【推荐1】On a bright summer morning, many young swimmers gather at a local swimming pool in the state of Maryland. They are members of a competitive summer swim team. As they practice their strokes and cut seconds off of their times, they are getting lots of physical exercise and vitamin D from the sun. However, the benefits of belonging to a sports team are not just health-related. Team sports also help to build many life skills.

The coach of the swim team is Paul Waas. He explains how swim team teaches the team members skills like discipline (纪律) and focus. “I think the discipline comes into play when you’re talking about focusing on the details that your coaches are saying as it makes you faster rather than just going up and down the pool the same way you have every time. So, when you can focus on what you’re doing right and what you can do better, then you’ll see the improvement. I think they see that from their peers and then it challenges them to do better themselves.”

But discipline and focus are just two of the life skills that team sports can teach. There is also responsibility, goal-setting and working within a group.

Again, here is Coach Waas. “I’ve had kids who, as 7-year-olds on the team, could barely pay attention in practice and were only interested in who was going first. And now they’ve come back as 8-year-olds and they’ve set some goals. And now they have things that they want to achieve. They see the record board and they want their name up there.”

These life skills can help a child later in life. An article published in the magazine Fast Company notes reasons why a company should consider employing former athletes. The writers argue that people who played sports in school are: focused on goals, strong communicators, team players, good at managing their time, and resilient-meaning they do not give up when things get difficult.

Some studies have found that team sports could be especially good for women. A series of studies by the company Ernst Young found that 90 percent of women in so-called “C-suite” positions (like chief executive officer, or CEO and chief financial officer, or CFO) at several major companies had played sports.

1. What can we infer from paragraph 1?

A．Bright summer mornings are perfect for swimming.

B．Swimming can be beneficial to us more than in health.

C．Being admitted to a swimming team can be competitive.

D．Being on a sports team benefits children in many aspects.

2. Which of the following will Paul Waas agree with?

A．Stress from peers makes kids discouraged.

B．Kids may get inspired by peers’ improvements.

C．Kids can make improvements once they join a team.

D．7-year-old kids in the swimming team can learn nothing.

3. The author wrote the passage to ________.

A．analyze an upsetting social problem

B．advocate taking up various team sports

C．appeal to readers to care for sports safety

D．share with readers his personal experiences

【推荐2】It’s no secret that walking is good for you. Many of us are trying to get in those recommended 10,000 steps a day that our wearable fitness technology urges us to achieve. But how many calories are we actually burning, and how can we get the most out of those steps? Find answers in these ways.

Do you know the truth about calorie-burning? Walking is a moderate intensity form of exercise. To get the most calorie-burning benefits, then, it would seem that walking at a consistently light pace would make the most sense. Pay attention to your heart rate and how you feel. Wearable technologies can certainly provide an idea of progress toward your calorie-burning goals. Using a fitness tracker equipment to help you recognize when you reach your target heart rate zones can help you maximize the calorie-burning.

Walking is often considered as a great fat-burning exercise, and for good reason. You can’t really walk at higher intensities because of the nature of the exercise; therefore, you end up in low-intensity zones, where you tend to burn more fat. When you’re walking at a lighter intensity with your heart rate in the 57% to 63% range, you are more likely to be using fat for fuel. No matter what your speed is, form matters. When done with good form, walking is an incredibly beneficial form of exercise for total health and wellness beyond mere caloric burn. Moreover, walking is the most accessible form of exercise because it doesn’t require any special clothes, equipment or memberships.

Whether your goal is fat loss, increased fitness or simply enhancing your overall health and wellness, walking offers all these benefits and more.

1. What is the purpose of paragraph 1?

A．To introduce the topic.

B．To compare walking with other exercise.

C．To explain the wearable fitness technology.

D．To show the importance of 10,000 steps a day.

2. What does the underlined word “intensity” in paragraph 2 mean?

A．Depth.

B．Strength.

C．Height.

D．Distance.

3. What can be inferred from the text?

A．Walking at high intensities is recommended.

B．Your walking speed is the most important to calorie-burning.

C．Walking can burn calories better if you walk in a proper form.

D．It is more convenient to walk for those who have a gym membership.

4. What is the best title for the text?

A．10,000 Steps a Day Matters

B．Walking Benefits Your Muscles

C．How to Best Burn Calories while Walking

D．How to Use Wearable Fitness Technologies while Walking

【推荐3】Football is, I suppose, the most popular game in England: one has only to go to one of the important matches to see this. Rich and poor, young and old, one can see them all there, shouting and cheering for one side or the other.

One of the most surprising things about football in England to a stranger is the great knowledge of the game which even the smallest boy seems to have. He can tell you the names of the players in most of the important teams. He has photographs of them and knows the results of a large number of matches. He will tell you who he expects will win , and his opinion is usually as valuable as that of men three or four times his age.

Most schools in England take football seriously — much more seriously than nearly all European schools, where lessons are all-important, and games are left for private arrangements. In England, it is believed that education is not only a matter of filling a boy’s mind with facts in a classroom education also means character training. One of the best ways of training character is by means of games, especially team games, where the boy has to learn to work with others for his team, instead of working selfishly for himself alone. The school therefore arranges games and matches for its pupils. Football is a good team game, it is good exercise for the body, it needs skill and a quick brain, it is popular and it is cheap. As a result, it is the school's favorite game in the winter.

1. In England football is a game enjoyed________.

A．only by young people	B．by people of all ages and classes
C．only by boys	D．only by rich people

2. A stranger in England will be surprised to find that in that country________.

A．people have little knowledge of football	B．even small boys know a lot about football
C．girls are more interested in football than boys	D．children are not interested in football at all

3. There is a great difference between schools in England and those in Europe in that________.

A．European schools take football seriously

B．schools in England care little about lessons

C．European schools often arrange football matches for their pupils

D．schools in England believe character training to be part of education

4. According to the passage, which of the following is NOT true of the football game?

A．It is not expensive.	B．It needs teamwork.
C．It makes people selfish.	D．it is good exercise for the body