【推荐1】The “Give It Up for Earth Day” encourages people to commit to giving up actions that are harmful to the environment, such as using poisonous cleaners.

Throughout the month of April, Canadians are being asked to “Give It Up for Earth Day！” Earth Day has been celebrated every year on April 22 since 1970. Earth Day Canada president Jed Goldberg says that as people become more environmentally aware, they want to find ways to reduce their environmental influence, not just celebrate one special event.

“Earth Day is a great launching_pad for thinking about environmental action                              every day，” said Goldberg. “Choosing healthier options, even for the short term,                              can lead to thinking about the influence of our decisions for a lifetime.”

That's the reason behind the “Give It Up for Earth Day” campaign.   It's designed to encourage healthy habits that benefit people and the planet. It challenges everyone to help create a healthier world by making changes in their daily routine.

“We wanted to plan an actiontargeted campaign that will give people a chance to act on their concern for the environment in a positive way，” said Goldberg.

The campaign has identified four daily actions that can add up to huge environmental savings. They include pledging (保证) to turn off the TV, give up the use of poisonous cleaners, reduce consumption of consumer products and cut out meat.

At the end of April, all of the pledges will be recorded and converted (转化) into the number of TV hours not watched, dollars not spent on unnecessary items, electricity saved, greenhouse gas emissions (排放) avoided by cutting out meat, and poisonous chemicals produced from homes and landfills.

“What we're trying to achieve this year for Earth Day is to give people a chance to do something that is meaningful and measurable，” said Goldberg.

1. The aim of the campaign mentioned in the passage is to ________.

A．enable people to save more money for future use

B．help people develop environmentally friendly habits

C．prevent people from making changes in their daily routine

D．warn people against reducing consumption of consumer products

2. The underlined word “launching pad” (in Paragraph 3) probably means “________”．

A．starting point	B．finishing line
C．exchanging stage	D．reforming stage

3. We can conclude from the passage that ________.

A．Earth Day was first celebrated over half a century ago

B．short term decisions will by no means influence our lives

C．Earth Day Canada is actually an everyday environmental action

D．daily actions must be measured to benefit the environment

4. Which disagrees with the spirit of “Give It Up for Earth Day”？

A．Switching off TV.

B．Riding bikes.

C．Using poisonous cleaners.

D．Saving electricity.

【推荐3】The earth gives us life.     1    However, the human beings that don’t appreciate the earth, let harmful gases cause pollution and kill millions of animals living here with us, don’t deserve the planet and should be punished and pay the price.

The earth lets us breathe.     2     . It’s totally wrong to destroy nature and take what we have for granted. Never take what you have for granted, because one day it could all be gone. If you have already worked for or managed a factory that lets off harmful gases, or if you have gone hunting and killed something that share harmony with us, there is no way to make it up to our planet.     3       I can’t hear what our planet is saying. No one really knows that, but I know that if I were the earth and someone didn’t care about the life I gave them so trustingly, I wouldn’t forgive them.

    4    The only thing that really matters and helps is to just take care of the life around you. Respect it and appreciate it and don’t ever take what you have for granted!     5     Trees would be growing from the healthiest of soil instead of being firewood or just cut down to make room and space for another factory with more destructive chemicals. The sky wouldn’t be dirty and smog filled, with no room for the sun or clean air to be breathed in. The earth wouldn’t bodying. It’s not one person’s duty; it’s every person’s. We should take action immediately before it’s too late.

A．However, there are ways to help our planet not become worse so rapidly!

B．The earth is so useful that we can’t live without it.

C．It gives us food, water, shelter and natural beauty.

D．The minute a life is lost, forgiveness is not possible.

E．If you take good care of the earth, it will surely pay back.

F．The human beings that care for it and love it deserve what our planet provides us with.

G．If everyone did just that and cared creatures all over our world wouldn’t’t be endangered.

【推荐2】Student loans are based on a simple idea: that a graduate’s future flow of earnings will more than cover the costs of doing a degree. But with unemployment rates in parts of the rich world at post-war highs, that may no longer hold true for many people. The consequences will be felt by everybody.

All over the world student indebtedness is causing problems. In Britain, rising university fees mean that student debt is likely to treble (变成三倍) to £70 billion. But, partly because higher education there is so expensive, the scale of the problem is far greater in America. When the next official estimates of outstanding student debt there are published, it is expected to be close to $1 trillion.

Student-loan systems in America and elsewhere are often badly designed for an extended period of high unemployment. In contrast to the housing crash, the risk from student debt is not of a sudden explosion in losses but of gradual financial suffocation (窒息). The pressure needs to be eased.

One option is to change the bankruptcy laws. In America, Britain and elsewhere, these treat student debt as a special case: unlike other forms of debt, it cannot be wiped out. If student debt is not to bind existing graduates and put off future ones, the rules could be changed so that it is dischargeable (可解除的) in bankruptcy. Yet some worry that graduates would rush to declare bankruptcy, handing losses to taxpayers.

So a second option is preferable. Many countries, America included, have designed student debt primarily as a mortgage (抵押)-like obligation: it is repaid to a fixed schedule. Other places, like Britain and Australia, make student-loan repayments income- based so that the prospect of taking on debt is more acceptable to people from poorer backgrounds. That approach makes sense, especially when jobs are scarce.

Both changes would lead to a repricing of student debt. That would be a bad thing for taxpayers, but a good thing overall. Just as borrowers need to understand the risks they are exposing themselves to, voters need to understand the duties that governments are taking on when they subsidize (资助) students.

1. The idea supporting student loans _________.

A．illustrates the way the money serves graduates

B．shows the difficulty of paying off the debts

C．correctly estimates graduates future earnings

D．fails to expect the current condition of indebted students

2. Which of the following may be the reason for the heavy student debt?

A．High unemployment among graduates.	B．The loose student-loan systems.
C．The housing crash.	D．The rapid increase of student loans.

3. The pressure of student debt can be eased by _________ .

A．new bankruptcy rules	B．income-based repayment policy
C．clear student obligation	D．a better tax system

4. What might be the most suitable title of the passage?

A．The Serious Tax Problems	B．Graduates Unemployment
C．The Indebted Graduates	D．Ways to cancel Students Debts

【推荐3】Faster, cheaper, better-technology is one field many people rely upon to offer a vision of a brighter future. But as the 2020s dawn, optimism is in short supply. The new technologies that dominated the past decade seem to be making things worse. Social media were supposed to bring people together, but they are better known for leaking privacy. E-commerce, ride-hailing (网约车) and the gig economy (零工经济) may be convenient, but they are charged with underpaying workers, worsening inequality and blocking the streets with vehicles.

Today's pessimistic mood is centered on smart phones and social media, which took off a decade ago. Yet concerns that particular technologies might be doing more harm than good have arisen before. The 1920s witnessed a criticism against cars, which had earlier been seen as an answer to the problems caused by horse-drawn vehicles which filled the streets with noise and animal waste and caused accidents. And industrialization was criticized in the 19th century by Romantics who worried about the replacement of skilled workers, the robbing of the countryside and the suffering of factory hands.

However, that pessimism can be overdone. Too often people focus on the drawbacks of a new technology while taking its benefits for granted. Worries about screen time should be weighed against the much more substantial benefits of convenient communication and the instant access to information and entertainment that smartphones make possible. A further danger is that Luddite (反对技术进步者) efforts to avoid the short-term costs associated with a new technology will end up denying access to its long-term benefits-something Carl Benedikt Frey, an Oxford academic, calls a "technology trap". Fears that robots will steal people's jobs may discourage their use. Yet in the long run countries that wish to maintain their standard of living as their workforce ages and shrinks will need more robots, not fewer.

Any powerful technology can be used for good or ill. It is the choices people make about it that shape the world. Perhaps the real source of anxiety is not technology itself, but growing doubts about the ability of societies to hold this debate, and come up with good answers. So as the decade turns, put aside the pessimism for a moment. To be alive in the tech-obsessed 2020s is to be among the luckiest people who have ever lived.

1. What phenomenon is described in Paragraph 1?

A．The seriousness of social inequality.

B．The rapid development of technology.

C．Problems brought by personal privacy leaks.

D．Worries about the influence of new technologies.

2. Which word can best describe Romantics' concern over industrialization?

A．Negative.

B．Uncertain.

C．Sympathetic.

D．Enthusiastic.

3. What might be a result of a "technology trap"?

A．A lack of good jobs in the job market.

B．An increase in the number of Luddites.

C．A decrease in the number of skilled workers.

D．An interruption to the advancement of a new technology.

4. What is the best title for the text?

A．Pessimism vs Progress	B．Technology vs Civilization
C．2020s: The Age of Technology	D．Robots: Our Future Caretakers