【推荐1】For many Chinese consumers, a satisfying breakfast is one that includes either hot porridge(粥) or steamed buns(馒头). Cold sandwiches, which are usually popular with Westerners, are probably one of the last options on their minds. But that is not to say that consumers, especially those in an international city like Shanghai, would avoid everything considered Western for breakfast. For instance, coffee, which has steadily grown in popularity in the country, is one drink that many cannot do without today.

To satisfy this growing demand for breakfast sets that combine elements from the East and the West, food companies have been rolling out a host of new offerings to attract the customer. One example is Shanghai Qiao Coffee, which was launched by local time-honored food company Qiaojiashan at the end of 2019. Apart from its traditional dim sum, the store also sells various types of coffee.

According to Shen Yan, deputy manager of Shanghai Qiaojiashan Food Development Cold, the most popular breakfast set at the moment is the steamed vegetable bun paired with black coffee. “The calories that one gets from a meal featuring Chinese dim sum and coffee are less than those of a Western breakfast. Since a steamed bun has nearly 200 calories and a cup of black coffee barely has any calories, this combination can be considered healthy and delicious," said Shen.

Even the smaller shoppers in the food scene are jumping on the East-West breakfast trend. Western food establishments, too, have been rolling out Chinese breakfast options. "Consumers and even cultural heritage will also benefit from the increased competition. If not for the current trend which has revived interest in certain traditional dim sum, these foods could soon be lost to history," Shen said.

1. What can we learn about breakfast in Shanghai in paragraph 1?

A．People favour porridge and steamed buns.	B．Coffee is a necessity for many people.
C．People avoid western food for breakfast.	D．Cold sandwiches are a popular choice.

2. Why does the set of the steamed vegetable bun with black coffee sell well?

A．It is newly launched.	B．It is tasty and healthy.
C．It has Chinese characteristics.	D．It contains more nutrients.

3. What can we learn from Shen's words in the last paragraph?

A．Western food companies don't care about East-West breakfast.

B．Only big companies have the capacity to seize the market share.

C．The combination trend helps keep some traditional foods alive.

D．The competition for breakfast sets is of no benefit to consumers.

4. What does the author intend to tell us?

A．Western breakfast is well received by Shanghai people.

B．Chinese consumers show more interest in western food.

C．Shanghai Qiao Coffee has won great success for its breakfast sets.

D．The Chinese-Western breakfast set is warmly welcomed in Shanghai.

【推荐2】It’s common to see a barista (咖啡师) create coffee art, but it’s different from doing the same thing with tea. Creating tea art in cups, or “dian cha” in Chinese, improves the taste of tea.     1     The difference is that it is made of tea rather than milk.

Chinese tea culture started to be popular during the Tang Dynasty and developed rapidly throughout the Song Dynasty. Different from the way of brewing (酿造) tea during the Tang period, in the Song Dynasty, the popular way of having tea was through “dian cha”. In the eyes of people of that time, good tea should be white and fine.     2    

The process begins with hot water being poured over fine powdered (粉末状的) tea creating a paste. Then more hot water is slowly added as the tea is continually stirred by hand with a bamboo stiek.     3     That is where the name “dian cha” comes. The key is to practice cooperation between the wrist (手腕) and the arm. It usually requires stirring the mixture between 180 and 200 times before the water and the tea are fully combined and the foam (泡沫) appears. Then, one can feel free; to make artistic designs in the foam with the tea paste.     4     To lengthen its life, it’s advisable to take a photo.

    5     It takes a year of practice, through trial and error, for one to achieve such proficiency (熟练度).

A．The action of pouring hot water is called dian.

B．It is similar to the foam on top of a cup of coffee.

C．However, the design on tea foam will only last for up to an hour.

D．Usually, the whole process has to be completed within 10 minutes

E．The ideal state is when the tea temperature is around 40℃, ready to be tasted.

F．The better the tea, the whiter it should be, and the longer the foam should last.

G．The patterns created on the tea foams are often poems, calligraphy and paintings.

【推荐1】During the rosy years of elementary school(小学), I enjoyed sharing my dolls and jokes, which allowed me to keep my high social status. I was the queen of the playground. Then came my tweens and teens, and mean girls and cool kids. They rose in the ranks not by being friendly but by smoking cigarettes, breaking rules and playing jokes on others, among whom I soon found myself.

Popularity is a well-explored subject in social psychology. Mitch Prinstein, a professor of clinical psychology sorts the popular into two categories: the likable and the status seekers. The likables’ plays-well-with-others qualities strengthen schoolyard friendships, jump-start interpersonal skills and, when tapped early, are employed ever after in life and work. Then there’s the kind of popularity that appears in adolescence: status born of power and even dishonorable behavior.

Enviable as the cool kids may have seemed, Dr. Prinstein’s studies show unpleasant consequences. Those who were highest in status in high school, as well as those least liked in elementary school, are “most likely to engage(从事) in dangerous and risky behavior.”

In one study, Dr. Prinstein examined the two types of popularity in 235 adolescents, scoring the least liked, the most liked and the highest in status based on student surveys(调查研究). “We found that the least well-liked teens had become more aggressive over time toward their classmates. But so had those who were high in status. It clearly showed that while likability can lead to healthy adjustment, high status  has just the opposite effect on us.”

Dr. Prinstein has also found that the qualities that made the neighbors want you on a play date—sharing, kindness, openness—carry over to later years and make you better able to relate and connect with others.

In analyzing his and other research, Dr. Prinstein came to another conclusion: Not only is likability related to positive life outcomes, but it is also responsible for those outcomes, too. “Being liked creates opportunities for learning and for new kinds of life experiences that help somebody gain an advantage, ” he said.

1. What sort of girl was the author in her early years of elementary school?

A．Unkind.

B．Lonely.

C．Generous.

D．Cool.

2. What did Dr. Prinstein’s study find about the most liked kids?

A．They appeared to be aggressive.

B．They tended to be more adaptable.

C．They enjoyed the highest status.

D．They performed well academically.

【推荐3】Time to load up some popular games: new research indicates pigs possess the mental capability to play video games. The study, published in Frontiers in Psychology, tested the ability of four pigs (Hamlet, Omelette, Ebony and Ivory) to play a simple joystick (操纵杆) game with their noses, moving a cursor (光标) to four targets on the screen. Although the animals didn’t demonstrate the skills to win a round any time, they did show an understanding of some elementary games. Performing well not by chance, the pigs appeared to recognize the movement of the cursor was controlled by the joystick. The fact that they did so well despite a lack of flexible fingers is “extraordinary”, according to the researchers.

“It is no small achievement for an animal to grasp the concept that the behaviour they are performing is having an effect elsewhere. That pigs can do this to any degree should give us pause as to what else they are capable of learning and how such learning may impact them, “said Purdue University’s Dr Candace Croney, the study’s lead author.

Researchers also noted that while the pigs could be taught to play the game using food as positive motivation, they also responded well to social interaction. In fact, when the game was made more challenging and the pigs became unwilling to participate in it, “only oral encouragement by the experimenter” would see training continue.

These findings are the latest to highlight the intelligence of pigs. Not only have they been shown to use mirrors to find hidden food, but studies have also demonstrated how pigs can be taught to “come” and “sit” after oral commands.

As with any sentient (有感觉力的) beings, how we interact with pigs and what we do to them impacts and matters to them. We therefore have a moral duty to understand how pigs acquire information, and what they are capable of learning and remembering, because it ultimately offers the potential for how they understand their interactions with us and their environments.

1. What can be learned from Paragraph 1?

A．The pigs sometimes won the video games.

B．The pigs operated joysticks with their noses.

C．The pigs competed with each other in the games.

D．The pigs sometimes performed well accidentally.

2. What does the underlined phrase “give us pause” refer to?

A．Stop us from advancing.	B．Affect us in learning.
C．Make us think seriously.	D．Force us to train pigs better.

3. What made researchers believe pigs socially interacted well?

A．Their being inspired by human words.	B．Their being driven by food.
C．Their being willing to keep trying.	D．Their being motivated by challenges.

4. Which of the following could be the best title?

A．Smart Pigs: Best Animal Players	B．Flexible Noses: Fun Games
C．Oral Commands: Pig Learners	D．Pig Players: Learning Potential

【推荐1】For anyone who is set on a career in fashion it is not enough to have succeeded in college. The real test is whether they can survive and become established during their early 20s, making a name for themselves in the real world where business skills can count for as much as flair(天赋) and creativity.

Fashion is a hard business. There is a continuous amount of stress because work is at a constant breakneck speed to prepare for the next season’s collections. It is extremely competitive and there is constant need to cultivate good coverage in newspapers and magazines. It also requires continual freshness because the appetite for new ideas is insatiable(无法满足的). “We try to warn people before they come to us about how tough it is,” says Lydia Kemeny, the Head of Fashion at St. Martin’s School of Art in London, “and we point out that drive and determination are essential.”

This may seem far removed from the popular image of trendy and dilettante(业余爱好者) young people spending their time designing pretty dresses. That may well be what they do in their first year of study but a good college won’t be slow in introducing students to commercial realities. “We don’t stamp on the blossoming flower of creativity but in the second year we start introducing the constraints(限制，约束) of price, manufacturability, marketing and so on”.

Almost all fashion design is done to a brief. It is not a form of self-expression, although there is certainly room for imagination and innovation. Most young designers are going to end up as employees of a manufacturer or fashion house and they still need to be able to work within the characteristic style of their employer. Even those students who are most avant-garde(先锋派) in their own taste of clothes and image may need to adapt to produce designs which are right for the mainstream Marks and Spencer type of market. They also have to be able to work at both the exclusively expensive and the cheap end of the market and the challenge to produce good design inexpensively may well be more difficult than where money is no object.

1. According to the text, how can someone be a successful fashion designer?

A．They have to be well established before they are 20.

B．They have to be able to handle business problems.

C．They have to have excellent academic qualifications.

D．They have to take an intensive designing course.

2. How does St. Martin’s school of Art train her students of fashion?

A．Students are required to design freely with their imagination all the time.

B．Students are required to design freely with their imagination the first year.

C．Students are required to design with commercial constrains all the time.

D．Students are required to design with commercial constraints the first year.

3. What's the writer's attitude toward fashion design?

A．The writer presents an encouraging picture.

B．The writer removes some common illusions to some extent.

C．The writer expresses some innovative ideas.

D．The writer regards the creative element as unimportant.

【推荐2】Although social media allow us to become more connected to other people than at any time in history, a new study suggests that many Americans feel lonelier than ever before, which is weakening the nation’s mental and physical health.

The study conducted by the health insurer Cigna, found widespread loneliness, with nearly half of Americans reporting they feel alone, or left out at least some of the time. The nation’s 75 million millennials (ages 23 — 37) and Generation Z adults (ages 18 — 22) are lonelier than older generations. Besides, 54% of people surveyed said they feel no one knows them well, and four in ten reported they “lack companionship”, their “relationships aren’t meaningful” and they “are isolated (孤立的) from others”.

Douglas Nemecek, MD, Cigna’s chief medical officer for Behavioral Health, said the findings of the study suggest that the problem has become common, equaling the risks caused by tobacco and the nation’s ever-expanding waistline. “Loneliness has the same influence on health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, while obesity (肥胖) less than 10 cigarettes a day,” he said in releasing the report.

Nemeceks commentstallied withthose of other leading public health specialists, including former Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy, MD, who said loneliness should be targeted in public health campaigns like those designed to fight against smoking and obesity. “During my years caring for patients, the worst disease I saw was not heart disease diabetes; it was loneliness,” Murthy said in a recent cover story in the Harvard Business Review.

The new report, produced in Cigna’s partnership with the polling company Ipsos, is based on an online survey of more than 20,000 US adults using the well-regarded UCLA Loneliness Scale to see how widespread loneliness is in America.

1. What does the study conducted by Cigna find?

A．Older Americans feel much lonelier.

B．Social media do people more harm than good.

C．People become more connected to each other.

D．Social media increase levels of Americans’ loneliness.

2. Which opinion might Douglas Nemecek support?

A．Loneliness is not so harmful as smoking.

B．Loneliness is taken seriously by the public.

C．Loneliness is more dangerous than obesity.

D．Loneliness is targeted in public health campaigns.

3. What does the underlined phrase “tallied with” mean in paragraph 4?

A．Agreed with.

B．Varied with.

C．Contradicted.

D．Inspired.

4. What is the purpose of the text?

A．To discuss health problems.	B．To present findings of a recent study.
C．To warn people about social media use.	D．To show threats to Americans’ health.

【推荐3】What do you get when you paint a pair of eyes on a cow’s rump (臀部)? The answer is that you’ll get an approach to scaring predators (捕食者) away. This simple trick is called the “i-cow” solution. The eyes painted on cows’ rumps can trick certain predators, such as lions and leopards.

An experiment by Australia and Botswana compared how predators reacted to herds (畜群) that had eye paintings on their rumps, ones that had “xs”, and some without any markings at all. Over a four-year period, researchers found that 15 out of the 835 unpainted cows were killed by predators, 4 of the 543 cows with “xs” died, but every single one of the 683 animals with eyes painted on their backsides were still alive.

Neil Jordan, a biologist in Australia, first came up with the method. While watching a lion hunting a deer, he noticed something interesting. “Lions usually move slowly and quietly to their prey (猎物), get close and jump on them. But when the deer noticed the lion and the lion realized it had been seen, it gave up on the hunt,” he said. Later, he worked with a local farmer to test his idea over a period of 10 weeks, and like the most recent results, all of the cows with painted eyes survived.

Despite the positive results, Dr. Jordan says the method isn’t a sure solution. He says if farmers painted eyes on the backsides of all their cows, predators might eventually figure out that the eyes aren’t real. Therefore, further research should be done to prove whether it is effective.

In spite of this, he’s still hoping that the “i-cow” will become a widely used technique to at least reduce predator’s attacks. “I think the farmers are just happy with this,” Dr. Jordan says. “After all, all they need is a paint pot, paint brush and a little bit of artistic talent.”

1. What is “i-cow” solution intended for?

A．Recognizing cows quickly.

B．Leading predators to the farm.

C．Protecting cows from being attacked.

D．Informing cows to notice predators.

2. What do we know about the experiment in paragraph 2?

A．Most of the unpainted cows were killed.

B．A small number of cows with “xs” survived.

C．More than twenty painted animals were killed.

D．All the animals with eyes painted survived.

3. What might a cause of the “i-cow” solution’s failing to work?

A．The farmers are lack of basic painting skills.

B．Predators get closer and closer to the cows.

C．Every single cow is painted eyes on the rump.

D．There is more than one predator around the area.

4. Why does Dr. Jordan think that farmers will favor his method?

A．It has proved the most effective.

B．It is easy and cheap to carry out.

C．It follows their traditional practice.

D．It is a widely recognized approach.