【推荐1】You’re happy to let your best friend borrow your mountain bike, but would you be willing to loan it out to a total stranger if you could make some money from the arrangement?

That’s the idea behind peer-to-peer (P2P) renting, a new model concluded by sites such as eBay and Craigslist. Instead of selling an idle (闲置) thing, you loan it to people in your town, get paid a small rental fee and gel it back when the borrower’s done with it. In the past few years, almost a dozen websites have popped up promising to connect lenders and borrowers. For example, you can use GetAround to rent out your car or motorcycle, SnapGoods to rent out electronics and gadgets, ToolSpinner to rent electric drills and lawnmowers, Zaarly and Knb to rent out a little bit of everything else.

Old as it may sound, P2P renting is more high-tech than before, with websites that avoid cash for credit cards. A user creates an online listing for the item she wants to rent out, choosing her own rental fee. When someone wants the item, he keeps it on an online calendar, and the two arrange a time and place for pickup. Each site operates a little differently, but all use technology to make renting easy, safe and relatively inexpensive.

Why rent your idle things? You may not make a ton of money, but it is a good way to get some use out of idle things. The people who rent those goods are able to save thousands of dollars by renting instead of buying new.

There may be other benefits. “It brings convenience, security and adventure,” says Ali Hart, JustSharclt’s spokesperson. “But, more importantly, we’re really connecting people and building community, too.”

Get to know your neighbors and make a few dollars in the process? Sounds like a good deal.

1. What can GetAround, SnapGoods, ToolSpinner, Zaarly and Krrb possibly be?

A．the companies selling idle things

B．the websites for P2P renting

C．the special people good at P2P renting

D．the courses to teach people to do P2P renting

2. What does the third paragraph mainly talk about?

A．How credit cards are used in P2P renting.

B．Why P2P renting should be encouraged.

C．How P2P renting works online.

D．Where the lenders and borrowers meet.

3. According to Ali Hart, what’s the greatest benefit of P2P renting?

A．Making a considerable sum of money.

B．Saving money and protecting the environment. .

C．Making the Internet convenient and safe.

D．Keeping people in the community connected.

4. What might be the purpose of the passage?

A．To encourage people to do P2P renting online.

B．To teach people how to rent idle things.

C．To explain why the Internet changes our life.

D．To guide people to be fashion consumers.

【推荐3】Best Wine Club Gifts

Here are the best wine club gifts that you can give to yourself or your beloved ones this month.

Vinebox Club: for the person that’s scared of commitment

To get started with Vinebox, you’ll just take a quiz on your favorite flavors and tastes. Then Vinebox will select 3 or 6 different brands of wines and send them straight to your door. Enjoy their surprise!

Cost: $ 27 a box

Winc Choice: for the new wine drinker

Just note that when you’re gifting a Winc subscription, the gift receiver isn’t going to get a box. Instead, it will be a Winc gift card that offers him a variety of choices.

Cost: You choose the amount that you want to gift.

Cellars Wine Club: for the picky wine drinker

From international to local wines, and all the way from sweets to 90+ point offerings, there’s an amazing wine club out there. For lovers of sweet wines, its Sweet Club series, which offers sweeter wines, like moscato d'asti and rieslings, is perfect.

Cost: $29-$79 a month.

Blend (混酿酒) Club: for the on-the-go wine drinker

You can choose between a red blend, a white blend, a rosé blend, or all three in their variety pack subscription.

Cost: Get the first 3 blends at only $27 for subscription, or $12 per blend.

1. What is special about Winc Choice?

A．It offers a variety of colorful sweet wines.

B．It only sells wines to the registered members.

C．The gift receiver will get a card to choose his favorite wines.

D．The gift receiver needs to take a test on his favorite flavors.

2. How much will you pay if you just buy a white blend?

A．$9.	B．$12.
C．$27.	D．$39.

3. Which club requires its customers to make monthly subscriptions?

A．Vinebox Club.	B．Cellars Wine Club.
C．Blend Club.	D．Winc Choice.

【推荐1】Most of us likely consider snakes to be cold to others of their kind, just as they are cold to us human beings.

But those beliefs are wrong-especially when it comes to garter snakes (袜带蛇) , a new study says. These nonpoisonous creatures, which range from the chilly plains of Canada to the forests of Costa Rica, have special preferences about which snakes they hang out with-in other words, they have “friends.”

“All animals-even snake-need to interact with others,” says study leader Morgan Skinner, a doctoral candidate in behavioral ecology at Wilfrid Laurier University in Canada. To investigate this theory, Skinner carried out a novel experiment to assess the personalities and sociability of eastern garter snakes. The results showed that “like us, they seek out social contacts, and they’re particular about whom they socialize with,” says Skinner.

The idea that snakes have close friends may be surprising, but such relationships are increasingly being found throughout the animal kingdom, from bats to elephants. A recent analysis of bats showed, for example, that bats and humans both have conditional friendships.

Scientists are likely better at discovering friendships among animals now than, say, 30 years ago, partly because many societies are more accepting of such a concept, and because researchers have far better tools for gathering and analyzing the data.

However, the scientists have no idea what’s motivating friendships in garter snakes, though they do know it’s not related to reproduction or mating (交配): The study snakes did not prefer the opposite sex as friends. But such partnerships must be offering some benefit-otherwise the animals would not waste the energy forming such bonds. For example, snake friends usually curl up together, which helps them keep heat and defend against natural enemies.

Whatever the reason, says Gordon Burghardt, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Tennessee, the study “should help convince people that snakes aren’t all mysterious loners, but have more social intelligence and a larger social ability than most of us realize.”

1. What can we know from the new study?

A．Snakes make friends for their next generation.

B．Snakes are kinder to each other than to mankind.

C．Snakes have special preferences for their partners.

D．Snakes also need social contacts and close friends.

2. Why can friendships among animals be researched better than before?

A．Because of the unique experiment by Skinner.

B．Because of more social support and better equipment.

C．More researchers are gathering and analyzing the data.

D．More people are changing their attitude toward animals.

3. In which way is snakes’ friendship special?

A．Snakes’ friendship does not last long.

B．Snakes prefer the opposite sex as friends.

C．Snakes make friends for the benefit of themselves.

D．Snakes are not particular about whom to make friends with.

4. What’s the main idea of the text?

A．Snakes may also have friends.

B．Snakes are good at making friends.

C．Snakes can live with us peacefully.

D．Snakes will never feel lonely.

【推荐2】If there is any such thing as a sea monster, chances are that it looks much like a frilled shark(皱鳃鲨)！This fearsome but interesting creature is one of the most rarely sighted species on earth. Let’s take a closer look at the habitat, appearance and feeding behavior of the frilled shark.

While very little is known about the frilled shark, it is thought to live in the deepest, darkest parts of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and only come to the surface when sick or injured. It is believed that they are able to survive at a depth of about 5,150 feet but are more commonly found in waters 50-200 feet deep. There is a small but convincing body of research that suggests the frilled shark is a vertical migrator, moving from deep to deeper waters on a regular basis.

While this mysterious beast is called a shark, many believe it looks more like an eel with a long, slim body about five to six feet in length. It has a head that’s triangular in shape similar to that of a poisonous snake and large oval eyes giving off a strange and frightening green light. The unusual creature has six pairs of gills (鳃), each with the frilled edges for which the sea monster was named.

The feeding behavior of the frilled shark has never been studied or even observed by human eyes. However, it is almost certainly a predator (食肉动物). After all, researchers believe, why else would it need 300 sharp teeth?! Scientists theorize that these dangerous teeth make it possible for a slow moving fish like the frilled shark to catch squid and other deep-sea creatures.

As research into the habitat, appearance and feeding behavior of this strange creature continues, there’s a good chance that we will gain a full understanding of this unusual species one day. Until then, the frilled shark remains one of the great mysteries of the deep.

1. What can we infer about the frilled shark from Paragraph 2?

A．It is hard to see them in a healthy state on the ocean surface.

B．They migrate from ocean to ocean in the deepest waters.

C．They usually live in oceans at a depth of over 5,150 feet.

D．It is a rare species threatened by human activities.

2. The frilled shark got its name because of______.

A．the place where it was found	B．the place where it was born
C．its appearance	D．its character

3. How do scientists know the frilled shark is a predator?

A．From its behavior.	B．From its habitat.
C．From its teeth.	D．From its gills.

4. What is the author’s attitude to solving the mystery of the frilled shark?

A．Doubtful.

B．Cautious.

C．Disapproving.

D．Optimistic.

【推荐3】When was the last time you sat on a park bench(凳子)? Did you stay for long? A new kind of park benches will limit the amount of time you can sit there. If you don’t get up in time, it could be very painful: there are many sharp spikes (钉子) on the part that you sit on!

Visitors who want a rest on the bench need to put a coin in a machine next to it. Once the money was accepted, the spikes disappear into the bench. Then visitors can sit down comfortably, but only for half an hour. When the time’s up, the spikes slowly start moving up again. It doesn’t hurt at first, but after a minute, they start coming up even more quickly. They aren’t long enough to cause serious hurt, but they do cause pain, as tests have shown. But why have they been installed (安装)?

“Our public park is very popular in summer,” a spokesperson for the park explained. “But with all the thousands of people who visit the park, there aren’t enough benches for everyone. We want to make sure that the benches are shared by more visitors, and to stop people taking a bench and staying there all day. Installing spikes seems to be the fairest way of stopping people doing this.”

1. How is the new kind of park bench different from other benches?
2. What is Paragraph 2 mainly about?
3. Why are the new benches installed?
4. The passage says, “Installing spikes seems to be the fairest way of stopping people doing this.” Do you agree with this? Please state your reasons.

【推荐1】My father gave me a copy when I was 18, and it's been with me ever since; it's a beautiful book by Alice. In it, there is a dish of mussels. It is simple and delicious. It was probably the first dish I cooked from the book and I still have it on the menu at my restaurant today.

Mussels are really beautiful in the autumn. When you cook seasonally, you use whatever you have at hand, and each time a food material comes back in season, you are so happy to see it. It's like going back to old friends, like going home. I do feel the dish with mussels is so. It is the same with a dish made by my mother. It's my mum's chicken with cherries. When I was a child, cherries would mark the end of the school year. We'd always get a box of each when school was out for the summer. I remember sitting in the garden hanging cherries in pairs on my ears like earrings and spitting out the pips, hoping a tree would grow.

Food should take you somewhere special like that-not in a confusing way, but in a nurturing way, for both your body and your soul. It should take you to a happy place, which is linked to memory. Someone I work with says all my recipes are memory-bound.

No cook has influenced me more than Alice: valuing farmers, pushing for organics and clean soil. She has made me think about food waste, and about how food can contribute to a solution to wider problems. Alice takes me back to that moment when I fell in love with cooking. Thirty-five years on, I still feel the same.

1. What can we learn about the writer's first dish in Paragraph 1?

A．It is difficult to cook.	B．It is especially popular.
C．He is confident about it	D．He got it from his father.

2. Why did the writer mention his mother's dish in Paragraph 2?

A．To express thanks to his mother	B．To let Alice have a comparison at cooking
C．To show how good his mother was at cooking	D．To show a special dish can be a sweet memory.

3. What kind of restaurant does the writer want his restaurant to be?

A．A green one.

B．A special one.

C．A cheap one.

D．A famous one.

4. What's the writer's purpose in writing the passage?

A．To tell about his business experience.	B．To express the memory of his mother.
C．To tell about the dish that changed his life	D．To introduce a cook book written by Alice

【推荐2】There are many things that we can do in our own ways which will help save the environment. What are some of these ways to save the environment? Let’s take a look at a list of them.

There won’t be enough water before we need to fight for clean and fresh water. That is why saving water and preventing water pollution becomes very important. Keep simple things in mind like turning off the tap when you are brushing teeth. Don’t often take a shower. Don’t pour oil into the drains. Don’t throw rubbish into the river.

Save paper to save trees. Make sure that you use both sides of paper before throwing it away. If you can, try not to use paper as possible as you can and do not forget to recycle paper. Also, using cloth bags instead of paper bags can save much Paper. This is one of the best ways to save our environment.

Recycling is important. It makes sure that the environment is not more polluted. Recycling does not simply include recycling paper, but things like plastic, metal and office supplies like pens, ink and more. This makes sure that they are changed into material that is reusable and also puts less pressure on the environment.

What are the ways to save energy? Turn off the lights and computers before you leave. Use cold water instead of hot water to wash clothes, use the stairs instead of the lift and keep the air conditioner on moderate setting(设置)to save energy.

In a word, try our best to do something to save our environment, and we will do something helpful to save ourselves.

1. What does the second paragraph mainly talk about?

A．Saving water.	B．Saving paper.
C．Recycling.	D．Planting trees.

2. How can we save trees according to the passage?

A．By saving water.	B．By using less paper.
C．By saving energy.	D．By planting trees.

3. The reason why recycling is important mainly because_______.

A．it can save some money	B．there are many old things
C．it helps us keep healthy	D．it can save our environment

4. The underlined word "moderate" means_______.

A．high wind

B．high temperature

C．proper

D．open

【推荐3】LONDON — To get a mobile phone as a gift for 14thbirthday, Lucy declared to her parents that everyone else has one. Her parents gave in.

Curious to know how her daughter would use the phone, Jane Bidder, the mother, followed Lucy to the school bus in the morning. The bus seats 20, of whom half have a mobile phone. One rings and several adolescent owners fumble with their bags.

Many parents have just come to realize that the mobile phone is no longer for traveling businessmen — it is as likely to be found in school bags.

The mobile phone seems to have become something essential for today’s teens in Britain, according to a survey published last week, by NOP, a leading market research company in Britain. Research found that 66 percent of 16-year-olds now have access to a mobile phone.

The mobile phone has been turned into a secret messaging service by teen users. When they are talking on the mobile, their parents are not able to eavesdrop on the second line.

The interview with 2,019 young people aged 7 to 16 found that they favor the text messaging service because they offer a secret way of keeping in touch. The days of secret notes in the classroom are dying out.

For example, “cul” means “see you later”; “lol” means “laugh out loud’; and “2nite” is the abbreviation of “tonight”. All these are based on shorthand phrases on the Internet.

Many schools have banned students using mobile phones. But they are not very successful. Still phones ring in the class and disturb study. Besides, people are worried about the health risk to kids using mobile phones.

Scientists believe children are especially vulnerable (易受伤的) mobile radiation.

1. The story of Lucy is told to show us          .

A．British parents always meet their children’s needs

B．how British parents accept the truth of teenagers owning a mobile phone

C．British kids have good relationship with their parents

D．why every child gets a mobile phone as a birthday present in UK

2. Which of the following statements is NOT true according to the passage?

A．People worry about the harm to the kids’ health by using mobile phone.

B．Teenagers want to have their own secret.

C．Teenagers like to send messages to each other

D．Lucy does not get the mobile phone she wants

3. The underlined word “eavesdrop” means          .

A．join in actively	B．interrupt rudely
C．listen secretly	D．watch carefully

4. Interviews discover children like to send messages instead of          .

A．calling each other	B．playing games online
C．writing to each other	D．greeting each other