【推荐2】A new study has found that social media could be affecting the sleep of young adults. The study is a project of researchers at the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Medicine.

They found that young people who often use social media are more likely to suffer from sleep disorders than those who use social media less. The researchers say doctors should ask young adults about their use of social media when treating sleep problems.

“This is one of the first piece of evidence that social media use really can affect your sleep,” said Jessica C. Levenson, the lead author of a report on the study. The researchers set out to examine the connection between social media and sleep among young adults.

The researchers wanted to find out how often young people used social media sites like Facebook. For the study, they gave questionnaires to nearly 1,800 adults, aged 19 to 32. On average, members of the study group used social media sites one hour a day. They also visited various social media accounts 30 times per week.

Thirty percent of the study’s participants（参与者）reported having serious problems with sleeping. Those people who used social media a lot were three times more likely to have a sleep disorder. And those who spent the most time on social media were twice as likely to suffer from sleep problems.

Researchers say social media can influence sleep in a number of ways. People can lose sleep by staying up too late looking at social media. Sensitive issues argued about on social media can cause excitement. Using an electronic device can disturb a body’s natural sleep rhythms because of the light coming from screens. The researchers note that in some cases, young adults who have a hard time sleeping may use social media to help them fall asleep, which may in turn lead to more problems sleeping because social media involve screen time that is interesting and can keep you awake.

1. What do the researchers suggest on a doctor’s treating young adults’ sleep problems?

A．Knowing their living environment.

B．Asking about the time they spent on social media

C．Asking what social media sites they use.

D．Inquiring about their sleeping habits.

2. What can we know about the study?

A．Less than one-third of the participants in the study have problem sleeping.

B．Doctors don’t think there is any way to cure sleeping problems caused by social media use.

C．Social media use has something to do with young adults’ sleeping problems.

D．Participants who like using Facebook are less likely to suffer from sleeping problems.

3. Social media use affects one’s sleep in the following ways except that ________.

A．one will stay up late	B．one can get excited.
C．one’s sleep rhythms will be disturbed	D．one can fall fast asleep

4. What is the main idea of the passage?

A．Social media have affected young adults’ sleep.

B．How to deal with sleep problems.

C．Social media takes up so much time.

D．Sleep problems mainly result from social media.

5. The main purpose of the passage is to ________.

A．inform

B．encourage

C．persuade

D．advise

【推荐1】When her five daughters were young,Helene An always told them that there was strength in unity(团结).To show this,she held up one chopstick,representing one person.Then she easily broke it into two pieces.Next,she tied several chopsticks together,representing a family.She showed the girls it was hard to break the tied chopsticks.This lesson about family unity stayed with the daughters as they grew up.

Helene An and her family own a large restaurant business in California.However,when Helene and her husband Danny left their home in Vietnam in 1975,they didn’t have much money.They moved their family to San Francisco.There they joined Danny’s mother,Diana,who owned a small Italian sandwich shop.Soon afterwards,Helene and Diana changed the sandwich shop into a small Vietnamese restaurant.The five daughters helped in the restaurant when they were young.However,Helene did not want her daughters to always work in the family business because she thought it was too hard.

Eventually the girls all graduated from college and went away to work for themselves,but one by one,the daughters returned to work in the family business.They opened new restaurants in San Francisco and Los Angeles.Even though family members sometimes disagreed with each other,they worked together to make the business successful.Daughter Elizabeth explains,“Our mother taught us that to succeed we must have unity,and to have unity we must have peace.Without the strength of the family,there is no business.”

Their expanding business became a large corporation in 1996,with three generations of Ans working together.Now the Ans’ corporation makes more than $20 million each year.Although they began with a small restaurant,they had big dreams,and they worked together.Now they are a big success.

1. Helene tied several chopsticks together to show______.

A．the strength of family unity

B．the difficulty of growing up

C．the advantage of chopsticks

D．the best way of giving a lesson

2. We can learn from Paragraph 2 that the An family______.

A．started a business in 1975

B．left Vietnam without much money

C．bought a restaurant in San Francisco

D．opened a sandwich shop in Los Angeles

【推荐2】In 1892, the Sierra Club was formed. In 1908, an area of coastal redwood trees north of San Francisco was established as Muir Woods National Monument. In the Sierra Nevada mountains, a walking trail from Yosemite Valley to Mount Whitney was dedicated in 1938. It is called John Muir Trail.

John Muir was born in 1838 in Scotland. His family name means moor, which is a meadow full of flowers and animals. John loved nature from the time he was small. He also became interested in climbing rocky cliffs and walls.

When John was eleven, his family moved to the United States and settled in Wisconsin. John was good with tools and soon became an inventor. He first invented a model of a sawmill(大型锯机). Later he invented an alarm clock that would cause the sleeping person to be tipped out of bed when the timer sounded.

Muir left home at an early age. He took a thousand-mile walk south to the Gulf of Mexico in 1867 and 1868. Then he sailed for San Francisco. The city was too noisy and crowded for Muir, so he headed inland for the Sierra Nevadas.

When Muir discovered the Yosemite Valley in the Sierra Nevada, it was as if he had come home. He loved the mountains, the wildlife, and the trees. He climbed the mountains and even climbed trees during thunderstorms in order to get closer to the wind. He put forth the theory in the late 1860s that the Yosemite Valley had been formed through the action of glaciers(冰川). People ridiculed him. Not until 1930 was Muir’s theory proven correct.

Muir began to write articles about the Yosemite Valley to tell readers about its beauty. His writing also warned people that Yosemite was in danger from timber mining and sheep farming interests. In 1901, Theodore Roosevelt became the President of the United States. He was interested in conservation. Muir took the President through Yosemite, and Roosevelt helped get legislation passed to create Yosemite National Park in 1906.

Although Muir won many conservation battles, he lost a major one. He fought to save the Hetch Valley, which people wanted to dam(筑坝) in order to provide water for San Francisco. In the late 1913, a bill was signed to dam the valley. Muir died in 1914. Some people say losing the fight to protect the valley killed Muir.

1. Which time order of the events related to Muir is correct?
a. The Sierra Club was formed.
b. Muir Woods National Monument was created.
c. John Muir learned to climb rocky cliffs.
d. John Muir walked to the Gulf of Mexico.
e. The Muir family moved to the United States.

A．abced

B．abbad

C．ceabd

D．cedab

2. When did Muir invent a unique form of the alarm clock?

A．While his family lived in Wisconsin.

B．While his family still lived in Scotland.

C．After he sailed to San Francisco.

D．After he travelled in Yosemite.

3. What did John Muir do soon after he arrived in San Francisco?

A．He wrote short stories for the local newspaper.

B．He put forth a theory about how Yosemite was formed.

C．He headed inland for the Sierra Nevadas.

D．He began to write articles about the Sierra Nevadas.

4. What is NOT the deed Muir do to promote the conservation of the Yosemite Valley?

A．He proved the valley had been formed through the action of glaciers.

B．He tried to tell his readers about the Valley’s beauty.

C．He warned Yosemite was in danger from timber mining and sheep farming.

D．He won the president’s support to create Yosemite National Park.

【推荐1】One summer night Ludwig Beethoven took a walk in the suburb (市郊) of Bonn. Suddenly a gentle wind came. He heard some music. He listened carefully and found it was his F sonata. He followed the music and came to a small house. There through the window, he saw a girl playing a very old piano and a young man was making shoes beside her, he pushed the door open and went in. The host received him very warmly and told him that the girl was his sister, who was blind but very fond of music. They couldn’t afford to send her to a master.   So she was only trying to play some music she heard the neighbors play. She knew it was the work of a great composer. Beethoven was very much moved. Suddenly the candle was blown out. Moonlight struck on the girl’s slender figure. Then Beethoven played music for them. He played so wonderful that the brother and sister were amazed. That was his famous Clair de lune.
1. Beethoven heard the music because ______.

A．it was played loudly	B．there was a slight wind
C．the piano was old	D．he stopped walking

2. The young man and the girl were _____.

A．brother and sister	B．husband and wife
C．lovers	D．good friends

3. The girl couldn’t go to the teacher most probably because_____.

A．she was blind

B．her brother didn’t want her to go

C．they were too poor

D．good friends

4. Beethoven played some music____.

A．before he was moved

B．as soon as he came in

C．when he saw the piano

D．after he heard the moving story

【推荐2】When 45-year-old Randy Pausch was diagnosed with pancreatic(胰腺) cancer, he chose to focus on living rather than dying. As a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University, Pausch was asked to deliver a “last lecture”. This well-known campus tradition allowed professors to share worldly wisdom with students as if they were dying and had one last lecture to give.

The only difference in Pausch’s case is that Pausch really was dying, but it only motivated him more. He delivered his last lecture, “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams” on Sept. 18, 2007.

Pausch began by sharing several of his boyhood dreams, some of which he had achieved and the others he hadn’t. He described the importance of having dreams and how anyone can still learn a lot by reaching for those dreams, even if they don’t always succeed. He shared the values(价值观) learned through experience, which he hoped to pass on to others hard work, laughter and gratitude, honesty, character.

Pausch’s last lecture received a great deal of praise and attention. It became a crazy YouTube hit, and in October 2007, he presented an abridged (删节的) version on “The Oprah Winfrey Show”. He turned the lecture into a book by the same name, which quickly became a best-seller. Readers were deeply moved by the book’s representation of Pausch’s lifelong philosophy and the way it revealed the biggest source of his motivation—his three young children.

Pausch passed away on July 25, 2008, but his voice lives on in the recorded lecture and his book. He continues to motivate us all by encouraging us to never give up our childhood dreams—a source of inspiration that can never run dry.

1. Why was Pausch asked to give his “last lecture”?

A．To teach the students.	B．To make him have a better life.
C．To cure his cancer.	D．To achieve his dream.

2. What was Pausch’s lecture mainly about?

A．His private life in boyhood.	B．Having dreams and good values.
C．The reason for his success.	D．The experience learned from others.

3. Which of the following motivated Pausch most?

A．His dreams.

B．His children.

C．His work.

D．His students.

4. The purpose of the passage is to inspire people to ________.

A．keep on dreaming	B．know the meaning of life
C．enjoy life	D．give the last lecture

【推荐3】“He almost didn’t see the old lady, stranded(困在) on the side of the road, but even in the dim light of day, he could see she needed help. So he pulled up in front her Mercedes and got out.

Even with the smile on his face, she was worried. No one had stopped to help for the last hour or so. Was he going to hurt her? He didn’t look safe; he looked poor and hungry. He could see that she was frightened, standing out there in the cold. He knew how she felt.

He said, “I am here to help you, ma’am. Why don’t you wait in the car where it’s warm? By the way, my name is Bryan Anderson.”

Well, all she had was a flat tire, but for an old lady, that was bad enough. Bryan crawled under the car looking for a place to put the jack, skinning his knuckles a time or two. Soon he was able to change the tire. But he had to get dirty and his hands hurt.

As he was tightening up the lug nuts, she rolled down the window and began to talk to him. She told him that she was from St. Louis and was just passing through. She couldn’t thank him enough for coming to her aid.

Bryan just smiled as he closed her trunk. The lady asked how much she owed him. Any amount would have been all right with her. She already imagined all the awful things that could have happened, had he not stopped. Bryan never thought twice about being paid. This was not a job to him. This was helping someone in need, and God knows there were many people who had given him a hand in the past. He had lived his whole life that way, and it never occurred to him to act any other way.

He told her that if she really wanted to pay him back, the next time she saw someone who needed help, she could give that person the assistance they needed, and Bryan added, “And think of me.”

He waited until she started her car and drove off. It had been a cold and depressing day, but he felt good as he headed for home, disappearing into the twilight.

1. This story most probably took place_______.

A．in a garage

B．on a highway

C．in a busy street

D．near a gas station

2. When the man approached the old lady, the first thing he did was to_______.

A．ask what was wrong with her car	B．get the old lady out of her car
C．change her tire as soon as possible	D．make her know he wanted to help her

3. The underlined part in Paragraph 6 suggests that_______.

A．the old lady had got ready to pay the man	B．the old lady was grateful to the man
C．the man had a lot of difficulty changing the tire	D．the man didn’t stop changing the tire

4. Which of the following words can best describe the man?

A．Warm-hearted and sensitive.	B．Careful and serious.
C．Thoughtful and helpful.	D．Generous and open-minded.

5. It can be inferred from the last paragraph that_______.

A．the man was happy after helping the old lady

B．the man received a lot of money from the old lady

C．the man made the old lady feel cold and depressed

D．the man felt extremely frustrated all the way home