【推荐1】Several years ago, I had to replace a receptionist for my unit. Before I advertised for the position, I was approached by another manager, and asked if I would consider a transfer from his staff instead of opening a new competition. My natural question was to ask who he wanted me to consider and why.

It appeared from his description of this employee, Maria, that she was having a lot of problems performing her duties, and had difficulties with her boss, and did not appear to respond to any attempts he, the manager, had made to settle the issues. Now, after listening to his explanation, I really had severe doubts. What crossed my mind, after this discussion, was that he wanted me to take a problem off his hands.

I told him I would think about it and would let him know the next day. As promised, after thinking more about this potential performance issue, I decided that I would agree to speak with Maria privately before I made any decision.

And, what I found out during this interview, left me deep in thought. As it turned out, the performance issue appeared to result from working for a boss who never extended a good morning greeting, never gave a word of encouragement, and was constantly changing the work load and routines. The end result was a totally ruined employee who was unconfident, hated to see a new work day start.

I decided to accept her transfer to my unit. What started out as a shy, withdrawn and frightened employee turned out to be one of the most productive and loyal employees that I had ever worked with. Maria couldn’t do enough and was constantly asking for more and more responsibility. I was more than happy to give her what she needed - praise for work well done, respect as a person, and encouragement for doing well in anything she dealt with.

Sometimes, we are guilty of holding others back from accomplishing or developing as they should or could. It may be a wise idea that we all look in the mirror, from time to time, to see what we are really like.

1. After hearing his colleague’s description of Maria, the writer thought that Maria ______.

A．deserved a pay rise	B．was a problem to her boss
C．needed further training	D．could get on well with others

2. Why did Maria fail to perform well in her previous job?

A．Her previous job was not suitable for her.	B．She had difficulty understanding her manager.
C．Her boss didn’t arouse her working enthusiasm.	D．Her boss showed no trust in her ability.

3. The writer accepted Maria’s transfer to his unit probably because he thought that ______.

A．she had the potential to be a manager	B．she would need his protection
C．she might turn out to be a good employee	D．she was a shy and frightened receptionist

4. The writer probably believes that a good boss should ______.

A．often give his employees chances of promotion	B．respect, praise and encourage his employees
C．claim responsibility for the mistakes in work	D．always offer his employees guidance

【推荐2】Like any new ninth-grader on the first day of school, Joemar Class had ninth-grader feeling. He’s not used to school in Hartford. He’s used to going to school in his home town of Florida, used to seeing his friends, used to having class in Spanish.

“Nervioso,” he said in Spanish.

We first met Joemar in mid-October in the San Juan Airport. His father, Guillermo Class, had sold his car to buy plane tickets to get his kids and fly them up from Puerto Rico. The island was almost destroyed by the deadly storm—Hurricane Maria.

Now, they are settling into their new home in Hartford’s South End. A week later, and, using his wife’s car, Class drove 16-year-old Joemar to his first day at Bulkeley High School. After a short ride, he got out in front of his new school. Inside, he met Gretchen Levitz—the school’s program director.

“I see you have new uniform,” Levitz said. “You look great. Are you ready for a good first day?”

Then he met couple of teachers.

“Hello,” they each said in Spanish. They asked where he’s from, and told him they were happy to see him. Then Levitz took him on a quick tour of the school before classes began—to her office, the school store, the library, and the dining hall.

A total of 19 languages are spoken in Bulkeley High School. “We have so many new students coming here from other countries every single day,” Levitz said. “So it’s not like he’s the only one who has that feeling.”

“You could tell he’s little worried,” Guillermo said as we left. “But, at the same time, he’s looking forward to it.”

1. What does the underlined word “Nervioso” in paragraph 2 probably mean?

A．Frightened.

B．Excited.

C．Relaxed.

D．Nervous.

2. Why did Joemar leave Florida?

A．His old school closed down.	B．His town was hit by a terrible storm.
C．He wanted to see his mother.	D．He expected to have a new life.

3. What did Joemar do before he walked into his new classroom?

A．He had a short look around his new school.	B．He learned some simple Spanish words.
C．He said hello to some of his classmates.	D．He had a long talk with his father.

4. What can we learn about Bulkeley High School?

A．It has no library.	B．It plans to open Spanish classes.
C．It is an international school.	D．It requires all students to wear uniforms.

【推荐3】Last summer, I had to stay in the room during the period of my recovery from cancer after the operation. It was unexpected that life highlighted everything that I might tend to take for granted in the normal course.

On the first morning, my children presented me a coffee pot. I liked to begin the day with a cup of coffee and was eager to try the pot.

When I made coffee, it spilled out over the whole table. Fortunately, nobody was there to see my embarrassed look! I kept trying, but each morning would see me wiping up the coffee. Then I realized that if I poured very slowly there would be no spilling.

This was at first a very painful experience. My normal practice was to rush through breakfast so that I could get on with my day. But at that moment I learned not only to pour slowly but to enjoy the experience: the smell, the taste, and the stillness of a new day.

It helped me to reflect upon whether there were other areas of my life 1 was rushing through. Most of life, it seemed. Strangely, those we consider loved ones may go of radar(雷达)when we would expect them to enquire about our well-being. However, others we seldom keep in touch with came into our lives suddenly, full of concern, well-meaning advice and love.

After the recovery period, I started to leave extra time to do even the most ordinary tasks. When shop owners would apologize for keeping me waiting, I would say, "Not a problem, I'm not in a hurry." Even hanging out washing became pleasurable when a couple of extra minutes of standing still, and listening to the birds singing in the trees around me became part of my routine.

Besides, one of my favorite experiences living in the inner city for many years was sitting on the front doorstep of our home spending time with strangers. We sat on the steps, each of us with a cup of coffee in our hands, listening to each other's stories. It was one of the warmest things about living in a busy city.

1. What was the author's life like before the time of recovery from the illness?

A．Awkward.	B．Relaxing.
C．Hurried.	D．Thrilling.

2. How did the author enjoy the pouring-coffee experience?

A．By pilling coffee over the table.	B．By buying a new pot.
C．By chatting with the strangers.	D．By pouring coffee slowly.

3. What happened when the author changed her lifestyle?

A．She had more time for reflecting on her past.

B．She found joy in ordinary daily activities.

C．She became impatient with any shop owner.

D．She liked listening to mysteries in busy cities.

4. What is the main purpose of this article?

A．To tell people how to make coffee tasty.

B．To advocate enjoying slow-paced life.

C．To show the gift from her children.

D．To recommend making friends with others.

【推荐1】Ben Lecomte, a French long-distance swimmer, dropped into the water Tuesday at Choshi, Japan, and embarked on his attempt to become the first person to swim across the Pacific Ocean, BBC News reports.

Six years in the planning, the 5,500-mile effort is expected to take five to six months, with Lecomte swimming eight hours a day and covering an average of 30 miles daily, according to his website.

His route to San Francisco will take him through the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, an area three times the size of France where large amounts of garbage and plastic waste have collected, CNN reports.

Lecomte will be accompanied by a specially outfitted support boat named Discoverer. He will take rest periods on the boat, but it will return him to his stopping point each day to make sure he swims the entire distance.

In addition to accomplishing a first, Lecomte said, he wants to draw attention to the problems of ocean pollution and climate change. A team of scientists plan to conduct research for 12 scientific institutions, including NASA and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, while he is making his swim.

Lecomte is no stranger to feats of long-distance open-water swimming. In 1998, he swam 4,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean. On that swim he encountered sharks and stingrays. This time, he said, he will be wearing a shark-repellent bracelet.

One of the challenges will be making sure he has enough energy each day, and Lecomte said he intends to consume 8,000 calories daily.

1. The purpose of Lecomte’s swimming across the Pacific Ocean are the followings except ________.

A．becoming the first to swim across the Pacific Ocean

B．raising people’s awareness of ocean pollution

C．letting people realize the problem of climate change

D．planning to conduct research for scientific institutions

2. How long will it take Lecomte to swim across the Pacific Ocean?

A．about 700 hours.

B．about 1000 hours.

C．about 1400 hours.

D．about 1800 hours.

3. Which of the following statement is true according to the passage?

A．Lecomte is a short-distance swimmer.

B．No one has ever swum across the Pacific Ocean.

C．Lecomte intends to swim across the Pacific Ocean alone.

D．Lecomte was once attacked by sharks when swimming in the Pacific Ocean.

【推荐2】I. M. Pei, one of the best-known architects of the 20th century, has died. He was 102. Born in China, Ieoh Ming Pei moved to the United States in 1935 to study architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University.

Pei’s works around the world include museums, government buildings, hotels, schools and other structures built with stone, steel and glass. One of his best-known and most disputed works was built 30 years ago. Pei created a new entrance for the world-famous Louvre Museum in Paris. Pei first spent four months studying the museum and French history. He then drew plans for a 21-meter-tall steel and glass id, with three smaller pyramids nearby. It was a very futuristic style of work for the 12th-century building.

A French newspaper criticized Pei’s pyramids as “an annex to Disneyland”. An environmental group said they belonged in a desert. Others accused Pei of ruining one of the world’s greatest landmarks.

Pei said the Louvre was the most difficult job of his career. He argued that he had wanted to create a modern space that would not take away from the traditional part of the museum. He said the glass pyramids were based on the works of French landscape architect Le Notre. They honored French history.

The pyramids opened in the spring of 1989. Over the years that followed, the structure came to be loved by most, if not all, of its critics.

Other well-known Pei buildings include the John F. Kennedy Library in Dorchester, Massachusetts, the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, the East Wing of the National Gallery of Art in Washington and the Dallas City Hall in Texas. Pei officially retired in 1990. However, he continued to work on projects—including museums in Luxembourg, Qatar and his ancestral home of Suzhou.

1. What is true about the entrance created by Pei for the Louvre Museum?

A．Pei spent four mouths drawing plans for it.	B．There are four pyramids in total.
C．It’s in a style of the 12th century.	D．It took 30 years to complete the work.

2. What can we infer from Pei’s words in Paragraph 4?

A．The glass pyramids were originally designed by Le Notre.

B．The glass pyramids were based on the French landscape.

C．The glass pyramids were in harmony with the Louvre.

D．The glass pyramids reflected both French and Chinese style.

3. What were most people’s attitudes towards Pei’s pyramids years after its opening?

A．Indifferent.	B．Puzzled.
C．Critical.	D．Favorable.

4. What do we know about Pei according to the passage?

A．He was hardworking, optimistic and easygoing.

B．He spread Chinese traditional architecture to the world.

C．He created many great works both in China and other countries.

D．He was the most outstanding architect of the 20th century.

【推荐3】They asked Katherine Johnson for the moon, and she gave it to them. With little more than a pencil, a slide rule and one of the finest mathematical minds in the country, Mrs. Johnson, who died at 101 on Monday, calculated the precise track that would let Apollo 11 land on the moon in 1969 and, after Neil Armstrong’s history—making moonwalk, let it return to Earth.

Yet throughout Mrs. Johnson’s 33 years in NASA and for decades afterwards, almost no one knew her name.

Mrs. Johnson was one of several hundred strictly educated, supremely capable yet largely unrecognized women who, well before the modern feminist movement, worked as NASA mathematicians. But it was not only her sex that kept her long unsung. For some years at midcentury, the black women were subjected to a double segregation (隔离)：They were kept separate from the much large group of white women who in turn were segregated from the agency’s male mathematicians and engineers.

Mrs. Johnson broke barriers at NASA. In old age, Mrs. Johnson became the most celebrated of black women who served as mathematicians for the space agency. Their story was told in the 2016 Hollywood film Hidden Figures, which was nominated for three Oscars, including best picture.

In 2017, NASA dedicated a building in her honor. That year, The Washington Post described her as “the most high- profile of the computers”—“computers” being the term originally used to describe Mrs. Johnson and her colleagues, much as “typewriters” were used in the 19th century to represent professional typists.

She “helped our nation enlarge the frontiers of space,” NASA’s administrator, Jim Bridenstine, said in a statement on Monday, “even as she made huge steps that also opened doors for women and people of color in the universal human quest to explore space.”

As Mrs. Johnson herself was fond of saying, her term at Langley—from 1953 until her retirement in 1986—was “a time when computers wore skirts.”

1. What is the function of the first paragraph?

A．To present the Apollo moon mission.	B．To stress Mrs. Johnson’s contributions
C．To honour Neil Armstrong’s moonwalk.	D．To mourn a great woman—Mrs. Johnson.

2. Which of the following was the toughest thing Mrs. Johnson had to overcome?

A．The difference between male and females in this field.

B．People’s not recognizing her talent.

C．Inequality in gender and race.

D．The hardships before the modern feminist movement.

3. Why were Mrs. Johnson and her colleagues described as “computers”?

A．Because they used computers to keep their work secret.

B．Because they were the agency’s human calculators.

C．Because computer systems engaged them deeply.

D．Because they calculate precisely using computers.

4. What can we learn from Mrs. Johnson’s experience?

A．Don’t judge a person by his appearance.

B．The world awaits our discovery.

C．Use knowledge to wipe out ignorance.

D．Never be limited by the labels attached by others.