【推荐1】If you don’t want people to know much about you, you’d better keep your fridge contents secret, according to a British market research document released last week.

Researchers studied the fridges of 400 people in Britain and compared the contents with the owners’ lifestyles. They claim to be able to classify the nation’s people by fridge contents. They say those people can be separated into five categories: nutrition nerds (痴迷者), food -trend chasers (whatever is fashionable), strict mums, fast food fans and restaurant regulars.

Nutrition nerds care much about what they put into their bodies. Their fridges are filled with fruit, vegetables and healthy meat. People in this category tend to be highly organized and usually work as lawyers or accountants (会计). The majority of them are single, but if they have a partner, that person will be similar.

A fridge full of vitamins—enriched juices shows its owner works in media or fashion. They tend not to eat the foods they buy. Known as the food -trend chasers, they just want to be seen buying the latest important things.

A fridge filled with everything from steak to frozen fish suggests the strict mum. Her fridge tends to be filled with every kind of product, except what she herself wants. This fridge shows difficulty in balancing family and work life.

Fast food fans always buy mineral water or soda pop. The nearest they will get to fresh fruit is tomato sauce. Their fridges show someone who works hard and plays hard, and someone who doesn’t like long term planning.

1. What did the researchers find out?

A．People in Britain like to eat out.

B．Most British people don’t eat healthily.

C．There are five types of people in the world.

D．People’s characters can be reflected by their fridge contents.

2. What can you infer about nutrition nerds?

A．They rarely eat meat.

B．They are mostly single.

C．They care about food quality and expenses.

D．Their lives are organized by lawyers or accountants.

3. What do we know about the five types of people?

A．Nutrition nerds are always organized and successful in their jobs.

B．Strict mums care about others in family more than themselves.

C．Food- -trend chasers like to fill their fridges with tasty foods.

D．Fast food fans usually fill their fridges with fresh fruit.

4. What will those who often eat out put in the fridge?

A．Food rich in vitamins.	B．Only something to drink.
C．Fast food with tomato sauce.	D．Food from restaurants.

【推荐3】Austin residents and businesses are making efforts to put their leftovers to good use. The city is among a handful of U.S.cities aiming for “zero waste”.

For Austin, there are plenty to go around: it annually wastes more than 190 million pounds of food, worth at least $200 million. Those numbers are big, but they're not out of line with national trends-some 40 percent of food in the nation goes to waste. Put in plain terms, that is enough to fill a 90,000-seat stadium each day.

For many, the answer lies in donation. Austin City Limits, one of the city’s influential festivals, gives all unwanted food to the Central Texas Food Bank. And there are volunteer-driven nonprofits that pick up donated food and deliver it to hungry people.

But the best practice, Austin believes, is to use less, and the city is calling on businesses and households to buy the right amount of food. Full Fridge, a new meal-delivery service, solves this problem. “Full Fridge came about because, basically, we were seeing a lot of people not knowing how to prepare food,” says co-founder Mokshika Sharma. They would buy groceries, but not know what to do with them, and end up throwing away a lot.

Her business hopes to end that problem by offering ready-made meals for only five dollars each. Full Fridge also minimizes waste by stopping sales two days before delivery, so the chef and shopper can plan precisely.

Another satisfactory solution is to compost(将......制成堆肥) it. Austin’s restaurants and grocery stores typically contract with composting companies to deal with much of their food waste, and then sell it as fertilizer. Meanwhile, Compost Pedallers, a company created by Dustin Fedako, is working on bicycle-powered compost collection.

“We play the dot-connecter,” says Fedako, “getting the material from those of us who are making it to the people in the community who use it as a resource to grow more food, and to grow better quality food.”

1. What do the figures in Paragraph 2 indicate?

A．The urgent need for donated food.	B．The rapid growth in food donation.
C．The ambitious goal of “zero waste”.	D．The serious problem of food waste.

2. Paragraph 3 mainly talks about Austin' s efforts to______.

A．feed the hungry.	B．make use of leftovers.
C．build more volunteer-driven nonprofits.	D．hold festivals to entertain its residents.

3. Who are Full Fridge's target customers?

A．Those with too little food.	B．Those with poor cooking skills.
C．Those with unhealthy eating habits.	D．Those with little time to buy groceries.

4. What does Fedako mean by saying “We play the dot-connecter”?

A．They find it rather easy to collect food waste.

B．They hope people will buy better quality food.

C．They link food waste producers to fertilizer users.

D．They are trying to connect with composting companies.

【推荐2】It's been a rough year for priceless artifacts around the world. In September 2018, a fire wiped out about 90 percent of the collection at the National Museum of Brazil. In April 2019, Paris' Notre Dame Cathedral lost its famous spire in another fire. Most recently, in October, Japan’s 500-year-old Shuri Castle was destroyed — again, by fire.

It's heartbreaking to see even one piece of human history to up in smoke, but there is no need to be depressed. The truth is that we have lost historic sites and artifacts throughout history, to wars and natural disasters. Many are rebuilt or repaired.

Examples include the 18th-century Dresden Frauenkirche in Germany, which was destroyed during the World War II bombing and rebuilt in 2005. There is also the Yellow Crane Tower in Wuhan, China, which dated back to AD 223. It’s been destroyed by fires and wars and rebuilt as many as 11 times.

So it will probably be no different for the National Museum of Brazil, Notre Dame Cathedral, or Shuri Castle. In fact, right after the fire at Notre Dame, French President Emmanuel Macron vowed that it would be rebuilt in five years. During his visit to China in November, it was decided that Chinese experts will participate in the restoration work.

That said, however, there are less fortunate cultural relics—those endangered in Syria and Iraq where wars are ongoing. According to Artnet News, all six UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Syria have been reported damaged. And yet, somehow, they didn't get nearly as much attention as Notre Dame, and probably won't have a chance to be restored to their former glory any time soon.

It might be true that many damaged artifacts make it back. But “many” is not “all”.

1. What are the similarities among the three places mentioned in the first paragraph?
a. They are all of great value.                                 b. They were all destroyed in 2018.
c. Nothing is left after the destruction.                      d. They are all destroyed by fire.

A．a, b

B．a, d

C．a, c

D．c, d

2. Why does the writer mention Dresden Frauenkirche and the Yellow Crane Tower in Paragraph 3?

A．To comfort the heartbreaking readers.

B．To give examples of the rebuilt historic sites.

C．To introduce two places of interest to the readers.

D．To show the importance of rebuilding the historic sites.

3. What can we infer from Paragraph 5?

A．All the cultural relics are damaged in Syria due to the wars.

B．People haven’t recognized the importance of the heritage sites in Syria.

C．The cultural relics in Syria and Iraq are less fortunate because they are worse destroyed.

D．Wars destroyed the heritage sites in Syria and prevent people from restoring them right now.

4. What is the writer’s attitude towards the restoration work of Notre Dame?

A．Favorable.

B．Critical.

C．Indifferent.

D．Doubtful.

【推荐3】Luo Dengping has become famous as the only woman in a group of “spider men”who climb cliffs of up to 100 meters high, without ropes or safety equipment of any kind, for the entertainment of tourists in China’s Guizhou Province.

Men of the Miao people, in Southwest China, have been free-climbing steep cliffs for centuries. They originally developed this skill as part of a custom, to lift coffins(棺材)of relatives up the cliffs and place them in small caves or just hang them on the cliffside, like the Tana Toraja tribe, in Indonesia. The Miao spider men continued climbing the vertical cliffs of Ziyun, in order to collect rare medicinal plants. Today, only a few members of the Miao people still practice this ancient tradition, and one of them is a woman.

Traditionally, only Miao men were considered brave and skilled enough to become spider men, but Luo Dengping had no choice but to break social norms and take up the practice. As the daughter of a skilled spider man, and with no brothers to carry on her family’s tradition, Luo began climbing the cliffs near the village when she was just 15 years old. In the beginning, she felt scared and could barely move on the precarious cliffside, but as time went by, she perfected her skills and, eventually, making her way up the giant rocks using nothing but her hands and feet became routine.

In her late teens, Luo Dengping left the village and became a migrant worker at a construction site in Guangzhou. She returned in 2000, married a villager and had two children. To support her husband, who drives freight trucks for a living, she occasionally climbed nearby cliffs in search of medicinal plants to sell. Then, in 2015, the local government decided to promote the karsts mountain as a tourist attraction, and started hiring spider men to practice their skills for entertainment purposes.

1. Why did Luo Dengping work as spider woman at first?

A．To make more money.	B．To carry on her family’s tradition.
C．To support her husband.	D．To collect medicinal plants.

2. What does the underlined word “precarious”in Paragraph 3 probably mean?

A．Famous.	B．Wet.
C．Dangerous.	D．Unsteady.

3. What is Luo Dengping’s husband?

A．A migrant worker.	B．A performer.
C．A distributor.	D．A driver.

4. What can be the best title for the text?

A．China’s Only “Spider Woman”	B．The Promotion of Ancient Skills
C．A Hobby Makes “Spider Woman”	D．Spider Men Becomes a Must-see

【推荐1】Five years ago, when I taught art at a school in Seattle, I used Tinkertoys as a test at the beginning of a term to find out something about my students. I put a small set of Tinkertoys in front of each student, and said: “Make something out of the Tinkertoys. You have 45 minutes today — and 45minutes each day for the rest of the week.”

A few students hesitated to start. They waited to see what the rest of the class would do. Several others checked the instructions and made something according to one of the model plans provided. Another group built something out of their own imaginations.

Once I had a boy who worked experimentally with Tinkertoys in his free time. His constructions filled a shelf in the art classroom and a good part of his bedroom at home. I was delighted at presence of such a student. Here was an exceptionally(异常地)creative mind at work. His presence meant that I had an unexpected teaching assistant in class whose creativity would infect other students.

Encouraging this kind of thinking has a downside. I ran the risk of losing those students who had a different style of thinking. Without fall one would declare, “But I’m just not creative.”

“Do you dream at night when you’re asleep?”

“Oh, sure.”

“So tell me one of your most interesting dreams.” The student would tell something wildly imaginative. Flying in the sky or in a time machine or growing three heads. “That’s pretty creative. Who does that for you?”

“Nobody. I do it.”

“Really — at night, when you’re asleep?”

“Sure.”

“Try doing in the daytime, in class, okay?”

1. The teacher used Tinkertoys in class in order to           ?

A．make the lessons more exciting	B．know more about the students
C．raise the students’ interest in art	D．teach the students about toy design

2. What do we know about the boy mentioned in Paragraph 3?

A．He liked to help his teacher.	B．He preferred to study alone.
C．He was active in class.	D．He was imaginative.

3. Why did the teacher ask the students to talk about their dreams?

A．To help them to see their creativity.	B．To find out about their sleeping habits.
C．To help them to improve their memory.	D．To find out about their ways of thinking.

【推荐2】Earlier this year, artist   Malik was about to post a   selfie (自拍照）from the Brooklyn Bridge when he had the second thought. He wanted to share something different with his friends and the world.

Malik thought that the social media (媒体）had become impersonal and he wanted to connect with people in a more meaningful way. Therefore, the Reading Project was born. He began leaving piles of his books in famous New York City locations with a card containing simple instructions put inside each one: take a book, read it and share your thoughts with the artist by email.

The piles of books themselves can be seen as works of art, and so is the process (过程）of sharing. Unlike many of the things we share today, he likes to keep the project off social media. To keep the project pure (纯的），he doesn’t even turn around as he walks away once he has left a pile of books. When he has left them behind, he prefers email to be the only way that he learns what happens to them. The project has now taken him — and his books — all over the world, including London.

“I hope people pick them up and I also hope they read them and let me know their feelings on them. And even if they don't let me know, I just hope they will read the books，” Malik said.

He has received thousands of messages from people in more than 30 countries all over the world. For Malik, kooks are meaningless and lifeless if they gather dust(灰尘）on a shelf and are never read again. He intends to carry on with the project for some time，with a plan to visit Brazil and then decides whether he will continue it or not.

Most of all, lie loves the connection the books give him with strangers across the world， which is something that oilier posts could never achieve,

1. What hit Malik when he intended to post a   selfie?

A．His selfie being not very attractive for a long time.

B．That social media made people close to each other.

C．His thoughts that it should be shared with more people.

D．That a new way could be used to connect with the world,

2. Why does Malik prefer others to connect with him by email?

A．He isn’t good at talking with people face to face.

B．It is a quick way to know what happens.

C．He doesn't want to be troubles by social media.

D．He thinks people needn’t know the process of sharing.

3. What can we infer about Malik's project from the text?

A．It won’t last long for a lack of books.

B．It was first started on Brooklyn Bridge.

C．It has improved the relation among strangers.

D．It has proved to be helpful to connect with others.

4. What is the best title for this text?

A．Read Books Offered by Malik

B．Connecting with Strangers by Sharing Books

C．Change the Relationship with Strangers

D．Make Meaningless Books Meaningful

【推荐3】Family-friendly walks

PADLEY GORGE

Next to Grindleford Station, eight miles north of Bakewell, lies Padley Gorge. Trails are kept as natural as possible---it's more a case of finding the gaps in the woods than following a path.

LONGSHAW ESTATE

The 1.7-mile walking route around this National Trust estate skirts the upper end of Padley Gorge. People love the stepping stones, but Longshaw is mostly all about the giant fallen trees, left in place for little hands and feet to delightfully climb over.

HIGGER TOR

A pile of giant rocks dominates Higger Tor, the best of several lookouts along the Ringinglow Road between Hathersage and Sheffield. Walk through the nearby fields, then let the kids climb over hundreds of strangely smooth grey stones. The views out over the Hope Valley are great and impressive, and the rock pools in Burbage Brook are perfect for rowing in.

STANAGE EDGE

Popular with rock climbers, this stone cliff marks the boundary of the mysterious land of the Dark Peak cliff and the grass-covered flat land of White Peak. It's a six mile circular walk from Hathersage. Alternatively, park at the Hollin Bank Car Park and climb half a mile to the top, out of breath.

CHATSWORTH ESTATE

A three-mile circle from Calton Lees Car Park takes in a ruined factory, the pretty village of Edensor and views of Chatsworth House. Appreciate the stretch along the River Derwent---deer often hang out there.

1. Whom is the text intended for?

A．Friends.	B．Farmers.
C．Families.	D．Climbers.

2. Which walks are most suitable for children?

A．HIGGER TOR and STANAGE EDGE.

B．LONGSHAW ESTATE and HIGGER TOR.

C．PADLEY GORGE and LONGSHAW ESTATE.

D．STANAGE EDGE and CHATSWORTH ESTATE.

3. During which walk are you likely to meet with big animals?

A．PADLEY GORGE.	B．LONGSHAW ESTATE.
C．STANAGE EDGE.	D．CHATSWORTH ESTATE.

【推荐1】A team of engineers at Harvard University has been inspired by Nature to create the first robotic fly. The mechanical fly has become a platform for a series of new high-tech systems. Designed to do what a fly does naturally, the tiny machine is the size of a fat housefly. Its mini wings allow it to stay in the air and perform controlled flight tasks.

"It's extremely important for us to think about this as a whole system and not just the sum of a bunch of individual components," said Robert Wood, the Harvard engineering professor who has been working on the robotic fly project for over a decade. A few years ago, his team started piecing together the components. " The added difficulty with a project like this is that actually none of those components are off the shelf and so we have to develop them all on our own," he said.

They engineered a series of systems to start and drive the robotic fly. " The seemingly simple system which just moves the wings has a number of interdependencies on the individual components, each of which individually has to perform well, but then has to be matched well to everything it's connected to," said Wood. The flight device was built into a set of power, computation, sensing and control systems. Wood says the success of the project proves that the flying robot with these tiny components can be built and manufactured.

While this first robotic fly is linked to a small, off-board power source, the goal is eventually to equip it with a built-in power source, so that it might someday perform data-gathering work at rescue sites, in farmers' fields or on the battlefield. " Basically it should be able to take off, land and fly around,"he said.

Wood says the design offers a new way to study flight mechanics and control at insect-scale. Yet, the power, sensing and computation technologies on board could have much broader applications. "You can start thinking about using them to answer open scientific questions, you know, to study biology in ways that would be difficult with the animals, but using these robots instead," he said. " So there are a lot of technologies and open interesting scientific questions that are really what drives us in our daily life."

1. What was the challenge the team of engineers met with while making the robotic fly?

A．The wings of the fly were too small.	B．The components couldn't dependent on each other.
C．They had no ready-made components.	D．They could not piece the components together.

2. Paragraphs 3 and 4 tell us that the robotic fly ______.

A．consists of a flight device and a control system	B．can just fly in limited areas at the present time
C．can collect information from many sources	D．has been put into wide application

3. What can we learn from the last paragraph?

A．The robotic fly is designed to study insects.

B．Animals are not allowed in biological experiments.

C．There used to be few ways to study how insects fly.

D．The design of the robotic fly will inspire more technologies.

4. Which of the following might be the best title of the passage?

A．Father of Robotic Fly	B．Inspiration from Engineering Science
C．Robotic Fly Imitates Real Life Insect	D．Harvard Breaks Through in Insect Study

【推荐2】Comments on the March Issue of Reader 's Digest

40 Smart Ways to Save at the Supermarket Your caution not to fall for fake sales reminded me of the days when I was a stock boy at my neighborhood grocery in the 1950s. One time, we got a delivery of off-brand vegetables. I priced them at ten cents a can. I don't think we sold more than six cans - until I put up a sign that said "Special: Nine for $1." I set them out Thursday evening, and by noon on Saturday they were gone. EDWARD DECKERD, Perryville, Missouri

Bill's Last, Best Gift Tracy Grant's article resonated (引起共鸣) deeply with me. Twelve years ago, my husband, Don, was found to have terminal brain cancer. As his caregiver, I, too, learned to appreciate the people and things around me and not to sweat the small stuff, and in the long run, I became a much better person, Don also gave me his last, best gift of love and peace. ANITA LAWRENCE, Dicego, California

Trapped Inside a Glacier Reading about John All's experience on Mount Himlung was very inspiring to me. A man with 15 broken bones and bleeding internally being able to climb up a 70-foot wall of ice and survive for 18 hours at 20,000 feet is something that I would have thought to be impossible. I am 16 years old and a lifelong reader. Out of all the great content in Reader's Digest, stories like his are the ones I enjoy the most. SAM KIEFFER, Richardson, Texas

Dishes Professional Chefs Cook in the Microwave Microwaving live lobsters is cruel. Because lobsters feel pain, Switzerland has recently outlawed the practice of boiling then alive. A similar law was passed in Italy, where it is now illegal to put lobsters on ice before cooking them. I hope you provide an update to your story promoting humane(人道的) practices instead of very cruel and violent ones. JANET TOOLE, Phoenixville, Pennsylvania

1. What happened to Anita Lawrence after her husband's diagnosis?

A．She felt very painful.

B．She gained some life lessons.

C．She paid more attention to her own health.

D．She showed deep sympathy for her husband.

2. According to Sam Kieffer's letter, what can we learn about John All?

A．He is an expert in mountaineering.

B．He wrote the article entitled Trapped Inside a Glacier.

C．Few people could survive in the same situation as he did.

D．His story is the best one that Sam Kieffer has ever read in Reader's Digest.

3. In her letter, Janet Toole quoted two examples of Switzerland and Italy in order to___________.

A．advise chefs to stop cooking live lobsters

B．show how cruel it is to cook lobsters live

C．raise chefs' awareness of protecting animals

D．share with readers these countries' laws regarding cooking

【推荐3】A table-waiting robot cat built by a Chinese technology firm can carry plates of food, navigate a restaurant, miaow at diners and even react to having its ears stroked (抚摸).

Making its debut at the 2020 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the so-called BellaBot was built for Chinese restaurants lacking enough waiters.

It is the brainchild of the Chinese robotics and artificial intelligence firm PuduTech. It features four shelves in the centre of its tower-like body to carry plates. Having been loaded up with meals by its human colleagues, the cat-themed robotic waiter miaows when it delivers food to diners to encourage them to take their plates. If customers thank BellaBot by stroking its ears, it will respond with a look of pleasure on its on-board screen, which displays animations of a cat’s face. “The owner’s hand is so warm,” BellaBot has been programmed to respond.

However, much like a real cat, the robot’s reaction soon changes if it is petted for too long. “It gets mad to remind you not to interrupt its job,” the designers introduced. The BellaBot waiter robot is a more personality-rich update to PuduTech’s previous model, which featured a more utilitarian (实用主义的) design and user interface.

Both BellaBot and its predecessor were designed with a particular mind to Chinese restaurants which are often short of waiting staff.

In a real-world food-service setting, however, BellaBot may find it difficult to operate at peak times. Nevertheless, restaurants are expected to increase their reliance on automation whether in the form of robotic waiting staff or otherwise. Furthermore, improvements in technology will see consumer robot designs grow steadily better at communicating with humans and facing new activities.

1. The underlined word “debut” in the second paragraph probably means_____.

A．first production	B．first sale
C．first appearance	D．first design

2. The robot cat is able to do the following except_____.

A．load plates by itself and deliver food to diners

B．help diners find seats in a restaurant

C．react to diners with its ears stroked

D．remind diners not to pet it for too long

3. The text is mainly written to_____.

A．make an advertisement

B．introduce an updated invention

C．predict future robot designs

D．solve the problems Chinese restaurants are facing

4. What can be the best title for the text?

A．Chinese robotics and artificial intelligence

B．A Chinese technology firm

C．Improvements in robot design

D．Table-waiting robot cat