【推荐1】Voluntourism

Volunteering to help people in need combined with travelling to faraway places is a new trend in the travel industry. It is called voluntourism. People travel to other countries, learn languages and gain new experiences.     1    

Recent statistics show that in the past few years voluntourism has been one of the fastest-growing areas of tourism. More than 1.6 million people around the world are volunteers in other countries. They help build schools, assist in hospitals and do farming work in developing countries.     2     They keep in touch with their host families after they return home, and many return to visit.

There are many reasons why people want to engage in voluntourism. When people choose to join a voluntourism program, they are joining a global network of volunteers who are living and working with diverse cultures on projects that have a positive effect. The volunteers come from all over the world, and they will share the passion for giving back and the desire to broaden horizons. Some students also see it as a gap year after school, while others simply want to take time out from a job and do something else.     3     However, many voluntourists do not see volunteering as what it is. They think it is a cheap way of travelling and don’t really want to get involved in hard work.

While voluntourism has been around for over a century, modern volunteering started with the Peace Corps, a program that the US government started in the 1960s. From then on, voluntourism has become more and more popular. Many organizations start similar projects.     4     And they have hundreds of different types of programs for people to choose from in more than 30 developing countries. The programs run year round and each volunteer chooses when they want to start and the duration they would like to stay for.

    5     They say that if people really want to help those in need, there are many opportunities in their own community to do this. On the other side, volunteers are often not skilled enough for the tasks that they do. Travel experts point out that in some cases voluntourists are often taken advantage of by the organization that sets up the trips.

A．Not everyone sees voluntourism in a positive way.

B．Some of them establish lasting bonds with people there.

C．And there are those who are bored and merely seek adventure.

D．Most voluntourism organizations employ people from similar fields.

E．They find it is the best way to get the best of the world.

F．By participating in voluntourism, they are contributing to local economy.

G．They offer voluntourism trips to suit people’s interest, experience level or age.

【推荐2】Visiting Joshua Tree National Park, California
Joshua Tree National Park is nearly 800,000 acres large and surrounds parts of the Mojave and Colorado Deserts in South-central California. Although barren at first glance, the park is full of wildlife and provides a variety of entertainment activities from hiking to climbing. Within a 3-hour drive, Joshua Tree National Park takes at least a full day to visit.
Things to do Hiking opportunities within the park include several choices, from 12 self-guided nature trails to all-day back-country hikes.
Joshua Tree National Park has nine camping grounds, and back-country camping is also allowed.
Rock-climbing is a popular activity in the park, which has 10 mountains greater than 5,000 feet in height.
When to visit
Joshua Tree National Park is open 365 days a year, although the best time to visit is October through April, when temperature is milder. The peak season is when the wild flowers bloom, and summer months are the least crowded.
What to bring
In addition to your camera and telescope, be sure to carry lots of water. Park and trail maps can be picked up at any of the three visitor centres.
Fees
Parking fees: You can buy a 7-day vehicle permit for $15, a single entry permit for $5, or Joshua Tree National Park annual pass for $60.
Camping fees: They vary by camping ground.
1. The underlined word “barren” in the first paragraph can be replaced by _______.

A．thin

B．beautiful

C．deserted

D．large

2. When is the best time to visit Joshua Tree National Park?

A．March

B．May

C．June

D．September

3. If one goes to Joshua Tree National Park by car and stay there for 9 days, how much at least he should pay for the parking fees?

A．$60

B．$15

C．$25

D．$30

【推荐1】A study led by Oleguer Plana-Ripoll, a researcher at Aarhus University in Denmark, tries to deal with a fundamental question that has bothered researchers for more than a century-what exactly causes mental illness?

In the hope of finding the answer, scientists have piled up a large amount of data over the past decade, through studies of genes and brain activity. They have found that many of the same genes underlie seemingly distinct disorders and that changes in the brain’s decision-making systems could be involved in many conditions.

The researchers are also rethinking theories of how our brains go wrong. The idea that mental illness can be classified into distinct, separate categories like “anxiety” has been disproved to a large extent. Instead, recently they’ve found that disorders shade into each other. There are no hard dividing lines.

The researchers are trying to understand the biology that underlies mental illness. They have a few theories. Perhaps there are several dimensions of mental illness, so depending on how people score on each dimension, they might be more likely to have some disorders than others. An alternative idea is that there is a single factor that makes people easier to suffer from mental illness in general: Which disorder they develop is then determined by other factors. Both ideas are being taken seriously, though the former one is more widely accepted by the researchers.

The details are still unclear, but most researchers agree that one thing is specific: The old system of categorizing mental disorders into neat boxes does not work. They are also hopeful that, in the long run, replacing this framework with one that is grounded in biology will lead to new drugs and treatments. The researchers aim to reveal, for instance, the key genes，brain regions and neurological processes involved in psychopathology(精神病理学)，and target them with treatments. Although it might take a while to get there, they are optimistic in the long term if the field really does its work.

1. What does the research of mental illness focus on?

A．Its roots.

B．Its symptoms.

C．Its categories.

D．Its treatments.

2. What has been found from the recent study?

A．There exist links between mental disorders.

B．Brain function has little to do with mental illness.

C．Mental illness is classified into different categories.

D．Genes are completely different in distinct mental disorders.

3. Which one do most researchers embrace according to Paragraph 4?

A．The theory of genetic influences.

B．The concept of multiple aspects.

C．The belief of brain abnormalities.

D．The idea of the determined risk factor.

4. What can we learn about mental illness from the text?

A．Its new drugs could be available soon.

B．Its genes are too complex to study.

C．Scientists are clear about its details.

D．Hunting for its biology might help.

【推荐2】Ask a teacher to name the most annoying invention of recent years and they will often mention the mobile phone. Disturbed by the problems they create, many head teachers have ordered that pupils should keep their phones switched off at school. Others have told pupils to leave them at home.

However, education researchers at The University of Nottingham believe it is time that phone bans were reassessed, because mobile phones can be a powerful learning aid, they say. Dr Elizabeth Hartnell-Young and her colleagues have reached this conclusion after studying the consequences of allowing pupils in five secondary schools to use either their own mobile phones or the new generation of ‘smartphones’ in lessons.

During the nine-month experiment, 14 to 16-year-old pupils used the phones for a wide range of educational purposes, including creating short movies, setting homework reminders, recording a teacher reading a poem, and timing experiments with the phones’ stopwatches. The smartphones, which could be connected to the Internet, also allowed pupils to access revision websites, log into the school email system, or transfer (转存) electronic files between school and home.

The research involved 331 pupils in schools in Cambridgeshire, West Berkshire and Nottingham. “At the start of the study, even pupils were often surprised at the thought that mobile phones could be used for learning,” Dr Hartnell-Young said. “After their hands-on experience, almost all pupils said they had enjoyed the project and felt more inspired.”

Some teachers found that pupils who lacked confidence gained most from the project. However, they recognized that greater use of mobile phones in schools could cause problems.

1. We can infer from the first paragraph that       .

A．teachers are strongly against students owning mobile phones

B．mobile phones should be developed to meet students’ needs

C．students are free to use their mobile phones at school

D．mobile phones are usually forbidden to be used at school

2. When the students first used mobile phones for learning, they       .

A．all enjoyed the project very much

B．didn’t know what they were used for

C．didn’t fully realize the learning functions of mobile phones

D．were surprised that they were allowed to use mobile phones in schools

3. Who benefited most from the project?

A．Older pupils.	B．Pupils who were not confident.
C．Younger pupils.	D．Pupils who were confident.

4. The purpose of the text is to tell us that       .

A．mobile phones can actually help students learn

B．mobile phones begin to be widely used in schools

C．too much use of mobile phones in schools can cause problems

D．the mobile phone is considered the most annoying invention of recent years