【推荐2】At the start of the 20th century, an American engineer named John Elfreth Watkins made predictions about life today. His predictions about slowing population growth, mobile phones and increasing height were close to the mark. But he was wrong in one prediction: that everybody would walk 10 miles a day.

Today, in Australia, most children on average fall 2, 000 steps short of the physical activity they need to avoid being overweight. In the early 1970s, 40 per cent of children walked to school, while in 2010, it was as low as 15 percent.

The decline is not because we have all become lazy. Families are pressed for time, many with both parents working to pay for their house, often working hours not of their choosing, living in car-dependent neighborhoods with limited public transport.

The other side of the coin is equally a deprivation: for health and well-being, as well as lost opportunities (机会) for children to get to know their local surroundings. And for parents there are lost opportunities to walk and talk with their young scholar about their day.

Most parents will have eagerly asked their child about their day, only to meet with a “good”, quickly followed by “I’m hungry”. This is also my experience as a mother. But somewhere over the daily walk more about my son’s day comes out. I hear him making sense of friendship and its limits. This is the unexpected and rare parental opportunity to hear more.

Many primary schools support walking school-bus routes (路线), with days of regular,   parent-accompanied walks. Doing just one of these a few times a week is better than nothing. It can be tough to begin and takes a little planning-running shoes by the front door, lunches made the night before, umbrellas on rainy days and hats on hot ones-but it's certainly worth trying.

1. What has caused the decrease in Australian children’s physical activity?

A．Plain laziness.

B．Health problems.

C．Lack of time.

D．Security concerns.

2. Why does the author find walking with her son worthwhile?

A．She can get relaxed after work.

B．She can keep physically fit.

C．She can help with her son's study.

D．She can know her son better.

【推荐3】Online classes began to be popularized just a few decades ago. They are advertised as a way for adults to finish their education and students to learn the material at their own pace—it is far more suitable for people with busy schedules.

But after being enrolled in an online course last fall semester, I came to realize online classes were merely a means to fulfil course requirements.

First of all, students lack the desire to learn, and they simply complete their assignments to receive credit for a passing grade rather than genuinely engage with the course material.

As online courses tend to have more than 100 students, most of the assignments are short and simple. They are not designed for students to interact with the material in depth but designed to be graded casily to accommodate such a large number of students.

Perhaps the biggest disadvantage of taking an online class is the absence of face-to-face interaction between the teacher and their students. Live sessions are infrequent and are often scheduled during the middle of the day when students have to attend other classes or work. The office hours of the professor may also be during inconvenient times for many students as well. Most interaction with the professor has to be through email which is often impersonal. It is nearly impossible for students to build a relationship with their professor.

There is also little interaction amongst students. It can be harder for students to create study groups and form relationships with their peers.

Online classes also require either a computer or laptop and a reliable internet connection. Not all students have access to these types of resources, whether it is for financial or other reasons, and some students can be put at a disadvantage.

Offering online classes certainly helps students who would otherwise not be able to attend classroom sessions. However, they fail to provide a genuine education with an emphasis on convenience rather than critical thinking. We need restructured online classes in which students can have a learning experience that will actually provide quality education.

1. What does the author say about students enrolled in online classes?

A．They can access course materials easily.	B．They are unmotivated to learn.
C．They can learn at their own pace.	D．They rarely fulfil the course requirements.

2. What does the author think of online course assignments?

A．They are made convenient to mark.

B．They are meant to facilitate interaction.

C．They are based on easily accessible material.

D．They are given to accommodate students’ needs.

3. What does the author say is one disadvantage of online classes?

A．They are frequently scheduled at irregular times.

B．They make professors’ offices much less accessible.

C．They tend to increase professors’ burden of responding to students’ emails.

D．They provide little chance for students to build relationships with each other.

4. What problem may arise if classes go online?

A．More students may find it easy to be absent from them.

B．Teachers will worry about poor internet connections.

C．Some students may have difficulty attending them.

D．Schools with limited resources will be at a disadvantage.

5. What does the author think consists of a key part of genuine education?

A．Acquisition of useful knowledge.	B．Training of real-life skills on campus.
C．Development of students’ personalities.	D．Cultivation of analytical thinking ability.

【推荐1】Educating girls quite possibly outputs a higher rate of return than any other investment (投资) available in the developing world. Women’s education may be an unusual field for economists, but raising women’s contribution to development is actually as much an economic as a social problem. And economics, with its emphasis on motivation, provides an explanation for why so many girls can’t receive education.
Parents in low-income countries fail to invest in their daughters because they do not expect them to make an economic contribution to the family: girls grow up only to marry into somebody else’s family and bear children. Girls are thus seen as less valuable than boys and are kept at home to do housework while their brothers are sent to school—________________, trapping women in a vicious circle (恶性循环) of neglect.
An educated mother, on the other hand, has greater earning abilities outside the home and faces an entirely different set of choices. She is likely to have fewer but healthier children and can insist on the development of all her children, ensuring that her daughters are given a fair chance. The education of her daughters then makes it much more likely that the next generation of girls, as well as of boys, will be educated and healthy. The vicious circle is thus transformed into a good circle.
Few will disagree with it that educating women has great social benefits. But it has enormous economic advantages as well. Most obviously, there is the direct effect of education on the wages of female workers. Wages rise by 10 to 20 per cent for each additional year of schooling. Such big returns are impressive by the standard of other available investments, but they are just the beginning. Educating women also has a significant influence on health practices, including family planning.
1. The author argues that educating girls in developing countries is ________.

A．troublesome	B．rewarding
C．labor-saving	D．expensive

2. What does the underlined part probably mean?

A．Girls will turn out to be less valuable than boys.

B．Girls will be capable of realizing their own dreams.

C．Girls will eventually find their goals in life beyond reach.

D．Girls will be increasingly discontented with their life at home.

3. The author believes that a vicious circle can turn into a good one when ________.

A．women care more about education

B．girls can gain equal access to education

C．a family has fewer but healthier children

D．parents can afford their daughters’ education

4. The passage mainly discusses ________.

A．unequal treatment of boys and girls in developing countries

B．the potential earning power of well-educated women

C．the major contributions of educated women to society

D．the economic and social benefits of educating women

【推荐2】Tourism probably started in Roman times. Rich Romans visited friends and family who were working in another part of the Roman Empire. But when the empire broke down, this kind of tourism stopped.
In the early 17^thcentury, the idea of the “Grand Tour” was born. Rich young English people sailed across the English Channel（英吉利海峡）. They visited the most beautiful and important European cities of the time, including Paris in France, and Rome and Venice in Italy. Their tours lasted for two to four years, and the tourists stayed a few weeks or months in each city. The “Grand Tour” was an important part of young people’s education—but only for the rich.
In the 18^thcentury, tourism began to change. For example, people in the UK started to visit some towns, such as Bath to “take the waters”. They believed that the water there was good for their health. So large and expensive hotels were built in these towns.
In the 19^th century, travel became much more popular and faster. When the first railways were built in the 1820s, it was easier for people to travel towns, so they started to go for holidays by the sea. And some started to have holidays in the countryside as cities became larger, noisier and dirtier.
Traveling by sea also became faster and safer when the first steamships were built. People began to travel more to faraway countries.
The 20^th century saw cars become more and more popular among ordinary people. Planes were made larger, so ticket prices dropped and more people used them.
Thus tourism grew. In 1949, Russian journalist Vladimir Raitz started a company called Horizon Holidays. The company organizes everything—plane tickets, hotel rooms, even food—and tourists pay for it all before they leave home. The package tour and modern tourist industry was born.
The first travel agency in China was set up as early as 1949. But tourism did not take off until 1978. In 2002, the industry was 500 billion yuan and became an important part of China’s social development.
1. In the early times, the travelers ________.

A．all came from Roman	B．were very young and strong
C．had lots of money	D．traveled by boat

2. Which is NOT true about “Grand Tour”?

A．It was a long journey.	B．The young men learned a lot from it.
C．Those who took the tour weren’t rich.	D．Most of its destinations were in Europe.

3. ________ played the most important role in the tourism development.

A．Education

B．Money

C．Transportation

D．People’s ideas

4. Modern tourism was born ________.

A．in 1949

B．in Roman times

C．in the early 17thcentury

D．in the early 19thcentury

5. The underlined phrase “take off” in the last paragraph means ________.

A．a plane rising into the air	B．develop very fast
C．remove hats and clothes	D．bring down the prices

【推荐3】There are many older people in the world and there will be many more. A lime­known fact is that over 60 percent of the older people live in developing countries. According to the World Health Organization，by 2020 there will be 1 billion，with over 700 million living in developing countries.
It is a surprising fact that the population ageing is particularly rapid in developing countries. For example，it took France 115 years for the proportion of older people to double from 7 percent to 14 percent. It is estimated（估计） to take China a mere 27 years to achieve this same increase.
What are the implications（暗指） of these increased numbers of older folk？One of the biggest worries for governments is that the longer people live，the more likelihood there is for diseases and for disability. Attention is being paid to the need to keep people as healthy as possible，including during old age，to lessen the financial burden on the state.
Another significant problem is the need for the younger generations to understand and value the older people in their society. In some African countries，certainly in Asia，older people are respected and regarded as the ones with special knowledge. Yet traditions are fading away daily，which does not ensure the continued high regard of older people. As society changes, attitudes will change.
Much needs to be done to get rid of age discrimination (歧视) in employment. Life­long learning programs need to be provided to enable older people to be active members in a country’s development.
Social security policies need to be established to provide adequate income protection for older people. Both public and private schemes are vital in order to build a suitable safety net.
To achieve equality in such matters will take considerable time and effort. One thing is sure：there is no time to be lost.
1. The proportion（比例）of older people________.

A．is bigger in developed countries than in developing countries

B．is one seventh of the population in developing countries

C．will increase much faster in China than in France

D．will be sixty percent in developing countries by 2020

2. According to the passage，which of the following are governments most worried about?

A．The diseases and disability of older people.

B．The longer life and good health of people.

C．The loss of taxes on older people.

D．The increasing respect for older people.

3. Which of the following measures is NOT mentioned to solve the population ageing problem?

A．Getting rid of age discrimination in employment.

B．Ensuring adequate income protection for older people.

C．Providing free health care for sick older people.

D．Supplying life­long learning programs to older people.

4. The author concludes in the last paragraph that________.

A．governments have spent lots of time in solving the ageing problem

B．population ageing is a hard problem，but it needs to be solved urgently

C．people are too busy to solve the population ageing problem

D．much time and effort will be lost in solving the ageing problem

【推荐3】Engineers have launched a huge garbage collection device to gather plastic material floating in the Pacific Ocean between California and Hawaii.

The plastic makes up what is called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. It is the world’s largest spread of garbage, at twice the size of the state of Texas.

The organization Ocean Cleanup created the collection device, whose founder is Boyan Slat, a 24-year-old inventor from the Netherlands.

Slat was just 16 years old when he was moved to clean up the oceans. Last Saturday, a ship pulling the pipe-shaped floating barrier left San Francisco for the Garbage Patch. The barrier, called the floater, is 600 meters across. Attached to it is a screening skirt that hangs three meters down in the water.

The screen is designed to collect the plastic as it moves through the water. Sea animals can safely swim under the barrier.

The cleanup system also comes with lights powered by the sun, cameras, and other special devices. So the system can communicate its position at all times. That way a support ship can find it every few months to remove the plastic it has collected.

“The free-floating barriers are made to survive extreme weather conditions and damage from continue use. They will stay in the water for twenty years and in that time collect 90 percent of the garbage in the patch,” Slat added.

George Leonard is the chief scientist. He expressed concern about the cleaning project. He said even if plastic garbage can be taken out of the oceans, more continues to enter the water each year. He also raised concern that animals might be captured by the net hung below the surface.

But, Boyan Slat said he did not think that would happen. The system will act as a “big boat that stands still in the water”, with nothing for sea creatures to get caught in.

1. Why was a screen attached to the ship?

A．To gather plastic.	B．To catch see animals.
C．To protect the floater.	D．To give the floater power.

2. What does the underlined word “it” in paragraph 4 refer to?

A．The support ship.	B．The floating barrier.
C．The plastic to be recycled.	D．The position of special devices.

3. What is not the advantage of the cleanup system?

A．It’s easy to locate.	B．It is not affected by bad weather.
C．It can last and work for a long time.	D．It’s popular with people.

4. What is the best title for the passage?

A．A young inventor from Netherlands.	B．The Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
C．Approaches to removing garbage in oceans.	D．A huge garbage collection device.