【推荐2】It happened to me recently. I was telling someone how much I had enjoyed reading Barack Obama's Dreams From My Father and how it had changed my views of our President. A friend I was talking to agreed with me that it was, in his words, “a brilliantly written book”. However, he then went on to talk about Mr. Obama in a way which suggested he had no idea of his background at all. I sensed that I was talking to a book liar.

And it seems that my friend is not the only one. Approximately two thirds of people have lied about reading a book which they haven't. In the World Book Day's “Report on Guilty Secrets”, Dreams From My Father is at number 9. The report lists ten books, and various authors, which people have lied about reading, and as I'm not one to lie too often (I'd hate to be caught out), I'll admit here and now that I haven't read the entire top ten. But I am pleased to say that, unlike 42 percent of people, I have read the book at number one, George Orwell's 1984. I think it's really brilliant.

The World Book Day report also has some other interesting information in it. It says that many people lie about having read Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Fyodor Dostoevsky (I haven't read him, but haven't lied about it either) and Herman Melville.

Asked why they lied, the most common reason was to “impress" someone they were speaking to. This could be tricky if the conversation became more in-depth!

But when asked which authors they actually enjoy, people named J. K. Rowling, John Grisham, Sophie Kinsella (ah, the big sellers, in other words). Forty-two percent of people asked admitted they turned to the back of the book to read the end before finishing the story (I'll come clean： I do this and am astonished that 58 percent said they had never done so).

1. How did the author find his friend a book liar?

A．By mentioning a famous name.	B．By discussing the book itself.
C．By judging his manner of speaking.	D．By looking into his background.

2. Which of the following is a "guilty secret“ according to the World Book Day report?

A．Dreams From My Father is hardly read.

B．Charles Dickens is very low on the top-ten list.

C．The author admitted having read 9 books.

D．42% of people pretended to have read 1984.

3. By lying about reading, a person hopes to.

A．learn about the book

B．appear knowledgeable

C．control the conversation

D．make more friends

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

A．Are You a Book Liar?	B．Readers Are All Liars
C．World Book Day	D．Dreams From My Father

【推荐3】A 17-year-old boy, caught sending text messages in class, was recently sent to the vice principal's office at Millwood High School in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The vice principal, Steve Gallagher, told the boy he needed to focus on the teacher, not his cellphone. The boy listened politely and nodded, and that's when Mr. Gallagher noticed the student's fingers moving on his lap. He was texting while being scolded for texting. “It was a subconscious act,” says Mr. Gallagher, who took the phone away. “Young people today are connected socially from the moment they open their eyes in the morning until they close their eyes at night. It's compulsive.”

A study this year by psychology students at Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, Ga., found that the more time young people spend on Facebook, the more likely they are to have lower grades and weaker study habits. Heavy Facebook users show signs of being more sociable, but they are also more likely to be anxious, hostile or depressed. (Doctors, meanwhile, are now blaming addictions to 'night texting' for disturbing the sleep patterns of teens.)

Almost a quarter of today's teens check Facebook more than 10 times a day, according to a 2009 survey by Common Sense Media, a nonprofit group that monitors media's impact on families. Will these young people get rid of this habit once they enter the work force, or will employers come to see texting and 'social-network checking' as accepted parts of the workday?

Think back. When today's older workers were in their 20s, they might have taken a break on the job to call friends and make after-work plans. In those earlier eras, companies discouraged non-business-related calls, and someone who made personal calls all day risked being fired. It was impossible to imagine the constant back-and-forth texting that defines interactions among young people today.

Educators are also being asked by parents, students and educational strategists to reconsider their rules. “In past generations, students got in trouble for passing notes in class. Now students are adept at texting with their phones still in their pockets,” says 40-year-old Mr. Gallagher, the vice principal, “and they're able to communicate with someone one floor down and three rows over. Students are just fundamentally different today. They will take suspensions rather than give up their phones.”

1. The underlined word   “a subconscious act” refers to an act ________.

A．on purpose

B．without realization

C．in secret

D．with care

2. Young people addicted to the use of Facebook______.

A．are good at dealing with the social relationships and concentrate on their study

B．have high spirits and positive attitudes towards their life and work

C．have been influenced mentally in the aspects of behaviors and habits

D．are always in bad mood and have poor performance in every respect

3. Mr. Gallagher reminds us that the students in the past and those today_______.

A．like to break rules and have the same means of sending messages

B．are always the big problem for the educators and their parents

C．like sending text messages but those today do it in a more secret and skillful way

D．cannot live without a cellphone

4. What’s the best title of the passage?

A．Teenagers and Cellphones

B．Teenagers’ Texting Addiction

C．Employers and Teenagers

D．Teenagers’ Education

【推荐1】It's “Baby Day” at the Riverpark seniors’ home in Ottawa—a twice-monthly event Eulah Johnson, 90, never misses. “I really enjoy it. It's a shift from the regular routine,” says the retired nurse.

Today, Johnson sits on a sofa and looks at a laughing child perched on the seat of her walker. After a few moments, the girl skips off to play with the dozen or so other small children and babies mixed with 20 of Johnson's fellow residents.

Some, like 12-month-old Owen, are regular visitors to Ottawa seniors' homes. “We've been doing this since he was three months old,” says his mother, Allison Rodgers, 33.

She loves the social calls, too. “I didn't have grandparents while growing up. It's nice to spend time with older people, and it feels good to know they're betting so much out of it.”

Babies Who Volunteer, the initiative bringing these generations together, is the inspired idea of Jessica Turner, a former educational assistant. The idea came about during a March 2018 visit with her 22-month-old daughter Amelia to a friend's mother, who was living in a long-term-care unit. She was most surprised by the response of her friend's mother; she hadn't spoken in two years, but with Amelia in her lap, she began singing. Turner went home and immediately put out a call on a mums' Facebook group: Would anyone be interested in dropping by seniors' residences with their babies?

A year later, there are now 1,500 volunteers, and the organization visits 39 homes in Ottawa. Everyone benefits from intergenerational programmes, she says. “This playgroup is good for the mothers, too. They're giving something to the community, which provides a sense of purpose and belonging. It can really help someone who is feeling isolated.”

1. What's the event Eulah never misses at the seniors home?

A．A visit with his children.	B．Baby Day performances.
C．Children's regular visit.	D．His shift from routine work.

2. What did Jessica ask mothers to do after her March visit?

A．Visit seniors' homes with their babies.	B．Donate to help senior people in the city.
C．Get inspiration for kids from the seniors.	D．Get seniors into social life internationally.

3. What does Jessica think is the benefit of the project?

A．Children can grow up with their grandparents.

B．Everyone can meet their need for communication.

C．Online attention can be drawn to the life of seniors.

D．Mothers can have a life goal by reaching out to the old.

4. What is the text mainly about?

A．Regular visits to the old.	B．The baby effect on seniors.
C．Connection with the seniors.	D．Mothers' sense of belonging.

【推荐3】You may not pay much attention to your daily elevator ride. Many of us use a lift several times during the day without really thinking about it. But Lee Gray, PhD, of the University of North Carolina, US, has made it his business to examine this unnoticed form of public transport. He is known as the “Elevator Guy”.
“The lift becomes this interesting social space where behaviors are sort of odd (奇怪的),” Gray told the BBC. “They (elevators) are socially very interesting but often very awkward places.”
We walk in and usually turn around to face the door. If someone else comes in, we may have to move. And here, according to Gray, liftusers unthinkingly go through a set pattern of movements. He told the BBC what he had observed.
He explained that when you are the only one inside a lift, you can do whatever you want – it’s your own little box.
If there are two of you, you go into different corners, standing diagonally (对角线地) across from each other to create distance.
When a third person enters, you will unconsciously form a triangle. And when there is a fourth person it becomes a square, with someone in every corner. A fifth person is probably going to have to stand in the middle.
Newcomers to the lift will need to size up the situation when the doors slide open and then act decisively. Once in, for most people the rule is simple – look down, or look at your phone.
Why are we so awkward in lifts?
“You don’t have enough space,” Professor Babette Renneberg, a clinical psychologist at the Free University of Berlin, told the BBC. “Usually when we meet other people we have about an arm’s length of distance between us. And that’s not possible in most elevators.”
In such a small, enclosed space it becomes very important to act in a way that cannot be understood as threatening or odd. “The easiest way to do this is to avoid eye contact,” she said.
1. The main purpose of the article is to _____.

A．remind us to enjoy ourselves in the elevator

B．analyze what makes people feel awkward in an elevator

C．share an interesting but awkward elevator ride

D．tell us some unwritten rules of elevator behaviors

2. Which of the following describes how people usually stand when there are at least two people in an elevator?

A．A

B．B

C．C

D．D

3. The underlined phrase “size up” in Paragraph 7 is closest in meaning to _____.

A．ignore

B．judge

C．put up with

D．make use of

4. According to the article, people feel awkward in lifts because of _____.

A．the lack of space

B．someone’s strange behaviors

C．their unfamiliarity with one another

D．their eye contact with one another