【推荐1】I used to think that the most effective way to resist depression (抑郁) was to have my heart set on happiness. If you valued happiness instead of sorrow as your goal, I thought, one would not suffer from depression.

However, a study, carried out among students living in the UK, found those who said they valued happiness extremely highly tended to show greater signs of depression.

Vogt and colleagues presented 151 students, the majority of them female, with a series of online questionnaires, These examined attitudes from how much they valued happiness to how much their emotions affected them, how easy they found it to put aside emotions, and their levels of depression-related symptoms.

The results, published in the Journal of Happiness Studies, reveal that those who valued happiness more had higher scores for symptoms of depression. The reason is in part because individuals become distracted by their feelings and a lower ability to reframe thoughts or experiences. It is also in part because. of bottling up emotions. “Suppression is not considered a successful emotional regulation strategy because when you try not to think of something you think of it all the time," said Vogt.

While Vogt said the study cannot prove that valuing happiness too much causes symptoms of depression, she said it was highly possible. She also noted that in Russia and east Asian countries the opposite trend had been found.

However, the study has limitations - including that it mainly involved women and did not account for the health or socioeconomic status or participants, although all were young and at university.

1. What did the study find?

A．If you value happiness, you won't get upset.

B．The goal of happiness leads to depression.

C．Negative :emotions affects one's happiness.

D．Female college students are easier to become depressed.

2. What are the reasons causing depression in people according to the passage EXCEPT?

A．They are distracted by their feelings.	B．They fail to adjust their thought.
C．They welcome every kind of emotions.	D．They think about happiness all the time.

3. What does the underlined word “suppression” mean?

A．expression	B．hiding
C．value	D．happiness

4. What is the author's attitude towards the study?

A．objective	B．indifferent
C．supportive	D．critical

【推荐3】Something strange was happening inside Anne' s home. During the summer of 2014, twins Gavin and Garrett, then three, each had skin rash (疹子) that wouldn't go away. 14-year-old J. D. had stomach pains so severe that he couldn’t climb the stairs，but tests found nothing wrong. By winter, the family's health problems were getting worse.

One day, Anne found brown water flowed out of the tap. Worried that the water was polluted, the family began using bottled water for cooking，drinking, and bathing.

In January 2015，the city of Flint sent out a notice stating that the water supply—which had been switched, in a cost-cutting measure, from the Detroit water system to the Flint River the previous spring—contained high levels of trihalomethanes (三卤甲烷). The notice warned that elderly people might be at risk for health problems but emphasized that the water was otherwise safe to drink.

Shocked, the self-claimed "stay-at-home mom turned water warrior" researched the water supply and searched the Internet for information that she distributed to city officials, listing the side effects of exposure to trihalomethanes. Then she urged her neighbors to attend city council meetings, where they shared their health problems. Still, officials insisted the water was safe to drink. So Anne demanded that the city test her water. The results were disturbing. The trihalomethanes were the least of her problems. The tests included that the lead levels in her water were nearly seven times the legal amount.

Anne had her children tested for lead. All the kids showed lead poisoning. She requested Flint's water quality reports and discovered that the city wasn't applying the proper corrosion (腐蚀) control standards to its pipes; the standards prevent the metal in pipes from leaking into the water.

1. How did Gavin suffer from the disease?

A．His stomach hurt so much that he couldn’t' climb the stairs.

B．He had rash on his skin which wouldn’t' disappear.

C．His disease got too ill for him to get any medical tests.

D．He had weak eyesight and couldn't go to school,

2. Why did the city of Flint change its water supply?

A．The Detroit water system had been polluted.

B．The Flint River was made clean a year ago.

C．They wanted to cut the cost of water supply.

D．The Flint River always has brown water.

3. The test of the water from Anne' s home showed that          .

A．her family had the worst of the trihalomethanes pollution

B．the water from her tap was safe to use except for drinking

C．her family was located in the most polluted part of the city

D．there was something more serious than the trihalomethanes

4. The water problem was caused by         

A．the lack of proper corrosion control to the pipes

B．the overuse of water-purifying chemicals

C．the exposure to trihalomethanes in the water

D．the improper use of metal in the pipes

【推荐2】We’ve all had a guilty pleasure or two. Maybe it was an awkward TV show that we enjoyed a bit too much, maybe a song we listened to ironically until it became a bit too unironic. Perhaps a snack so disgusting it wound up coming back around to be delicious, or a movie so egregious that it ended up being a fantastic watch. Though we often wonder why we enjoy these things, we should really be asking ourselves why we feel guilty for enjoying them.

With the obvious exception of things that are harmful to people, our harsh judgment toward ourselves and others over what we enjoy does nothing but harm our individual expression and enjoyment.

It’s natural to want to appear “cool” to other people — whatever that may mean to you. With the cultural tendency and the means to share literally anything and everything you enjoy via social media, we perfectly curate (管理) the media we consume to match some sort of imagined ideal aesthetic (美学) — a trap that’s easy to fall into. Don’t fall into the trap!

My point is, the things that hold us back from openly enjoying our “guilty pleasures” often come from completely unfounded places. This is especially true that a teenage girl would rather be misunderstood than admit she likes pink. Frankly, what’s the point? Who are you proving yourself to, and why do you feel the need to? If you’re not harming anyone, and you are getting happiness from something, then why bother holding yourself back from it just to preserve some kind of curated image of who you’re supposed to be?

Life is hard enough. If you’ve found something that eases the stress of life even just a little bit, hold onto it for dear life. Marathon the Twilight movies. Read a super tacky (俗气的) romance novel. Throw that guilt right out of the window with absolutely no regrets, and do whatever it is that makes you happy.

1. What can we learn from paragraph 3?

A．Most people want to gain recognition from others.

B．Social media has a bad impact on self-recognition.

C．Cultural tendency sets a standard for ideal aesthetic.

D．People enjoy curating the media that they consume.

2. What would hold us back from enjoying “guilty pleasure”?

A．The desire to lead a simple life.	B．The intention to show off ourselves.
C．The purpose to guard our ideal image.	D．The need to admit that we like pink.

3. Which of the following may the author agree with?

A．Find ways to overcome hard life.

B．Set ourselves free from fixed opinions.

C．Have an in-depth self-talk to find our souls.

D．Talk with people and make our own decisions.

【推荐3】Benefits of Reading

The benefits of reading start with the first book a baby hears and continue into childhood and throughout the child’s life. Here are some reasons why reading is important.

Reading teaches children about the world around them.     1    They are exposed to ways of life, ideas and beliefs about the world which may be different from those which surround them. This builds a store of background knowledge, which helps younger children learn to read confidently.

    2    When we read, our brains translate the descriptions we read of people , places and things into pictures. When we are reading a story, we are also imagining how the characters are feeling. We use our own experiences to imagine how we would feel in the same situation

Children who read do better at school. And they don’t just do better at subjects like reading, English and history.     3    

Reading is a great form of entertainment! A paperback book or an e-reader doesn’t take up much space so you can take it anywhere and you’ll never be lonely or bored if you have a book in your bag.     4    

Reading relaxes the body and calms the mind.     5    The constant movement, flashing lights and noise are quite stressful for our brains. When we read in silence, the black print on a white page is much less stressful for our eyes and brains.

A．Reading improves concentration.

B．Reading develops a child’s imagination.

C．We seem to have forgotten how to relax and how to be silent.

D．Children learn new words and greatly enlarge their vocabulary.

E．They do better at all subjects and they do better all the day through school.

F．You can read while waiting for a friend or during a flight delay at an airport.

G．By reading, children learn about people, places and events outside their own experience.

【推荐1】The world’s population cast aside 49 million tons of electronic waste, known as e-waste. It has been calculated that this number will grow to more than 60 million tons by 2023.

What is causing the upsurge (激增) in e-waste? Technology is becoming more and more widespread, covering almost every aspect of our lives. Meanwhile, the lifespan of devices is getting shorter—many products will be thrown away once their batteries die, to be replaced by new devices. Companies intentionally plan the obsolescence (过时) of their goods by updating the design or software and discontinuing support for older models, so that now it is usually cheaper and easier to buy a new product than to repair an old one. Since prices are falling, electronic devices are in demand around the world.

As more people buy electronic equipment, manufacturers (制造商) are beginning to face shortages of the raw materials needed to make their products, so recycling and reusing materials from discarded (扔掉的) products and waste makes economic and environmental sense.

Recycling e-waste is practiced both formally and informally. Proper or formal e-waste recycling usually involves taking apart the electronics, sorting through the materials and cleaning them. Companies must obey health and safety rules to reduce the health and environmental hazards of handling e-waste by using pollution-control technologies. All this makes formal recycling expensive. Informal recycling is typically unlicensed and uncontrolled. At informal recycling workshops, men and women recover valuable materials by burning devices to melt away non-valuable materials. Usually they do not wear protective equipment and lack any awareness that they are handling dangerous materials.

With the amount of e-waste growing around the world, recycling alone will not be enough to solve the problem. In order to reduce e-waste, manufacturers need to design electronics that are safer, and more durable (耐用的), repairable and recyclable. The best thing you can do is resist buying a new device until you really need it. Try to get your old product repaired if possible and, if it can’t be fixed, resell or recycle it responsibly. Before you recycle your device, put any broken parts in separate containers and close these tightly to prevent chemicals from leaking. Wear latex (乳胶) gloves and a mask if you’re handling something that’s broken.

1. Which of the following is a reason for e-waste’s sharp increasing?

A．The results of updating devices.	B．The falling of devices’ quality.
C．The methods of recycling e-waste.	D．The shortage of protective equipment.

2. What makes recycling e-waste meaningful according to the text?

A．Increasing the variety of electronic products.

B．Lowering the costs of technology innovation.

C．Relieving the lack of the raw materials.

D．Improving the poor quality of e-devices.

3. What is the meaning of the underlined word “hazards” in paragraph 4?

A．Influence.

B．Limits.

C．Harm.

D．Costs.

4. What does the author want to convey in the last paragraph?

A．E-waste could be broken down by burying it underground for a long time.

B．Companies should be mainly responsible for reducing e-waste.

C．Fixing a device could cause more pollution than buying a new one.

D．Everyone should take action to reduce e-waste.

【推荐3】Kong Zi, also called Confucius(551—479B.C.) , and Socrates (469—399 B．C．) lived only a hundred years apart, and during their lifetimes there was no contact between China and Greece, but it is interesting to look at how the world that each of these great philosophers came from shaped their ideas, and how these ideas in turn, shaped their societies.

Neither philosopher lived in times of peace, though there were more wars in Greece than in China. The Chinese states were very large and feudal, while the Greek city-states were small and urban. The urban environment in which Socrates lived allowed him to be more radical than Confucius. Unlike Confucius, Socrates was not asked by rulers how to govern effectively.Thus, Socrates was able to be more idealistic, focusing on issues like freedom, and knowledge for its own sake.Confucius, on the other hand, advised those in government service, and many of his students went out to government service.

Confucius suggested the Golden Rule as a principle for the conduct of life：“Do not do to others what you would not want others to do to you.” He assumed that all men were equal at birth, though some had more potential than others, and that it was knowledge that set men apart.Socrates focused on the individual, and thought that the greatest purpose of man was to seek wisdom. Like Confucius, he believed that the superior class should rule the inferior classes.

For Socrates, the family was of no importance, and the community of little concern.For Confucius, however, the family was the centre of the society, with family relations considered much more important than political relations.

Both men are respected much more today than they were in their lifetimes.

1. Which of the following is TRUE according to the first paragraph?

A．Socrates and Confucius had much in common.

B．Confucius had much influence on Socrates’ ideas.

C．The societies were influenced by the philosophers’ ideas.

D．There were cultural exchanges between China and Greece.

2. Socrates shared with Confucius the idea that___________.

A．all men were equal when they were born

B．the lower classes should be ruled by the upper class

C．the purpose of man was to seek freedom and wisdom

D．People should not ask others to do what they did not want to

3. What made some people different from others according to Confucius?

A．Family.

B．Potential.

C．Knowledge.

D．Community.

4. How does the passage organize?

A．In the patter of time and events.	B．In the patter of comparison and contrast.
C．In the patter of cause and effect.	D．In the patter of definition and classification.