【推荐1】My best friend travelled to stay with my family last weekend. when she arrived, she went straight to the kitchen and, without asking, ate some dried fruit. She wasn’t being rude. I knew she would do this. We’ve known each other for almost 20 years. She can eat anything she wants from my kitchen. Indeed, I bought her favorite fruits and snacks at the shop that morning.

Our long weekend together was simple. I was recovering from surgery and couldn't go to shopping malls, We passed the time running errands（差事）, but there's never been a quiet moment. We’ve lived in different cities for almost a decade, Reunions demand conversation.

Our personalities are matched, to be sure，and a shared history is indescribably（难以形容地）valuable. We were competitors at high school before bonding. Then we discovered the many interests that we had in common. Our friendship developed itself quickly. We stayed companions and supported each other through law school and through our first jobs. Ours is a friendship for the ages.

There is something special about friends who know everything about you. They are rare. They have seen your bright lights of achievements, the depths of desperation（绝望的境地）and the boring routine of the in-between. It's special to unpack feelings without wasting time filling in the blanks. As my long weekend shows, with such friends we don't have to “do”, but we simply have to “be”. We drop the act, the performance, the public version of ourselves, The special friendships are those which never fail to delight, whose continuation is worth the extra effort, despite distance and difference in our separate lives. I had the very great joy of this reminder last weekend. I'm lucky to have found this friend, and to see a future where her companionship remains. Being together is perfection.

1. What can we infer from Para. 2?

A．They talked constantly about their lives.	B．They enjoyed running errands.
C．They had a noisy weekend	D．They quarreled at times.

2. What does the author appreciate about their friendship?

A．They help each other achieve in their fields

B．They’re best friends despite different hobbies

C．They inspire each other to be their best selves.

D．They' re comfortable just being themselves

3. What message is conveyed in the last paragraph?

A．Real friends are easy to make

B．Good friendships need devotion

C．Special friendships may fail to delight.

D．Distance and difference bring friendship

4. Why does the author write this text?

A．To express thanks to her best friend

B．To share the friendship she treasures.

C．To describe what her best friend is like

D．To explain how she offers help to her friend

【推荐2】The dirty, homeless man sat on the pavement, staring at the stones. He thought back more than twenty years to when he was a boy living in a small red brick house on this very street. He recalled the flower garden, the swing his dad made, and the bike he had saved up for months to buy.

The man shrugged impatiently, for the brightness of those pictures hurt him, and his memory traveled on another ten years. He had a job by then, plenty of friends and started to come home less. He did not really want to remember those years, nor the day when, because of debts, he had gone home planning to ask for money. He felt embarrassed, but he knew exactly where his dad kept the money. When his parents stepped out of the room, he took what he wanted and left.

That was the last time he had seen them. Ashamed, he went abroad, and his parents knew nothing about the years of wandering or time in prison. But locked in his cell he often thought of home. Once free, he would love to see his parents again, if they were still alive, and still wanted to see him.

When his prison time was up, he found a job, but couldn’t settle. Something was drawing him home. He did not want to arrive penniless, so he hitchhiked most of the long journey back. But less than a mile from his destination he started to feel sick with doubt. Could they ever accept this man who had so bitterly disappointed them?

He spent most of that day sitting under a tree. That evening he posted a letter which, although short, had taken him hours to write. It ended with:

I know it is unreasonable of me to suppose you want to see me ... so it’s up to you. I’ll come early Thursday morning. If you want me home, hang a white handkerchief in the window of my old bedroom. If it’s there, I’ll come in; if not, I’ll wave good-bye and go.

And now it was Thursday morning and he was sitting on the pavement at the end of the street. Finally he got up and walked slowly toward the old house. He drew a long breath and looked.

His parents were taking no risks. 　　1　　

The man threw his head back, gave a cry of relief and ran straight through the open front door.
1. Why did the man shrug impatiently (paragraph 2) while he was thinking of his childhood?

A．The thoughts made him angry.

B．He felt he had wasted time.

C．He was anxious to go home.

D．The sweet memory caused him much pain.

2. Why did it take him hours to write the letter?

A．He doubted if his parents still lived in that house.

B．He had much news to tell his parents.

C．He felt ashamed to ask for forgiveness.

D．He was longing to return home and felt excited.

3. In what order did the following events take place?
a. He took the money from his parents.
b. He bought a bicycle with his savings.
c. He was sentenced to prison.
d. He wrote the letter home.
e. He sat on the pavement.
f. He hitchhiked back home.

A．b, a, c, d, e, f	B．b, a, c, f, d, e
C．a, c, b, d, f, a	D．a, d, b, c, e, f

4. Which of the following best fits into paragraph 8?

A．Every inch of the house was covered in white. Sheets, pillowcases and table clothes had been placed on every window and door, making it look like a snow house.

B．The house before him was just as he remembered: the red bricks, the brown door and nothing else.

C．A colorful blanket was over the front door. On it, in large letters, was written, “Welcome home, son”.

D．A police car was parked in the drive way, and two officers stood at the front door.

5. The best title of the passage is _______.

A．Sweet Memory	B．White Handkerchief
C．Abandoned Son	D．Leaving Home

【推荐3】Ernest Hemingway,like all writers,means different things to different people.To some,he represents a hunting,drinking,smoking,and aggressive male.To my high school mind,he was just some old white guy going on about a fisherman desperate to catch a large sea fish—though Ms.Frederieks,my English teacher,had forced us to read The Old Man and the Sea,I didn't come to appreciate it,nor any of Hemingway's books,until much later.But in my early 20s,someone mailed me a dusty copy of Hemingway's first novel,The Sun Also Rises.I'd never read anything quite like it—and haven't since.

Today marks the 90th anniversary of the publication of that book,A masterpiece of the form,The Sun Also Rises is a rare achievement in its power.Its brief yet evocative(引起共鸣的)sentences made a strong impression as I was beginning to develop my own love of words;“Don't you ever get the feeling that all your life is going by and you're not taking advantage of it?”one character asks narrator Jake,an American newspaper                    reporter.“Do you realize you've lived nearly half the time you have to live already?”

None of Hemingway's other works,though some were good and even great,quite expressed the idea of desire and longing that his first novel does.But there's also an obvious sadness that affects the entire novel,which,in truth,is what attracted me more than anything.How could these depressed and often insufferable characters be drawn so beautifully?And how on earth could such simple,undecorated writing carry this kind of emotional weight?Nathaniel Hawthorne says it best:"Easy reading is extremely hard writing."

But for me,it's much more than that.When I read?The Sun Also Rises-and I go back to it every few yeas-I'm instantly transported to Pamplona,where Hemingway's characters go to watch the bullfights.I visited Pamplona as a kid with my family,and I too watched the bullfights with my father—who randomly sent me this wonderful book.

1. What did the author think of Hemingway when he way in high school?

A．A puzzle

B．A specialist.

C．A legend.

D．A passer-by.

2. What do we know about The Sun Also Rises?

A．It is a best seller.	B．It was published a century ago.
C．Its simple words are appealing.	D．It's Hemingway's most popular novel.

3. What can we infer about the author from the text?

A．He is crazy about travelling.	B．He was greatly affected by the book
C．He attached importance to reading.	D．He enjoyed looking back on old days.

4. Which column is the passage possibly from?

A．Review.

B．News.

C．Anecdote.

D．History.

【推荐2】Eliud Kipchoge’s extraordinary sub-two-hour marathon in Vienna on Saturday is one of the greatest sporting achievements—recording a time that has never been achieved before, again. It is a time on the fringes (边缘) of what scientists believe is humanly possible.

“It is a great feeling to make history in sport after Sir Roger Bannister in 1954. I am the happiest man in the world to be the first human to run under two hours and I can tell people that no human is limited,” Kipchoge said afterwards.

Is he right? Where are the limits of human ability? And how close are we to reaching them?

Raph Brandon, head of science for England cricket, distinguishes between achievements which are constrained (限制) by human anatomy (解剖学), and those which require human determination or skill.

“When Bolt ran 9.58 in Berlin 10 years ago, if you analyse the split times it’s very hard to imagine where the improvement comes from,” said Brandon, “The Usain Bolt 100m or the two-hour marathon, they’re in that category.”

Multi-day, ultra-endurance events, such as Thomas’s cross-Channel swim, are different, Brandon said.

“They need determination, psychology and bloody-mindedness to go that little bit further. Those people will continue to do unique things because you’re not really taking the body to its anatomical limit. It’s more a question of how much you’re prepared to consume and exhaust yourself.”

And there’s a third category, those sporting endeavours (努力) that rely on hand-eye coordination: the goal tallies of Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, and the batting of Virat Kohli Steve Smith or Don Bradman, who trained by hitting a golf ball with a stump against a wall to become the best batsman ever to play Test cricket.

Equipment has been a factor for many sports. NFL receivers wear gloves that enable them to make improbable one-handed catches. The GB cycling team swept the board at the Olympics because of their amazing new clothing tech.

The line between what is fair and unfair is blurry. Kipchoge’s sub-two-hour run will not be officially recognized. He ran behind a car which beamed a green laser on to the ground in front of him. Teams of pacemakers, 41 in total, ran in a v-formation to protect him from headwinds (逆风). He wore specially designed shoes and the time and date of the event were picked only after detailed weather forecasting.

Jo Davies, a sport psychologist, says recent studies have shown athletes can push themselves harder because of their perception of exhaustion.

Other research published this year which looked at athletes who had won multiple gold medals found that they were different in several important ways. They had often had a shocking and upsetting life experience and had suffered significant setbacks in their performance during their careers, as well as personality traits of determination, perseverance and perfectionism.

So whether or not those limits have been reached, there will be no shortage of people prepared to try to go beyond them.

1. Why is Eliud Kipchoge’s sub-two-hour marathon considered extraordinary?

A．It was made in Vienna on a weekend.

B．It pushed the limits of human ability.

C．It proved that there was no boundary of his achievements.

D．It was greater than the record kept by Sir Roger Bannister.

2. The Usain Bolt 100m and the two-hour marathon belong to the same category in that ________.

A．they need great determination or skills	B．they can be achieved via equipment
C．they rely on hand-eye coordination	D．they are reaching anatomical limit

3. Kipchoge’s sub-two-hour marathon will not be officially recognized because ________.

A．he was followed by pacemakers	B．he was caught in headwinds
C．he got much special help	D．he didn’t run on the picked day

4. It can be inferred from the last three paragraphs that ________.

A．Jo Davies believes that athletes make progress in the same way

B．anatomical limit prevents athletes from having sad life experience

C．an athlete who has suffered setbacks will win gold medals

D．whether an athlete can succeed or not may depend on himself

【推荐1】When we think about people who are leaders, we often get a mental picture of someone who is older, smarter, and wiser than ourselves. Studies of leadership, though, have usually found that there is almost no relationship between skill as a leader and traditional measures of intelligence.

Some recent research by psychologist Red Fiedle and his colleagues suggests that both intelligence and experience may be important—but just now how important depends upon how stressful the work situation is and what kind of task is to be accomplished. The researchers obtained measures of intelligence, experience, performance, and stress.

Overall, these variables did not relate to one another. Men with high and low intelligence were equally likely to give good performance, as were men with more and less experience, or more and less stress with their bosses. When you look separately at those men who have high stress with their bosses, however, the picture changes.

In high stress situations, there was no connection between intelligence and performance, but there was between experience and performance. In other words, in difficult situations, it was helpful to “know the ropes”. In low stress situations, the findings were just the opposite. Experience was not related to good performance, but intelligence was. That is, when things are going well, intelligence is very useful in leadership.

A study of fire fighters’ performance under high and low stress conditions also found the experienced officers performed best under situations of stress. None of this is really very surprising. If you have ever had a supervisory job, you probably found that at least as much energy went into dealing with people as went into managing the job itself. Tests of intelligence—at least the ones we have now—do not predict success in dealing with people.

1. What kind of people can do the best job in stress situation?

A．intelligent people	B．experienced people
C．calm people	D．skilled people

2. In the second sentence of the fourth paragraph, “to know the ropes” most probably means_____.

A．to understand the situation	B．to control the situation
C．to get rid of the situation	D．to make sure what to do about the situation

3. In the third sentence of the last paragraph, “a supervisory job” refers to         .

A．a management job	B．an advisory job
C．a teaching job	D．an organizing job

4. Which of the following statements is true according to the passage?

A．In stress situations, there are no association between experience and performance.

B．Some recent research suggests that most leaders are lack of intelligence.

C．In low stress situations, intelligence plays an important role in leadership.

D．Generally speaking leaders are likely to be cleverer than ordinary people.

【推荐2】Cooperation at work is generally seen as a good thing. The latest survey by the Financial Times of what employers want from MBA graduates found that the ability to work with a wide variety of people was what managers wanted most. But managers always have to balance the benefits of teamwork, which help ensure that everyone is working towards the same goal, with the dangers of “groupthink” when critics are reluctant to point out a plan’s drawbacks for fear of being kept out of the group. The disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961 was a classic case of groupthink. Skeptics were reluctant to challenge John F. Kennedy, the newly elected American president.

Modern communication methods mean that cooperation is more frequent. Workers are constantly in touch with each other via e-mail messaging groups or mobile calls. But does that improve, or lower performance? A new study by three American academics, tried to answer this question. They set a logical problem (designing the shortest route for a travelling salesman visiting various cities). Three groups were involved: one where subjects acted independently; another where they saw the solutions posted by team members at every stage; and a third where they were kept informed of each other’s views only intermittently.

The survey found that members of the individualist group reached the premier solution more often than the constant cooperators but had a poorer average result. The intermittent cooperators found the right result as often as the individualists, and got a better average solution. When it comes to ideal generation, giving people a bit of space to a solution seems to be a good idea. Occasional cooperation can be a big help: most people have benefited from a colleague’s brainwave or (just as often) wise advice to avoid a particular course of action.

Further clues come from a book, Superminds, by Thomas Malone of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He says that three factors determine the collective intelligence of cooperating groups: social intelligence (how good people were at rating the emotional states of others); the extent to which members took part equally in conversation (the more equal, the better); and the cooperation of women in the group (the higher, the better). Groups ranked highly in these areas cooperated far better than others.

In short, cooperation may be a useful tool but it doesn’t work in every situation.

1. The author cites the example of The Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in paragraph 1 to _______.

A．prove that team players are skilled at communication

B．show that teamwork cannot always be beneficial

C．prove that critics are unwilling to challenge anybody

D．show the danger of groupthink is not very serious

2. The underlined phrase “the intermittent cooperators” in paragraph 3 refers to _______.

A．those who do not cooperate but reach the best solution

B．those who are seldom informed of other’s views

C．those who cooperate with others occasionally

D．the constant cooperators with a poor average result

3. Which of the following factors makes a team cooperate better?

A．Group members cooperating all the time.

B．Group members in a good emotional state.

C．Equal distribution of men and women.

D．Equal participation in the communication.

4. Which can be the best title of the passage?

A．When Teamwork Works	B．What Teamwork Is About
C．How Teamwork Operates	D．A Useful Tool: Cooperation

【推荐3】More than 30 volunteers organized by the village Party committee were participating in a group effort to produce gauze (纱布) masks, alcohol liquid and sterilizing powder (消毒粉) at a factory in southwest China's Yunnan Province to help arm the fight against the novel coronavirus (新型冠状病毒). Some villagers also had given away their sewing machines for the production work at Yunnan Xiangsha Medical Material Company in Anning City.

Volunteers addressed the labor, shortage during the Spring Festival holiday at the factory, which had begun to produce on. Friday. They received body temperature checks and training before the work started, with volunteers able to use the sewing machines being more than 50 years old on average. Seventy-nine-year-old Chu Shudong, who had 30 years of tailoring experience, volunteered to repair the sewing machines.“I've not done tailoring for 20 years. I'm old and my eyesight is poor. I hope to do what I can here and make more masks so that people are protected, ”he said. The youngest volunteer, 22-year-old Bi Qiling, joined the: team. She's available because the new semester at her university in Beijing was delayed because of the novel coronavirus outbreak.

“With the volunteers, our production capacity is higher. We have 65 people, divided into two groups, and work on two shifts (轮班) a day. All the machines are working around the clock,”said Hang Kaijin, head of the factory, which has the ability to produce two tons of alcohol liquid and 200 kilograms of sterilizing power every day.

It sent its production information to the city government on a daily basis and the products were all allocated by the government.

1. What did villagers donate for the production?

A．Raw materials.	B．Clean gauze.
C．Sewing machines.	D．Alcohol liquid.

2. What can we know about the volunteers from paragraph 2?

A．The average age of the volunteers able to use sewing machines was over 50.

B．Chu Shudong, an experienced tailor at the age of 78, offered to do some sewing.

C．Volunteers having 30 years of tailoring experience should receive body temperature checks. .

D．Bi Qiling, a girl, was turned down by the university because of the novel coronavirus outbreak.

3. How did the volunteers work?

A．Most of the volunteers worked twice a day.

B．All of the volunteers. worked. 12 hours in the daytime.

C．Two groups of volunteers took turns to work 24 hours a day.

D．Volunteers were divided into two groups, each working 8 hours.

4. The act of the volunteers proved that____

A．great minds think alike	B．more hands produce a stronger flame
C．two heads are better than one	D．God helps those who help themselves .

【推荐1】Terrafugia Inc. said Monday that its new flying car has completed its first flight, bringing the company closer to its goal of selling the flying car within the next year. The vehicle --- named the Transition --- has two seats, four wheels and wings that fold up so it can be driven like a car. The Transition, which flew at 1,400 feet for eight minutes last month, can reach around 70 miles per hour on the road and 115 in the air. It flies using a 23-gallon tank of gas and bums 5 gallons per hour in the air. On the ground, it gets 35 miles per gallon.

Around 100 people have already put down a $10,000 deposit to get a Transition when they go on sale, and those numbers will likely rise after Terrafugia introduces the Transition to the public later this week at the New York Auto Show. But don’t expect it to show up in too many driveways. It’s expected to cost $279,000. And it won’t help if you’re stuck in traffic. The car needs a runway.

Inventors have been trying to make flying cars since the 1930s, according to Robert Mann, an airline industry expert. But Mann thinks Terrafugia has come closer than anyone to making the flying car a reality. The government has already permitted the company to use special materials to make it easier for the vehicle to fly. The Transition is now being tasted on its performace to make sure it meets federal safety standards.

Mann said Terrafugia was helped by the Federal Aviation Administration’s decision five years ago to create a separate set of standards for light sport aircraft, which are lower than those for pilots of larger planes. Terrafugia says an owner would need to pass a test and complete 20 hours of flying time to be able to fly the Transition, a requirement pilots would find relatively easy to meet.

1. What is the first paragraph mainly about?

A．The basic data of the Transition.

B．The advantages of flying cars.

C．The present market for flying cars.

D．The designers of the Transition.

2. Why won’t the Transition show up in too many driveways?

A．It causes traffic jams.

B．It is difficult to operate.

C．It is very expensive.

D．It burns too much fuel.

3. What is the government’s attitude to the development of the flying car?

A．Tolerant

B．Supportive

C．Unclear

D．Disapproving

4. What is the author’s purpose in writing the passage?

A．To encourage people to buy flying cars.

B．To raise money for developing flying cars.

C．To attract people to attend the pilot-training course.

D．To introduce the latest information of flying cars.

【推荐2】The Alpha Go program’s victory is an example of how smart computers have become.

But can artificial intelligence (AI) machines act ethically—can they be honest and fair?

One example of AI is driverless cars. They are already on California roads, so it is not too soon to ask whether we can program a machine to act ethically. As driverless cars improve, they will save lives. They will make fewer mistakes than human drivers do. Sometimes, however, they will face a choice between lives. Should the cars be programmed to avoid hitting a child running across the road, even if that will put their passengers at risk? What about making a sudden turn to avoid a dog? What if the only risk is damage to the car itself, no to the passengers?

Perhaps there will be lessons to learn from driverless cars, but they are not super-intelliger beings. Teaching ethics to a machine even more intelligent than we are will be the bigger challenge.

About the same time as AlphaGo’s victory, Microsoft’s ‘chatbot’ took a bad turn. The software, named Taylor, was designed to answer messages from people aged 18-24. Taylor was supposed to be able to learn from the messages she received. She was designed to slowly improve her ability to handle conversations, but some people were teaching Taylor racist ideas. When she started saying nice things about Hitler, Microsoft turned her off and deleted her ugliest messages.

Alpha Go’s victory and Taylor’s defeat happened at about the same time. This should be a warning to us. It is one thing to use AI within a game with clear rules and clear goals. It is something very different to use AI in the real world. The unpredictability of the real world may bring to the surface a troubling software problem.

Eric Schmidt is one of the bosses of Google, which own AlphaGo. He thinks AI will be positive for humans. He said people will be the winner, whatever the outcome. Advances in AI will make human beings smarter, more able and “just better human beings.”

1. What does the author want to show with the example of AlphaGo’s victory?

A．Computers will win human beings.

B．Computers have unmatched potential.

C．Computers are man’s potential opponents (对手).

D．Computers can become highly intelligent.

2. What is said to be the bigger challenge facing humans in the AI age?

A．How to make super-intelligent AI machines share human feelings.

B．How to ensure that super-intelligent AI machines act ethically.

C．How to prevent AI machines doing harm to humans.

D．How to avoid being over-dependent on AI machines.

3. What do we learn about Microsoft’s ‘chatbot’ Taylor?

A．She could not distinguish good from bad.

B．She could turn herself off when necessary.

C．She was not made to handle strange situations.

D．She was good at performing routine tasks.

4. What does Eric Schmidt think of artificial intelligence?

A．It will be far superior to human beings.

B．It will keep improving as time goes by.

C．It will prove to be valuable to human beings.

D．It will be here to stay whatever the outcome.

【推荐3】Parents around the world often urge children over and over-wash your hands! It can be difficult, however, to get children to remember to wash. But what if washing hands was connected to a fun creative activity? What if instead of simply reaching for the soap, a machine could drop it right into your hands?

Well, such a machine was recently built by a boy and his sister in the U.S. state of Maryland as part of a creative competition.The not-for-profit Rube Goldberg Organization is holding the competition.

Every year, the Rube Goldberg competition assigns a specific task, considering inventions that use complex systems to carry out a simple everyday task. At first, the task for 2020 was supposed to be “turn on a light.” But when the COVID-19 happened, the task was changed to “drop a bar of soap into someone’s hand.”

Those taking part in the competition are schoolchildren. But with schools closed to slow the spread of the virus, organizers changed the rules. This year, the team can include any family members and people were asked to send in recordings of the machines to compete. One thing has not changed: The machine must complete the task in less than 10 steps.

In Maryland, the Diel family wanted to enter. So, Caitlin and her brother Ben designed and built their own Rube Goldberg machine. Next, they had to demonstrate that it could complete the task-throwing the soap just right to be caught in someone’s hand. After 106 failed attempts, they finally had success. With their video demonstration, they can now enter the competition.

Dr. Anne Glowinski teaches child psychiatry (精神病学) at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. She said that “creativity and play” connects with children. It is better than the message. “We have to wash our hands because of this horrible virus”. Glowinski added.

1. What might be a task of inventions assigned by the Rube Goldberg competition?

A．Sweeping the floor.

B．Exploring nature.

C．Writing a novel.

D．Painting the house.

2. What change has been made to the rules of the competition this year?

A．All kinds of inventions are admitted.

B．A video of the entry is qualified to enter.

C．Teachers are encouraged to get involved.

D．The task must be finished within 10 steps.

3. What does Glowinski think of the invention?

A．Practical.

B．Unnecessary.

C．Economical.

D．Complicated.

4. What’s the purpose of the text?

A．To advocate the habit of washing hands.

B．To call on schoolchildren to compete in a contest.

C．To encourage more inventions from everyday items.

D．To introduce a contest making handwashing fun for kids.