【推荐1】To grow sugary dates in the sand, Siwa’s farmers must first make the desert suitable for farming. As an oasis (绿洲) in Egypt, Siwa has been home to humans for thousands of years. Since ancient times, the oasis has had farms producing some of the most valuable dates in Egypt, and sugary dates have appeared on Egyptians, tables.

The desert environment in Siwa is not quite fit for plant, to grow. For example, the water there contains much salt. However, with local people’s efforts, the Siwa oasis contains complex agricultural (农业的) fields, where date trees, crops and other plants grow in harmony (和谐). That impressed me a lot during my visit to the oasis. To make a new piece of field, farmers first move away the top soil and replace it with a mixture of sand and waste matter from animals. The first plants are medicinal plants. Then, farmers plant date trees and olive trees. These farming skills are passed down from generation to generation.

To grow date trees is demanding. And it takes 10 years for a new date tree to grow up, but once it does, the tree produces generous fruit: around 110 pounds of dates per year. Each farmer picks dates with the skilled hands. They climb the trees using nothing more than a belt. In total, Siwa gets more than 25,000 tons of dates from 280,000 trees per year.

The dates can be eaten fresh, or made dry. Every part of the date tree is important in Siwa, from leaves made into beds and boxes to wood used to build houses. And then, of course, there’s the fruit itself. The dates can be cooked with goat meat or mixed with eggs for breakfast. They can also be mixed with flour, water, and olive oil, and boiled slowly to make a local dessert.

Local farmers once developed many unique date varieties, which their camels carried to Cairo. But later many of those varieties perished. And today only several major varieties remain and some have become quite rare and been at risk. The construction of a road in the oasis made the survival of local agricultural tradition even harder.

1. What can we learn about sugary dates from paragraph 1 ?

A．They have existed for a long time.

B．They prefer the desert environment.

C．They’re introduced to Egypt from abroad.

D．They’re the most valuable fruit in Egypt.

2. What impressed the author a lot during his visit to Siwa?

A．The great variety of plants grown there.

B．The hard but happy life of local people.

C．The difficulty in developing the local agriculture.

D．The farmers’ wisdom and contribution to farming.

3. What do the figures mentioned in paragraph 3 show?

A．It is easy to pick dates from the trees.

B．It is worth the effort to plant date trees.

C．It costs a lot to grow date trees in the oasis.

D．It is necessary to develop agriculture in Siwa.

4. What does the underlined word in the last paragraph mean?

A．Improved.	B．Died.
C．Became expensive.	D．Remained unique.

【推荐2】83-year-old Antonio Vicente has spent the last four decades of his life fighting against the trend. As Brazilian landowners cut down rain forests to make room for profitable plantations(种植园) and cattle grounds , he struggled to bring the jungles of his childhood back to life.

“When I was a child, the peasants cut down the trees to make grasslands and charcoal, and the water dried up and did not come back,” he told the reporters. “I thought:‘Water is valuable, no one makes water and the population will not stop growing. What is going to happen? We are going to run out of water.’”

With only some donkeys and a small team of hired workers, Antonio Vicente set about bringing back the forest to his land. What started out as a weekend hobby soon became a permanent way of life , and Antonio recalls often spending whole days and nights in his young jungle, surrounded by rats and foxes, and eating banana sandwiches for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Over the last 40 years, he has planted an estimated 50,000 trees on his 31-hectare land, which now make up a small but unique area of rain forest, and a haven for wildlife.

As the forest grew, the water returned, and Antonio says that there are now over 20 water sources on his land that were no longer there when he bought it. Then the animals started making a home there. Today, the forest is alive with the sounds of birds and insects living there, and more species are settling in every year.

“There are toucans(巨嘴鸟)，all kinds of birds, squirrels, lizards, and even the boars are returning,” 83-year-old Vicente says. “If you ask me who my family are, I would say all this right here, each one of these that I planted from a seed.”

1. What do we know about Antonio Vicente?

A．He is a Brazilian landowner.

B．He worked on his land alone.

C．He brought some jungles back to life.

D．He had no family except some animals.

2. What do we learn about the Brazilian peasants?

A．They wasted much water on farming.

B．They focused on short-term profits.

C．They cared much about the environment.

D．They relied heavily on rain forests for a living.

3. What does the underlined word “haven” in Paragraph 3 probably mean?

A．Trap.	B．Disaster.
C．Shelter.	D．Balance.

4. In the last paragraph, Antonio mainly expresses his______ .

A．thanks for his family

B．affection for his forest

C．deep love for rare birds

D．pride as a successful farmer

【推荐3】Masks that helped save lives during the coronavirus pandemic are proving a deadly threat for wildlife.

Macaques (猕猴) have been spotted chewing the straps off old and tossed-aside masks in the hills outside Malaysia’s capital Kuala Lumpur — a potential choking threat for the diminutive monkeys. And in an incident that captured headlines in Britain, a gull (海鸥) was rescued by the RSPCA in the city of Chelmsford after its legs became tangled (缠绕) in the straps of a disposable (一次性的) mask for up to a week. The animal welfare charity was alerted after the bird was spotted, motionless but still alive, and they took it to a wildlife hospital for treatment before its release.

The biggest impact may be in the water, with green groups alarmed at the flood of used masks, latex (乳胶) gloves and other protective gear finding their way into already polluted seas and rivers. Conservationists in Brazil found one inside the stomach of a penguin after its body washed up on a beach, while a dead pufferfish was discovered caught inside another off the coast of Miami.

French campaigners Operation Mer Propre found a dead crab trapped in a mask in a saltwater lagoon near the Mediterranean in September.

Masks and gloves are “ particularly problematic” for sea creatures, says George Leonard, chief scientist from US-based NGO Ocean Conservancy.“When those plastics break down in the environment, they form smaller and smaller particles. Those particles then enter the food chain and impact entire ecosystems,” he added.

There has been a shift towards greater use of reusable cloth masks, but many are still choosing the lighter single-use varieties. Campaigners have urged people to throw them away properly and cut the straps to reduce the risk of animals becoming trapped. Oceans Asia has   also called on governments to increase fines for littering and encourage the use of washable masks.

1. What is paragraph 2 mainly about?

A．Serious incidents of wildlife hunting.

B．Scientific research into wildlife living habits.

C．How wildlife is affected by disposable masks.

D．How human beings protect endangered wildlife.

2. How do masks endanger sea animals?

A．Sea animals may get twisted by masks.

B．Sea animals can’t find their way home.

C．Sea animals have difficulties in finding food.

D．Sea animals are forced to leave their habitats.

3. What is suggested in the last paragraph?

A．Putting bans on single-use masks.

B．Getting rid of used masks properly.

C．Giving mask producers heavy fines.

D．Reducing the risk of washable masks.

4. Which sections of the newspaper can this passage be found?

A．Business.	B．Education.
C．Lifestyle.	D．Environment.

【推荐3】Working out is great for your skin. It increases blood flow to all your organs — skin included — delivering oxygen and nutrients along with it. But if you exercise in a full face of makeup, you might be hurting your skin health, not helping it.

To find out what makeup does to skin during exercise, researchers applied a drug-store-brand cream foundation (粉底霜) to the foreheads and under-eye areas of 43 university students. They left the bottom halves of everyone’s faces makeup-free. All of the students then ran for 20 minutes.

“Our hypothesis was that makeup can block pores (毛孔) partially or completely, and because pores are important for evaporation and sweating, makeup would negatively impact skin health,” says Sukho Lee, a professor in the department of health, and kinesiology at Texas A&M University. Skin plays an important role in helping the body to regulate temperature, especially during exercise. Allowing pores to expand so that sweat can escape is just one of the ways that the skin releases excess heat from the body.

Using a device that can scan the skin for moisture (水分) levels, oil amounts, and pore size, the researchers compared people’s made-up and makeup-free parts of the face Moisture levels on the makeup side were higher than those on the bare side, which actually indicates a negative effect of the foundation. “Moisture on the skin is evidence of poor evaporation,” says Lee. People’s pores were also smaller on the areas where they wore makeup, which indicates that the skin wasn’t able to open up and properly regulate moisture and remove oil as it normally does, Lee says. Oil levels were lower on the makeup side, but it’s not clear why, says Lee. It’s possible that the foundation was interfering with the skin’s ability to regulate its oil levels.

The findings also raise questions about other products people apply to the face, such as sunscreen, designed to form a barrier on the skin against UV rays, Lee says.

1. Why was makeup applied to only certain parts of the students’ faces?

A．To measure how makeup affects skin moisture levels.

B．To test the effect of drug-store-brand cream foundation.

C．To compare the effects of makeup on different skin types.

D．To compare skin with and without makeup during exercise.

2. What can you infer about the importance of pores during exercise?

A．They are essential for delivering oxygen and nutrients to the skin.

B．They play a significant role in the skin’s temperature regulation.

C．They prevent the moisture from leaving the skin’s surface.

D．They contribute to increasing the level of oil on the skin.

3. What should be considered when applying products to the face before exercise?

A．The ability of products to make you look better.

B．The effect of products in reducing skin dehydration.

C．The impact of products on the skin’s natural functions.

D．The role of products in protecting the skin from UV rays.

4. What is Lee most likely to do next in his research?

A．To study makeup’s long-term effects on skin.

B．To extend the study to include other facial products.

C．To study the benefits of exercising without any makeup.

D．To investigate the effect of exercise intensity on skin health.

【推荐1】To the human ears a field of flowers is silent, save the noise of birds and insects. To certain animal ears, however, a field of flowers is full of conversation.   

It has long been known that plants communicate when stressed. You need only observe a houseplant to realize that a plant wilts (枯萎) when it needs water, or turns yellow at the edges when it has been watered too much. Some plants may also emit a bitter taste to deter insects from capitalizing on their stressed state; while others may emit organic compounds to alarm other plants in the area.

Now, a new study, conducted by researchers at Tel Aviv University. shows that not only do plants express themselves in the above ways when stressed, they also emit sounds.

According to the study, plants emit sounds at frequencies between 40 to 80 kilohertz- beyond the range of human ears—but within the range of some animals. “While imperceptible to the human ears, the sounds emitted by plants can probably be heard by such animals as bats, mice, and insects, "explained Dr. Lilach Hadany, a Professor at Tel Aviv University and a co-author of the study.

One of the primary breakthroughs of Hadany's study is that the researchers have managed to understand and classify the sounds that plants generate for the first time. Plants that are not stressed produce about one noise per hour, but plants that are stressed, dehydrated, or injured many hundreds of sounds per hour, and each of these sounds seems to be specific to the type of stress the plant is under.

This type of information could be vital for agriculture. Knowing what sounds their plants are making could help farmers determine whether their crops are in danger or drought or disease and allow them to make the necessary changes to let their plants to thrive.

Amazingly enough, the researchers are not actually sure how the plants make sounds, though it may have something to do with cavitation (空穴现象), which is when the water tension in the plants becomes too high and the water turns to gas, making an ultrasonic popping noise.

Whatever the case, this is still a game-changer for plant science, and potentially for the future of agriculture. One day soon your plants may be-able to tell you if they are hungry, thirsty, or just feeling lonely.

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

A．Identify.

B．Ignore.

C．Prevent.

D．Preserve.

2. What can we know about the new study according to the passage?

A．The sounds emitted by plants always remain the same.

B．All animals are not able to hear the sounds produced by plants.

C．Previous experiments suggested similar findings to the new study.

D．Researchers have made sense of how plants exactly make sounds.

3. What is paragraph 6 mainly about?

A．The new study’s benefits to farmers.

B．The new study’s limitations in agriculture.

C．The new study’s impact on further studies.

D．The new study’s insight into relevant research.

4. What is the author’s attitude towards the scientific value of the new study?

A．Indifferent.

B．Skeptical.

C．Ambiguous.

D．Favorable.

【推荐3】Many of us live with a roommate at some stage. Sometimes, there can be problems. Who hasn’t had an argument about whose turn it is to take out the rubbish or who should be the one to clear up after dinner? However, living with another person also comes with many benefits.

You know that there’s always someone else around, which can help you feel safer. There is always someone to talk to so you never feel lonely. Besides these obvious benefits, there are some you may not notice. For example, we’re actually more likely to eat healthier food when living with others.

To examine the effect of living alone, Australian university researchers did much research and found that people living alone tended to eat less fresh food, which can have a significant negative effect on long-term health. However, those living with others generally benefited from a more varied diet compared to those living alone.

What could explain these findings? The researchers believe the social and cultural roles played by cooking, food preparation and eating may be important considerations. For example, those living with friends have someone else to go shopping with, and thus they are likely to buy higher- quality fresh food regularly.

Cooking skills may be another factor. If people living alone find they do not have the knowledge required to prepare a particular dish or cook a certain food, they may fall back on ready-made，less healthy food. However, if they live with at least one other person, they may be able to ask for help.

In addition, people living alone can eat whatever they want at any time of the day or night. However, it’s helpful to have someone around who questions your decision to eat frozen pizza at 3 am. In other words, roommates can draw your attention to unhealthy routines.

1. What is the second paragraph mainly about?

A．The reasons for living with others

B．The ways of dealing with a roommate.

C．The importance of talking with others.

D．The benefits of living with someone else.

2. How many reasons are explored to explain the new findings?

A．2.

B．3.

C．4.

D．5.

3. What does the underlined phrase “fall back on” in Paragraph 5 mean?

A．Hunt for.

B．Cut down on.

C．Depend on.

D．Give up.

4. What is the main purpose of this text?

A．To tell readers every coin has two sides.

B．To encourage people to have a roommate.

C．To explain why roommates have arguments.

D．To persuade people to develop healthy eating habits.