【推荐1】We think of winter as cold and flu season，but the cold temperatures have powerful biological upsides too.

Boosts your brain

    1     .Studies have found that people perform some cognitive（认知的）tasks like making decisions better when the temperature is cooler. Research has also shown that people are less willing to handle complex tasks in the summer than in the winter.

Burns calories（卡路里）

When it's cold，your body works harder to keep your core temperature，which is typically. about 98.6 degrees. "Our bodies use a considerable amount of energy to keep us warm and to dampen the air we breathe when we're out in the cold，"explains Stacy Tucker，an expert from Kansas City.     2       . A recent study showed that participants burned 34 percent more calories when they hiked in 14-to 23-degree temperatures than they did hiking on 50-degree days.

Activates healthy fat

We know accumulating too much ordinary fat or "white fat" can endanger our health. But adults also have small amounts of beneficial "brown fat" that can quicken their metabolism（新陈代谢）and bum more calories     3     .

Encourages better sleep

Your body's core temperature drops when you're trying to sleep.     4     ，but it's much faster in winter，says Tucker. Plus，with darker mornings，you naturally sleep later.

    5    

Yes，you might get more colds during the winter. However，studies have shown that the immune system can be activated by colder temperatures，which improves our ability to fight infections，explains Tucker. That said，the flu virus becomes strong in cold，dry air，and time spent indoors increases your chance of infection. To reduce risk，get your annual flu shot，wash your hands frequently，and go outside.

A. Fights infections
B. So fasten your boots
C. Suffers from infections
D. Colder temperatures can help you think more clearly
E. And cold temperatures can activate this useful fat
F. Exercising in the winter makes heart muscles stronger
G. This process can take up to two hours in the summer

【推荐1】Even if trees cannot walk, they are still on the move.

In parts of the Arctic, entire forests are moving northward. Across the Arctic, temperatures are rising faster than anywhere else in the world. As that happens, the tree line that marks where forests stop and the treeless tundra (冻原）starts has been moving northward. Trees growing along the tree line must protect themselves from the cold wind. To do this, plants tend to grow horizontal (水平的）branches low to the ground. The energy it takes for trees to grow this way means they don’t have enough energy to make seeds.

But as Earth's climate has been warming, trees no longer have to just grow horizontally.Many can instead grow up toward the sky. This takes less energy. And with all that leftover energy,these trees have started producing while spruce (白云杉)grows.

White spruce，which is a North American tree, is quite which can   lot of seeds,which can move long distances in the wind.When wind-blown seeds end up on the   tundra beyond the tree line,they     eventually can sprout(发芽)new trees.This explains how a forest can move. Of course,the process would work only if the tundra were warm enough. But in recent years,the whole planet has been warming.whole planet has been warming, New trees will provide shelters for some snow,keeping the sun's rays from making the white surface disappear.

The trees absorb the sun's heat. This warms the even more trees to produce seeds.That further   makes     forest preventing much of it from being blown   away. Snow can trap heat in the soil below, which encourages trees to grow. The recent rise of temperatures has helped more trees grow past the tree time. People worry about effects on the animals that depend on frozen conditions for food and shelter.

1. What is the main cause of the trees in the Arctic moving northward?

A．The reducing of northern tundra.

B．The strong and cold wind

C．The rising temperature.

D．The rich resources in the north.

2. What can be inferred from the last paragraph?

A．New trees can trap the snow, which may make the soil colder.

B．The trapped snow prevents new trees from producing more seeds.

C．New trees can bring more food and shelter to local animals.

D．New trees can make the surrounding air warmer.

3. The passage is most probably taken from____ .

A．a health report	B．a science report
C．a fashion magazine	D．a children's magazine

【推荐2】If humans were truly at home under the light of the moon and stars, we would go in darkness happily, the midnight world as visible to us as it is to the vast number of nocturnal (夜间活动的) species on this planet. Instead, we are diurnal creatures, with eyes adapted to living in the sun’s light. This is a basic evolutionary fact, even though most of us don’t think of ourselves as diurnal beings. Yet it’s the only way to explain what we’ve done to the night: We’ve engineered it to receive us by filling it with light.

The benefits of this kind of engineering come with consequence called light pollution whose effects scientists are only now beginning to study. Light pollution is largely the result of bad lighting design, which allows artificial light to shine outward and upward into the sky. Ill-designed lighting washes out the darkness of night and completely changes the light levels and light rhythms to which many forms of life, including ourselves, have adapted. Wherever human light spills into the natural world, some aspect of life is affected.

In most cities the sky looks as though it has been emptied of stars, leaving behind a vacant haze (霾) that mirrors our fear of the dark. We’ve grown so used to this orange haze that the original glory of an unlit night—dark enough for the planet Venus to throw shadow on Earth—is wholly beyond our experience, beyond memory almost.

We’ve lit up the night as if it were an unoccupied country, when nothing could be further from the truth. Among mammals alone, the number of nocturnal species is astonishing. Light is a powerful biological force, and on many species it acts as a magnet. The effect is so powerful that scientists speak of songbirds and seabirds being “captured” by searchlights on land or by the light from gas flares on marine oil platforms. Migrating at night, birds tend to collide with brightly lit tall buildings.

Frogs living near brightly lit highways suffer nocturnal light levels that are as much as a million times brighter than normal, throwing nearly every aspect of their behavior out of joint, including their nighttime breeding choruses. Humans are no less trapped by light pollution than the frogs. Like most other creatures, we do need darkness. Darkness is as essential to our biological welfare, to our internal clockwork, as light itself.

Living in a glare of our making, we have cut ourselves off from our evolutionary and cultural heritage—the light of the stars and the rhythms of day and night. In a very real sense light pollution causes us to lose sight of our true place in the universe, to forget the scale of our being, which is best measured against the dimensions of a deep night with the Milky Way—the edge of our galaxy—arching overhead.

1. According to the passage, human being ________.

A．are used to living in the daylight	B．prefer to live in the darkness
C．were curious about the midnight world	D．had to stay at home with the light of the moon

2. The writer mentions birds and frogs to ________.

A．show how light pollution affects animals

B．provide examples of animal protection

C．compare the living habits of both species

D．explain why the number of certain species has declined

3. It is implied in the passage that ________.

A．human beings are curious about the outer space

B．human beings should reflect on their position in the universe

C．light pollution does harm to the eyesight of animals

D．light pollution has destroyed some of the world heritages

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

A．The Magic Light	B．The Orange Haze
C．The Disappearing Night	D．The Rhythms of Nature

【推荐1】Setting goals is common in our life. We look ahead, predict what may make us happy in the future, and then narrow down the things to something specific. For the most part, having goals is better than not having any, but there are also problems that come with spending an entire life living from goal to goal.

For one thing, we try to predict an unpredictable future. Who is to say that what you want next year is the same thing you want right now? What if what you want right now isn't in the right direction over the long term?

Secondly, and just as importantly, you only confine your expectations of happiness and satisfaction to the goal you have set so that you often forget that other things in your life can also add just as much joy to your experience. This creates a strange problem.

To solve this problem, we have to move towards something more unclear. Going after interestingness. I think, is what we should do.

Interestingness doesn't mean looking for pleasure only. It’s deeper than that. It's doing that random (随机的) project you had no plan to do because you have a feeling that you might just learn something you didn't know about yourself. It's seeing a person you just met not as a possible partner or someone who can do something for you but simply as someone who may open a new, unknown and unique world for you.

Goals incorrectly assume (假设) that we already know what we want. Interestingness is more modest. It makes up its mind as it moves, slowly blowing from one thing to another, until it catches something that lies beyond prediction at last.

1. Setting goals is to predict an unpredictable future because __________.

A．it ignores possible changes in our life

B．it proves meaningless in the long run

C．it may lead us to the opposite direction

D．it fails to reach our true possibilities

2. What does the underlined word “Confine” probably mean in the third paragraph?

A．Devote.

B．Limit.

C．Deliver.

D．Compare.

3. What's the benefit of going after interestingness?

A．Bringing us self satisfaction at once.

B．Improving our relationship with others.

C．Making us gain something unexpected.

D．Helping us successfully predict the future.

4. What's the purpose of the text?

A．To ease our worry about the future.

B．To express a new thought on setting goals.

C．To point out disadvantages of an aimless life.

D．To recommend a new way of achieving success.

【推荐2】You are a member in a full-time school called “life”. Each day here you will have the opportunity to learn lessons. You may like the lessons or hate them, but you have designed them as part of your curriculum.

Why are you here? What is your purpose? Humans have sought to discover the meaning of life for a very long time. What we and our ancestors have to overlook is that there is no one answer. The meaning of life is different for every individual.

Each person has his own purpose and distinct path, unique and separate from anyone else’s. As you are traveling your life path, you will be presented with numerous lessons you will need to learn in order to achieve that purpose. The lessons you are presented with are specific to you; learning these lessons is the key to discovering and achieving the meaning of your own life.

As you are traveling through your lifetime, you may meet challenging lessons that others don’t have to face, while others spend years struggling with challenges that you don’t need to deal with. You may never know why you are blessed with a wonderful marriage, while your friends suffer painful divorces, just as you cannot be sure why you struggle financially while your peers enjoy abundance. The only thing you can count on is that you will be presented with all the lessons that you specifically need to learn.

The challenge, therefore, is to arrange yourself with your own unique path by learning individual lessons. This is one of the most difficult challenges you will face in your lifetime, as sometimes your path will be different from others. But don’t compare your path with that of people around you and focus on the differences between their lessons and yours. You need to remember that you will only face lessons that you can learn and are specific to your own growth.

Our sense of fairness is the expectation of equality. Life is not, in fact, fair, and you may indeed have a more difficult life path than others around you, deserved or not. Everyone’s circumstances are unique, and everyone needs to handle his or her own circumstances differently.

1. According to the passage, how can the meaning of your life be realized?

A．Gathering different opinions from others

B．Taking the distinct path from others.

C．Learning the lessons presented to you.

D．Doing the different things from others.

2. From the passage we can conclude     .

A．everyone has his own track to follow

B．unexpected things usually happen to the peers

C．a painful divorce must lie in financial problems

D．a wealthy man must have a wonderful marriage

3. In your lifetime, the lessons you are faced with      .

A．are beyond your power

B．keep you from growth

C．limit your development

D．help you with your success

4. Which of the following is TRUE?

A．All things should be equal and justice to everybody.

B．You should learn to deal with specific problems differently from others.

C．One has to fix his mind on unfairness of circumstances.

D．You can complain life is unfair whenever possible.

5. Life is called a full–time school, because      .

A．it is full of all lessons to learn

B．you have plenty of time to learn lessons

C．you meet with specific lessons every day

D．you can learn many things helpful to you

【推荐3】Some houses are designed to be smart. Others have smart designs. An example of the second type of house won an Award of Excellence from the American Institute of Architects.

Located on the shore of Sullivan’s Island off the coast of South Carolina, the award-winning cube-shaped beach house was built to replace one smashed to pieces by Hurricane Hugo a few years ago. Hugo struck Soutii Carolina, killing 18 people and damaging or destroying 36,000 homes in the state.

Before Hugo, many new houses built along South Carolina’s shoreline were poorly constructed, and enforcement of building codes wasn’t strict, according to architect Ray Huff, who created the cleverly-designed beach house. In Hugo’s wake, all new shoreline houses are required to meet stricter, better-enforced codes. The new beach house on Sullivan’s Island should be able to withstand a Category 3 hurricane with peak winds of 179 to 209 kilometers per hour.

At first sight, the house on Sullivan’s Island looks anything but hurricane-proof. Its redwood shell makes it resemble “a large party lantern” at night, according to one observer. But looks can be deceiving. The housed wooden frame is reinforced with long steel rods to give it extra strength.

To further protect the house from hurricane damage, Huff raised it 2.7 meters off the ground on timber (木材) pilings — long, slender columns of wood anchored deep in the sand. Pilings might appear insecure, but they are strong enough to support the weight of the house. They also elevate the house above storm surges. The pilings allow the surges to run under the house instead of running into it. “These swells of water come ashore at tremendous speeds and cause most of the damage done to beach-front buildings,” said Huff.

Huff designed the timber pilings to be partially concealed (隐藏) by the house’s ground-to-roof shell. “The shell masks the pilings so that the house doesn’t look like it’s standing with its pant legs pulled up,” said Huff. In the event of a storm surge, the shell should break apart and let the waves rush under the house, the architect explained.

1. The award-winning beach house is quite strong because ________.

A．it is strengthened by steel rods	B．it is made of redwood
C．it is in the shape of a shell	D．it is built with timber and concrete

2. Huff raised the house 2.7 meters off the ground on timber pilings in order to ________.

A．withstand peak winds of about 200 km/hr

B．anchor stronger pilings deep in the sand

C．break huge sea waves into smaller ones

D．prevent water from rushing into the house

3. The main function of the shell is ________.

A．to strengthen the pilings of the house

B．to give the house a better appearance

C．to protect the wooden frame of the house

D．to slow down the speed of the swelling water

4. It can be inferred from the passage that the shell should be ________.

A．fancy-looking	B．waterproof
C．easily breakable	D．extremely strong

【推荐1】To empower students to succeed and make a difference in the 21^st century， educator，business leaders， and recent college graduates agree that students have to be better prepared through a liberal， well rounded education and the ability to apply their skills and knowledge to hands-on， real-world learning experiences.College learning for the New Global Century， a recent report released by the National Leadership Council for Liberal Education and America's Proms e(LEAP) ， covered specific areas in which institutions can help students prepare for the transition into the workforce.

87 percent interviewed agree that America's colleges and universities need to raise the quality of student achievement to ensure the United States remains competitive.“There is a need to connect what businesses， corporations， and employers want and what colleges offer to meet real-world challenges.”explain Cruncher.“We have to stop channeling students into a narrow field.We need to teach them to think critically， write well， and be a team player with global awareness in order to be a viable(surviving independently) contributor to the business or nonprofit sectors.”

In a previous report， the council began to address the types of skills graduates need to have.The outcomes：besides having a main focus or line of education， they would a so have to think critically and write well.On the negative side， they found there was a basic disconnection about

the type of education students needed to pull this off.“It was a pleasant for members on the board that many of us were on the same page.It became the basis for his current report.”

The College Learning report show show val y important a liberal education is， says Humphreys.“We can focus on what business leaders want and argue for a broader-vision education.To produce responsible citizens in a complex society with global emphasis， we must teach important skills that are marketable.Employers want students to talk about the experiences that brought their education to life.”Business executives place the greatest emphasis on what they look for when evaluating the skills of potential new hires， and 69   percent of employers said combining broad knowledge with more in-depth focus is“very important.” Employers were somewhat c once med about recent college graduates not having necessary specific job or technical skills but agree that“he technical can be taught.“They expressed the greatest frustration with the challenges of finding“360-degree people.”Crutcher agrees.“That's what it means to be flexible.The mind has to be quick， or you will be left behind.”

So what more do employers really want from recent college graduates?“They want students who can function in groups， work in teams， write critically，have analytical reasoning,and communicate effectively，”says   Humphreys.“Keep in mind the most important thing-the world is changing-becoming more global and more connected because of technology， and we have to change with it.Emphasize undergraduate research.Less memorizing.Put into action what you're learning.Both business leaders and recent graduates say engaged learning is key to continued success in the workforce.”

Employers appear to support the recommendations.Both employers and recent graduates stress the need for colleges to integrate skills and knowledge of a major to broader areas of study and to apply both to real-world settings and situations through community service， internships， and study-abroad experiences， for example.

They strongly endorse the concept of a liberal education and producing good citizens.It also helps if students develop a sense of social responsibly through practical skills that span all areas of study， such as communications.

A strong work ethic(道德准则) and sense of loyalty promises greater dividends(回报) for the employer and possible greater success for the individual.This type of graduate is a good investment for an employer and can have along-range impact not only on self-growth but on business development and the community at large.

1. What does the report released by LEAP focus on?

A．College students' application of skills and knowledge.

B．College students' preparation for the entry into workforce.

C．College students' desire for well-rounded education.

D．College students' ability to learn real-world experience.

2. According to the report， American education has been      .

A．preparing students to meet real challenges

B．raising the quality of students' achievement

C．teaching students to think critically

D．guiding students into a narrow world

3. What's the problem of American education pointed out by the previous report?

A．It failed to help graduates to focus on their studies.

B．It failed to track students' mainline of education.

C．It failed to help graduates develop skills which are critically needed.

D．It failed to clarify how students could be on the same page in education.

4. The greatest challenge for employers is to     .

A．find employees with flexibility and quick mind

B．produce responsible citizens with global emphasis

C．place the greatest emphasis on what they look for

D．combine broad knowledge with more in-depth focus

5. What should college graduates do to ensure continued success according to Hamphreys?

A．Attach importance to memorizing work.

B．Keep themselves occupied in learning.

C．Bring what they are learning to life.

D．Try to enrich study-abroad experience.

6. What type of graduate will become a good investment for an employer?

A．Those with a sense of social responsibility.

B．Those with the concept of a liberal education.

C．Those with practical skills and work experience.

D．Those with a strong work ethic and sense of loyalty.

【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3】In recent years American society has become increasingly dependent on its universities to find solutions to its major problems. It is the universities that have been charged with the principal responsibility for developing the expertise（专业知识）to place men on the moon; for dealing with our urban problems and with our worsening environment; for developing the means to feed the world’s rapidly increasing population. The effort involved in meeting these demands presents its own problems. In addition, however, this concentration on the creation of new knowledge significantly impinges on the universities’ efforts to perform their other principal functions, the transmission and interpretation of knowledge--the imparting of the heritage of the past and the preparing of the next generation to carry it forward.

With regard to this, college and universities today find themselves in a serious situation. On one hand, there is the American commitment, especially since World War Ⅱ, to provide higher education for all young people who can profit from it. The result of the commitment has been a dramatic rise in enrollments in our universities, coupled with a thorough shift from the private to the public sector of higher education. On the other hand, there are serious and continuing limitations on the resources available for higher education.

While higher education has become a great "growth industry", it is also at the same time a tremendous drain on the resources of the nation. With the vast increase in enrollment and the shift in priorities away from education in state and federal budgets, there is in most of our public institutions a significant decrease in per capita expenses for their students. One crucial aspect of this drain on resources lies in the persistent shortage of trained faculty, which has led, in turn, to a declining standard of competence in instruction.

Intensifying these difficulties is, as indicated above, the concern with research, with its competing claims on resources and the attention of the faculty. In addition, there is a strong tendency for the institutions’ organization and functioning to cater to the demands of research rather than those of teaching.

1. According to the writer, ____ is the most important function of American universities.

A．creating new knowledge

B．providing solutions to social problems

C．meeting the demands of increasing population

D．preparing their students to transmit inherited knowledge

2. In American universities, there is a contradiction between ____.

A．more students and less investment

B．education quality and economic profit

C．low enrollment rate and high dropout rate

D．private ownership and American commitment

3. Which is True about American universities?

A．Most teachers are devoted to improving their competence in instruction.

B．Research occupies more resources and teachers’ attention than teaching.

C．The institutions’ organization tends to meet the demands of teaching.

D．The inadequate enrollment contributes to the decline of the competence.

4. We can infer from the passage that ____.

A．high quality attracts students to stay in public universities

B．the American commitment is to blame for all the difficulties

C．higher education used to have a priority in government budgets

D．the increasing expenses for each student drain the national resources