【推荐1】Besides soil, all plants need water. This makes it hard to grow plants where it’s dry. But this problem may soon be solved by researchers. Their invention is a super-moisture-absorbent gel (凝胶), or SMAG.

“The gel-based material can be used as a soil enhancer, as well as alternative soil in greenhouses,” said Guihua Yu, an engineer at the University of Texas-Austin. He led the team that developed the gel. He also said this material could be “directly mixed with soil or fertilizer at certain amounts”.

The gel works similarly to how dew forms. Dew is those water droplets attached to leaves of grass in the morning. It forms because of differences in air temperature between day and night. Air contains different gases, including water vapor (蒸气). Warmer air holds more water vapor. As the air cools after dark, it loses its ability to hold some of it. When it reaches a certain temperature — known as the dew point — some water vapor will turn into tiny drops of water. When temperature rises the next day, that water evaporates, again turning into vapor.

The research team decided to use this process to aid plants. The gel mixed with soil absorbs the water vapor and holds it. The next day, the gel instead slowly releases (释放) that water into the soil.

Jeff Hattey, a soil scientist, says the gel sounds pretty helpful in farming, but you probably won’t see the gel at the hardware store anytime soon. He notes that based on the quantities of the new material used in Yu’s experiments, outdoor fields might require a whole lot of it. According to his research, farmers might have to add about 13 trucks of gel to the soil top per acre (英亩).

Yu believes future studies will help his team understand if the gel could be used for larger, outdoor fields. “Fortunately, the gel is not poisonous,” Yu says. So it shouldn’t hurt the bacteria or worms that are needed to keep soil healthy for growing things.

1. What is the second paragraph mainly about?

A．The application of the gel.

B．The raw material of the gel.

C．The characteristics of the gel.

D．The research process of the gel.

2. Why is dew mentioned in the third paragraph?

A．To introduce its formation.

B．To explain the principle of the gel.

C．To stress the importance of water vapor.

D．To clarify the definition of the dew point.

3. What problem with the gel does Jeff Hattey point out?

A．It is of little help in real farming.

B．It will be too expensive to buy.

C．It requires too much calculation to apply it to outdoor fields.

D．It must reach a huge amount to be effective in outdoor fields.

4. What can we learn about the gel?

A．It works only at night.

B．It can replace soil in dry areas.

C．It is friendly to the creatures in the soil.

D．It makes use of dew to offer plants water.

【推荐2】“Few articles change owners more frequently than clothes. They travel downwards from grade to grade in the social scale with remarkable regularity,” wrote the journalist Adolphe Smith in 1877 as he traced a coat’s journey in the last century: cleaned, repaired and resold repeatedly; cut down into a smaller item; eventually recycled into new fabric. But with the improvement in people’s living standards, that model is mind-boggling in the era of fast fashion. The average British customer buys four items a month. And it is reported that 350,000 tonnes of used but still wearable clothes go to landfills in the UK each year.

Yet the gradual revival of the second-hand trade has gathered pace in the past few years. At fashion website Asos, sales of vintage clothes (古董衫) have risen by 92%. Clothing was once worn out of necessity, and now it is simply a way of life. Busy families sell used items on eBay, teenagers trade on Depop and some fashion people offer designer labels on Vestiaire Collective. Strikingly, it has become big enough business that mainstream retailers (零售商) want a slice of the action.

For some buyers and sellers, the switch to the second-hand is born of financial difficulties. Only a few have become worried about the impact of their shopping habit on the planet. But the shift is only a partial solution. Some people worry that some mainstream brands may “greenwash” — using second-hand goods to improve their image, rather than engaging more seriously with sustainability.

However, the biggest concern may be that people keep buying because they know they can resell goods, still chasing the pleasure of the next purchase but with an eased conscience (愧疚). Boohoo, a powerful fast fashion company, has seen sales and profits rise, despite concerns about environmental problems in its supply chain that led to an investigation last year.

A new Netflix series, Worn Stories, documents the emotional meanings that clothes can have: Each old item is full of memories. Actually, a handbag from a grandmother and a scarf passed on by a father are both valuable for us. A love of style is not a bad or an unimportant thing. But a committed relationship is better than a quick flash. Can we learn to appreciate our own old clothes as well as others’?

1. What does the word “mind-boggling” underlined in paragraph 1 probably mean?

A．Unbelievable.

B．Popular.

C．Reasonable.

D．Influential.

2. With the business mentioned in paragraph 2, the author wants to show _______.

A．old clothes are more popular than new pieces

B．the online second-hand markets are booming

C．the fashion world begins to favor vintage clothes

D．many clothing brands are innovative in their new products

3. How does the second-hand trade impact people according to paragraph 4?

A．It makes people feel free to pursue fast fashion.

B．It makes people more cautious about their budgets.

C．It encourages people to choose eco-friendly clothes.

D．It pushes people to be more engaged with sustainability.

4. Which of the following views does Worn Stories advocate?

A．Old items have lost favor with the public.

B．Old items are worthy of being long cherished.

C．Older generations attach great importance to old items.

D．Older generations care about the quality of their clothes.

【推荐3】Do you sometimes ignore your mom while chatting with friends? If you’re a teen, that’s fairly common. And a new study may explain why so many adolescents tune out their mom’s voice.

Science has shown that young children’s brains are well adapted to their mothers’ voices. But as children grow into teenagers, everything is changing. The latest research shows that teenagers’ brains are now more adapted to the voices of strangers than their own mothers. This is what Daniel Abrams explains, who is a neuroscientist at Stanford University School of Medicine in California.

Abrams and his colleagues already knew that younger kids’ brains respond more strongly to their moms’ voices than to a stranger’s.” In adolescence, we show the exact opposite of that, “ Abrams says. For teens, these brain regions respond more to unfamiliar voices than to their moms’. This shift in what voice piques interest most seems to happen between ages 13 and 14. That’s when teenagers are in the midst of puberty (青春期), a roughly decade-long transition to adulthood.

These areas in the adolescents’ brains don’t stop responding to their moms, Abrams says. It’s just that unfamiliar voices become more rewarding and worthy of attention. Here’s why: As kids grow up, they expand their social connections way beyond their family. So their brains need to begin paying more attention to that wider world.

“As we mature, our survival depends less and less on maternal support,” says Leslie Seltzer. She’s a biological anthropologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She was part of the team that carried out that 2011 study. Instead, she says, “We rely more and more on our peers—friends and others closer to our own age.”

Abrams said that although teenagers and their parents sometimes feel frustrated with missing information, it doesn’t matter. “This is the way the brain connects, and there is good reason.”

1. What may the new study explain?

A．What many adolescents are interested in.

B．How teenagers adapt to new surroundings.

C．When adolescents don’t like listening to parents.

D．Why many teenagers ignore their mothers’ voices.

2. What does the underlined part mean?

A．We think little of what our mom says.

B．We begin to challenge our mother’s authority.

C．We always do something opposite to our mom’s view.

D．We respond more strongly to a stranger’s voice than our mom’s.

3. Who do teenagers more and more rely on?

A．Their peers.

B．Their teachers.

C．Their mothers.

D．Their colleagues.

4. What is Abrams’ attitude toward the change in family relations?

A．Worried.

B．Positive.

C．Negative.

D．Indifferent.