roles as boring as fry cook, to seasonal work at a theme park.

【推荐3】Many young people would like to make a booth（货摊）to do business on the street in the name of entrepreneurship（创业精神）and sell lemon. It might seem like an easy sell-kids offering cool drinks. Some entrepreneurs offer their tips on how to make money from this.

Joe Mansueto, founder of the investment company Morningstar, sold lemonade as a kid. "You should always pay attention to customers," he said. "When somebody's walking down the street, get out from behind the booth, greet them, talk to them and just make friends with them to attract more customers."

However, his two sons decided to sell a different drink. When they were 8 and 10, his boys sold cocoa outside their home. The great thing about business is that there are really no rules. You can be creative and try something different, Mansueto said.

But it wasn't enough for US representative Mike Quigley and his older brother to sell drinks. They sold old books at the booth and would rent them out for customers to read while they enjoyed their drinks.

Adam Ochstein, founder of StratEx Partners, a human resources service company, gave frequent visitors cards which were printed with a lemon. Every five drinks, customers got one card which allowed them to pay less than half of the next drink. However, they didn't price the drinks. "If you want to give nothing, give nothing. If you want to give $2, give $2. I think we had let the adults give more money than they probably would like to, "Today, he suggests kids use social media for marketing. He said, "It can tell people where the booth is going to be and what unique specials you're running."

1. What is paragraph 2 mainly about?

A．How to set up a big company.

B．How to attract more customers.

C．How to make friends with others.

D．How to tell apart rich customers.

2. How did Mike Quigley make his booth different from the others?

A．By selling cocoa outside their home.

B．By renting used books to the customers.

C．By making friends with his customers.

D．By lending new books to his customers.

3. What advice about the booth does Ochstein give to kids?

A．Giving visitors free drinks

B．Giving visitors cards with a lemon

C．Taking advantage of social media

D．Allowing customers to pay less money

4. What is the best title for the text?

A．Street business	B．Marketing fashion
C．Service culture	D．Social activities

【推荐2】Meetings. Answering emails. Ever feel too busy at work to get any actual work done? According to a new report from Microsoft, our workplaces have a serious productivity (生产率) problem. 64% of 31,000 employees surveyed struggled with having the time and energy to do their job. Subjects said that countless meetings were their number one productivity killer. Other reports also supported Microsoft’s study. A report from EY-Parthenon found American worker productivity decreased by 2.7% in the first quarter this year compared with the same period last year, marking the fifth quarter in a row that worker productivity has dropped.

Unsurprisingly, Microsoft, with its enormous investment (投资) in Al tools, says Al is the solution. Never mind that it was Microsoft’s own technology — Teams, Office, Outlook — that promised productivity savings and delivered the opposite. Should we still put faith in Microsoft to solve the problem with new tools that will “rethink workdays” and “protect focus time for creative work”?

So what is the answer to the productivity puzzle? Big companies need to look no further than small businesses, which have been showing how to be productive. Visit a business with fewer than 100 employees and you will find people there at their desks, behind counters, or in front of machines. There are fewer formalized meetings. Employees can make their own choices. Decisions are made without committees. Investments are made with more of a gut (直觉的) feeling. Technology is used when it is clear that it can save time and make money.

Microsoft would have you believe that buying its Al technology will solve productivity issues. However, what is the problem is not too little technology but how to use it in a smart way.

1. Which leads most to the productivity problem?

A．Work atmosphere.

B．Co-worker relationship.

C．Office facilities.

D．Meeting overload.

2. What is the author’s attitude towards Microsoft’s technology?

A．Supportive.

B．Careful.

C．Negative.

D．Uncertain.

3. What makes small businesses productive?

A．Rules.

B．Committees.

C．Investment.

D．Flexibility.

4. What can be inferred from the last paragraph?

A．Improving productivity calls for more than technology.

B．The development of Al will solve productivity issues.

C．Big companies have a promising future in the Al field.

D．Small businesses should make more use of technology.

【推荐3】Nowadays high schools are faced with a very controversial issue whether or not community service hours are needed to graduate. High schools are arguing that 40 hours of community service are needed to graduate, but many upset students are voicing protests to this demand.

Supporters of the community service project argue that while high school students are participating in community service, they will become better aware of what the real world is like. Students will learn valuable life lesson by doing community service.     1     They feel that if high school students are forced to do community service they will begin to see it as a punishment and as something that they have to do because it is required instead of something that they want to do.     2     They will continue to carry a negative attitude towards community service for their lifetime.

Another idea that the protestors give about this community service issue is time restriction. When a student goes to school full time, he is involved in after-class activities and also works. The time that is needed to participate in a community service project may place quite a burden on the student.    3    . If students well manage their time and start the community service in their first year in high school, all they need to do is an hour every other week.

    4    . The protestors argue that high school students do not have their driver’s license, so how are they expected to get to their community service site when their parents or friends are at work or just too busy to give them a ride.     5    . The supporters argue that students can find community service projects close to home or find another student to car pool with if they live in the country.

In my opinion, community service is a wonderful thing that everyone should be required to do at some point in their life, but are high school students mature and responsible enough to take on community service projects at this stage in their life?

A．Protestors have struck back with a very solid argument.

B．A final controversial issue that appears is transportation.

C．Students will feel good about themselves for helping others in need.

D．Unless the school offers a means of transportation for the students there really is no solution to this problem.

E．Both sides have solid arguments about why community service should or should not be forced upon students.

F．Students will in the future look back at the community service projects that they were forced to do throughout high school.

G．Supporters argue back that high school students only need to fulfill 40 hours of community service throughout 4 years.

【推荐1】Ultrasound（超声）is used widely in medical imaging, but in recent years scientists have started developing it for another use: stimulating nerves to treat disease. In two new studies in mice, researchers focused the sound waves on nerves in the spleen（脾）that communicate with the immune system, reducing symptoms. If the approach proves safe and effective in people, it could serve as a treatment for diseases such as arthritis（关节炎）.

In one study, led by scientists at the Feistein Institute and GE Research, mice receiving a few minutes of ultrasound treatment to the spleen nerve had a diminished symptoms to an injected（注射）poison. In another study, researchers at the University of Minnesota and their colleagues reduces symptoms of arthritis in mice by stimulating their spleen nerves for 20 minutes every day for a week. “Zeroing in on the spleen may provide a more precise approach than focusing on the vagus nerve（交感神经）, which connects with the immune system via a second nerve that stimulates the spleen.” says Hubert Lin, lead author of the latter study. “When we’re targeting the spleen we have less of an effect all over the body.”

“Little is known about how repeated ultrasound affects the spleen or whether it has other harmful effects,” says neuroscientist Denise Bellinger of Loma Linda University, who was not involved in either study. An ongoing clinical trial aims to assess the treatment’s safety in humans with arthritis. A bigger unknown is how ultrasound activates in general. Scientists are now exploring the use of ultrasound on other parts of the nervous system, including the brain. “We know how to control nerves with electricity, and we’ve been doing it for more than 100 years,” neuroscientist Kevin Tracey says, “But the idea of controlling nerve signals with ultrasound is a brand-new field.”

1. What do scientists expect of the new application of ultrasound?

A．It'll be applied in medical imaging

B．It'll be used to activate nerves to treat disease.

C．It’ll be applied in spleen transplantation.

D．It'll be employed to rebuild immune system.

2. What does the underlined word “diminished" in paragraph 2 mean?

A．Complicated.	B．Worsened.
C．Decreased.	D．Associated.

3. What is the concern of Denise Bellinger?

A．Side effect.	B．Time length.
C．The procedure.	D．The cost.

4. What is most likely the next step of the study?

A．Assessing the treatment' s safety on humans.

B．Activating nerves in general with ultrasound.

C．Exploring the use of ultrasound on the brain.

D．Controlling nerve signals with ultrasound.

【推荐3】What defines an eco-house? There are two features to take into consideration. Firstly, the energy efficiency and carbon emissions associated with running the house, and then the type of construction materials used, their associated emissions and the raw materials required.

At Baufritz, we have won awards relating to the sustainability of our houses. This is because as a company we had decided to put environmental stewardship at the core of our values way back in the 1960s. So how do we do it?

Heating is the biggest emissions factor for any house. It is really rather simple to solve this problem — make a house extremely energy efficient and this will no longer be a factor. Ultra low energy houses have become known as Passive houses, where a certain set of design characteristics help to improve efficiencies. You need a very high level of insulation in the walls and roof. Glass should be suitably positioned to optimize solar gaintucmrr (heat from the sun). The house needs to be very well engineered so no heat is lost through cracks or poorly fitted windows and doors. At Baufritz we manufacture Kit houses, and use Modern Manufacturing Methods in our factory to engineer our houses in such a way that leaks are minimized.

We have also developed “HOIZ” insulation. Manufactured from natural wood waste products, HOIZ is placed between the inside and outside layers of our timber framed houses to create the highest level of insulation. Our windows and doors use triple glazing to minimize heat loss. Overheating is one of the biggest challenges Passive houses face and our architects use some very clever ventilation systems   to manage   internal   environmental   conditions.   All   houses   still   have   energy-consuming appliances, but with the addition of solar for both electricity generation and water heating, the carbon footprint of the homes we produce are further reduced.

Embedded carbon in building manufacturing materials such as concrete, as well as a historic tendency to send materials to landfills, results in a high carbon footprint and natural resource exploitation. Baufritz addresses this problem in a number of ways. Our primary manufacturing material is wood. We source from sustainable certified forests where felled trees are replanted. In fact, we believe all building materials should be as natural as possible. We say no to PU construction foams, chemical insulation materials, toxic adhesives and laminate flooring. A house constructed using only natural materials creates a healthy living environment for its residents. As all our houses are manufactured in our state-of-the-art factory, waste is kept to an absolute minimum. At the end of their life-cycle, our houses can also be recycled. Today, demolition（拆除）firms clearing the site for the new build are able to recycle nearly all of the building materials, therefore closing the manufacturing loop.

My house is old, so why is this relevant? There are still lots of things which can be done. Improve your insulation. When your appliances expire, replace based on efficiency. Consider heat pumps instead of gas boilers and explore solar to deliver electricity and water heating. By designing and building houses to ultra low energy standards, and by using natural sustainably sourced materials and recycling the waste products from our manufacturing processes, we are able to deliver Carbon Neutral Houses. This means that the total carbon footprint throughout the life-cycle of each house is zero, which is why we call ourselves eco-house pioneers. All houses are prefabricated at our state-of-the-art factory in Erkheim, Germany, and then assembled on site.

1. According to the passage, which of the following is NOT associated with the sustainability of eco-houses?

A．The raw materials used.

B．Energy efficiency of the house.

C．Carbon emissions released by house designers.

D．Construction materials used and their emissions.

2. From the passage it can be inferred that Passive houses _____________.

A．fail to optimize solar gain

B．need to be carefully engineered to trap heat

C．use more energy-consuming appliances than Kit houses

D．could have less comfortable environmental conditions inside them

3. Which of the following statements is true about the way Baufritz builds houses?

A．House recycling is an additional service provided free by Baufritz.

B．Building materials are obtained from factories to ensure their quality.

C．Man-made materials are applied to reduce their impact on the environment.

D．The houses are all manufactured in their factory so as to reduce costs and waste.

4. The purpose of the passage is to ________.

A．argue for the necessity of eco-houses

B．advertise Baufritz, an eco-house builder

C．explain the underlying values of eco-houses

D．expand people’s knowledge of what eco-houses are