【推荐2】This is my origin story: when I was a teenager I wrote terrible poetry. Like really bad. Worse than yours, I bet. A lot of it about how every little thing reminds me that we’re all going to die one day. I wrote collections and collections of these poems, thinking one day I would have my moment. I named one collection, ironically, The Eternal Optimist.

In 1996, I found an advert for the International Poetry Competition. I was 16 years old and ready for my poetry to be released on the world. Not only was it a competition with a cash prize, but it was poetry, which I wrote, and international. This was my ticket to becoming world-famous. I submitted a poem called Trail of Thought. If you ever wrote bad poetry as a teenager, you’ll have written something like it. In the poem, I went for a walk and noticed small poignant(辛酸的) things in nature, and each one reminded me that we were all going to die one day.

I filled out the form, printed off the poem and sent it off, fingers crossed. I waited to hear back I carried on writing, I probably finished another collection. Then I got a letter from the International Society of Poets. I opened the envelope carefully, just in case a prize-winning cheque fell out I hadn’t won. But, they liked my poem enough to include it in their anthology(诗选), Awaken to a Dream. I closed my eyes, I wanted to scream with happiness. I was going to be a published poet.

All I had to do in order to be published was accept the terms and pay £ 45（plus £ 5 p & p）for an anthology. If I didn’t buy a copy of the anthology, my poem wouldn’t be included. I had to convince my mum, who thought my writing a meaningless pastime, to part with £ 50. She even asked the question: “Why do you have to pay to be in this book?” Nevertheless, she wrote a cheque for £ 50 and I returned it with my letter of agreement.

I was 16 and about to be a published poet. This was what it had all been about. This is what it had all been leading to. The months waiting for the anthology were a torture. I hit some sort of writer’s block, I couldn’t write anything. It was almost as if, now I was published, it mattered more what I committed to page and I didn’t want to write anything down unless it was good enough to go into an anthology like Awaken to a Dream.

The book arrived through the post. Here it was. The first thing I had ever been published in a book called Awaken to a Dream, featuring a blistering take on the mundanity(世俗) of mortality by yours truly. I opened the package to find a book, containing my work. The first thing that struck me about the book was that it was bigger than A4. And it was thick. And on each page was a poem, next to another poem, next to another. The type was small and the paper thin enough to trace with. With three or four poems per page and more than 700 pages, I had a sinking realization. This was a scam, an illegal trick for making money.

If each poem had cost the author £ 45, they were sitting on a fortune. I felt ashamed. Everyone who had submitted something to the International Poetry Competition had fallen for the same hustle（忙碌）as me. I couldn’t bring myself to show my mum. And she never asked to see it. Perhaps she thought if the price of me learning a lesson was £50 we didn’t really have, then so be it.

But that stayed with me, that moment of realization. Because I determined to keep writing and ensure that my precious words always found a home worthy of them. Or at least that’s how, more than 20 years later, I justify falling for a scam. Because your first time being published should be special, and if I don’t convince myself that there was a reason for my first poem being in a vanity(无价值) book, then what good was it in the first place? And, strangely, someone is selling this book on Amazon at the moment. I wonder how many other writers who went on to do more stuff are in there.

1. What does the underlined sentence in paragraph 1 mean?

A．The author was sure he was going to die like everyone else.

B．The author was optimistic about the publication of his poetry.

C．The author was worried the tragedies in the poetry would happen to him.

D．The author was considering writing positive poems instead of terrible ones.

2. When the author received the letter from the organizing committee, he felt ________.

A．upset	B．calm
C．excited	D．surprised

3. While waiting for the anthology, the author ________.

A．reflected on what he had written about

B．set a higher criterion for his future works

C．felt too miserable to write anything more

D．wondered what future was in store for him

4. The author realized the anthology was a trick from the fact that ________.

A．the poems were of poor quality

B．the organizers just made a quick profit

C．he was charged higher than others

D．the content was carelessly edited

5. The passage is mainly about ________.

A．why the author fell for the trick of a poetry competition

B．what it took for a poetry enthusiast to be a published writer

C．how a terrible teenage poem taught the author a lifelong lesson

D．whether poetry enthusiasts could guard against tricks targeted at them

6. How did the author feel about the scam at the end of the story?

A．He laughs best who laughs last.

B．A fall into the pit, a gain in your wit.

C．Nothing is impossible to a willing heart.

D．Follow your own course, and let people talk.

【推荐3】It had coaster brakes and only one gear (齿轮). My two older brothers used it before me. The twenty-inch, black frame showed its age. It was scratched and nicked from years of use, but I didn't care, It was mine now.

My tricycle stood by the front steps of our house----forgotten. In the front yard.. I held the handlebars, swung my right leg over and settled myself onto the seat. My legs weren't long enough for both to touch the ground at the same time. I leaned to one side one foot supported me, I looked around, made sure no one was watching and kicked off My feet reached for the pedals and began to pump.

After a few wobbly (不稳定的))yards, I fell off, and landed on my shoulder in the grass. I jumped up, brushed myself off, got back on and fell again.

A week later, I rode in circles around the yard. Always to the left, I didn’t wobble or fall. I was steady as I followed the beaten trail ['d created in the grass. I was free and I was flying.

“Michacl!” Mum called. ‘Supper is read!’

I turned toward the front steps, wobbled and fell to the ground. I didn’t know how to go straight or to the right. I’d learned to travel in circles to the left.

A year later, I was bicycling all around the neighbourhood. At twenty years old, I left home and cried. It was a lonely time in my life. Mum wasn't there It was time to learn how to turn again. I married and became a Dad ---- I stumbled（跌跌撞撞）. There was someone else to think about new turns to stumble through.

Each time I fell. I got up, brushed myself off and turned around the obstacle (障碍). Each time I think i'm on a straight road, life throws a turn in front of me. I may fall, but I always climb back on my seat.

1. What do we know about the author’s tricycle?

A．It was given to him as a present.

B．It was old and in poor condition.

C．It was new and expensive.

D．It needed repairing.

2. What happened when the author was twenty years old?

A．He finally learned to ride the tricycle.

B．le lost his mother.

C．He moved out with his own family.

D．He had new challenges to overcome in life.

3. What is the author’s purpose in writing the text?

A．To describe how he learned to ride a tricycle.

B．To ask us to be independent in life.

C．To inspire us to overcome obstacles in life.

D．To tell us something about his childhood.

4. Which of the following could be the best title for the text?

A．I Got Back on My Seat.

B．My Favorite Tricycle.

C．I learned to Ride Tricycle.

D．My Happy Childhood.

【推荐1】Long-term pain may not be an inevitable consequence of bad posture, but the notion that “good” posture is beneficial isn’t completely ill-founded. Certain postures can lift your spirits.

An awareness of a link between our body and our emotions goes back to the 19th century, when philosopher William James suggested that we don’t laugh because we are happy, but rather we are happy because we laugh.

This idea is now known as “embodied cognition”, where the body influences our thoughts. For instance, when you meet a loved one, your heartbeat may increase and you might feel their skin against your own as you embrace. The brain, which is constantly assessing changes to information from the outside world and from our internal body, combines this new data and generates the appropriate emotion. Only then do we consciously sense the feeling of love, or joy.

Several experiments support this idea, for instance, studies by Elizabeth Broadbent at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. Her team randomly split people without depression into two groups, using physiotherapy tape to strap their back into either a bent or upright seated position. The participants then gave a speech. Afterwards, the upright group not only reported a more positive mood, but were less stressed as measured by blood pressure.

In another experiment, students were initially shown positive and negative words and asked how well each word described them. They were then guided into walking in a style that resembled that of someone who was unhappy or extremely happy.

At the end of the study, the participants were given a surprise test—to remember as many words from the start of the study as possible. Participants recalled more negative words when walking in a style that resembled individuals who are sad than they did when walking with a happier gait (步态). The researchers suggest that the walking style may have triggered a change in emotional state, which then affected memory recall.

1. What was the relationship between body and emotions discovered in the 19th century?

A．We are happy, so we laugh.	B．The posture of laugh can make us happy.
C．We feel happy first, then we laugh.	D．We don’t laugh until we are truly happy.

2. What might not happen when a participant in the upright group gave a speech?

A．He/she gave a speech using a happy tone.

B．His/her speech made the audience feel uncomfortable.

C．His/her blood pressure dropped.

D．He/she felt much more confident in the process.

3. Which of the following words may not be given to the participants in the second experiment?

A．Extraordinary.

B．Brilliant.

C．Middle.

D．Down.

4. What does the text mainly talk about?

A．Changing your posture to change your mood.	B．Crying when you feel like it.
C．Exercising contributes to health.	D．Being happy if you want to.

【推荐3】The brain has a powerful ability to remember and connect events separated in time. And now, in that new study in mice published in Neuron, scientists have cast light on how the brain can form lasting links.

The hippocampus (海马体)—a small, seahorse-shaped region buried deep in the brain—is an important headquarters for learning and memory. “The traditional view has been that cells in the hippocampus keep up a level of continuous activity to associate two events separated by tens of seconds.” said Dr. Ahmed, co-first author of the study. “Turning these cells off would thus disrupt learning.”

To test this view, the researchers imaged parts of the hippocampus of mice as the animals were exposed to two different stimuli(刺激物): a sound followed by a small but unpleasant puff of air. A fifteen-second delay separated the two events. The scientists repeated this experiment across several trials. Over time, the mice learned to associate the sound with the soon-to-follow puff of air. Using advanced microscopy, they recorded the activity of thousands of neurons (神经元), a type of brain cell, in the animals’ hippocampus in each trial for many days.

“We expected to see continuous neural activity that lasted during the fifteen-second gap, an indication of the hippocampus at work linking the sound and the air puff,” said Stefano Fusi, PhD. “But when we began to analyze the data, we saw no such activity.” Instead, the neural activity was sparse. Only a small number of neurons worked, and they did so seemingly at random (随意的).

For further understanding, they had to shift the way they analyzed data and use tools designed to make sense of random processes. Finally, the researchers discovered a complex pattern: a style of mental computing that seems to be a remarkably efficient way that neurons store information.

“We were happy to see that the brain doesn’t maintain ongoing activity over all these seconds because that’s not the most efficient way to store information,” said Dr. Ahmed. “The brain seems to have a more efficient way to build this bridge.”

In addition to helping to map the circuitry (神经回路) involved in associative learning, these findings also provide a starting point to more deeply explore disorders, such as panic and post-traumatic stress disorder.

1. What can we learn about the hippocampus?

A．It helps connect events separated in places.

B．It is involved in the visual area of the brain.

C．It is a kind of cell buried deep in the brain.

D．It is a brain region crucial for memory.

2. According to the passage, the traditional view is that ______.

A．animals have trouble learning to associate two events

B．associations of events require continuous neural activity

C．a 15-second delay is enough to separate two events

D．disruption of learning turn the activities of cells off

3. The new study in mice indicates that ______.

A．continuous activity happens as expected

B．no neurons stay active at intervals of 15 seconds

C．a complex pattern helps the brain learn associations

D．neuronal information is stored in well-designed tools

4. From the last two paragraphs, we can infer that the findings ______.

A．inspire deeper explorations of disorders

B．build a bridge between different parts of the brain

C．provide evidence for brain’s ongoing activity

D．help map some aspects of a person’s experience

【推荐1】It seems no one can really agree on the question of “What’s so funny?” So imagine trying to teach a robot how to laugh. But that’s exactly what a team of researchers at Kyoto University in Japan are trying to design an AI that takes its cues through a shared laughter system. The scientists describe their innovative approach to building a funny bone for the Japanese android ‘Erica’ in the latest issue of the journal Frontiers in Robotics and AI.

“We think that one of the important functions of conversational AI is empathy(移情，共鸣),” explained lead author Dr Koji Inoue, an assistant professor at Kyoto University in the Department of Intelligence Science and Technology within the Graduate School of Informatics. “One way a robot can empathize with users is to share their laughter.”

In the shared-laughter model, a human initially laughs and the AI system responds with laughter as an empathetic response. This approach required designing three subsystems—one to detect laughter, a second to decide whether to laugh, and a third to choose the type of appropriate laughter. The type of laughter is also important, because in some cases a polite chuckle may be more appropriate than a loud snort of laughter.

The team tested Erica’s new sense of humor by creating four different short dialogues between a person and Erica with her new shared-laughter system. Then they asked more than 130 people in total to listen to each dialogue within the three different conditions—shared laughter system, no laughter, all laughter—and evaluated the interactions based on human-likeness, naturalness and understanding. The shared-laughter system performed better than either baseline.

“Robots should actually have a distinct character, and we think that they can show this through their conversational behaviors, such as laughing, eye gaze, gestures and speaking style,” Inoue added. “We do not think this is an easy problem at all, and it may well take more than 10 to 20 years before we can finally have a casual chat with a robot like we would with a friend.”

1. Why does the text raise the question “What’s so funny” at the beginning?

A．To show opinions on funny things.

B．To encourage readers to share their ideas.

C．To emphasize the importance of being funny.

D．To stress the difficulty of teaching a robot to laugh.

2. Which of the following explains the underlined phrase “a funny bone” in paragraph 1?

A．The distinct character.	B．The type of laughter.
C．The speaking style.	D．The sense of humor.

3. What is NOT needed in the research of the shared-laughter system?

A．Assessing the interactions based on emotions.

B．Producing a subsystem to decide whether to laugh.

C．Creating brief conversations between a human and Erica.

D．Asking people to listen to the previously created dialogues.

4. What is Inoue’s attitude towards conversational AI?

A．Indifferent

B．Suspicious

C．Objective

D．Optimistic