【推荐1】

16-25 Railcard 16-25 Railcard (The Young Person’s Railcard) entitles the holder to up to 1/3 off most rail fares across Britain. Just imagine where it could take you — to festivals, to see distant friends or to London for a weekend break. Who can apply? Absolutely anybody between 16 and 25 can apply. You will need to provide proof that you are under 26 years of age. For this, only your birth certificate, driving licence, passport or medical card will be acceptable. Alternatively, if you are a mature student over this age but in full-time education, you can also apply. In order to prove your eligibility (适用性), you will need to get your headteacher, tutor, or head of department to sign the application form as well as one of your photos, the latter also needing to be officially stamped. “Full time education” is defined as over 15 hours per week for at least 20 weeks a year. Then go along to any major railway station, rail-appointed travel agent or authorized student travel office with your completed application form from this leaflet, together with￡28, two passport-sized photos and proof of eligibility. Using your rail card You can use it at any time — weekends, Bank Holidays or during the week. But if you travel before 10 am Monday to Friday (except during July and August) minimum fares will apply. For full details of these, please ask at your local station or contact a rail-appointed travel agent. Conditions In cases where a railcard does not bear the user’s signature, it will be treated as invalid. Neither your railcard nor any tickets bought with it may be used by anybody else. Unless there are no purchase facilities available at the station where you began your journey, you will be required to pay the full fare if you are unable to produce a valid ticket for inspection during a journey. Reduced rate tickets are not available for first-class travel or for Eurostar links to France and Belgium. Passengers will be charged the full rate if they want to use these services.

1. If you are a 22-year-old nurse, you can apply for the railcard without________.

A．the signature of your director	B．￡28
C．application form	D．passport-sized photos

2. The 1/3 OFF discount may not apply for the railcard holders who travel at ________.

A．11 pm on Sunday in August	B．7 am on Tuesday in February
C．7 am on Monday in July	D．11 pm on Friday in March

3. Which of the following is TRUE according to the leaflet?

A．If your railcard doesn’t have your name signed, it will be used by someone else.

B．The benefits of a railcard are transferable to your friends of your age.

C．If you have no ticket but have boarded a train, you will still be eligible for a discounted ticket.

D．If railcard holders wish to use the Eurostar network, they must pay the full fare.

【推荐2】Getting the Cheapest Flights

After interviewing 10 travel agents in the area, we’ve compiled (汇编) the very best tips for finding the cheapest flights.

Book your flight 21 days before you want to fly. Booking a flight is like playing a game of chicken. Airlines want to get the most money possible for their tickets and have difficult computer programs that adjust their prices automatically. Booking too early, you might miss out on some major deals.    1    The best advice is to book your flight 21 days before your planned departure date to get the best deals.

    2    Most airlines update their reservation systems on Tuesday at 7 p.m. GMT. People tend to buy their tickets on weekends, so airlines make changes on one of the slowest days of the week---Tuesday.

Fly on Tuesday or Wednesday. Tuesday and Wednesday are the least busy days at airports, and are also the cheapest days to fly.     3    Friday and Sunday are the peak flying days of the week, and are the worst, and most expensive days to fly.

Book early for international flights.     4    You can also try flying into smaller airports, which sometimes have better deals.

Eat your cookies（网络标记)． Delete your Internet browser cookies if you’ve visited an airline site within the last 30 days.     5    

Compare prices. Use travel search engines, in addition to airline websites, to make sure you're getting the best deal possible.

A．Collect it one day ahead.

B．Tuesday is the best day of the week.

C．Pay in cash when you receive your ticket.

D．Booking too late, you might be shocked to see prices skyrocket.

E．The best deals for international flying are found 11-12 weeks in advance.

F．As an added bonus, you’ll also have less people to deal with at the airport.

G．It's been discovered that some airlines will raise prices for previous visitors to their websites.

【推荐3】Self-driving cars are just around the corner. Such vehicles will make getting from one place to another safer and less stressful. They also could cut down on traffic, reduce pollution and limit accidents. But how should driverless cars handle emergencies (突发情况)? People disagree on the answer. And that might put the brakes on this technology, a new study concludes.

To understand the challenge, imagine a car that suddenly meets some pedestrians in the road. Even with braking, it’s too late to avoid a crash. So the car’s artificial intelligence must decide whether to swerve (急转弯). To save the pedestrians, should the car swerve off the road or swerve into oncoming traffic? What if such options would likely kill the car’s passengers?

Researchers used online surveys to study people’s attitudes about such situations with driverless cars. Survey participants mostly agreed that driverless cars should be designed to protect the most people. That included swerving into walls (or otherwise sacrificing their passengers) to save a larger number of pedestrians. But there is a hitch (困境). Those same surveyed people want to ride in cars that protect passengers at all costs — even if the pedestrians would now end up dying. Jean Bonnefon is a psychologist at the Toulouse School of Economics in France. He and his colleagues reported their findings in Science.

“Autonomous cars can completely change transportation”, says study coauthor Iyad Rahwan. But, he adds, this new technology creates a moral dilemma (道德两难) that could slow its acceptance.

Makers of driverless cars are in a tough spot, Bonnefon’s group warns. Most buyers would want their car to be programmed to protect them in preference to other people. However, regulations might one day instruct that cars must act for the greater good. That would mean saving the most people. But the scientists think rules like this could drive away buyers. If so, all the potential benefits of driverless cars would be lost.

Compromises might be possible, Kurt Gray says. He is a psychologist at the University of North Carolina. He thinks that even if all driverless cars are programmed to protect their passengers in emergencies, traffic accidents will decrease. Those vehicles might be dangerous to pedestrians on rare occasions. But they “won’t speed, won’t drive drunk and won’t text while driving, which would be a win for society.”

1. The underlined word “challenge” in paragraph 2 refers to ________.

A．people’s negative attitudes towards self-driving cars

B．how self-driving cars reduce traffic accidents

C．the technical problems that self-driving cars have

D．how self-driving cars handle emergencies

2. According to the text, online surveys show that ________.

A．self-driving cars’ artificial intelligence needs improvement

B．the busy traffic may be a problem for self-driving cars

C．people are in a moral dilemma about driverless cars

D．self-driving cars should be designed to protect drivers

3. What can we learn from the fifth paragraph?

A．Regulations are in favour of drivers.

B．Most people dislike self-driving cars now.

C．Self-driving car makers are in a difficult situation.

D．The potential benefits of driverless cars are ignored.

4. What is Kurt Gray’s attitude toward self-driving cars?

A．Favorable.	B．Doubtful.
C．Critical.	D．Disapproving.

【推荐1】Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have discovered a new way of gaining the sun’s energy. A team from MIT has created a new technique of using a kind of special windows with chemical dyes (化学染料). The dyes help catch the light from the sun and send it to a special place in the window and then change the light into energy. The scientists say this discovery could change buildings into energy plants. It could even one day mean that the windows in our houses could provide power for our homes. The scientists say their dyes can produce ten times more power than the traditional solar (太阳的) board used around the world today. They also say that this clean and new energy technology could be available (可用的) within the next three years.

The idea was first developed in the 1970s but was given up. Scientists then found that too much of the collected sunlight failed to reach the places on the edges of (在……边上) the windows. Then the MIT engineers thought out the idea of using colored dyes to stop the light from escaping. At the same time, their method only requires cells (电池) around the edges of the windows. MIT’s Professor Baldo explained, “This special glass would let through about 10 percent of the sun to light up the room, and the left would be caught and used to create electricity for other fields. It would look like smoked glass because of the dyes.” He says the new technology could help fight environment change.

1. We can learn from the text that the dyes ______.

A．could also be used to get energy from plants

B．produce more energy than the traditional board

C．catch more light from the sun in the daytime

D．keep the light in the windows for longer time

2. What is the main advantage of this new technique?

A．It can be used to heat the room in winter.

B．It can be used to make the room colorful.

C．It saves people a large amount of money.

D．It is clean and good for the environment.

3. What’s the purpose of the text?

A．To show the importance of protecting the environment.

B．To encourage people to fix this special window.

C．To explain how to use this special window.

D．To introduce a new energy technique.

【推荐2】阅读理解。
阅读下列短文，从每题所给的四个选项 （A 、B 、C 和 D ）中，选出最佳选项，并在题卡上将该项涂黑。

The pillage (掠夺) and destruction of ancient shipwrecks and sunken archaeological sites by treasure hunters seeking gold and other valuables may be illegal under the terms of an international treaty under discussion by UNESCO’s 188 Member States.
"Protecting our underwater heritage is extremely important and increasingly urgent as no site or shipwreck is now out of bounds for treasure hunters. New technologies have made deep-water wrecks easily accessible and these technologies are getting cheaper," warns Lyndel Prott.
According to estimates by commercial salvors (寻宝者), there are some three million undiscovered shipwrecks scattered across the world’s oceans. Even the figures for the known wrecks are impressive. The Northern Shipwrecks Database for example contains 65,000 ship loss records for North America alone from 1500 AD to the present. The Dictionary of Disasters at Sea by Charles Hocking (1969) lists 12,542 sailing ships and war vessels lost between 1824 and 1962.
Then there are sunken cities such as the trading town and pirate stronghold(海盗堡垒) of Port Royal in Jamaica, which disappeared beneath the waves after an earthquake in 1692. Or the remnants of ancient civilisations, such as the Lighthouse of Alexandria in Egypt, and the Neolithic villages being discovered under the Black Sea, which some believe could help explain Noah’s great flood.
These treasures of cultural heritage are under serious threat. Technology now allows extraordinary access to the ocean depths for determined and well-financed treasure hunters. And the potential rewards are huge. In 1985, American salvor Mel Fisher discovered the wreck of the Señora de Atocha, a Spanish ship that sank off the Florida Keys in 1622 with her cargo of gold, silver and jewellery worth an estimated US $400 million.
An archaeologist can spend ten years or more studying a ship, conserving its objects and publishing its findings. We gain an enormous amount of information and knowledge from this work. With treasure hunters, all of this is lost. This is tragic, for humanity as a whole.
1. Why is it important and urgent to protect our underwater heritage?

A．Underwater heritage is easily accessible to treasure hunters.

B．Underwater heritage is out of reach of archaeologists.

C．New technology makes protection of underwater heritage easier.

D．There is no law to protect underwater heritage.

2. What is the third paragraph mainly about?

A．Shipwrecks discovered by commercial salvors.

B．The main cause of shipwrecks.

C．The history of sunken ships.

D．The figures of shipwrecks around the world.

3. What happened to Port Royal in 1692?

A．It was washed away by flood.

B．It was beneath the waves after an earthquake.

C．It was discovered under the Black Sea.

D．It was rebuilt by Noah.

4. Why is Mel Fisher mentioned in the fifth paragraph?

A．He risked his life in treasure hunting.

B．He was one of the most successful commercial salvors.

C．He made a great discovery of shipwrecks.

D．He had no trouble in finding a shipwreck.

【推荐3】Eradajere Oleita thinks she may have a partial solution to two of her country’s problems: garbage and poverty. It’s called the Chip Bag Project. The 26-year-old student and environmentalist from Detroit is asking a favor of local snack lovers: Rather than throw your empty chip bags into the trash, donate them so she can turn them into sleeping bags for the homeless.

Chip eaters drop off their empty bags from Doritos, Lays, and other favorites at two locations in Detroit: a print shop and a clothing store, where Oleita and her volunteer helpers collect them. After they clean the chip bags in soapy hot water, they slice them open, lay them flat, and iron them together. They use padding (衬垫) and liners (衬里) from old coats to line the insides.

It takes about four hours to sew a sleeping bag, and each takes around 150 to 300 chip bags, depending on whether they’re single-serve or family size. The result is a sleeping bag that is “waterproof, lightweight, and easy to carry around”, Oleita told the Detroit News.

Since its start in 2020, the Chip Bag Project has collected more than 800,000 chip bags and, as of last December, created 110 sleeping bags. Sure, it would be simpler to raise the money to buy new sleeping bags. But that’s only half the goal for Oleita—whose family moved to the United States from Nigeria a decade ago with the hope of attaining a better life —and her fellow volunteers. “We are devoted to making an impact not only socially, but environmentally,” she says.

And, of course, there’s the symbolism of rescuing bags that would otherwise land in the trash and using them to help the homeless. It’s a powerful reminder that environmental problem and poverty often go hand in hand. As Oleita told hourdetroit. com: “I think it’s time to show connections between all of these issues.”

1. What did Oleita ask the snack lovers to do with their empty chip bags?

A．To turn them into sleeping bags.

B．To give them away to her.

C．To donate them to the homeless directly.

D．To throw them into the trash.

2. Which of the following is true about the sleeping bags?

A．They can be different in size.

B．They can be made with ease.

C．They are made by machines in the workshop.

D．They are far from overweight.

3. What can be inferred from the last two paragraphs?

A．Poverty results from environmental problems.

B．Oleita started the project mainly to raise money.

C．The aim of the project is more than social issues.

D．Oleita’s project made 110 sleeping bags per month.

4. Which words can best describe Oleita?

A．Talented and social.

B．Responsible and creative.

C．Selfless and modest.

D．Hardworking and loyal.

【推荐1】For some years the big drugmakers have been worrying about an approaching "patent cliff"—a fall in sales as the patents on their most popular pills expire or are struck down by legal challenges, with few new potential blockbusters to take their place. This week the patent on the best-selling drug in history expired—Lipitor, an anti-cholesterol pill which earned Pfizer nearly $11 billion in revenues last year.In all, pill like Lipitor with a combined $170 billion in annual sales will go off-patent by the end of 2015.
What is supposed to happen now is that lots of copycat firms rush in with "generic" (ie, chemically identical) versions of Lipitor at perhaps one-fifth of its price.Patients and health-care payers should reap the benefit.Pfizer's revenues should suffer. The same story will be repeated many times, as other best-selling drugs march over the patent cliff
But generics makers may face delays getting their cheaper versions to market.Ranbaxy, a Japanese-owned drugmaker, struggled to get regulators' approval for its generic version of Lipitor, and only won it on the day the patent expired.More importantly, research-based drug firms are using a variety of tactics to make the patent cliff slope more gently. Jon Leibowitz, chairman of America's Federal Trade Commission (FTC), is concerned by drugmakers filing additional patents on their products to put off the day when their protection expires.
Another tactic(策略) is "pay-for-delay", in which a drugmaker facing a legal challenge to its patent pays its would-be competitor to put off introducing its cheaper copy. In the year to October the FTC identified what it believes to be 28 such settlements. American and European regulators are looking into these deals. However, legal challenges against them have been delayed, and a bill to ban them is stuck in Congress.
To encourage generics makers to challenge patents on drugs, and introduce cheaper copies,
an American law passed in 1984 says that the first one to do so will get a 180-day exclusivity period,in which no other generics maker can sell versions of the drug in question, as Ranbaxy supposedly won with Lipitor.
However, Pfizer is exploiting a loophole(空子) in the 1984 law, which lets it appoint a second, authorised copycat—in this case, Watson, another American firm.According to BernsteinResearch, under the deal between the two drugmakers Pfizer will receive about 70% of Watson's revenues from its approved copy of Lipitor.More unusual, Pfizer has cut the price of its original version, and will keep marketing it vigorously. So Ranbaxy faces not one, but two competitors.
All this may raise Pfizer's sales by nearly $500m in the last half of 2015 compared with what they would otherwise have been, says Tim Anderson of BernsteinResearch, with revenues then falling after the 180 days are over. Others fear that Pfizer's tactics , if copied, will make the 180-day exclusivity period worth far less, and thus discourage generic firms from challenging patents in the first place.
1. The underlined word “blockbusters” in Paragraph 1 refers to “_______’

A．pills that sell very well

B．new patents to appear

C．drugmakers to compete with Pfizer

D．challenges which Pfizer has to face

2. What is the tactic mentioned in Paragraph 4?

A．Legal challenges against expired patents have been paid for putting off the cheaper copy.

B．Bills to prohibit generic makers have been stuck in Congress.

C．Drugmakers try to spend money delaying filing additional patents on popular pills

D．Patent-holders give possible competitors money to prevent more losses.

3. Pfizer exploit a loophole in the 1984 law mainly by ________.

A．marketing Lipitor more actively

B．making the price of Lipitor go up

C．cooperating with Watson to beat Ranbaxy

D．encouraging Watson to produce cheaper copies

4. How many tactics are adopted by patent-holders in the passage?

A．Two

B．Three

C．Four

D．Five

5. Which of the following might be the best title for the passage?

A．Drugmakers’ struggle

B．Generic makers’ dilemma

C．Laws concerning patent protection

D．Popular pills of Pfizer

【推荐2】Birds rely on their keen sense of hearing to detect prey(猎物) and identify other birds on the basis of their songs. In fact, birds have better hearing than humans, so they hear with much more detail. So how do birds hear?

Birds and humans both have an inner ear and a middle ear. However, birds differ from humans in that they lack an external ear structure. Where humans have an outer ear organ, birds have a funnel-shaped(漏斗状的) opening that functions as their outer ear, located on each side of their head. These openings are usually positioned behind and slightly below a bird’s eyes and are protected by soft feathers.

The position of a bird’s head also plays a role in its hearing abilities. Scientists have determined that noises register(显示) at different frequencies on each side of the bird’s head. Depending on the angle from which the noise originates, it registers with a certain frequency in the left eardrum(耳膜) but with a different frequency in the right eardrum. This allows the bird to locate a sound’s origin.

Let’s take a look at owls. They are known for their extremely accurate hearing, which helps them locate prey at night. This hearing ability is partly due to the unbalanced arrangement of the ear openings, with one opening being lower than the other. Sounds register in these openings at slightly different times. Owls can use this time difference, which is only 30 millionths of a second, to determine whether the sounds are coming from their left or their right. Other birds of prey have small covers in front of their ears that help them determine whether sounds are coming from above them or below them. Some owls do appear to have ears on the top of their head, but those are actually feathers controlled by small muscles under the skin that do not affect their hearing at all.

1. According to paragraph 2, what is the major difference between birds’ ears and humans’ cars?

A．Size

B．Position.

C．Structure.

D．Function.

2. What does the underlined word “This” in paragraph 3 probably refer to?

A．Each side of the bird’s head.

B．Sound quality around the bird.

C．The angle from which the noise comes.

D．The difference in frequencies between the eardrums.

3. What is the purpose of the last paragraph?

A．To give examples.	B．To present the main idea.
C．To draw a conclusion.	D．To compare different opinions.

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

A．Different Senses of Birds	B．Amazing Abilities of Birds
C．The Secret of Birds’ Hearing	D．The Origin of Birds’ Hearing