【推荐1】Sometimes the simple act of being outside every day can be good to you. We often forget about what nature has to offer by staying inside too much. Going outside, you’ll probably be exposed to numerous sensations (感觉). You might hear the crunch of leaves under your feet, concentrate on how the breeze cools your skin, and feel the sun offering its natural warmth.

Time outside also reminds you how you share your time on Earth with countless creatures and that you must live in harmony with them. The more often you encounter animals in their natural habitats, the easier it will be to recall why it’s so important to treat the outdoors with respect. After coming in contact with a squirrel, for example, you may be especially careful to throw your trash away in the nearest garbage can in case of some harmful leftover food. That’s because you’ve just been reminded that you’re not the only living thing to come in contact with what’s now rubbish.

Spending too much time indoors may cause us to become too isolated from others, especially if we use much time in front of computer screens. It seems that a computer connected to the Internet allows you to share parts of your world with other people, but actually it can also make us feel more disconnected from others for lack of face-to-face communication. The time outside with a loved one allows you to take part in a shared experience. For instance, you can call attention to a type of flower that’s just started blooming and allow your companions to marvel (奇迹) at its beauty. That’s a similar shared experience.

Anyhow, it is not as hard as you might imagine. You may just decide to start an outdoor practice that takes you outside for a certain amount of time, preferably every day. The last 15minutes of your lunch break strolling outside with a friend and some after-dinner family time discussing your days can be good options. Get off the computer and head outside! You’ll feel how your choice pays off.

1. According to paragraph 1, going outside offers an opportunity for people to ________.

A．enjoy sensory experience	B．achieve better concentration
C．bring back distant memories	D．participate in simple activities

2. The underlined word “encounter” in the 2nd paragraph is closest in meaning to ________.

A．experience

B．discover

C．meet

D．hunt

3. According to the passage, those spending most time indoors may suffer from ________.

A．attention disorder	B．loneliness attack
C．Internet addiction	D．communication barrier

4. Which of the following is the best title?

A．Too Much Time Indoors Does Great Harm.

B．Time Outside Involves a Shared Experience.

C．Staying Inside Gives a Different Perspective.

D．A Daily Exposure to Nature Makes a Difference.

【推荐2】Have you ever noticed how plants can teach us all about the intricacies of life, if only we take the time to observe and listen? Look at how each plant plays a part in the loving whole.     1    

Put down roots

It can be long term or short term, but putting down roots and grounding yourself is important for your growth. When you’re stuck, it gives you a certain sense of freedom to grow in a way that’s most beneficial to you in that particular space while sharing your love.

Be flexible

You read about putting down roots. But a huge part of nature is learning how to be uprooted and blossom wherever you are.     2     Do you notice how plants just keep on changing with the seasons and the times? They are unbelievable!

Get lots of sunshine

    3       Even when it’s muted through the clouds, smog or fog. Not only is sunshine lifting and inspiring for your soul but for your body, too. Get outside and experience all the joys of beautiful sunshine.

Keep growing

    4     Sometimes they may not grow so fast due to lack of nourishment in some form, but they keep on growing. They obey their time and keep doing everything they can until the time when the food fills them up to fully flourish into their best plant selves. Just like humans.

Be attractive as you

You know all those different plants out there? You know —the ones that are regarded as weeds in some areas and as attractiveness in other areas?     5     Every plant serves a purpose just as it is. You are beautiful just by being you, too!

What are you waiting for? Get out there and Be like plants!

A．It’s like each of us.

B．Everything in nature is beautiful.

C．Every day the plants get sunshine.

D．Plants can recover from natural disasters.

E．Plants continue growing whatever happens.

F．Every plant is as beautiful as human beings.

G．You can put down roots once or many times.

【推荐3】About 97% of the world’s water is salty and is found in our oceans and seas. But, as we can’t drink sea water, how can it be important?

Every part of our seas and oceans contains an amazing number of animals that live at different ocean depths. Most of the different species of animals and fish depend on simple plants for their food. These simple plants called algae (海藻) drift near the surface of the ocean and use sunlight to turn carbon dioxide and water into food and oxygen. In fact, algae produce over half of the oxygen people breathe. How important sea water is!

Each plant or animal in our seas and oceans is an important link in a food chain. The algae are eaten in large amounts by microscopic (微小的) animals, which are in turn consumed by larger animals. These food chains are delicately balanced.

The bad news about the food chains in the oceans is that they are under threat because of man. People once thought that the oceans were so big that it didn’t matter if we dumped rubbish into them or caught huge quantities of fish and whales for food. But we now know this is not true and fish stocks in the oceans have started to drop.

Thankfully, the world is taking steps to protect the future of our oceans by introducing international agreements to protect marine habitats (海域). Most countries have introduced fishing restrictions to protect fish stocks in the oceans and new techniques are being pioneered (提倡) to cope with pollution. Finally, the importance of protecting oceans is being made known to more people. This is just the beginning of a long process to protect the oceans for our future. We depend on the oceans for fish which are an important part of the human diet. How important sea water is!

1. Which of the following is the proper order of the food chain?

A．small animals→algae→microscopic animals→large animals→man

B．algae→microscopic animals→large animals→larger animals→man

C．small animals→algae→large animals→microscopic animals→man

D．microscopic animals→algae→large animals→larger animals→man

2. People used to think that the rubbish thrown into the sea ____.

A．wouldn’t harm the fish in the sea

B．would change the balance of the food chain

C．would be broken down in the sea

D．wouldn’t do much harm to the sea

3. From the passage, we learn that ____.

A．most fish and sea animals live at the surface of the seas

B．it is very difficult to break the balance of a food chain

C．excessive fishing has caused the decrease in fish stocks

D．it won’t be long before the problems concerning oceans are solved

4. Which of the following is NOT a way being used to protect the oceans?

A．The use of international agreements.

B．Forbidding fishing to protect fish stocks.

C．The use of new techniques.

D．Raising people’s awareness of protecting the oceans.

【推荐2】Researchers around the world interested in uncovering complex human disorders, such as Alzheimer’s disease, could soon have access to cloned monkeys with genomes that have been edited to display these conditions in China.

On 24 January, scientists at the Institute of Neuroscience (ION) in Shanghai reported that they had used gene-editing to disable a gene in monkeys that is crucial to their sleep- wake cycle. The scientists then cloned one of those monkeys to produce five primates (灵 长目动物)with almost identical (相同的) genes. It is the first time that researchers have cloned a gene-edited monkey.

Primates are the best animal model for studying higher cognitive (认知的)functions and brain disorders in humans, says neuroscientist Mu-ming Poo, ION’S director and co-founder of the new 720 million yuan (US$106 million) centre. The advantage of creating cloned monkeys is that it reduces the number of animals needed for certain types of experiments, such as testing whether a drug works.

But some scientists think that experiments using monkeys should be a last approach because of their higher levels of cognition. Mitchell Lazar, who studies metabolic disease at the University of Pennsylvania, says that some experiments in mice—for example, research into the genes behind human diseases—are equally appropriate scientifically as in primates. Research in mice is also more accepted by the public, and the animals are cheaper and quicker to produce. Lazar worries that if scientists have ready access to populations of gene-edited monkeys, they might use them for experiments when rodents (啮齿动物)would do.

Poo says that mice are not a good substitute for studying higher cognitive functions and brain disorders in humans. He argues that cloning will reduce the burden on monkeys by cutting the number used in labs. The ION follows strict international guidelines for animal research, he says.

Poo’s team will continue to study the effect of gene editing on their five cloned monkeys. The group disabled a gene, BMAL1, that has a crucial role in maintaining circadian rhythm (生理节奏)，the internal clock that helps a healthy sleep-wake cycle. In people, BMAL1 mutations have been linked to diabetes, hypertension and depression.

The monkeys with the disabled BMAL1 genes move more at night and sleep less overall. They also display psychosis-related symptoms, such as fear and anxiety, when put in unfamiliar environments.

The team ’ s next step is to look in detail at the neural (神经的)mechanisms that might create these problems. It will also take advantage of the genetically identical monkeys to hunt for diagnostic markers of circadian rhythm-related disorders and possible treatments.

1. Why were the genetically identical monkeys cloned?

A．To prove scientists’ innovation in cloning animals.

B．To study the rare characteristics of cloned monkeys.

C．To explore many possibilities for monkeys’ cognition.

D．To provide improved animal models of human diseases.

2. What does Mitchell Lazar think of cloning monkeys?

A．It is of little value.

B．It is of much practice.

C．It is hardly acceptable.

D．It is completely illegal.

3. From the passage we can know that Poo’s team will .

A．continue to disable a gene on the monkeys

B．try to clone more monkeys and edit their genes

C．find the similarities between humans and monkeys

D．determine the cause of sleep disorders and find cures

4. What’s the main idea of the passage?

A．Chinese effort to clone gene-edited monkeys kicks off.

B．Chinese dream to clone monkeys has finally come true.

C．Cloning monkeys is an important breakthrough in science.

D．Cloning gene-edited monkeys has caused some moral risks.

【推荐3】Living by the forest may be romantic, but living in a city makes you more attractive to the opposite sex if you are a frog, at least.

Increasingly, recent studies have shown significant differences between urban animals and rural creatures from the same species —and this makes a lot of sense. Mankind is causing dramatic changes over a wide range of environments and many creatures are slowly adapting to urban conditions. Just recently, researchers found that some urban spiders are no longer afraid of lights; now, a new study reports that city life makes male frogs more attractive.

The authors, led by Wouter Halfwerk from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, compared the “chuck” calls of frogs living in both urban areas and forests near the Panama Canal. Previous research had found that creatures, such as birds, frogs, and grasshoppers sing or call differently in noisy urban areas, but it was unclear what the effects of these changes are.

“Urbanization can cause species to adjust their sexual displays, because the effectiveness of mating signals is influenced by environmental conditions,” researchers write in the study. “Despite many examples that show that mating signals in urban conditions differ from those in rural conditions, we do not know whether these differences provide a combined reproductive and survival benefit.”

Now, researchers found that urban frogs “sing” more often and use more complex calls than their rural counterparts. They then recorded these calls and played them back to female frogs in the lab. They found that 75% of the females were more attracted to the more complex urban calls.

It’s not exactly clear why this happens, though researchers suspect it has a lot to with how safe the environment is. While calling out can help you get a mate, it can also draw in predators. Since cities generally have far fewer predators, frogs are free and safe to let out their sounds. “It definitely shows that if you change the abundance of predators, parasites(寄生虫) and mates, that induces a strong evolutionary response,” says Halfwerk.

1. Which is an example of animals adapting to the urban conditions?

A．The frogs in the city can live longer.

B．Some urban spiders are used to the lights.

C．The female frogs in the city can attract more male frogs.

D．Some creatures in the city begin to increase their calls.

2. The difference of urban creatures is________.

A．helping these animals find partners easily	B．helping these animals survive in the city
C．having no clear conclusion up to now	D．having powerful abilities to give birth

3. Urban frogs are more attractive because of________.

A．the pleasant looks	B．their smells
C．the ability to catch pests	D．their singing

4. What is the meaning of the underlined word “predators” in paragraph 6?

A．Animals which live on frogs.	B．Insects which frogs like to eat.
C．Frogs which have larger size.	D．Birds which sing better than rural ones.