【推荐1】For more than 60 years, Lego blocks have sparked children’s imagination.     1     They are called Lego Braille Bricks. Lego Braille Bricks are designed to help people learn Braille. That’s a system of writing in which letters are represented by raised dots. Blind people use their fingertips to read them.

According to the World Health Organization, there are 36 million blind people. It is estimated, however, that in the United States only 10% of blind children learn Braille.    2     The small knobs on the bricks are arranged as Braille letters. Blind children can use these knobs to learn Braille. Lego plans to launch the Braille Bricks next year. For some school, they will be free. Along with the alphabet, the bricks will feature numbers and math symbols.

The Danish Association of the Blind first came up with the idea of using Lego bricks to teach Braille. In 2011, the group shared the idea with the Lego foundation. Thorkild Olesen, who is the president of the group, is blind. He says many teachers don’t have the tools and skills to teach Braille.     3    

“Like any other people, we need to express ourselves in writing,” Olesen said. “Audio is great.     4     Braille is the single most important tool for us in order to learn to spell correctly, write and gain literacy like sighted people. Olesen told the toy maker that the knobs on Legos are similar Braille letters.

Stine Storm is a project manager at the Lego Foundation. She liked the idea of making Legos a learning tool. “It was an obvious match for us,” she says. The bricks will also have letters printed on them.     5     “We will have to commit to making inclusion a priority,” Storm says.

A．The skills children learn from Legos are important and unbelievable.

B．But it can never replace Braille.

C．Now a new version of these toys is in the works.

D．This way, sighted and blind kids can play with the Legos together.

E．They’re being tested around the world.

F．So they teach with audio tools, such as audio books.

G．Lego Braille Bricks can help change that.

【推荐3】Real﹣life Room Escape games

Real﹣life room escape Gaines are a type of physical adventure genre in which people are locked in a room with other participants and have to use the things in the room to settle a series of puzzles, find clues, and escape the room within a set time limit.

The games are based on Escape the Room video games, such as Crimson Room and QP﹣Shot, created by Tacitus Takagi in 2005, in which the player is locked inside a room and must explore his or her surroundings in order to escape     1     Other inspirations include adventure board games and movies. Real﹣life room escape games are becoming popular in the United States, Japan, and China     2     For example, some games require you to escape prison cells while others require you to escape space stations.

    3     Soon, they were exported to North America, Asia and Australia. Examples include the two pioneer companies Hint Hunt and Adventure Rooms.

The games were so successful that new locations began opening up across China, in cities big and small, according to a newspaper. In the southern city of Shenzhen, for example, the first escape game location opened last August.     4     "These real﹣life escape games can help those who stay at home on them computers and iPads all day to experience real social circles, " said Tian Xiaochuan, who owns two room escape game stores in Jinan. Frailer this year. The South China Morning Post said the real﹣life escape games are a hit among, "highly stressed students and overworked young professionals".     5     Some players get so involved that they tear down equipment or decorations inside their "prisons", as Zhu Yumeng chief operating officer of a Beijing room escape game store told China Daily.

A．Players must be observant and use their critical thinking skills to escape the room.

B．They should also be brave enough to face their fears.

C．Permanent real life escape games in a fixed location were first opened in Europe.

D．Sometimes the excitement becomes a bit much, though.

E．Escape games have been held in some stores.

F．And seven new game locations quickly followed.

G．Each game adds local themes to settings.

【推荐1】Eliud Kipchoge’s extraordinary sub-two-hour marathon in Vienna on Saturday is one of the greatest sporting achievements—recording a time that has never been achieved before, again. It is a time on the fringes (边缘) of what scientists believe is humanly possible.

“It is a great feeling to make history in sport after Sir Roger Bannister in 1954. I am the happiest man in the world to be the first human to run under two hours and I can tell people that no human is limited,” Kipchoge said afterwards.

Is he right? Where are the limits of human ability? And how close are we to reaching them?

Raph Brandon, head of science for England cricket, distinguishes between achievements which are constrained (限制) by human anatomy (解剖学), and those which require human determination or skill.

“When Bolt ran 9.58 in Berlin 10 years ago, if you analyse the split times it’s very hard to imagine where the improvement comes from,” said Brandon, “The Usain Bolt 100m or the two-hour marathon, they’re in that category.”

Multi-day, ultra-endurance events, such as Thomas’s cross-Channel swim, are different, Brandon said.

“They need determination, psychology and bloody-mindedness to go that little bit further. Those people will continue to do unique things because you’re not really taking the body to its anatomical limit. It’s more a question of how much you’re prepared to consume and exhaust yourself.”

And there’s a third category, those sporting endeavours (努力) that rely on hand-eye coordination: the goal tallies of Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, and the batting of Virat Kohli Steve Smith or Don Bradman, who trained by hitting a golf ball with a stump against a wall to become the best batsman ever to play Test cricket.

Equipment has been a factor for many sports. NFL receivers wear gloves that enable them to make improbable one-handed catches. The GB cycling team swept the board at the Olympics because of their amazing new clothing tech.

The line between what is fair and unfair is blurry. Kipchoge’s sub-two-hour run will not be officially recognized. He ran behind a car which beamed a green laser on to the ground in front of him. Teams of pacemakers, 41 in total, ran in a v-formation to protect him from headwinds (逆风). He wore specially designed shoes and the time and date of the event were picked only after detailed weather forecasting.

Jo Davies, a sport psychologist, says recent studies have shown athletes can push themselves harder because of their perception of exhaustion.

Other research published this year which looked at athletes who had won multiple gold medals found that they were different in several important ways. They had often had a shocking and upsetting life experience and had suffered significant setbacks in their performance during their careers, as well as personality traits of determination, perseverance and perfectionism.

So whether or not those limits have been reached, there will be no shortage of people prepared to try to go beyond them.

1. Why is Eliud Kipchoge’s sub-two-hour marathon considered extraordinary?

A．It was made in Vienna on a weekend.

B．It pushed the limits of human ability.

C．It proved that there was no boundary of his achievements.

D．It was greater than the record kept by Sir Roger Bannister.

2. The Usain Bolt 100m and the two-hour marathon belong to the same category in that ________.

A．they need great determination or skills	B．they can be achieved via equipment
C．they rely on hand-eye coordination	D．they are reaching anatomical limit

3. Kipchoge’s sub-two-hour marathon will not be officially recognized because ________.

A．he was followed by pacemakers	B．he was caught in headwinds
C．he got much special help	D．he didn’t run on the picked day

4. It can be inferred from the last three paragraphs that ________.

A．Jo Davies believes that athletes make progress in the same way

B．anatomical limit prevents athletes from having sad life experience

C．an athlete who has suffered setbacks will win gold medals

D．whether an athlete can succeed or not may depend on himself

【推荐2】St paul’s Cathedral
Ludgate Hill, EC4
Underground: St Paul’s;   Bus: 6,7,11,15,22,25
Open: Daily 8:00-19:00(17:00 from Oct. to Mar.)
Entrance free
Designed by the great architect, Sir Christopher Wren, St Paul’s Cathedral was built following the Great Fire of London of 1666, which destroyed the gothic cathedral on the site at that time. It is crowned by a magnificent dome and its choir(唱诗班)is internationally famous. Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer were married here in 1981.
Buckingham Palace
South end of the Mall(SW1)
Underground: St. James’s Park, Victoria, Hyde Park Comer, Green Park Bus:2,11,14,16,19,22,24,29,30,38,52,73,74,137
Buckingham Palace is the official residence of the monarch(君主) for much of the year. (When the monarch is in residence, a flag flies over the palace.) The Mall is a very impressive wide street, leading from Buckingham Palace to Trafalgar Square.
Note: As the palace is the monarch’s official residence, it is not open to the public during most of the year.
The Tower of London
Tower Hill, EC3
Underground: Tower Hill; Bus: 42, 78
Open: Mon. – Sat.9:00—18:00. 8:00—19:00
Parts of the Tower of London are over nine centuries old, as building began under William the Conqueror in 1078. Famous as a prison in the distant past, the Tower has also been a royal residence, a zoo and an observatory (瞭望台), among other things. It is now a museum and many thousands of people visit it every year in particular to see the Crown Jewels.
Westminster Abbey
Broad Sanctuary, SW1
Underground: Westminster, St James’s Park; Bus: 3, 11, 12, 24, 29, 39, 53, 59, 76, 77, 88, 109, 155, 168, 170, 172, 184, 503
Open: Daily 8:00—19:00(Mar.-DEC., Tuesday till 20:00)
Entrance free
A Benedictine abbey(本笃会修道院) which already existed on the site was rebuilt by Edward the Confessor and consecrated(奉为神圣) in 1065. On the way to its present form, the abbey was extended in the 13th-16th centuries, with the two west towers being added in the 18th. There are many famous tombs in the abbey, including that of the unknown Warrior and those of many poets and writers.
1. Where is the text most probably taken from?

A．A history book about London.

B．A guidebook for visitors to London

C．A book describing London’s development.

D．A book about London’s churches and cathedrals.

2. No.11 bus can take you to all three of these places: _______.

A．St Paul’s Cathedral, Westminster Abbey and the Tower of London

B．St Paul’s Cathedral, Westminster Abbey and Buckingham Palace

C．St Paul’s Cathedral, the Tower of London and Buckingham Palace

D．Westminster Abbey, the Tower of London and Buckingham Palace

3. You can see the inside of all the buildings all the year round except _____.

A．St Paul’s Cathedral	B．The Tower of London
C．Westminster Abbey	D．Buckingham Palace

4. The two places that you can visit by getting off at the same underground station are _____.

A．Buckingham Palace and Westminster Abbey

B．Buckingham Palace and St Paul’s Cathedral

C．Westminster Abbey and the Tower of London

D．The Tower of London and St Paul’s Cathedral

【推荐3】Karate (空手道) is thought to have appeared in the Ryukyu Kingdom firstly as a form of self-defence at a time when weapons (武器) were banned. It began as a fighting style used by the natives of the Ryukyu Islands and was later influenced by Kenpo (quan fa) after business relationships between China and the islands were developed. Very little is known of the origins of karate before it appeared in the Ryukyu Islands, but one popular theory states that it came from India over a thousand years ago and developed from a style of temple boxing based on exercises designed to strengthen the mind and body. However, the truthfulness of this story is questioned.

Now karate has become a popular and beloved sport. The World Karate Federation (WFK) has developed a system of common rules and regulations. In 1994 karate became an official event for the first time in the 12th Asian games in Hiroshima in Japan. On September 28, 2015, karate was featured on a shortlist along with baseball and softball, skateboarding, surfing, and rock climbing to be considered for inclusion in the 2020 Summer Olympics. On June 1, 2016, the International Olympic Committee announced they were supporting the inclusion of all five sports in the 2020 Games.

Karate was developed for the purpose of protecting oneself with one’s bare hands. Therefore, practitioners of karate use their whole body to block the attacker’s strike. The basic philosophy of karate is that “karate is ultimately (最终) for self-defence”. This is reflected in karate’s unique teaching of “never strike first”, with which practitioners guide themselves.

Karate World Championships are held under a weight class system including five divisions for both men and women. Competitors choose which kata (招数) they will show from about 75 types. They are required to show a different kata for each match, including the final. Competitors are judged on the speed and power, and are also required to show their understanding of the meaning or principle carried by the kata they demonstrate (展示).

Under conventional competition rules, one competitor is assigned (指定) a blue belt and the other a red belt and each takes turns showing his or her kata. The outcome of the competition is determined under a flag system, where five judges, who each has a blue flag and a red flag, raise either to signal which competitor, they believe, wins: the one with more flags is declared the winner. However, to provide more clarity (透明) regarding the judges’ views, discussions on applying a scoring system where victory or defeat is determined by adding up the points that each judge gives each competitor are being held for the Tokyo 2020 Games.

1. What can we learn from the first paragraph?

A．The origins of karate have been made clear.

B．Karate was used to strengthen the mind and body at first.

C．It is believed karate dates back over one thousand years.

D．Chinese Kung fu played a role in the development of karate.

2. What does Paragraph 2 mainly talk about?

A．Modern karate.

B．Karate’s popularity.

C．Common rules of karate.

D．Karate as an Olympic event.

3. In Karate World Championships, competitors should ________.

A．select a different kata in each match

B．keep the spirit of self-defence in mind

C．show 75 kinds of katas to judges at first

D．choose the hardest level of karate in the final

4. According to the last paragraph, in the Tokyo 2020 Games ________.

A．the flag system will continue playing an important role

B．competition results will become much fairer

C．judges’ views will become less important

D．a scoring system may be used