【推荐2】Kids nowadays are growing up “connected”, learning to use technology at a surprising speed. Technology is a regular part of school now! Kids as young as Kindergarten are using smartboards, IPads, and computers to complete tasks in the classroom. Older children rely on the Internet for research, getting homework, sending work to teachers, and even accessing（ 获得） textbooks. In fact, today’s kids have been given the name “digital（数字）natives” because they are facing technology almost from birth, so new things have never been a greater challenge in the hands of our children. The Internet，Facebook, iPods, pictures and texting on cell phones and all of these are the ways kids communicate today. They have become a central part of their lives. It allows them a private life that most of us know very little about.

Kids just don’t think about the results of the new world of social networking and text messaging. They don’t think that it is dangerous to send a photo of a particular person to a foolish person, who might send it to some friends that may send it to a hundred others and the next thing you know, it’s on many Facebook sites and all over the Internet forever. They don’t think that way because they don’t have the life experience that we do. We have to help them.

The key to knowing how they manage this privacy（隐私） is our “connection” to them. How closely do we connect with our kids and pay attention to what they’re doing? And how often do we talk to our children... and really listen to them? If they believe in us and know that we will be there for them, they are more likely to follow our advice. If we talk openly about what we believe in, what we stand for, those values will become their own before long.

1. What is the author’s opinion about children?

A．They are good at accepting modern things.	B．They are well understood by their parents.
C．They almost like to surf on the Facebook.	D．They know the Internet dangers well.

2. What does the underlined word “us” in paragraph 1 refers to?

A．Kids.

B．Adults.

C．Internet users.

D．Internet teachers.

3. Why do kids think differently according to paragraph 2?

A．They only understand their own private lives.	B．They are badly influenced by new things.
C．They do not have life experience.	D．They don’t depend on their parents.

4. When will children accept their parents’ advice?

A．When they are surfing on the Internet.	B．When they meet some dangerous situations.
C．When parents believe in what they are doing.	D．When parents communicate with them deeply.

【推荐1】I was born free — free in every way that I could know. I was only when I began to learn that my boyhood freedom was an illusion, when I discovered as a young man that my freedom had already been taken from me, that I began to hunger for it. At first, as a student, I wanted freedom only for myself, the short freedom of being able to stay out at night, read what I pleased, and go where I chose. Later, as a young man in Johannesburg, I strongly desired for the basic and honorable freedom of achieving my goals, of earning my keep, of marrying and having a family.

But then I slowly saw that not only was I not free, but my brothers and sisters were not free. I saw that it was not just my freedom that was reduced but the freedom of everyone who looked like me was. That is when I joined the African National Congress, and that is when the hunger for my own freedom became the greater hunger for the freedom of my people. It was during those long and lonely years in prison that my hunger for the freedom of my own people became a hunger for the freedom of all people, white and black.

Some say my mission has now been achieved. But I know that that is not the case. The truth is that we are not yet free; we have only achieved the freedom to be free, the right not to be oppressed. We have not taken the final step of our journey.

I have walked that long road to freedom. But I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. I have taken a moment here to rest to look back on the distance I have come. But I can rest only for a moment, for with freedom comes responsibility.

1. What does the author mainly want to tell readers in the first paragraph?

A．He cared much about the freedom of himself.

B．He made up his mind to fight for the freedom of his people.

C．His freedom didn’t exist any longer.

D．His freedom came as a great surprise.

2. What can we learn from the passage?

A．As a student, the author struggled for freedom for all people.

B．The author’s dream came true after he was set free.

C．The author was luckier in his earlier life.

D．There was still a long way to go to achieve the author’s goal.

3. The “secret” in the last paragraph essentially refers to ________.

A．a great hill	B．his family’s affairs
C．his further responsibilities	D．his desire for freedom

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

A．To tell readers the author’s struggling for freedom.	B．To introduce what freedom is.
C．To claim the rude treatment to a person.	D．To require us to change ideas if necessary.

【推荐3】The outstanding biography — from the same author who brought us Steve Jobs and Einstein — portrays the life of the complicated Renaissance (文艺复兴时期的) artist with details. We come to see da Vinci as not only an inventor of musical instruments and early flying machines, but also a notebook keeper and vegetarian (素食者), who had trouble finishing many of the projects and paintings he started.

Yet what is most thrilling is getting to know da Vinci the scientist. Isaacson explains how loving science and applying the scientific method to observing the world was really what made da Vinci a great artist and, Isaacson argues, a genius.

Da Vinci was fascinated with observing and understanding phenomena in nature, from the proportions of the human body to how the muscles of the lips moved. He wanted to know about everything around him, in minute detail, Isaacson writes. He wondered about questions “most people over the age of ten no longer puzzle about”— for instance, how the tongue of a woodpecker works.

To learn about the world, da Vinci combined his own observations with experimentation. Never formally schooled, “he preferred to induce from experiments rather than deduce from theoretical principles,” Isaacson explains. He recorded his observations, looked for patterns among them, and then tested those patterns through additional observation and experimentation.

“When he became fascinated with the idea that he could invent flying machines, three and a half centuries before the Wright brothers flew the first airplane, he observed various birds and filled notebooks with the function and speed at which their wings flapped. That’s why lsaacson calls da Vinci an exemplar of this scientific method.” He goes on: “Galileo, born 112 years after Leonardo, is usually credited with being the first to develop this kind of approach and is often regarded as the father of modern science,” the historian Fritjof Capra wrote. “There can be no doubt that this honor would have been bestowed (赐予) on Leonardo da Vinci had he published his scientific writings during his lifetime, or had his notebooks been widely studied soon after his death.”

Da Vinci’s emphasis on empirical observation also helped him improve his art. First, he was able to use what he learned from looking at nature to paint and draw. His studies of the body, animals, motion, shadow and light, perspective and proportion helped him better understand what he was seeing in front of him, and render it in art more accurately and finely than anyone else of his time. He also used his observations of nature to make connections among phenomena. A recorder (竖笛) was like a larynx (喉管) in the throat. Here’s Isaacson again: What Leonardo probably began as four distinct elements ended up woven together in a way that illustrates a fundamental theme in his art and science: the interconnectedness of nature, the unity of its patterns, and the similarity between the workings of the human body and those of the earth.

Most importantly, his curiosity-driven explorations, and ability to connect art and science, helped him innovate in his work. They helped him think differently, Isaacson argues. Da Vinci made surprisingly diverse series of discoveries, including conceptualizing the helicopter and solar power and advancing knowledge about everything from the reproductive organs to botany. This genius is also what drew lsaacson to Albert Einstein and Steve Jobs as subjects: They’re all innovators who were inspired by and drew connections between art and science.

“Leonardo da Vinci is the ultimate example of the main theme of my previous biographies: how the ability to make connections across disciplines — arts and sciences, humanities and technology — is a key to innovation, imagination, and genius,” Isaacson writes. And this wonderful book is a reminder, in a time of increasingly narrow specialization and focus, that the methods of Renaissance men like da Vinci are as relevant as ever.

1. What made da Vinci’s thinking different from others?

A．He was used to skipping school.

B．He kept his childhood’s sense of curiosity.

C．He was filled with ambition to become an artist and inventor.

D．He developed a fascination with historical novels.

2. Why does Isaacson mention Galileo in the book?

A．To introduce his important findings.

B．To memorize the father of modern science.

C．To show the prejudice faced by da Vinci during his lifetime.

D．To illustrate the significance of da Vinci' s research method.

3. The underlined word “render”in Paragraph 6 can be replaced by “______”

A．express

B．mix

C．confirm

D．associate

4. What does Isaacson think of the methods of Renaissance men?

A．They are too complicated to understand.

B．They focus on the workings of the human body.

C．They are more accurate than modern methods.

D．They still apply to contemporary scientific research.

5. What might be the best title for the passage?

A．How a Genius Changed the World

B．The Features of Renaissance Art

C．How Science Shaped His Art

D．The Comparison between Induction and Deduction

【推荐2】The psychology of innovation

Why are so few companies truly innovation?

Innovation is key to business survival, and companies put substantial resources into inspiring employees to develop new ideas. There are, nevertheless, people working in luxurious, state-of-the-art centres designed to stimulate innovation who find that their environment doesn’t make them feel at all creative. And there are those who don’t have a budget, or much space, but who innovate successfully.

For Robert B. Cialdini, Professor of Psychology at Arizona State University, one reason that companies don’t succeed as often as they should is that innovation starts with recruitment. Research shows that the fit between an employee’s values and a company’s values makes a difference to what contribution they make and whether, two years after they join, they’re still at the company.

One of the most famous photographs in the story of rock’ n’ roll emphasizes Ciaidini’s views. The 1956 picture of singers Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis jamming at a piano in Sun Studios in Memphis tells a hidden story. Sun’s ‘million-dollar quartet’ could have been a quintet. Missing from the picture is Roy Orbison, a greater natural singer than Lewis, Perkins or Cash. Sam Phillips, who owned Sun, wanted to revolutionize popular music with songs that fused black and white music, and country and blues. Presley, Cash, Perkins and Lewis instinctively understood Phillips’s ambition and believed in it. Orbison wasn’t inspired by the goal, and only ever achieved one hit with the Sun label.

Managing innovation is a delicate art. It’s easy for a company to be pulled in conflicting directions as the marketing, product development, and finance departments each get different feedback from different sets of people. And without a system which ensures collaborative exchanges within the company, it’s also easy for small ‘pockets of innovation’ to disappear. Innovation is a contact sport. You can’t brief people just by saying, ‘We’re going in this direction and I’m going to take you with me.’

Cialdini believes that this ‘follow-the-leader syndrome is dangerous, not least because it encourages bosses to go it alone. ‘It’s been scientifically proven that three people will be better than one at solving problems, even if that one person is the smartest person in the field.’ To prove his point, Cialdini cites an interview with molecular biologist James Watson. Watson, together with Francis Crick, discovered the structure of DNA, the genetic information carrier of all living organisms. ‘When asked how they had cracked the code ahead of an array of highly accomplished rival investigators, he said something that stunned me. He said he and Crick had succeeded because they were aware that they weren’t the most intelligent of the scientists pursuing the answer. The smartest scientist was called Rosalind Franklin who, Watson said, “was so intelligent she rarely sought advice”.’

Writing, visualizing and prototyping can stimulate the flow of new ideas. Cialdini cites scores of research papers and historical events that prove that even something as simple as writing deepens every individual’s engagement in the project. It is, he says, the reason why all those competitions on breakfast cereal packets encouraged us to write in saying, in no more than 10 words: ‘I like Kellogg’s Com Flakes because… .’ The very act of writing makes us more likely to believe it.

Authority doesn’t have to inhibit innovation but it often does. Many theorists believe the ideal boss should lead from behind, taking pride in collective accomplishment and giving credit where it is due. Cialdini says: ‘Leaders should encourage everyone to contribute and simultaneously assure all concerned that every recommendation is important to making the right decision and will be given full attention.’ The frustrating thing about innovation is that there are many approaches, but no magic formula. However, a manager who wants to create a truly innovative culture can make their job a lot easier by recognizing these psychological realities.

1. The example of the ‘million-dollar quartet’ underlines the writer’s point about____.

A．recognizing talent.

B．working as a team.

C．having a shared objective.

D．being an effective leader.

2. James Watson suggests that he and Francis Crick won the race to discover the DNA code because they ____.

A．were conscious of their own limitations.

B．brought complementary skills to their partnership.

C．were determined to outperform their brighter rivals.

D．encouraged each other to realize their joint ambition.

3. The writer mentions competitions on breakfast cereal packets as an example of how to____.

A．inspire creative thinking.

B．generate concise writing.

C．promote loyalty to a group.

D．strengthen commitment to an idea.

4. In the last paragraph, the writer suggests that it is important for employees to____.

A．be aware of their company’s goals.

B．feel that their contributions are valued.

C．have respect for their co-workers’ achievements.

D．understand why certain management decisions are made.

【推荐3】No one has a temper naturally so good, that it does not need attention and cultivation, and no one has a temper so bad, but that, by proper culture, it may become pleasant. One of the best disciplined tempers ever seen, was that of a gentleman who was naturally quick, irritable, rash, and violent; but, by taking care of the sick, and especially of mentally deranged people, he so completely mastered himself that he was never known to be thrown off his guard.

There is no misery so constant, so upsetting, and so intolerable to others, as that of having a character which is your master. There are comers at every turn in life, against which we may run, and at which we may break out in impatience, if we choose.

Look at Roger Sherman, who rose from a humble occupation to a seat in the first Congress of the United States, and whose judgment was received with great respect by that body of distinguished men. He made himself master of his temper and cultivated it as a great business in life. There are one or two instances which show this part of his character in a light that is beautiful.

One day, after having received his highest honors, he was sitting and reading in his sitting room. A student, in a room close by, held a mirror in such a position as to pour the reflected rays of the sun directly in Mr. Sherman's face. He moved his chair, and the thing was repeated. A third time the chair was moved, but the mirror still reflected the sun in his eyes. He laid aside his book, went to the window, and many witnesses of the rude behavior expected to see the ungentlemanly student severely punished. He raised the window gently, and then-shut the window blind!

I can not help providing another instance of the power he had acquired over himself. He was naturally possessed of strong passions, but over these he at length obtained an extraordinary control. He became habitually calm and self-possessed. Mr. Sherman was one of those men who are not ashamed to maintain the forms of religion in their families. One morning he called them all together as usual to lead them in prayer to God. The “old family Bible” was brought out and laid on the table.

Mr. Sherman took his seat and placed beside one of his children. The rest of the family were seated around the room, several of whom were now grown ups. Besides these, some of the tutors of the college were boarders in the family and were present at the time. His aged mother occupied a corner of the room, opposite the place where the distinguished Judge sat.

At length, he opened the Bible and began to read. The child who was seated beside him made some little disturbance, upon which Mr. Sherman paused and told him to be still. Again he continued but again he had to pause to scold the little offender, whose playful character would hardly permit it to be still. At this time he gently tapped its ear. The blow, if blow it might be called, caught the attention of his aged mother, who now with some effort rose from the seat and tottered across the room. At length, she reached the chair of Mr. Sherman, and in a moment, most unexpectedly to him, she gave him a blow on the ear with all the force she could gather. “There,” said she, “you strike your child, and I will strike mine.”

For a moment, the blood was seen mounting to the face of MrSherman. But it was only for a moment and all was calm and mild as usual. He paused; he raised his glasses; he cast his eye upon his mother; again it fell upon the book from which he had been reading. Not a word escaped him; but again he calmly pursued the service, and soon sought in prayer an ability to set an example before his household which should be worthy of their imitation. Such a victory was worth more than the proudest one ever achieved on the field of battle.

1. The sentence “The difference in the happiness which is received by the man who governs his temper and that by the man who does not is dramatic.” should be put at the beginning of Paragraph         .

A．Two

B．There

C．Four

D．Five

2. How is the passage mainly developed?

A．By analyzing reasons	B．By comparing facts.
C．By listing arguments.	D．By giving examples.

3. What was Roger Sherman’s attitude towards his aged mother?

A．Grateful.

B．Skeptical.

C．Tolerant.

D．Sympathetic.

4. What can we learn about roger Sherman?

A．He came from a distinguished family background.

B．He was not good at displaying his true inner feelings.

C．He was a man conscious of the consequences of his behavior.

D．He severely punished a student who didn’t behave himself.

5. What does the underlined sentence in the last paragraph mean?

A．Mr. Sherman’s face was covered with blood.

B．Mr. Sherman was then on the point of exploding

C．Mr. Sherman was seeking strength in prayer.

D．Mr. Sherman was ashamed of his mother’s rude behavior.

6. Which of the following is the best title for the passage?

A．Treasure your bible	B．Save your self-esteem
C．Mind your manners	D．Control your temper

【推荐1】When a company takes on the task of providing financial services to people overlooked by large banks, that would seem to be a good thing: Such customers need bank accounts, debit cards, and credit just like everyone else. In 2016, nearly 10 million American households didn't have any interaction with a bank, and nearly 25 million households had bank accounts but used alternative financing options (such as prepaid debit cards, alternative credit cards, or payday loans) to make ends meet.

One would hope that financial offers geared toward the under-banked—who often have low credit scores, histories of financial instability, and limited education—would include modest interest rates, easily decipherable (简单易懂的) language, and enough oversight (监管) to ensure that already-struggling families don't get taken advantage of. But that is often not the case. For examples, payday lenders frequently charge astronomically high interest rates for those who are unable to quickly pay off their debts, and prepaid-card companies often include additional fees that owners of standard debit cards don't have to deal with, such as charges for simply loading money onto their cards.

These practices can leave people, who are already struggling to get their finances in order, in even worse shape than they were when they signed up for a new product. The problem isn't that companies targeting the under-banked exist at all, but that many exploit a lack of financial knowledge and alternative options to extract excess money from their customers.

Credit-card issuers that target those with poor credit scores are another group with questionable practices, according to a recent report from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. In its research, the CFPB found that the costs of cards issued by these companies are significantly higher than the costs of cards issued by more traditional competitors. These specialized lenders are much more likely to approve not just subprime individuals (次级贷款人), but the deepest subprime individuals-those with credit scores that fall below 600.

Why isn't a higher approval rate for those with very bad credit a good thing? Isn't that more inclusive? Not always. Some credit-card companies' business models depend on charging their customers high fees — people who are unlikely to be able to afford them. These increased fees are for things that are inescapable, such as monthly account maintenance. (Major credit-card companies, on the other hand, are making most of their money from collecting late payments and interest, not recurring fees.) Customers of these subprime companies don't need to do anything unusual to rack up fees-that's just a part of signing up.

But perhaps worse than the high costs of the cards is the way that these companies recruit customers. They target them by mailing pre-approved offers that contain intentionally opaque, high-level financial language and agreements that are, on average 70 percent longer than card agreements from other lenders, according to the CFPB.

“Despite offering longer and more complex credit-card terms than mass market issuers, they send those mailings disproportionately to consumers with lower levels of formal education,” the CFPB report found. “Specifically, agreements for credit-card products marketed primarily by subprime specialist issuers are particularly difficult to read.” According to the report, making sense of these statements would typically require at least two years of college or post-high-school education. Less than half of the people targeted by these lenders have any college education, and the number of such households sent direct mail by these lenders doubled between 2016 and 2018.

1. The examples cited in paragraph 2 are intended to show that ______________.

A．payday loans are no better product than prepaid debit cards

B．American large banks often ignore the already-struggling families

C．financial company should provide high-quality service to poor families

D．poor American households are exploited by the financial companies

2. According to the third paragraph, the under-banked may be subjected to __________.

A．a lack of update for economic information

B．a greater personal financial loss

C．the sign-up of a new financial product

D．the exploitation of alternative choices

3. According to paragraph 6, the author believes the companies' promoting behavior is _______________.

A．useful for its professional content

B．convincing for its pre-approved format

C．misleading for its vague instruction

D．objective for its high-level financial language

4. Which of the following can be inferred from the last paragraph?

A．Poorly educated consumers are welcomed by the financial company.

B．Complex credit-card terms are needed for the lender’s safety.

C．Credit card could be issued only to people with college education.

D．There might be a boom for financial company between 2012 and 2014.

【推荐2】Kids nowadays are growing up “connected”, learning to use technology at a surprising speed. Technology is a regular part of school now! Kids as young as Kindergarten are using smartboards, IPads, and computers to complete tasks in the classroom. Older children rely on the Internet for research, getting homework, sending work to teachers, and even accessing（ 获得） textbooks. In fact, today’s kids have been given the name “digital（数字）natives” because they are facing technology almost from birth, so new things have never been a greater challenge in the hands of our children. The Internet，Facebook, iPods, pictures and texting on cell phones and all of these are the ways kids communicate today. They have become a central part of their lives. It allows them a private life that most of us know very little about.

Kids just don’t think about the results of the new world of social networking and text messaging. They don’t think that it is dangerous to send a photo of a particular person to a foolish person, who might send it to some friends that may send it to a hundred others and the next thing you know, it’s on many Facebook sites and all over the Internet forever. They don’t think that way because they don’t have the life experience that we do. We have to help them.

The key to knowing how they manage this privacy（隐私） is our “connection” to them. How closely do we connect with our kids and pay attention to what they’re doing? And how often do we talk to our children... and really listen to them? If they believe in us and know that we will be there for them, they are more likely to follow our advice. If we talk openly about what we believe in, what we stand for, those values will become their own before long.

1. What is the author’s opinion about children?

A．They are good at accepting modern things.	B．They are well understood by their parents.
C．They almost like to surf on the Facebook.	D．They know the Internet dangers well.

2. What does the underlined word “us” in paragraph 1 refers to?

A．Kids.

B．Adults.

C．Internet users.

D．Internet teachers.

3. Why do kids think differently according to paragraph 2?

A．They only understand their own private lives.	B．They are badly influenced by new things.
C．They do not have life experience.	D．They don’t depend on their parents.

4. When will children accept their parents’ advice?

A．When they are surfing on the Internet.	B．When they meet some dangerous situations.
C．When parents believe in what they are doing.	D．When parents communicate with them deeply.

【推荐3】If spending is a measure of what matters, then the people of the developing world place a high value on brains. While private spending on education has not changed much in the rich world in the past ten years, in China and India it has more than doubled. Since brainpower is the primary generator of progress, this burst of enthusiasm for investing in private education is excellent news for the world. But not everybody is delighted. Because private education increases inequality, some governments are trying to stop its advance. That’s wrong: they should welcome it, and spread its benefits more widely.

① Education used to be provided by religious institutions or entrepreneurs. But when governments, starting in Prussia in the 18th century, got into the business of nation-building, they realized they could use education to shape young minds. As state systems grew, private schooling was left to the elite and the pious(虔诚的). Now it is enjoying popularity again, for several reasons. Incomes are rising, especially among the better off, at the same time as birth rates are falling. In China the former one-child policy means that six people---two parents and four grandparents---can pour money into educating a single child.

② All over the developing world, people want more or better education than governments provide. Where cities are growing at unmanageable speed, the private education is taking up the slack. In India the private education now educates nearly half of all children, in Pakistan more than a third, and in both countries the state education is shrinking. Even where the state does pretty well, as in East Asia, richer people still want better schooling for their children than the masses get. Thus, Vietnam, which has an outstanding state-school system for a poor country, measured by its performance in the OECD’s PISA test, also has the fastest-growing private education.

③ In most ways, this is an excellent thing, because the world is getting more and better schooling.

In rich countries, once the background and ability of the children who attend private schools are taken into account, their exams results are about the same as those in the state education. But in developing countries private schools are better---and much more efficient. A study of eight Indian states found that, in terms of learning outcomes per rupee, private schools were between 1.5 times and 29 times more cost-effective than state schools.

④ They tend to sort children by income, herding richer ones towards better schools that will enhance their already superior life chances. That is one reason why many governments are troubled by their rise.

Governments are right to worry about private education’s contribution to inequality, but they are wrong to discourage its growth. Governments should instead focus on improving the public education by mimicking(模仿) the private education’s virtues. Freedom from independent management is at the root of its superior performance and greater efficiency. Governments should therefore do their best to give school principals more freedom to innovate and to fire underperforming teachers.

To spread the benefit of private schools more widely, governments should work with them, paying for education through vouchers(代金券) which children can spend in private schools. And vouchers should be limited to students in non-selective schools that do not charge top-up fees; otherwise governments will find themselves helping the better off and increasing inequality.

The world faces plenty of problems. Governments should stop behaving as though private education were one of them. It will, rather, increase the chances of finding solutions.

1. What do we know about private education?

A．More developed countries enjoy it.

B．It attracts more and more investment.

C．Public education will replace it in the future.

D．It has helped governments to remove inequality

2. What does the underlined phrase“taking up the slack” in Paragraph 3 probably mean?

A．Filling the gap.	B．Setting the place.
C．Breaking the balance.	D．Avoiding the risk.

3. Why has private education been developing rapidly in Vietnam?

A．The population in Vietnam is shrinking dramatically.

B．Its state education is worse than other developing countries.

C．Some people want better education for their children than others.

D．The government intends private education to shape young minds.

4. The sentence “But private schools also increase inequality.” can be put in .

A．①

B．②

C．③

D．④

5. What does the author advise governments to do?

A．Train school principals.	B．Sell vouchers to children.
C．learn from private education.	D．Fire underperforming teachers.

6. What’s the author’s opinion about private education?

A．Private education should be based on state education.

B．Private education should be targeted at well-off families.

C．Governments should prevent the spread of private education.

D．Governments should celebrate the popularity of private education.