【推荐1】Hearing loss is unavoidable,but listening to loud music when you’ re younger can make it worse. To reduce your risk of hearing loss via loud music,learn why and how it can cause hearing loss,and just how loud is too loud.

Hearing loss occurs in four ways:conductive hearing loss,sensorineural hearing loss,mixed hearing loss and auditory neuropathy spectrum disorder. Noise-induced(噪音诱发的)hearing loss is a type of sensorineural hearing loss.

Sensorineural hearing loss occurs when your inner ear becomes damaged. In the case of noise induced hearing loss,most of the damage affects the cells of tiny sensory hairs in your inner ear.

When those cells get damaged or die,the electrical signal that your auditory nerve sends to your brain changes.

Noise-induced hearing loss can be acute or severe,and it can be temporary or permanent. You might be familiar with acute temporary noise-induced hearing loss,even if you didn’t realize what was happening at the time.

Acute temporary noise-induced hearing loss can occur from attending a loud concert or sporting event,going to a gun range without earmuffs or being near an explosion. It can make noises sound “stuffy”or far away,especially when talking on the phone or in a crowded room. Repeated exposure to those loud situations can eventually lead to permanent hearing loss.

Noise levels from earbuds and headphones can get as loud as 139 decibels,according to the journal Noise &Health,far greater than the recommended range of everyday sound exposure,which is 60 to 85 decibels. And the average level of noise from headphones,with the volume turned all the way up,is 94 to 110 decibels. For context, 60 decibels is about the volume of an average conversation,and 130 decibels is about the noise level of a rock concert. 85 decibels is considered the maxi- mum volume at which you can listen to sound for eight hours without damaging your hearing. So if you were to listen to music from your headphones for eight hours a day,listening at a volume louder than 85 decibels can cause permanent damage to your ears.

Unfortunately,the relationship between decibels and time isn’t linear. For every three decibels,safe exposure time gets cut in half,according to the CDC. At 88 decibels,you can only safely listen for four hours;at 91 decibels,just two hours.

1. What does the underlined word”it”in Paragraph One refer to?

A．Hearing loss.

B．Listening to loud music.

C．Risk.

D．Loud music.

2. In which of the following situations is acute temporary noise-induced hearing loss more likely to occur?

A．Attending a rock concert.	B．Participating in a heated debate.
C．Going to a gun range with earmuffs.	D．Watching an explosion at a distance.

3. In terms of safe exposure,how long can you listen at 97 decibels?

A．A quarter.

B．Half an hour.

C．One hour.

D．One and a half hours.

4. Which of the following can be the best title of this passage?

A．Loud Music Damages Hearing	B．How to Prevent Hearing Loss
C．How Loud Is Too Loud	D．Music and Hearing

【推荐2】In many countries of the world, people can confidently tell you the meaning of their town or city, but most people who live in Manchester, Oxford or Birmingham would not be able to explain what the name of their city means. The name of every British town and city, however, has a long history.

Two thousand years ago, most people living in Britain were Celts. Even the word “Britain” is Celtic. Then the Romans arrived and built camps which became cities called “castra”. This is why there are so many place names in England which end in “-chester” or “-caster”— Manchester, for example.

The Romans never reached Wales or Scotland, and many place names there are Celtic. For example, Welsh place names that begin with “Llan” come from the Celtic word for church.

After the Romans left Britain, it was attacked by tribes called the Anglo-Saxons, who were from the area of Europe that is now Germany and Holland. Without the Roman army, it was impossible to protect the country from these people. The names of their villages often ended in “-ham” or “-ton”. Some got their name from the leader of the village, so Birmingham, for example, means “Beormund’s village”.

The Anglo-Saxons were farmers and the landscape was very important to them, so we have villages called Upton (“village on a hill”— a good place to build a village) and Moreton (“village by lake”, where floods could make life tough). Place names that end in “-ford” (a place where you could cross a river) also describe the location of Anglo-Saxon villages.

Twelve hundred years ago, the Vikings came to England from Scandinavia. They traded with the Anglo-Saxons but lived in their own villages. These often ended in “-by” or “-thorpe”. The name “Kirkby” means “a village with a church” and Scunthorpe was the village of a man called Skuma.

Finally, in 1066, England became Norman — the Normans gave us the place name “grange”, which means farm.

And how about London? Experts cannot agree. The Romans called the city Londinium, but they were not the first inhabitants. People once believed that the United Kingdom’s capital city got its name from the castle of a King called Lud, but this is very unlikely. Our guess today is that the name comes from a Celtic word meaning a fast-flowing river. However, like a number of British place names, its history is lost in time.

1. According to the passage, Stratford-upon-Avon is most likely a town _______.

A．on a hill

B．near a castle

C．built beside a river

D．with a church

2. Which of the following shows the correct order of the arrival of inhabitants in Britain?

A．The Celts—The Romans—The Vikings—The Normans—The Anglo Saxons.

B．The Romans—The Celts—The Vikings—The Anglo Saxons—The Normans.

C．The Celts—The Romans—The Anglo Saxons—The Vikings—The Normans.

D．The Romans—The Anglo Saxons—The Celts—The Normans—The Vikings.

3. According to the passage, where did the name for London come from?

A．It is puzzling and hard to confirm for sure.

B．It comes from the term for a fast-flowing river.

C．The name is short for Londinium.

D．The name is from the castle of a King.

【推荐3】While your pet fish may appear to be unaware of your presence, chances are that it knows you extremely well and can probably even identify you from a crowd of human faces!

To test if this was accurate, some scientists decided to study archerfish（喷水鱼）. These animals don’t have a sophisticated（复杂的）brain that is necessary to recognize the slight differences between human facial features.

They began by presenting four archerfish with images of two human faces. Initially, the fish spit at both. However, they soon learned spitting water at the one selected by the researchers earned them a food treat. After that, they focused primarily on that image. The researchers then took the experiment one step further by introducing 44 other human faces to the mix.

To the researcher’s astonishment, the trained archerfish were able to recall the learned image almost 81% of the time. And this accuracy improved to 86% when the researchers made the identification even harder, by replacing the colored photos with a set of black and white images and hiding the shape of the head.

The results of the study suggest that though having tiny brains, archerfish may have developed high visual discrimination abilities. While it is contrary to the previous theory that a sophisticated brain is necessary to recognize human faces, the researchers believe they do not recognize faces by recalling complex facial information like gender and identity, but more likely by discriminating between detailed   patterns. Even so, the fact that these archerfish could “remember” those faces demonstrates that they have an impressive memory for details that lasts much longer than the originally-thought 3 seconds!

This is not the first time researchers have realized how “smart” fish are. Previous studies have shown that fish can recognize those fish they have “socialized” with previously, and even recall complex three-dimensional maps of their surroundings.

1. What is the purpose of the study?

A．To describe archerfish are easy to teach.

B．To tell people archerfish like to be rewarded.

C．To prove archerfish can recognize human faces.

D．To show archerfish can easily develop a habit.

2. Why did the researchers use black and white images?

A．They could get these images easily.

B．Archerfish got tired of color images.

C．They wanted to make the task more difficult.

D．These images wouldn’t get ruined by water.

3. What conclusion did researchers draw in the study?

A．Archerfish have a 3-second memory.

B．Archerfish could distinguish detailed patterns.

C．Archerfish have a special form of communication.

D．Archerfish could remember complex facial information.

4. What can we infer from the text?

A．Fish are social animals.

B．Fish are as clever as humans.

C．Fish are able to tell different shapes.

D．The results shocked the researchers.

【推荐1】Wechat (微信) is popular among us, but if someone deletes (删除) you or blocks (屏蔽) you on it, does it mean you’ve made him or her angry?

It depends.

Maybe you have just left messages too often without much valuable information. For example, the questions are those like ‘how are u?’ ‘what are u doing?’ ‘do u love me?’ too often. You know, people may feel bored after answering such kinds of questions time after time.

Another possible reason may be that you’ve sent something unpleasant to your friend or in your friend circle. I just blocked one of my middle school classmates yesterday because she was trying to sell fake goods in the friend circle, and I hate it quite much.

Some people delete the one’s name from friends’ list because they no longer want to see it (maybe ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend) and they don’t want the one to see their “Moments” (动态) on WeChat (maybe they publish very private pictures or life or thoughts they don’t want to share with him or her).

So why you are blocked may depend on his or her mood or preference (喜好), and the reasons a person gets blocked are various from person to person. So I suggest you to write an email or make a phone call to that person if he or she really means a lot to you to see why he or she is dissatisfied with you, and to find out how you can make up for the case.

1. From Paragraph 3, we can know if you are blocked that is because ______.

A．you are asking too many boring questions

B．your friend is angry

C．your friend doesn’t like answering questions

D．your friend has no time to reply

2. The underlined word “fake” in the passage probably means ________.

A．令人喜爱的

B．真实的

C．完美的

D．假冒的

3. _______ reasons of being deleted or blocked are mentioned in the passage.

A．4

B．2

C．3

D．5

4. Which is the best title for the passage?

A．Friend Circle	B．Why Are You Blocked?
C．A Popular Way of Communication	D．How to Make Your Friend Satisfied

【推荐2】As years went by, I realized that one of the biggest problems of these adults was worry. A large majority of students were businessmen, executives, salesmen, engineers, accountants：a cross section of all the trades and professions—and most of them had problems! There were women in the classes—businesswomen and housewives. They, too, had problems! Clearly, what I needed was a textbook on how to conquer worry—so again I tried                    to find one.

I went to New York’s great public library at Fifth Avenue and Forty­second Street and discovered, to my astonishment, that this library had only twenty-­two books listed under the title WORRY. I also noticed, to my amusement, that it had one hundred and eighty­-nine books listed under WORMS. Almost nine times as many books about worms as about worry! Surprising, isn’t it? Since worry is one of the biggest problems facing mankind, you would think, wouldn’t you, that every high school and college would give a course on “How to Stop Worrying”?

Yet, is there even one course on that subject in any college in the land? I have never heard of it. No wonder David Seabury said in his book How to Worry Successfully：“We grow up with as little preparation for the pressures of experience as a bookworm asked to do a ballet (芭蕾舞).”

The result? More than half of our hospital beds are occupied by people with nervous and emotional troubles.

I looked over those twenty­-two books on worry, reposing(靠) on the shelves of the New York Public Library. In addition, I purchased all the books on worry I could find；yet I couldn’t discover even one that I could use as a textbook in my course for adults. So I decided to write one by myself.

1. What made the writer realize one of the adults’ biggest problems?

A．His wide reading.

B．His practical survey.

C．His scientific research.

D．His students’ real situation.

2. What do David Seabury’s words in Paragraph 3 show?

A．Worry is extremely common.

B．We lack knowledge of worry.

C．We show no interest in worry.

D．Worry can hardly be controlled.

3. The writer wrote the passage to         .

A．show us how to conquer worry

B．warn us of the possible danger of worry

C．persuade us to get rid of worry

D．explain why he wanted to write a book on worry

【推荐3】Don’t know how to take care of your plants? A little spider-like robot will chase the sunlight, run to shade, dance when it’s doing well and stomp (跺脚) when it needs to be watered.

It’s called the HEXA Plant, a six-legged machine created by Vincross, a robotics company in Beijing, China.

The robot plant will crawl toward the sunlight when it needs it, then will rotate (转动) when it enjoys the sun in order to absorb its rays on all sides. When it needs to cool off, it will look for shade. It also plays with humans and dances when it is happy, moving its legs up and down. But it gets “angry” when it’s thirsty by stomping its legs.

With six legs, the HEXA Plant can move anywhere-in any direction and around any objects in its path. It’s even nimble enough to navigate (导航) unexpected drops, like if it had to suddenly step over a gap between two tabletops. It has a variety of “eyes”, including an infrared sensor (红外线感应器), a distance sensor, and a 720p camera with night vision, which could be very handy if you want it to send it out like a guard dog at night, to go check on any sudden noises. It has a built-in Wifi as well as various ports (USB) to expand its many talents.

So sure, it’ s not as cute as a garden gnome (守护精灵), but it can do a lot more than just stand there and look cute.

The inventor of the cute robot, Sun Tiangi, was inspired by a dead sunflower. He had idea why it died-whether it was because of the lack of sunshine or water. That’s when he had the idea for the walking plant. He says plants are passive. He wants to allow plants to experience movement.

1. What can’t the HEXA Plant do?

A．Find a cool place when it feels hot.

B．Play with people.

C．Drink water when it’s thirsty.

D．Move in any direction.

2. What does the underlined word “nimble” in the forth paragraph mean?

A．Happy.

B．Clever.

C．Angry.

D．Passive.

3. What inspired Sun Tianqi to invent the HEXA Plant?

A．A walking plant.	B．A dead sunflower.
C．Sunshine and water.	D．A strange animal.

4. Where can we most probably read the passage?

A．In an advertisement.	B．In a novel.
C．In a science magazine.	D．In a storybook.