【推荐1】Gardeners such as Prince Charles who claim that talking to plants encourages them to grow have long been seen as a little silly. But scientists have discovered evidence which suggests the Royal may actually be right and they could be listening to him. Biologists at Tel Aviv University in Israel have found that flowers can act as a plant’s “ears” to help them detect the sound of approaching insects.

When the researchers played recordings of flying bees to evening primrose flowers, within three minutes the sugar concentrations in the nectar (花蜜) of its flowers increased. The fluid, produced to attract pollinating (授粉) insects, was on average 20 percent higher in flowers exposed to the buzz compared to those left in silence or exposed to higher pitched sounds. Professor Lilach Hadany, who led the study, said: “Our results document for the first time that plants can rapidly respond to pollinator sounds in an ecologically relevant way.”

However, Prof Hadany said a plant’s ability to respond to pollinators may be weakened in city environments or beside a busy road. While plants require water, sunlight and the right temperature to grow, it is widely believed they do not have senses in the way animals do.

But the study, published on the open-science website BioRxiv, suggests the efforts of gardeners who talk to their plants may not be in vain.“Plants’ ability to hear has implications well beyond pollination — plants could potentially hear and respond to herbivores, other animals, the elements, and possibly other plants,” Prof Hadany added.

A month-long experiment conducted by the Royal Horticultural Society in 2009 found female voices appear to speed up the growth of tomatoes. The research offers a possible explanation — women’s voices were at the right frequency for the plants to hear.

1. What’s evening primrose flowers’ response to bees’ buzz?

A．Longer bloom.	B．Sweeter nectar.
C．Brighter color.	D．Less fluid.

2. Where can plants grow better according to Hadany?

A．On a square.	B．Beside a highway.
C．In the woods.	D．Along the street.

3. What can we infer from the research?

A．Prince Charles proves kind of stupid.

B．Plants can only potentially hear animals.

C．Plants respond to sounds slowly and ecologically.

D．Plants gardeners talk to frequently develop well.

4. What does the text mainly talk about?

A．Flowers can hear.

B．Bees are best pollinators.

C．Plants can’t grow without sound.

D．Women’s voices improve plants’ growth.

【推荐2】Elephants are able to know the difference between a man and a woman, and can tell an adult (成年人) from a child—all from the sound of a human voice. This is according to a study in which researchers played voice recordings to wild African elephants.

The animals showed more fear when they heard the voices of adult Masai men. Usually Masai people hunt elephants, and this suggests that animals have grown to listen for and avoid them.

Prof. Karen McComb and Dr Graeme Shannon from the University of Sussex led the study. They explained that in former research they had used similar experiments to show that elephants could tell—from the sound of a lion—whether the animal was a female (雌性) or a more dangerous male (雄性).

Prof. McComb wanted to find out if the animals used their very sharp sense of hearing to recognize danger from humans.

The scientists recorded Masai men, women and children saying, in their own language, “Look, look over there, a group of elephants are coming.” They also recorded Kamba men saying this phrase.

Masai people often come across elephants, which can result in violent (暴力的) hunting. Kamba people, however, mainly feed on agriculture, which does not generally bring them into violent touch with the animals.

When the team played recordings of these different voices through a hidden speaker, they found that elephant family groups showed more fear in response to the voice of a Masai man, than to a Kamba man’s voice. And the adult male Masai voices caused far more violent response than the voices of women or boys.

1. An elephant can tell a man from a woman by sense of ________.

A．touch

B．sight

C．smell

D．hearing

2. How did the researchers get to know the elephants’ special ability?

A．By watching the elephants in the zoo.	B．By playing voice recordings to them.
C．By recording the behaviors of elephants.	D．By communicating with them in a special way.

3. We can learn from the passage that elephants are especially afraid of ________.

A．Masai men

B．Masai women

C．Kamba men

D．Kamba women

4. What is the best title for the passage?

A．Elephants and Human Beings	B．Differences Between Human Voices
C．Elephants Recognize Human Voices	D．Elephants at War with Human Beings

【推荐3】What would you do if you found a snake in your house? Many people might be afraid or try to kill it. However, if you live in North Carolina in the USA, one thing you can do is to call the Snake Catchers.

The Snake Catchers are four men who love snakes, even poisonous ones. Their newspaper advertisement says, “Snake Catchers: free snake removal—Please do not kill them — Call us. ”

The Snake Catchers, who started their service in 1998, don’t charge anything for helping people. “We do this as a hobby,” explained Fred Johnson, one of the Snake Catchers.

Because of their love of snakes, the Snake Catchers try to keep them alive. “One man asked us to kill a python(蟒蛇), so he could make a pair of boots from the skin. We refused, because we like snakes, and we don’t want to see them killed, ” said Fred.

Some of the snakes that they catch are kept as pets; some are given to the North Carolina State University. Most, including the poisonous snakes, are set free in the wild, usually in a national park.

Fred suggests that people should treat snakes with care. “Actually snakes are very shy and gentle creatures. They only attack if they are frightened. However, you have to know how to treat a snake properly!”

According to one happy family, the Snake Catchers are good. One day, the Greenwood family found a snake skin in the kitchen. They looked very carefully and saw a snake sleeping behind a cupboard. They thought about what to do. Then Steve Greenwood remembered the advertisement for the Snake Catchers. He called them.

“The Snake Catchers arrived within an hour and they finished the job quickly too,” said Steve Greenwood. “One of them went into the kitchen, found the snake and took it out alive. The Snake Catchers did a very good job.”

Last year, the Snake Catchers removed more than seventy snakes from houses in North Carolina.

1. The Snake Catchers catch snakes because ______.

A．they want to kill the snakes	B．they like trying to catch snakes
C．they don’t want people to hurt snakes	D．they like eating snakes

2. When a man asked them to kill a python, the Snake Catchers       ______.

A．made some boots from the skin	B．were very happy
C．gave him some old boots	D．did not agree

3. The Snake Catchers set most of the snakes free ______.

A．in a national park	B．in a university
C．in a garden	D．in their own houses

4. According to Fred, ______.

A．snakes are very dangerous	B．people should attack snakes
C．snakes are not usually dangerous	D．people should run away if they see a snake

【推荐1】In October, I told the eight-year-olds in the class I teach in Pompton Lakes, New Jersey, about my plan. “Since all of you have done extra jobs around the house to earn some money,” I said, “then we’ll buy food for a Thanksgiving dinner for someone who might not have a nice dinner otherwise.”

I watched them while they walked up and down the supermarket. “Flowers!”   Kristine cried. The group rushed towards the holiday plants.

“You can’t eat flowers.”— It was wiser to use any extra money to buy something that could be turned into meals.

“But Mrs Sherlock,” came the begging voice, “we want flowers.”

Defeated finally, I put a pot of “funny” purple mums in the cart full of foods. “She’ll like this one,” the children agreed.

An organisation had given us the name and address of a needy grandmother who had lived alone for many years. We finally pulled up in front of a small house. A slightly-built woman with a weary face came to the door to welcome us.

My little group ran to get the foods. As each box was carried in, the old woman kept on saying “Thanks.”— much to her visitors’ pleasure. When Amy put the mums on the counter, the woman seemed surprised. She was wishing it was a bag of rice, I thought.

We returned to the car. As we fastened our seat belts, we could see the kitchen window. The woman inside waved goodbye, then turned and walked across the room, past the turkey, past the goods, straight to the mums. She put her face in them. When she raised her head, there was a smile on her face. She was transformed (转变) before our eyes.

The children were quiet. At that moment, they had seen for themselves the power they have to make another person’s life better. The children had sensed that sometimes a person needs a pot of funny purple flowers on a dark November day.

1. What does the story mainly tell us?

A．Everyone has the power to change the world.

B．Acts of kindness can change someone’s life.

C．The poor people may need flowers as well.

D．Children have different thoughts from adults.

2. What does the underlined word “mums” in Paragraph 5 refer to in the passage?

A．Mothers.

B．Teachers.

C．Flowers.

D．Gifts.

3. Why did the author consider the mums “funny”?

A．She thought they were too ugly.

B．She thought they were for children.

C．She thought they were too expensive.

D．She thought they couldn’t help people in need.

4. What can we know from the passage?

A．The old woman preferred food to flowers.

B．Flowers are more important than food to the poor.

C．The old woman’s dark day was brightened by the children.

D．All the money the children earned was transformed into food.

【推荐2】Cheaters called “pirates” often use camcorders(便携式摄像机) and cell phones to make illegal copies of blockbusters(大片) in the local theater. These pirates then sell those recordings on the street or over the Internet for very low prices. Some share them for free.
“It’s unfair for people to pirate movies, ” says 15-year-old Hadaia Azad Ezzulddin. Movie piracy “takes money out of the pockets of thousands of people in the movie industry,” she notes. Victims include famous actors and directors as well as local theater owners and their employees.
Hadaia came up with an idea that could help stop movie piracy. Hadaia’s idea uses infrared(红外线的) light. This range of light is invisible to the human eye. It is visible, however, to many types of cameras. Theater owners could place small infrared lights on their movie screens. The lights would not disturb people watching the movie. It would, however, distort the recordings made by many types of cameras.
To test her idea, Hadaia built a box with a movie screen inside. Then, she projected images on that screen through a hole in the box. She took recordings of those images, using nine different types of cameras. These included the types found in cell phones as well as camcorders. During some tests, she also turned on light emitting diodes(发光二极管), or LEDs. The LEDs were embedded（植入的） in a certain place behind the movie screen. They gave out infrared light.
Sure enough, she showed, a pirated movie included odd stripes or spots if it had been recorded while the LEDs were on. It might be possible to use the LEDs to flash the date and time on the movie screen. The information would then appear in the illegal recordings. Theater owners or police might use the information to track down the pirates.
Cutting down on piracy might get more people into theaters to watch the real movie instead of an illegal copy. Six out of every ten films now produced aren’t profitable. They don’t make enough money to recover how much was spent to make and market them. Such a poor payback can discourage filmmakers from producing anything but the types expected to become blockbuster hits. It might also keep smaller theaters from showing a wider variety of movie types.
1. From what Hadaia says in Paragraph 2, we can infer that _______.

A．she strongly criticizes those who video movies in the theater

B．the pirates don’t have to pay for the movie tickets

C．theater owners will increase the price of movie tickets

D．most people spend less money on pirates moves

2. Infrared lights are put on the movie screens to _______.

A．adjust the brightness of the movie screens

B．make sure the images of movies are dark

C．make illegal copies of movies unpleasant to see

D．protect the eyesight of viewers in the darkness

3. What is the correct order of the steps in Hadaia’s test?
a. She projected pictures on the screen.
b. She used cameras to record the pictures.
c. She turned on the LEDs placed behind the screen.
d. She made a special box with a movie screen inside.

A．bacd

B．bcad

C．dbac

D．dcab

4. According to the last paragraph, we can know that _______.

A．small theaters often choose to show low-cost movies

B．forty percent of movies now are profitable

C．more and more people go to theaters to fight movie piracy

D．filmmakers prefer to produce ordinary movies than blockbusters

【推荐1】Many years ago, when we were a young couple with two small children, aged 2 and 4, we were practically impecunious. My in-laws lived from hand to mouth, so we didn’t expect any help from them. My parents lived a great distance away, and I was too ashamed to let them know about our situation.

My husband was trying to earn a living with an old pick﹣up truck, carrying groceries for local shopkeepers, but it was constantly breaking down. It took almost all the money we had to have it fixed. The truck was also the only means of transportation for us.

We lived in the countryside, and we always used the back door because the driveway led to it. One winter evening, I stepped outside to take a bag of trash to the barrel and almost tripped over something. It was nearly dark and I had to bend down to see what it was. I could hardly believe my eyes. There sat a large basket loaded with food.

It was heavy, so I called my husband to carry it into the house. Once inside we discovered two loaves of bread, some butter, several cans of vegetables, a can of orange sauce, and a large turkey. There was so many things that I can’t remember them all, but they were what we needed to fix a wonderful dinner - everything except potatoes.

A little while later I remembered that I hadn’t taken the trash to the barrel. Then it was dark, so I had to turn on the yard light - and that’s when I spotted a small bag of potatoes sitting on the porch.

That dinner was the best I could remember. We weren’t able to thank our donators, though, because we never found out who had been so considerate to help a struggling young family. Whoever it was, we are forever grateful.

1. Which of the following can replace the underlined word in Paragraph 1?

A．Delighted.

B．Surprised.

C．Poor.

D．Strong-willed.

2. How did the author’s husband support the family?

A．By starting a garage.	B．By selling food door to door.
C．By delivering goods.	D．By working as a shop assistant.

3. How did the author feel when she saw the basket?

A．She was annoyed.

B．She was surprised.

C．She was scared.

D．She was proud.

4. What may be the best title for the text?

A．A helping hand in time	B．A struggling young couple
C．A tale of potatoes	D．A reward from a stranger

【推荐2】In 1988, after being diagnosed with kidney cancer, Fenn, a high-end gallery owner, came up with a crazy plan: He would bury some of his favorite artifacts somewhere in the Rocky Mountains and then die next to them. “My desire was to hide the treasure and let my body stay there and go back to the soil,” he explains.

The contents are worth somewhere between $1 million and $5 million. Then he took his treasure chest out into the Rockies and hid it. He wanted it to be found. But he wasn’t going to just give it away.

In 2010, Fenn self-published a book, The Thrill of the Chase, which includes a 24-line poem that Fenn claims contains nine clues that “will lead to my treasure.”

At first, nobody really noticed. But word spread, and the chase was on. (The book is now out of print, and copies show up on Amazon for as much as $3,200.) Fenn estimates that 350,000 people from across the globe have searched or are currently searching for his treasure. Yet nobody has found it.

The problem with Fenn’s poem is that the “clues” can be interpreted a million different ways. The “home of Brown,” for instance, could be Browns Canyon National Monument in Colorado, or Brown Hill in New Mexico. Or a cabin or a bear. (Don’t laugh; several people have already looked.)

“It’s all in the poem,” some have recently started sharing more details, “and the treasure isn’t in a mine, I mean, they have snakes in ’em. It’s between 5,000 feet and 10,200 feet above sea level. It’s not in Canada or Idaho or Utah or a grave-yard.”

Why are Fenn’s treasure hunters so into what seems like a ridiculous thing to do with their time? Many are quick to say that their lives have been enriched by their experiences. “It’s changed us,” Neitzel says. “made us more confident, and even saved our marriages. Nothing scares us anymore.” They thank Fenn for giving them a reason to take a risk, for giving their lives meaning. Many claim that even if they found Fenn’s chest, they wouldn’t necessarily spend the money—and might even rehide the chest. Another hunter had this tantalizing insight: “I hope that I never find the treasure. The journey will be treasure enough.”

And so the hunt continues.

1. Which of the following is the right order?
a. The book The Thrill of the Chase came out.
b. Fenn made a large fortune as a high-end gallery owner.
c. Many hunters treasure their experience as a way of life.
d. Fenn took his treasure chest out into the Rockies and hid it.
e. Fenn was diagnosed with kidney cancer.

A．b   d   e   c   a	B．e   b   d   c   a
C．e   d   b   a   c	D．b   e   d   a   c

2. The word “interpreted” in the fifth paragraph can be replaced by__________.

A．divided

B．known

C．explained

D．understood

3. From the passage,which of the following is(are) least likely to join in the hunting?

A．A couple who have been tired of each other.

B．A reader of the book The Thrill of the Chase who likes to solve the riddle .

C．A merchant who needs money to enlarge his business.

D．A college student who wants to challenge himself.

4. Which proverb has the closest meaning to the underlined sentence?

A．Overcoming challenges makes life meaningful.

B．No pains, no gains.

C．Where there is a will, there is a way.

D．Penny and penny laid up will be many.

5. Fenn could be best described as_______.

A．warm-hearted, generous and intelligent

B．generous, creative and active

C．intelligent, helpful and active

D．helpful, creative and generous

6. Which one could be the best title of the story?

A．The man who buried a treasure

B．A treasure buried in the Rocky Mountains

C．Experiences of hunting for a treasure

D．Why the hunters so into a ridiculous thing?

【推荐3】One day, I was on a bus and saw something sad. A father kept playing a game, completely ignoring his daughter sitting beside his. The little girl, aged 5, was talking to her father about her day, praising her father’s long nails--trying to draw his attention. He just nodded with his eyes fixed on the screen, busy passing the levels of the game. I watched the girl give a final try to at least get him to look at her, but it was no use. Then the little girl turned silent. It was a shame the father didn't notice that.

It broke my heart and got me wondering--what kind of game would make the father forget he has the most beautiful thing in the world, the person he loves with all his heart. W hat it meant when she couldn't look into her daughter's eyes and even stop to listen to the girl

Some parents are almost like the teenagers, always on their phones with mindless games. Perhaps parents have many things to deal with, but sometimes they are everything to their kids. The scene used to be seen among teenagers very often when parents complained how their children were crazy about their mobile phones. Look how the situation has changed! I'm uncertain whether to laugh or to cry. But my hope is that this storm passes.

1. Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?

A．The girl failed to attract her father's attention.

B．The father felt sorry after his daughter turned silent.

C．The writer has much experience about being a parent.

D．Middle-aged parents have many mobile phones.

2. In the passage, the writer mainly wants to show_______.

A．children are crazy about mobile phones

B．parents are now able to use modern technology

C．the best smart phones cost parents too much money

D．parents should use new phones properly

3. What's the best title of the passage？

A．Middle-aged parents

B．A scene on the bus

C．Technology slaves（奴隶）

D．Harmful phone games