【推荐1】While eating is functional, and our bodies need the fuel that food provides, dining with friends or loved ones can be a wonderful experience.     1     It seems embarrassing and depressing. But is dining alone really that bad? Maybe not.

We all have foods we like and dislike. Maybe it's a spicy cheese or stinky fish. We sometimes hold back on things that may offend the noses of others.     2     And we can enjoy the meal with the added advantage that we might be able to eat more healthily. Often, if you want a salad and your significant other wants some less healthy cuisine, you end up ordering the same.

Have you ever spent too long debating with people which restaurant to eat in or when to meet? If dining solo, you can make the choice depending on your own desires at that moment and get your nourishment at exactly the time you're hungry!     3     You could eat in a park, garden or even your bed—the point is, the choice is yours! That alone time also means it's a time to switch off. According to psychologist Sherrie Bourg Carter, a bit of solitude can help your brain to unwind and may help you concentrate more.

    4     Eating alone can save you from the extreme anxiety that may arise listening to someone smack their lips or the sloshing of saliva in their mouths!

So, is eating alone bad? Well, it may not be for everyone, but there certainly are some benefits to it.    5    

A．Try it sometime—you might just like it!

B．Our preference for certain foods may cause great trouble for others.

C．When dining alone, we can consume whatever we like.

D．However, some of us often find ourselves reserving a table for one in a restaurant.

E．Finally, for some, dining alone can be a necessity.

F．And why does it have to be a restaurant?

G．The atmosphere of eating alone is very fantastic.

【推荐2】The “melting pot” in American cuisine(菜肴。烹饪法) is a myth, not terribly unlike the idea of a melting pot of American culture, notes chef Dan Barber. “Most cultures don’t think about their cuisine in such monolithic(统一的) terms,” he says. “French, Mexican, Chinese, and Italian cuisines each consist of dozens of distinct regional foods. And I think ‘American’ cuisine is moving in the same direction, becoming more localized, not globalized. ”
American cuisine is shaped by the natural wealth of the country. Having never faced agricultural hardship, Americans don’t have to rely on rotating crops, such as the Japanese, whose food culture now showcases buckwheat (荞麦) alongside rice, or the Indians, or the French and Italians, who feature beans alongside wheat. “That kind of negotiation with the land forced people to incorporate(接受) those crops in to the culture,” says Barber. And so eating soba noodles becomes part of what it means to be Japanese, and eating beans becomes part of what it means to be French.
So if what we eat is what we are, what are Americans? Well, meat. “If Americans have any unifying food identity, I would say we are a mostly white meat culture,” says Barber. “The protein-centric dinner plate, whether you’re talking about a boneless chicken breast, or a 16-ounce steak, as an everyday expectation is something that America really created, and now exports to the rest of the world.”
Every single culture and religion uses food as part of their celebrations, says Ellen Gustafson, co-founder of the FEED Project and The 30 Project, which aims to deal with both hunger and overweight issues globally. “The celebratory nature of food is universal. Every season, every harvest, and every holiday has its own food, and this is true in America as well. It helps define us.”
1. According to the first paragraph, American cuisine ________.

A．consists of varieties of regional foods

B．is becoming more and more globalized

C．has absorbed a lot from Chinese cuisine

D．is not as unified as its culture

2. What has made American cuisine different from other cuisines according to the article?

A．Relying on rotating crops

B．The difficulty of planting crops

C．The US’ melting pot culture

D．The US’ agricultural wealth

3. We can conclude from the article that _____ has become part of what it means to be American.

A．eating rice	B．eating beans
C．eating white meat	D．eating soba noodles

4. Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the article?

A．American cuisine is healthier than other cuisines.

B．American cuisine hasn’t changed much over time.

C．Americans use food as part of their celebrations.

D．Americans are quite proud of their own cuisine.

【推荐3】I told my husband the topic of this essay and asked him, “As a British person, why do the British like tea?”His answer was, “Tea fixes everything."

For the British, tea is a substitute for emotions. The money that an American would dedicate to counseling or therapy to deal with childhood trauma (创伤），the British instead spend on tea bags, tea pots, tea cups and tea towels.

Tea is the only outlet that the British have for strong emotion, outside of football teams and alcohol. If your co-workers annoy you, you can't very well get drunk to cope with it, so tea is the substitute. The ceremony of boiling water and adding sugar and milk in a specific order based on religiously-held personal preferences is calming and allows the type of repetitive action that comforts the British mind and helps them to suppress their feelings. Calmly sipping a cup of hot tea is a proper therapeutic and British way of dealing with emotion. If someone starts to get angry at you or if they express sadness or another emotion that is uncomfortable to deal with, rather than talking about it, a British person will put the kettle on. It is a convenient way of changing the subject to one that all British people can agree on: tea.

I am married to a British man, and we have never had an argument that didn't end in him offering to make a cup of tea. I've never entered a British house without receiving an offer of tea. Tea is social bonding. If you reject tea, you are rejecting Britain. For the British, the idea of not wanting tea is nearly incomprehensible. For the British, if you don't want tea, you don't want life. They really believe that tea fixes everything.

1. What will he do if a British man gets angry?

A．He will drown his anger in tea.

B．He will keep his anger in mind.

C．He will go to the pub for a drink.

D．He will express his anger directly.

2. Why does the British like tea so much?

A．They like the taste of it.

B．It's a way of killing time.

C．It helps them to calm down.

D．The tea boiling ceremony is a pleasure.

3. What can be inferred from the last paragraph?

A．Tea helps the British to socialize.

B．Tea costs the British too much time.

C．You can reject the offered tea in Britain.

D．The author never argued with her husband.

4. What's the main purpose of the author?

A．Her family life in Britain.

B．Why the British like tea.

C．How the British drink tea.

D．Her husband's love for tea.

【推荐3】Attention to the fight against climate change tends to be focused on trees, but 75% of the planet's surface is covered by the ocean, and a natural process taking place underwater has excited scores of investors at the recent World Economic Forum (论坛) who may want to help.

During the recent wildfires in the Amazon rainforest, journalists often described trees as the “lungs of the world”, but that title most certainly belongs to phytoplankton, which alone refreshes nearly 50% of the atmospheric oxygen on planet earth, the value of four Amazons.

And, in the effort to stop the warming of the planet, our greatest assistants could belong to whales, because of the great amount of their excrement left in the sea.

A new paper published by economist Dr. Ralph Chianti underlines the influence that whales, especially blue whales, and their excrement have on climate change. It is all due to whales’ excrement in the diets of phytoplankton.

The tiny marine algae (海洋藻类) floats at the center of several marine food webs, and they provide food for many sea creatures including whales, while also requiring whales’ excrement to feed on. They also require CO₂ to survive, just like trees.

Whales, after deep-sea dives for krill (磷虾), return to the surface and release excrement, which is rich in nitrogen (氮) and iron, into the top ocean layer, which provides a key food source for phytoplankton.

In his paper, Dr. Chiami suggests that since phytoplankton populations can expand wherever whales are, a significant effort should be made to fight against climate change by encouraging the growth and protection of whale populations. “At a minimum, even a 1% increase in phytoplankton productivity thanks to whale activity would take in hundreds of millions of tons of additional CO₂ a year, which is equal to the sudden appearance of 2 billion mature trees,”says Chiami.

1. What makes the investors excited?

A．Trees’ function as “lungs of the world”.

B．Phytoplankton’s ability to create oxygen.

C．The success of the World Economic Forum.

D．People's continuous fight against climate change.

2. Why are whales called our assistants in fighting global warming'?

A．They refresh much oxygen.	B．They never send out CO2.
C．They kill much phytoplankton.	D．They supply food to phytoplankton.

3. Which can best describe the relationship between phytoplankton and whales?

A．Complex.

B．Competitive.

C．Dependent.

D．Distant.

4. What does Chiami advise us to do?

A．Rebuild food webs.	B．Try to protect whales.
C．Grow more phytoplankton.	D．Limit population explosion.