【推荐1】Book reading is certainly one of the most absorbing habits. For young adults who love to read, finding some good books to read is very essential. Writing a book review can help you to improve your language and writing skills.

The Book Thief

Listed on The New York Times Children’s Best Seller List for over 100 weeks, The Book Thief by Markus Zusak is the story of a young girl in the Nazi camps set during World War II. So, if you love history and wish to learn how the life was during Adolf Hitler’s time, read this historic book.

The Diary of Young Girl

Even Anne Frank can not have imagined that her personal diary written during World War II would become such a popular book. It’s a must read that describes the situation of a family in the evils of wars through the eyes of a teenager.

Animal Farm

Animal Farm is one of the most popular books by George Orwell. It is just a reflection of the Stalin and World War II period that has been so creatively presented in this book. It is an interesting example of how literature can be used to present conditions common in the society.

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is one of the great American novels in history, and is certainly a great pick for young adults. Young Huck Finn and his mischief along with the colorful description of people around the Mississippi River make this novel a great book to read.

1. Which book describes the author’s own experiences according to this passage?

A．The Book Thief	B．The Diary of Young Girl
C．Animal Farm	D．Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

2. What do the first three books have in common?

A．All of them are about wars.

B．All of them are about farms.

C．All of them are intended for history lovers.

D．All of them were written during World War II.

3. The purpose of this passage is to _________.

A．instruct youngsters how to improve skills

B．tell youngsters some wonderful reading habits

C．introduce several good books to youngsters

D．give youngsters advice on writing a book review

【推荐2】If you want to understand China but can’t afford an expensive international flight, these four books can give you a complete overview of the country.

River Town

River Town: Two Years on the Yangize by Peter Hessler—This book is a journal of the author’s two years spent teaching English in a small town called Fuling, situated on the banks of the Yangtze River. Hessler writes about his experiences living in a foreign culture and observing the lives of the town’s residents. The book was published in 2001 and has won several awards, including the Kiriyama Prize.

Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China

It is a book that tells the story of China’s modernization. It was written by Ezra Vogel and published in 2011. The author describes how Deng Xiaoping’s policies led to significant changes in China’s economy and society. The book has received critical honors and won the Lionel Gelber Prize in 2012.

The Search for Modern China by Jonathan Spence

This book is a comprehensive history of China from the Ming dynasty to the present day. The author, a prominent scholar of Chinese history, provides a detailed analysis of the social, cultural, and political changes that have taken place in China over the past 500 years. The book was first put out in 1990 and has since been revised and updated several times. This book was the top bestseller for years.

Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China

Written by Leslie T. Chang, this book, published in 2008, is reportage on the lives of young women who leave their rural homes to work in factories in China’s cities. Chang, a former New York Times journalist, interviewed hundreds of factory girls to provide insight into the social and economic changes in China.

1. What kind of book is River Town?

A．A science fiction.	B．A travel guide of Fuling.
C．A nonfiction.	D．A reference book.

2. What is TRUE about The Search for Modern China by Jonathan Spence?

A．It was published 500 years ago.	B．It was written by a history teacher.
C．It has remained the same since its first publication.	D．It was very popular.

3. Which book is written by a reporter?

A．River Town.

B．Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China.

C．The Search for Modern China.

D．Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China.

【推荐1】       Visitors from space may have landed on our planet dozens, even hundreds of times during the long, empty ages while Man was still a dream of the distant future. Indeed, they could have landed on 90% of the earth as recently as two or three hundred years ago, and we could never have heard of it. If one searches through old newspapers and local records, one can find many reports of strange incidents that could be interpreted(解释) as visits from outer space. A winter, Charles Fort, had made a collection of UFO sightings in his book. One is tempted(引诱) to believe them more than any modern reports, for the simple reason that they happened long before anyone had ever thought of space travel. Yet at the same time, one can’t take them too seriously, for before scientific education was widespread, even sightings of meteors(流星) and comets(彗星) gave rise to the most unbelievable stories, as they still do today.
1. According to the passage visitors from space may have landed on the earth _____.

A．long before man had dreamed of it

B．long before there were human beings

C．in the last few hundred years

D．after the space age began

2. According to the passage, which of the following statements is true?

A．All observations of UFO’s are believable

B．Charles Fort sighted a lot of UFO’s himself

C．Older civilization (文明) may exist on other planets

D．People have seen visitors from other planets everywhere

3. If visitors from other planets have actually landed on the earth, one can suppose that they came to __________________.

A．make war

B．communicate

C．settle down

D．explore

4. The passage implies that the space age has __________________.

A．made the reported sightings unbelievable

B．increased the number of UFO sightings

C．allowed more scientific study of UFO’s

D．given clearer pictures of UFO’s

5. According to the passage, __________________.

A．UFO’s are only recent observations	B．UFO sightings are not new
C．UFO’s are just meteors and comets	D．UFO’s are invented by people

【推荐2】Can you be too beautiful? It is hardly a problem that most of us have to bother — as much as we might like to dream that it were the case.

Yet the blessings and curses of beauty have been a long-standing interest in psychology. Do those blessed with shiny faces and an attractive body live in a cloud of appreciation — or does it sometimes pay to be ordinary? At the most basic level, beauty might be thought to carry a kind of halo (光环) around it; we see that someone has one good quality, and by association, our deep mind may assume that they have other good ones too.

But if beauty pays in most circumstances, there are still situations where it can have opposite results. While attractive men may be considered better leaders, for instance, hidden sexist prejudices (偏见) can work against attractive women, making them less likely to be hired for high-level jobs that require power. And as you might expect, good-looking people of both sexes run into envy — one study found that if you are interviewed by someone of the same sex, they may be less likely to employ you if they judge that you are more attractive than they are.

More worryingly, being beautiful or handsome could harm your medical care. We tend to link good looks to health, meaning that illnesses are often taken less seriously when they affect the good-looking. When treating people for pain, for instance, doctors tend to take less care over the more attractive people.

To conclude, scientists point out that focusing too much on your appearance can itself be harmful if it creates stress and anxiety — even for those already blessed with good looks. “If you are crazy about attractiveness, it may affect your experience and interactions,” she says. It’s an outdated saying, but no amount of beauty can make up for a bad personality. As the writer Dorothy Parker put it so elegantly: “Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone.”

1. From paragraph 1, we can learn that        .

A．some may be bothered by their unattractive appearance

B．most people are not afraid of being too beautiful

C．we might always dream about being bothered by others

D．being too beautiful can be a problem bothering everyone

2. Which is right according to the passage?

A．Doctors care more about beautiful patients.

B．Beautiful people tend to have a healthy body.

C．Attractive women and men have equal chance of leadership.

D．Focusing too much on your appearance can be harmful.

3. What’s the meaning of the underlined sentence in the last paragraph?

A．The more beautiful outside, the less beautiful inside.

B．Beauty can help make a better personality.

C．Beauty cannot make up for bad personalities.

D．Ugly people have more confidence in their personality.

4. What might be the best title for the passage?

A．What is Real Beauty?	B．The Bad Effects of Beauty
C．Benefits of Beauty	D．Beauty, a Blessing?

【推荐3】Explorers started making navigation (导航) charts showing how wide the ocean was more than 500 years ago. But it’s much harder to calculate how deep it is.

In 1872 the HMS Challenger, a British Navy ship, set sail to learn about the ocean, including its depth. It carried 181 miles (291 kilometers) of rope to measure the depth of the ocean. During their four-year voyage, the Challenger crew collected samples of rocks, mud and animals from many different areas of the ocean. They also found one of the deepest zones, in the western Pacific, the Mariana Trench which stretches for 1,580 miles (2,540 kilometers).

Today scientists know that on average the ocean is 2.3 miles (3.7 kilometers) deep, but many parts are much shallower or deeper. To measure depth they use sonar, which stands for Sound Navigation And Ranging. A ship sends out pulses of sound energy and measures depth based on how quickly the sound travels back.

Ocean scientists like me study the sea floor because it helps us better measure the ocean. Our planet’s outer, layer is made of tectonic plates. The Hawaiian-Emperor Seamount chain, a line of peaks on the ocean floor, was created when a tectonic plate moved over a spot where hot rock welled up from deep inside the Earth. When two tectonic plates move away from each other underwater, new material rises up into Earths layer. This process, which creates new ocean floor, is called seafloor spreading. Sometimes super-hot liquids from inside the Earth shoot up through cracks in the ocean floor called hydrothermal vents.

Amazing fish, shellfish, tube worms and other life forms live in these zones. Between the creation and destruction of ocean plates, sediments (沉淀物) collect on the sea floor and provide an archive of Earth’s history, the evolution of climate and life that is available nowhere else.

1. Why did the HMS Challenger make the voyage?

A．To test navigation.	B．To calculate the age of the ocean.
C．To explore the ocean.	D．To do research into Mariana Trench.

2. How do scientists know the depth of the ocean?

A．By measuring it with ropes.

B．By studying samples of rocks and mud.

C．By analyzing the habitats of the animals.

D．By studying the returning speed of the sound.

3. What is the fourth paragraph mainly about?

A．Certain changes of the sea floor.

B．The layers that make up the Earth.

C．The way that a volcano comes into being.

D．Some definitions of the seafloor spreading.

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

A．How Deep Is the Ocean?	B．How Is the Ocean Studied?
C．Ocean: An Unknown World	D．Nature: A Place for Wildlife