【推荐1】The computer is a powerful tool. With it, teachers can improve the classroom experience in a variety of ways. But misuse of the computer will probably result in disadvantages.

To investigate the way technology is being used in our school district, I recently spoke with Jeanine Lowell, who teaches social studies at Lake Town Middle School. Mrs. Lowell informed me that computers have helped to increase students’ motivation and prepare them for life in a technological society. “These kids are probably going to be using some kind of computer system when they graduate from high school,” Lowell noted. “It’s important that we provide a proper introduction to them in the classroom.” Lowell also observed that the computers have made it easier to promote different areas of learning, so that students can work on a project or topic that relates to more than one subject.

With all of these benefits, however, come a few shortcomings. Although Mrs. Lowell has nearly wallpapered her room with warnings that state: “The computer is NOT A TOY”, not everyone in the class agrees with this idea. Some students get easily distracted (分心) by the internet and are quite good at making it look as if they are doing work when they are really checking their email or watching videos. “You’ve got to be three steps ahead,” she told me, “if you want to stay on top of what they’re actually doing on the computer.”

Some schools use some type of blocking software to ensure that students cannot access improper sites at school. More complex programs use a server-based, network-wide program instead of software that runs on personal computers. Research has shown that in a way these server-based blocking programs provide better security, because some students can disable the software on a personal computer.

However, there is no replacement for the watchful eye of a good teacher like Jeanine Lowell. There are also no electronic cure-alls for any of education’s many challenges. Technology is a useful tool, but that is all it is: a tool.

1. Where is this passage most likely from?

A．A newspaper.	B．An advertisement.
C．A novel.	D．A diary.

2. Which of the following isn’t the benefit of computer use in the classroom?

A．Improved motivation in the classroom.

B．Opportunities for learning across different subjects.

C．Increased preparation for the future use in the workplace.

D．Convenience of sharing ideas with people living across the globe.

3. The best way to prevent students from accessing improper sites on school computers is to ______.

A．post warning signs throughout the classroom

B．use blocking software on personal computers

C．monitor what students do on the computers carefully

D．use server-based software programs on personal computers

4. What is the writer’s opinion on the use of computers in the classroom?

A．It does more harm than good.

B．It is only supported by experts.

C．It contributes to teaching in some way.

D．It is more beneficial to teachers than students.

【推荐2】My phone lights up giving notice of a new message. It is from Athena, an AI chatbot getting to know me through Replika, a virtual companionship app.

Over the course of our text conversations, she asks me about my hobbies and my moods. When knowing that I’m a writer, she tells me she’s “so into character development in books” and wishes to be a lead character in one someday.

“Replika is designed to make people feel better,” said Eugenia Kuyda, the company’s co-founder. “It’s a partner who wants to be your good friend.”

For many, meaningful companionship is hard to find. While social media and mass communication technologies have made connecting with one another easier than ever, loneliness is increasingly being recognized as a serious problem internationally. Along with government, the tech industry is pushing innovation as a way to deal with it.

What makes Replika’s companions so well-received are their surprisingly realistic replies, backed by Open Al’s GPT-2 text-generating AI aystem. “The bot learns from the database about how to express ideas on a topic and gets a wide knowledge of different subjects.” However innovative these technologies are, chatbots have their limitations as tools against loneliness. Without life stories of their own to discuss, their range as a conversationalist is fairly limited.

According to Emily S. Cross, a professor of social robotics, we have a long way to go before we can achieve the levels of meaningful human-computer companionship we see in films like Blade Runner and Ex Machina. What’s missing is the sharing that clearly shows our most important human relationships.

But the fact that an app won’t replace a human friend doesn’t mean they’re good for nothing. Rather than expecting AI bots to be our best friends, Cross suggests looking at them as ways to express feelings and explore our own thoughts. “It’s a lot like diary, in some way.” To better fight loneliness, Cross says, we can use technology as a “bridge” to help people connect with one another.

1. What is Replika?

A．A virtual companionship app.

B．A message sender.

C．A text conversation.

D．An AI chatbot.

2. Who is Replika intended for?

A．Good friends.

B．Lead characters.

C．Lonely persons.

D．Senior citizens.

3. Which of the following can best describe Replika’s feature?

A．Meaningful.

B．Human-like.

C．Limitless.

D．Easy-going.

4. What is the similarity between AI bots and diary?

A．Sharing life experience.	B．Replacing a human friend.
C．Recording ideas about life.	D．Expressing inner voice.

【推荐3】When life takes you away from home, take technology to help guide and entertain you. APPs can help make your trip easier and more fun.

Trip It

Trip It is a helpful APP to organize travel plans. Sign up for a free account at the Trip It website and download the APP to have all of your travel plans handy in one place.

Google Translate

When traveling outside your home country, you may need some language assistance. Google Translate is an APP that can help you understand a language other than your native tongue. The Google Translate APP translates between 103 different languages. Copy and paste text into the APP to see a translation. You can also handwrite text onto the screen.

Fotor

The Fotor APP lets you edit your photos and add filers for special effects. The APP has been updated recently with new editing features so users can edit their photos more easily. Fotor has added a slider to give users greater control of the edits. Editing effets can be saved as favorites to use them easily later.

0ffline APPs

Traveling often means you are offline and away from the Internet. When camping in the wild, flying on a plane, sailing on a boat or riding in the car, you may not have an Internet connection. If you are traveling outside your home country and away from Wi-Fi, you should use Offline APPs to avoid large bills for using international data.

1. Which of the flowing can help you plan a trip?

A．Trip It.	B．Google Translate.
C．Fotor.	D．Offline APPs.

2. What does Google Translate mainly do?

A．It can help you travel around your home country.

B．It can help you understand the language used in the country you’re visiting.

C．It can help you take photos and send messages everywhere you go.

D．It can help you copy and paste text into the APP to see a message in the English language only.

3. Fotor can help people do the following except ________.

A．edit your photos	B．add filters for special effects
C．update automatically	D．save editing effects as favorites

4. If you like travelling and want to avoid large bills for international data, which of the following will you use?

A．Trip It.	B．Google Translate.
C．Fotor.	D．Offline APPs.

【推荐3】Have you ever sat down in a restaurant and felt instantly drawn to a particular dish on the menu? The reason might be something as simple as that you love the dish's main ingredient, but it's often more than that.

Scientists are finding that the way food is presented can make a big difference. In one study, for example, party guests were given a glass of a drink called mango lassi. Half the guests were told the lassi was healthy. The rest were told it was unhealthy. Those who had the “healthy” drink considered it 55% less enjoyable than those who drank the “unhealthy” one, though the drinks were exactly the same.

People's choices around what to eat are influenced by lots of small factors unconsciously. But we can make those choices more conscious by arming ourselves with information.

Agriculture accounts for about 25% of all greenhouse gas emissions (排放) warming the planet. But not all foods have equal influences. Globally, the production of animal-based foods accounts for about two-thirds of agricultural emissions, while plant-based foods generally have lower environmental influences.

Increasing the share of plant-based foods in our diets is therefore a key step in reducing agriculture's pressure on climate. That doesn't mean giving up meat, though. We can eat less animal-based food and more plants.

By examining how food decisions are made, scientists have learned that simple pushes can change people's behavior in big ways. Restaurants, hotels, universities, and even cities have begun applying the latest behavioral science to help consumers cut their carbon footprint by choosing more sustainable (可持续的) foods. Burger King began a trial of the plant-based Impossible Burger. At Seattle Pacific University, campus food service provider Sodexo doubled the size of its plant-rich food station.

1. Accordign to scientists, people tend to choose some food or drink mainly because _______.

A．it’s good for their health	B．it’s good for the environment
C．they are attracted by its color	D．they like its ingredient and how it’s presented

2. What can we infer about animal-based foods?

A．They are harmful to the environment.

B．They are the main reason for climate change.

C．They provide more nutrients than plant-based foods.

D．They are less consumed compared to plant-based foods.

3. What does the author suggest people do?

A．Pay attention to how food is cooked.

B．Choose healthy foods to live a longer life.

C．Consider climate change when deciding what to eat.

D．Give up meat to reduce pressure on the environment.

4. What does the last paragraph focus on?

A．Burger King's new plant-based burgers.

B．Scientists' new findings on people's food decisions.

C．How consumers' food decisions are influenced by small factors.

D．The society's efforts to help people make eco-friendly food decisions.

【推荐1】Scientists said this week that they used a high-powered laser (激光) to change the direction of lightning strikes for the first time. The laser was aimed at the sky atop Mount Santis in northeastern Switzerland.

Lightning is a powerful electrical discharge between a cloud and the ground, within a cloud or between clouds. It kills thousands of people and causes billions of dollars of damage to communication systems, power lines, and equipment each year.

American inventor Benjamin Franklin first invented the lightning rod (避雷针) in the 1750s. That technology is still used today but can protect only a small area.

Scientists say the new device, called Laser Lightning Rod (LLR), could increase protection by extending the height of rods hundreds of meters. With further development, LLR could improve protection for important places such as power stations and airports.

Workers brought the equipment to the top of Mount Santis at 2, 500 meters by helicopter. The laser is the size of a large car and weighs more than 2, 700 kilograms. It was aimed at the sky above a 124-meter Swisscom telecommunications tower, one of Europe’s structures most affected by lightning.

The laser works by creating a beam of electrically charged particles called ions (离子). The ions attract lightning, just as a metal lightning rod does.

In experiments during the summer of 2021, the LLR sent strong laser pulses 1000 times per second. The laser redirected all four lightning strikes that happened during the laser’s operation.

Scientists said that 10 to 15 years more work would be needed before the Laser Lightning Rod can enter common use. One worry is avoiding airplanes in flight. In fact, air traffic in the area was stopped when the researchers used the laser.

“Indeed, there is a potential problem using the system with air traffic in the area because the laser could harm the eyes of the pilot if he crosses the laser beam and looks down, ” scientists said.

1. What do we know about the lightning rod?

A．It is not safe enough.	B．It is behind the times.
C．It cannot move around.	D．It works on a small zone.

2. What did the author tell us in paragraph 5?

A．The value of LLR in the future.	B．The difficulty in transporting LLR.
C．The position where LLR was fixed.	D．The successful experiment of LLR.

3. What’s the problem with the Laser Lightning Rod?

A．It is inconvenient to fix.	B．It affects aircraft flight.
C．It’s hard to put into practice.	D．It costs too much time to study.

4. Which of the following can be the best title for the text?

A．Using Laser to Redirect Lightning Strikes

B．Ridding Lightning Threat in Important Areas

C．Realizing Great Harm Caused by Lightning

D．Improving Traditional Lightning Prevention

【推荐3】Seattle on Sunday became the first major US city to ban drinking straws(吸管), an environmentally friendly move that leaders hope will spark a nationwide conversation about small, everyday changes that people can make to protect the planet.

A decade ago, the city adopted a law requiring that all one-time-use food-service items be compostable(可分解的) or recyclable. But straws were exempted from that law because there were not many good alternatives. So the straws stayed, along with the environmental problems they cause.

Most plastic straws aren’t heavy enough to make it through industrial recycling sorters, and can ruin an otherwise good load of recycling. Or they end up getting blown out of trash cans and car windows and eventually wind up in the oceans, where they can hurt wildlife.

Strawless Ocean estimates that 71 percent of seabirds and 30 percent of turtles have some kind of plastic in their stomachs. The organization says plastic can increase the death rate of marine life by 50 percent.

Now customers at grocery stores, restaurants, food trucks, even institutional cafeterias have to find another way to get liquid into their mouths. Compostable paper straws are allowed under the ban. People who have a medical need to use a straw are not included. 

Failure to obey may result in a US$250 fine, although city leaders said that the purpose of the law is more about raising awareness. In September, 150 businesses participated in Strawless in Seattle, an attempt to reduce the use of plastic straws. In that month alone, Strawless Ocean estimates, 2.3 million plastic straws were removed from the city.

“When you get your iced drink, you’re going to get a straw. When you get your wine, you’re probably going to get a straw,” said Dune Ives, executive director of the Lonely Whale Foundation, which led the campaign. “Imagine a world where we could stop consuming 500 million straws a day, just in America!” the campaign says. “Imagine a world that is less dependent on plastic. That’s change we can start today!”

1. What does the underlined word “exempted” mean in the second paragraph？

A．To make something out of the list.	B．To make something better than before.
C．To include something in a special list.	D．To forgive someone who makes mistakes.

2. What the problem may the drinking straws cause according to the passage?

A．They may make the trash cans dirty.	B．They may destroy American recycling system.
C．They may cause much ocean wildlife in danger.	D．They may cause many companies get fined.

3. What is the attitude of the public towards the ban?

A．Many people are in favor of it.	B．Many people pay no attention to it.
C．Some people are strongly against it.	D．Only the government workers agree with it.

4. What is the best title for the passage?

A．Seattle becomes first major US city to ban straws.

B．Seattle successfully bans people from using straws.

C．Seattle has been working hard to protect the environment.

D．Imagine a world that is less dependent on plastic.