【推荐1】One night, Pilar was in a deep sleep when she was woken by her cat Inti. Inti was meowing wildly outside Pilar’s bedroom and throwing himself against the closed bedroom door. When Pilar opened her eyes, she saw that her bedroom was filled with smoke. As she escaped her house with Inti in her arms, she saw that a fire was burning in her kitchen. Pilar could easily have lost her life, but Inti would not let that happen. Even though Inti could have escaped the house through a cat door, he wouldn’t leave Pilar.

As amazing as this story is, it is not as uncommon as you may think. Take the example of Charlotte Lee and her horse, Thunder. One summer night, the whole family was asleep with the windows open. It was normally very quiet where they lived. Suddenly, there was a loud noise. Charlotte woke up from her sweet dream, and the noise continued. Then she heard a horse running fast towards the house. The next thing she saw was Thunder standing outside her window, neighing(嘶叫) and shaking his head. She knew something was wrong. Charlotte quickly got everyone out of the house before the earthquake hit. Thunder has saved her life.

There are also stories of wild animals coming to the rescue of humans. One animal known to be a friend of humans is the dolphin. Once, Todd Endris was surfing with his friends when he was attacked by a 13-foot(4-meter) shark. In the middle of the attack, a group of dolphins came to his rescue by forming a protective ring around Endris until he could get safely to shore. Without the help of the dolphins, there is little chance that Todd could have escaped.

No one is sure why animals have so often come to our rescue. However, it is clear that humans and animals enjoy a close relationship. It is important that we care for them as much as we can.

1. Why did Inti throw himself against the door? Because_____.

A．he wanted to get out of the room

B．he was trying to wake up his owner

C．he couldn’t find the way out because of smoke

D．he felt bored and was playing by himself

2. Before the earthquake hit, Charlotte_____.

A．closed the windows	B．ran to warn her neighbors
C．got her horse out of the stable	D．was sleeping deeply

3. Both Inti and Thunder_____.

A．saved their owners several times	B．used to make noise at night
C．were shy and quiet	D．were brave, smart and devoted

4. What might Todd say to those dolphins?

A．Thank you so much.	B．What are you doing here.
C．Why are you leaving.	D．Leave me alone.

【推荐2】Without plants, people couldn’t live. We eat plants.     1    . And we need plants for another reason: We need them because they are beautiful.
    2    . Imagine no flowers with their sweet smells, their beautiful colours and their lovely shapes. Imagine, when the wind blows, we are not able to hear the leaves of the trees or watch the branches swing from side to side.
    3    . That is why we have parks full of trees and flowers. That is why people always like houses with room for some grass and a garden.
Do you talk to your plants?     4     Perter Tompkins and Christopher Bird, writers of a book called The Secret of Plants, tell of an experiment in which two seeds were plants in different places. While the plants were growing, one plant was given love and hopeful ideas.     5     Under the earth it had more and longer roots; above the earth, it had a thicker stem and more leaves.

A．Plants get energy from the sun.

B．Do you give them love and take good care of them?

C．After six months, the deserted plant faded away.

D．After six months, the beloved plant was bigger.

E．We take in oxygen that plants make.

F．Everywhere people need beautiful plants.

G．Imagine a world with no plants.

【推荐1】The secrets of dreaming are always interesting psychologists. It is generally acknowledged in the field that dreams people have during this time between childhood and full adulthood, that’s around 30, are the strongest and most influential. Yet not enough is known about the repeated patterns of dreaming. Researchers are still trying to answer a basic question: How does dreaming relate to the life experiences and developmental challenges?

G. William Domhoff and Adam Schneider, at the University of California, help to answer this question by examining the lengthy dream series of two individuals, Izzy and Jasmine. Izzy provided a collection of 4,329 dream reports from between the ages of 12 and 25, while Jasmine provided 664 dreams recorded between the ages of 14 and 25.

Large collections of dreams like these pose challenges to researchers. Until recently, the means of studying dream series was to employ a team of recorders who take the time to code each dream for a predetermined number of content categories, and then compare their results. Nowadays, digital technologies enable the analysis of language usage in dreams with high speed, precision, and objectivity. This marks a revolutionary advance in the science of dreaming. However, it can only lead so far.

To gain more specific and detailed insights, Domhoff and Schneider tailored word strings for each dreamer, mixing elements of traditional research with digital tools for analyzing large data sets. For Izzy these word strings included “family and relatives”, “celebrities” and “fantasy”, while the word strings they created for Jasmine included “familiar places”, “electrical equipment” and “music”. The researchers used these word strings to identify connections between their dreams and real lives. Surprisingly, the results of the analysis revealed a great deal of consistency and continuity in both sets of dreams. Izzy pays much attention to pop culture, and has affection for famous actors. Jasmine is an accomplished musician and performer.

“The frequencies of dream elements reveal the intensity of the dreamer’s personal concern with that element in waking thought,” Domhoff and Schneider conclude. For anyone who still claims dreaming is merely random nonsense from the brain and mental world, these findings are hard to explain away.

1. What do psychologists agree with about dreams?

A．Dreams are interesting at all times.

B．Dreams are influenced by life experiences.

C．The patterns of dreaming are usually repeated.

D．Dreams in one’s teens and twenties are most intense.

2. What does “it” underlined in paragraph 3 refer to?

A．The digital method.	B．The collection of dreams.
C．The revolutionary advance.	D．The research into dreaming.

3. How do the researchers conduct their study?

A．By analyzing large data sets.

B．By identifying the patterns of dreaming.

C．By developing individualized word strings.

D．By making comparison with traditional research.

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

A．New tech, new finding	B．Dreams: reflections of waking reality
C．Lives, languages, dreams	D．Life experiences: elements of dreams

【推荐2】Are you familiar with the greeting, "Can I add you on WeChat?" It seems like every time we meet new friends or colleagues nowadays, the first thing that springs to mind is adding each other on the app. Nevertheless, more than 80 percent of WeChat users report feeling stressed or anxious when they receive a large number of messages, according to a study done recently by the app’s developer Tencent (腾讯). In other words, WeChat can overwhelm (使应接不暇) us, while also breaking down the boundaries between our work and private lives.

Just think how easy it is now for bosses to hand out assignments during the holiday, so long as they have your WeChat contact. When you’re at the cinema enjoying a romantic movie or having a barbecue in the backyard, you can never cut yourself off from the outside world unless you switch off your phone. Not to post something in WeChat Moments before replying to your boss first!

Apart from interrupting your leisure time, WeChat can also reduce your productivity at work. For many office workers, logging in to WeChat on their computers at the start of the day has become routine. But what if browsing the Moments distracts us from doing the work? The app steals our time without us even noticing it, making us have the false belief that we are busy all the time.

And as if that weren’t bad enough, there’re the "one-off" friends who take up space on our WeChat friend list. A handy way to check how many one-off friends you have is to take a look at your chat history with them. Sometimes, you only sent the initial friend requests so you could invite them to a WeChat group or inform them of something for your boss. Yet still, as your friend count (好友数量) ever goes up, it can make you feel the need to post selfies (自拍) and share details of your life in your Moments, just so you can stay up to date.

With WeChat, all our spare time is swallowed up by the constant torrent of messages and our attention keeps getting diverted by Moments and pop-up ads. So it’s time that we should do something to nip this problem in the bud.

1. What is most of WeChat users’ reaction when receiving a mass of messages?

A．They are quite upset.	B．They think it’s unavoidable.
C．They break down.	D．They complain about Tencent.

2. Which of the following may make your boss angry according to Paragraph 2?

A．Enjoying a movie at the weekend.

B．Posting something in WeChat Moments.

C．Having a barbecue on vacation.

D．Ignoring the assignment he handed out when seeing it.

3. How can we decide who is the one-off friend on our WeChat friend list?

A．By checking if you sent the initial friend request.

B．By seeing if your boss asked you to inform him of something.

C．By having a look at your chat record.

D．By counting the number of your friends on the list.

4. What can be a suitable title for this text?

A．Is WeChat becoming a necessity in our life?

B．Are WeChat friend requests ruining your life?

C．Does your boss want to be your WeChat friend?

D．Is it better to have more WeChat friends?

【推荐3】An American woman Anna Jarvis was the first person to decide the mothers should have a holiday in their honor each year. Miss Jarvis started her campaign in 1906 in her home city Philadelphia. She wrote thousands of letters to congressmen (国会议员), city officials, teachers and newspaper publishers, proposing an official holiday for mothers. She traveled all over America, trying to get support for the idea. Her battle went on for years.

In 1914, the Congress declared the second Sunday in May each year as Mother's Day. Anna Jarvis wanted Mother's Day to be a simple event. She thought children could honor their mothers by spending some time with them as an act of love and respect. However, the holiday turned out to be a major event for department stores, flower shops and greeting­card industry, which Miss Jarvis didn't like.

Americans spend millions of dollars on gifts for their mothers on this day. Younger children often try to prepare and serve breakfast for their mothers. Fathers may offer to take care of children so that mothers can enjoy themselves. The holiday becomes an important time for family gathering.

1. What can be inferred from the text is that ________.

A．the Congress didn't accept Anna's suggestion until the whole country supported her

B．the battle lasted 8 years

C．Jarvis didn't enjoy the usual way Americans spend Mother's Day

D．Mother's Day is an important day for Americans

2. Miss Jarvis proposed Mother's Day in order that people could show their love and respect to their mothers ________.

A．by spending some time with them

B．by offering them precious gifts

C．by eating in restaurants together

D．by taking children for them

3. On Mother's Day ________.

A．all women, young and old, receive gifts

B．families gather together

C．all people stay at home

D．no one goes to work

4. Miss Jarvis proposed Mother's Day, but she didn't like ________.

A．flower shops selling flowers

B．department stores earning money from greeting­cards

C．greeting­card industry

D．the way people spend Mother's Day

【推荐2】Half of the world’s population lives in areas affected by Asian monsoons（季风）, but monsoons are difficult to predict. American researchers have put together a 700-year record of the rainy seasons, which is expected to provide guidance for experts making             weather predictions.
Every summer, moist（潮湿的）air masses, known as monsoon, produce large quantities of rainfall in India, East Asia, Indonesia, Northern Australia and East Africa, which are pulled in by a high pressure area over the Indian Ocean and a low pressure area             to the south.
According to Edward Cook, a weather expert at Columbia University in New York, the complex nature of the climate systems across Asia makes monsoons hard to predict. In addition, climate records for the area date to 1950, too recent and not detailed             enough to be of much use. Therefore, he and a team of researchers spent more than fifteen years travelling across Asia locating trees old enough to provide long-term records. They measured the rings（年轮）or circles, inside the trunks of thousands             of ancient trees at more than 300 sites.
Rainfall has a direct link to the growth and width of rings on some kinds of trees. The researchers developed a document—a Monsoon Asia Drought Atlas（地图集）. It shows the effect of monsoons over seven centuries, beginning in the 1300s.
Professor Cook says the tree-ring records show periods of wet and dry conditions. “If the monsoon basically fails or is very weak one year, the trees affected by the monsoon at that location might put on a very narrow ring. But if the monsoon is very             strong, the trees affected by that monsoon might put on a wide ring for that year. So, the wide and narrow ring widths of the tree chronology（年表）that we developed in Asia provide us with a measure of monsoon variability. ” Armed with such a sweeping             set of data, researchers say they now can begin to refine climate computer models for predicting the behavior of monsoons.
“There has been widespread famine and starvation and human dying in the past in large droughts. And on the other hand, if the monsoon is particularly heavy, it can cause extensive flooding,” said Eugene Wahl, a scientist who is with America’s National             Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s paleoclimate（古气候）branch studying weather patterns over the history of the Earth. “So, to get a knowledge of what the regional moisture patterns have been, dryness and wetness over such a long period of             time in great detail, I would call it a kind of victory for climate science.”
1. What’s the passage mainly about?

A．A breakthrough in monsoon prediction.

B．The necessity of weather forecast.

C．The achievements of Edward Cook.

D．The effects of Asian monsoons.

2. It is difficult for experts to predict Asian monsoons because______.

A．it is hard to keep long-term climate records

B．they are formed under complex climate systems

C．they influence many nations

D．there is heavy rainfall in Asia

3. What can be inferred from the passage?

A．The trees affected by monsoon grow fast if the monsoon is weak.

B．The Monsoon Asia Drought Atlas has a monsoon record for about 1,300 years.

C．Long and detailed climate records can offer useful information for monsoon research.

D．The rainfall might be low although the monsoon is strong in monsoon-affected areas.

4. According to Professor Cook, the rings of the trees_________.

A．determine the regional climate

B．have a great influence on the regional climate

C．offer people information about the regional climate

D．reflect all kinds of regional climate information

5. What do we know about the research according to Eugene Wahl?

A．It will help people prevent droughts and floods.

B．It should include information about human life in the past.

C．It has analysed moisture models worldwide.

D．It is a great achievement in climate science.

6. Which of the following best describes the tone of this passage?

A．Friendly.	B．Pessimistic.
C．Humorous.	D．Matter-of-fact.

【推荐3】On Saturday, August 24, 1918, it was raining cats and dogs and thundering over a city called Sunderland on the northeast coast of England. The storm lasted for only about ten minutes. People were surprised to see that it was not just rainwater falling from the sky. There were fish falling down, too! People came out to find out what was happening. They could not believe their own eyes. There were thousands of fish—sand eels (沙鳗)—lying on the ground. They were about seven centimeters long, and all were frozen dead.

Sand eels swim together in large groups, often in sandy water, and are often found in large numbers in the North Sea, which reaches out to the east of Sunderland. How was it possible for these sand eels to fall from the sky and land on Sunderland?

Scientists believed the heavy thunderstorm that afternoon may have caused a waterspout (水龙卷). Waterspout s can be formed when strong winds move quickly in a circle over water. They are so powerful that anything less than one meter in length can be taken into them and forced into the clouds. The clouds carry whatever has been taken into them for long distances —sometimes over 150 kilometers. It’s very cold up there and everything soon freezes.

For hundreds of years there have been reports of small animals being taken into the sky through waterspouts. In 2009, dead tadpoles rained down on the city of Nanao in Japan. In 2012, fifty kilos of prawns fell from the sky over Sri Lanka. In 2017, fish fell on the coastal city of Tampico in Mexico.

It must be a very strange experience to see fish raining down on you. It would probably hurt if one fell on your head! With climate change and many reports of terrible storms, will the time ever come when it may really begin to rain cats and dogs?

1. What do we know about the sand eels that landed on Sunderland?

A．They were few in number.	B．They came in different sizes.
C．They were still alive when landing.	D．They probably came from the North Sea.

2. What does the underlined word “them” in Paragraph 3 refer to?

A．Clouds.

B．Waterspouts.

C．Sand eels.

D．Thunderstorms.

3. Why does the author mention the fall of tadpoles in Japan?

A．To stress the environment is not pleasant in Japan.

B．To introduce waterspouts can reach as far as Japan.

C．To show that raining sea animals is not new in history.

D．To explain different animals can fall in different countries.

4. What is the author really worried about in the last paragraph?

A．Health.

B．Environment.

C．Wild animals.

D．Travel safety.