【推荐1】Sony has a new device for anyone who’s ever wished they could carry their air conditioner on hot summer days.

Called Reon Pocket, the small, lightweight gadget slides into the upper back pocket of a specially designed T-shirt. Controlled with a smart phone app, it’s capable of heating or cooling the wearer via the Peltier effect, a thermodynamic principle widely used in refrigeration.

The Reon Pocket comes out of Sony’s startup acceleration program, and Sony is currently crowdfunding (众筹) the device. Supporters can choose from a few different packages, if they want multiple T-shirts for instance, but a basic one including the device and one shirt costs ￥14, 080. There’s a catch, though: Sony only has plans to release the Reon Pocket in Japan at present.

According to a spokesperson, the target audience is mostly businessmen who have to wear a suit in the summer, though the company says it will judge its wider relevance based on the crowdfunding results. Right now, though, the T-shirts available come in men’s sizes, small, medium, or large.

The device is not really for all-day use so much as moving between air-conditioned or heated areas, such as during the commute to work. The battery takes around two hours to charge and lasts about 90 minutes.

With the Reon Pocket, Sony joins the ranks of those working on temperature-regulating clothing. On the more tech-forward end are examples such as French label Courreges, which debuted coats with built-in heaters a few years ago, and the US Army, which is experimenting with conductive fabrics that can generate heat in extreme cold. More commonplace examples include Uniqlo, which has been successful with its Heattech and Airism underlayers, and a number of brands making shirts meant to offer the comfort and sweat-wicking properties of athletic wear.

In a blog post from Sony’s startup accelerator, Yoichi Ito, a project leader on Reon Pocket, said people have become increasingly focused on functionality and comfort in their clothing. In 2017, his team started thinking of ways they could blend technology with fashion to reach those goals. Reon Pocket was the result.

Japanese buyers looking to battle the record heat this summer will have to wait, though. If the crowdfunding is successful, deliveries of the device are scheduled to begin in March 2020.

1. What is necessary to make it possible for Reon Pocket to work?

A．Wearers’ using the Peltier effect.

B．A T-shirt and a special smartphone.

C．A hot summer day and a special pocket.

D．A special T-shirt and a smartphone app.

2. What does the underlined word “catch” in Paragraph 3 refer to?

A．Benefit.

B．Popularity.

C．Disadvantage.

D．Capture.

3. Why does the author say that Reon Pocket is not suitable for all-day use?

A．The device battery is not efficient enough.

B．The T-shirt for the gadget is too expensive.

C．Crowdfunding is not decided at the moment.

D．The T-shirt is not available for both men and women.

4. What can we learn from the last three paragraphs?

A．Functionality and comfort in clothing are increasingly appealing.

B．Reon Pocket will come into the market in March 2020 at all events.

C．Sony is the first company to invent the temperature-regulating clothing.

D．The comfort and sweat-wicking properties of athletic wear helps athletes to win.

【推荐3】        In some parts of Africa, there are still big herds of wild animals like zebras, elephants, and giraffes. But today many of these wild animals are in danger and it worries many conservationists. Louis Liebenberg is one of them. He feels that having good information about animals is very important. People need to understand what happens to plants and animals over time. Are they increasing or decreasing in number? What plants are the animals eating?

African Bushmen may be able to help. For hundreds of years. Bushmen have understood the ways of wild animal: what the animals cat; where the animals go; and even where they sleep. However, the Bushmen don’t always speak the same language as the conservationists. This can cause problems when they work together. This is where the Cyber Tracker comes in.

The Cyber Tracker is an invention created by Louis Liebenberg. He hopes that together, the Cyber Tracker and the Bushmen can help protect the animals. The Cyber Tracker is a small computer that helps collect information about animals. It uses pictures, called “icons”, instead of words to record information. There are pictures for drinking, walking, fighting, sleeping, eating and other things. This way, the Bushmen can record what they see even without speaking the same language. The Cyber Tracker can collect very detailed and complicated information very quickly.

However. that’ s not the only thing the Cyber Tracker can do. The small computer also contains a global positioning device. Each time a Bushman sees something interesting about an animal or plant, he pushes a button The Cyber Tracker records exactly where the man is in the world. The Bushman can also record what the animals are eating by pushing different buttons to name about 50 plants.

However, Liebenberg adds that the human factor is also very important. A big part of the project is the Bushman’s ability to understand and correctly report everything he sees. The combination of machine and man seems to work very well. With the data collected by the Cyber Tracker. Liebenberg makes maps showing where the animal herds are and what the animals are eating, indicating facts about their health.

1. What does the underlined word “conservationists” in paragraph 1 mean?

A．Local people.	B．Zoo keepers.
C．People protecting wildlife.	D．Equipment for wildlife research.

2. How does the Cyber’ Tracker make communication easy?

A．People can see where the Bushmen are.

B．Researchers can write down information.

C．The software can identity about 50 plants.

D．The invention uses pictures rather than language.

3. What is NOT the function of the Cyber Tracker?

A．To collect information about animals.

B．To locate an interesting animal or plant.

C．To record what the animals are feeding on.

D．To help with communication between animals.

4. Which is Liebenberg likely to agree with?

A．The Cyber Tracker will help more wild animals.

B．Technology alone is making conservation easier.

C．The Cyber Tracker connects human with technology.

D．Every Bushman should learn how to use the Cyber Tracker.

【推荐1】There’s more evidence that what’s good for your heart is good for your head．A new study shows that people who run，swim or do other moderate intensity(中等强度的)exercise have brains that look，on average，10 years younger than the brains of couch potatoes．
“Our study showed that for older people，getting moderate intensity exercise may be protective，helping them keep their brains work better，”said Dr．Clinton Wright of the University．Of Miami，who led the study．But it’s not necessarily easy．Walking，golf，bowling and yoga didn’t count，and people need to start before they begin showing memory loss，Wright’s team reported in the journal Neurology．
The study of nearly 900 people who exercise regularly showed that 90 percent fell into the low-intensity group．These people are part of a larger group taking part in a bigger study called Northern Manhattan Study．They were asked how long and how often they exercised during the past two weeks．Five years later，they were tested for memory and thinking skills and got a brain MRI．Seven years after that，they took the memory and thinking tests again．The 10 percent who said they took part in moderate intensity exercise scored better on the tests．These included running，climbing，swimming，riding bicycles and so on．
“We found that those with moderate heavy activity had higher scores and slower decline than inactive patients when comparing the results，”the study team wrote．
Many studies have shown that exercise may not prevent Alzheimer’s but may delay it．The findings fit in with a study that found two years of exercising，eating healthier food and brain training can promote people’s memory function．
1. According to the study，moderate heavy exercise________.

A．makes people’s heart better than their heads

B．helps people keep a younger brain

C．makes people ten years younger

D．makes people look like potatoes

2. What’s true about the study?

A．Most people surveyed took low-intensity exercise．

B．Only 900 people took part in the bigger study．

C．High-intensity exercise is better．

D．Ten people scored best on the test．

3. How did the study team come to the conclusion?

A．By observing people exercise．

B．By using examples．

C．By making a comparison．

D．By doing a brain MRI．

4. What’s the best title for this passage?

A．How to keep healthy

B．Ways to make your brain work better

C．To exercise or not

D．Moderate exercise keeps your brain younger

【推荐2】There are three different kinds of friends in our life. I classify (分类) them according to how well I know them and how well they know me.

The first type of friend is just an acquaintance (熟人). This means that you only know their name. You might not even remember what they look like if you go away for a short vacation. You don’t miss them when they are elsewhere. It is also this type of friend who gives you the most amount of aggravation (恼怒). Since most of the time you are placed in a position where you have to act friendly, you would not normally tell an acquaintance when he or she is doing something that makes you feel angry, such as tapping the fingers on a table or shouting loudly. I call them “pest friends”.

The second kind of friend is a “guest friend”. They are just social partners. You meet them at a certain location and at the end of the meeting you go your separate way and they go theirs. You don’t talk too often with this sort of friend, and you don’t share each other’s secrets.

Lastly, we have “best friends”. This sort of friend is there when you need them. They know you as a person and they are there through thick and thin. Best friends are the ones that you can lean and depend on no matter what happens. If you need a listening ear, they will be the one to lend support.

Friends come in all different shapes and sizes. Every friend has an impact on our life. . .

1. According to the writer, when a friend of the first type acts in an annoying way, you .

A．can tell him/her about it directly

B．should stay away from him/her

C．should advise him/her to correct his/her behavior

D．may find it hard to tell him/her not to do so

2. Which of the following statements is WRONG about the second type of friend?

A．They are only social partners.

B．You don’t talk very often with them.

C．You don’t share your secrets with them.

D．They are called “pest friends” by the writer.

3. If someone is with you through thick and thin, it means .

A．he/she is your friend for sure

B．he/she agrees with whatever you say

C．you spend most of your time together

D．he/she is with you even when there are difficulties

4. What will most probably be talked about in Paragraph 5?

A．How to make friends.

B．How friends influence our life.

C．How to improve friendship.

D．How to get along well with the third type of friend.

5. What is this passage mainly about?

A．What a true friend is like.

B．Three kinds of friends in our life.

C．The role that friends play in our life.

D．Why there are different kinds of friends.

【推荐2】Your dream holiday comes true as you book this customizable 4 nights 5 days Cape Town package tour.

Travel schedule
Day 1: Arrival	On arrival at the airport in Johannesburg, a tour agent’s representative will take you to the hotel. Complete the check-in.
Day 2: City Tour	Enjoy a sightseeing tour in Cape Town. Some must-have experiences include the Table Mountain (weather permitting; otherwise Signal Hill), charming coastal drive through Clifton & Sea Point, Green Market Square, and more. You’ll have the chance to view some of the most well-known structures in the city such as V&A Waterfront.
Day 3: Cape Point Tour	Cape Point is home to a rocky yet scenic landscape. This tour includes a visit to the beautiful town of Hout Bay, an exciting 30-minute tour on the ship to spot the playful seals jumping in and out of the water. In the Simons town cute penguins are waiting for you.
Day 4: Leisure Day	Enjoy spending the day at leisure. Travelers can choose some exciting activities which are not included in the package and can cause extra charges like Skydiving, Hot Air Ballooning, etc.
Day 5: Departure	Have breakfast and then check out and get to the airport for your journey back home with a bagful of memories.

1. Which can be an alternative to Table Mountain?

A．Signal Hill.	B．Clifton & Sea Point
C．Green Market Square.	D．V&A Waterfront.

2. Which day might animal lovers anticipate?

A．Day 2.

B．Day 3.

C．Day 4.

D．Day 5.

3. For which activity do travelers need to pay extra money?

A．Viewing famous structures.	B．Visiting Hout Bay.
C．Go skydiving.	D．Observing seal.

【推荐3】As I jogged over the bridge and round the corner on my regular early morning run, he was standing opposite the jeweler’s, looking extremely suspicious. But the moment he saw me, instead of trying to avoid me, he came straight across the road as I drew level with the jeweler’s. Halfway across he began addressing me: “I thought you were going to…” — but his voice trailed away as he received no reply and no sign of recognition from me. It was quite obvious that he had mistaken me for someone else. But he started up again as if nothing had happened．“Good morning, ” he said．“Nice to bump into someone so early. Someone to talk to. I’ve taken to talking to myself on this job.”

I hate meeting people when I’m out early, and I was almost out of breath, so I just paused in my stride, nodded in a friendly manner, and went on up the road. The stranger had spoken quietly, and quite slowly. And I had noticed that he was well dressed, too. But if he looked suspicious dressed like that at that time of the morning, what about me? I was in a track suit, with an old sweater round my shoulders and a cap on my head．As to his odd remark about “talking to himself on this job”, I hadn’t paid any attention to it, although now it began to worry me. Was he perhaps a plain clothes policeman? At the time I somehow felt he was.

I had just turned the corner into the High Street when I heard the sound of breaking glass somewhere behind me, and I thought the sound came from the street I had just left. I stopped dead and almost without thinking looked back around the corner. The stranger was not there, but almost immediately an alarm bell in the jeweler’s began ringing furiously.

I found out later that a burglar had broken into the jeweler’s shop and stolen watches and rings worth about   ￡5,000. The police are still looking into the matter, but I’m afraid to go and tell them what I know now because they might even suspect me of committing the crime, and it might be difficult for me to prove my innocence. After all, I haven’t offered my assistance as a witness, and the only other person around that morning was the “stranger” who had spoken to me.

1. From the passage we can infer that the author _____.

A．always goes past the jeweler’s

B．didn’t like talking to the strangers

C．meets a few people every morning

D．saw a plain clothes policeman that morning

2. Why did the stranger talk to the author?

A．Because the stranger took the author as someone else.

B．Because the stranger loved talking to people.

C．Because the stranger recognized the writer.

D．Because the stranger took a job of talking to himself.

3. Why did the stranger seem suspicious?

A．He was about to go into the jeweler’s.

B．He was far too friendly.

C．He was dressed too well for that time.

D．He talked to himself a lot.

4. If the writer had been on the spot, _____.

A．he might have been badly injured

B．he would have seen what happened

C．he wouldn’t have heard the alarm bell

D．the stranger wouldn’t have broken the window

5. What idea does the author convey in the last paragraph?

A．he thinks the stranger is innocent

B．the burglar didn’t steal very much

C．he might commit the crime to the police

D．he hesitates whether to report to the police about what he knew

【推荐1】Computer scientists have hoped to give robots technical skills to help them recognize, process and react to humor. But these attempts have mostly failed. AI experts say that in many cases, attempts to make robots understand humor end up producing funny results, but not in the way they were supposed to.

Tristan Miller studied more than 10,000 puns in one research project. The pun is a kind of joke that uses a word with two meanings. For example, you could say, “Balloons do not like pop music.” The word “pop” can be a way of saying popular music; or can mean the sound a balloon makes when it explodes. But a robot might not get the joke. Tristan Miller says that is because humor is a kind of creative language that is extremely difficult for computer intelligence to understand.

Allison Bishop is a computer scientist and she also performs stand-up comedy. She explained that machines are trained to look for patterns. Comedy, on the other hand, relies on things that stay close to a pattern, but not completely within it. To be funny, humor should also not be predictable, Bishop said. This is a great challenge for a machine to recognize and understand what is funny.

Bishop says since robots have great difficulty understanding humor, she feels like it gives her better job safety as a comedy performer. It even made her parents happy when her brother decided to become a full-time comedy writer because it meant he wouldn’t be replaced by a machine, she added.

Despite the difficulties, Darmstadt University’s Miller says there are good reasons to keep trying to teach humor to robots. It could make machines more relatable (叙述的), especially if they can learn to understand sarcasm (讽刺), he noted. Humans use sarcasm to say one thing but mean another. But Kiki Hempelmann thinks differently. “Teaching AI systems humor may make them find it where it isn’t, and they may use it where it’s not suitable,” he said. “Maybe bad AI will start killing people because it thinks something is funny,” he added.

1. What does the author most probably want to show in Paragraph 1?

A．Robots’ influence on the scientific development.

B．Robots’ challenges of making sense of humor.

C．Computer scientists’ devotion to technical skills.

D．Computer scientists’ concern about AI’s development.

2. What are examples mentioned in Paragraphs 2 and 3 intended to do?

A．Prove robots do poorly in funny work

B．Explain robots aren’t as intelligent as humans

C．Describe language is complex and changeable

D．Show language can’t be taught in a set pattern

3. What can we infer about teaching AI system humor from the last paragraph?

A．It will make no difference.

B．It may be a double-edged sword.

C．It may help improve humans’ humor.

D．It will attract more computer scientists.

4. Where would the passage most probably come from?

A．Textbook	B．Advertisement
C．Science journal	D．Entertainment speech

【推荐2】Travel is one of the most exciting experiences a human being can have. Imagine how Italian traveler Marco Polo must have felt when he found himself on Chinese soil, seeing a way of life quite different from anything he’d seen before.

And how marvelous must it have been to listen to Zhang Qian when he returned to China from his journey through Central Asia and West Asia? His brain must have been packed with everything he’d seen and heard, leading to the founding of the Silk Road.

Some people have traveled all over the world, and travel is a way of life to them. They perhaps know what to expect before they travel. That’s why the best travel is when it’s for the first time. Imagine a person who has always wanted to travel to the United States. Of course, they’ve probably seen the Statue of Liberty a thousand times on TV, and the White House, and all the other famous sights. But none of that would compare to the thrill of looking out of the cabin window as the plane lands, watching the cities and streets of the real America come into view.

Although travel is often just for recreation, it’s also educational. We may not know that we are getting an education, but we still are.

We’re learning every day: new words in a new language, new people, and new ways of life. But this learning takes place in the school of the world, not the classroom. One of the lessons we learn is undoubtedly a moral one. As we get to know foreign places, we come to understand that there are many different ways to live, and that the way we live isn’t necessarily the best way. The British politician Benjamin Disraeli summed this up well when he said, “Travel teaches toleration.”

1. The author uses Marco Polo and Zhang Qian as examples to       .

A．explain how the Silk Road was founded

B．present travel as an amazing experience

C．show how the way people travel has changed

D．describe important cultural exchanges in history

2. By saying “the best travel is when it’s for the first time”, the author means that       .

A．one’s first trip is usually the most challenging

B．no other trip is better than one’s first trip

C．there is always much to learn on one’s first trip

D．people usually make better preparations for their first trip

3. The underlined word in paragraph 4 probably means       .

A．learning	B．knowledge
C．fun	D．risk

4. According to the last two paragraphs, the author believes that       .

A．traveling should be included in formal education

B．traveling improves people’s confidence in their lifestyle

C．a foreign journey may raise people’s cultural understanding

D．there is more to learn from adventures than being in classroom

【推荐3】Short and shy, Ben Saunders was the last kid in his class picked for any sports team. “Football, tennis cricket-anything with a round ball, I was useless”, he says now with a laugh. But back then, he was the object of jokes in school gym classes in England’s rural Devonshire.

It was a mountain bike he received for his 15th birthday that changed him. At first the teen went biking alone in a nearby forest. Then he began to cycle along with a runner friend. Gradually, Saunders set his mind building up his body, increasing his speed, strength and endurance. At age 18, he ran his first marathon.

The following year, he met John Ridgway, who became famous in the 1960s for rowing an open boat across the Atlantic Ocean. Saunders was hired as an instructor at Ridgway’s school of Adventure in Scotland, where he learned about the older man’s cold-water exploits (英勇行为). Intrigued, Saunders read all he could about Arctic explorers and North Pole expeditions, then decided that this would be his future.

Journeys to the Pole aren’t the usual holidays for British country boys, and many people dismissed (不予考虑) his dream as fantasy. “John Ridgway was one of the few who didn’t say, ‘You are completely crazy’,” Saunders says.

In 2001, after becoming a skilled skier, Saunders started his first long-distance expedition toward the North Pole. He suffered frostbite, had a closer encounter with a polar bear and pushed his body to the limit.

Saunders has since become the youngest person to ski alone to the North Pole, and he’s skied more of the Arctic by himself than any other Briton. His old playmates would not believe the transformation.

This October, Saunders, 27, heads south to explore from the coast of Antarctica to the South Pole and back, an 1800-mile journey that has never been completed on skis (滑雪板).

1. We can learn from the text that Ridgway ______.

A．dismissed Saunders’ dream as fantasy.

B．built up his body together with Saunders.

C．hired Saunders for his cold-water experience.

D．won his fame for his voyage across the Atlantic.

2. What do we know about Saunders?

A．He once worked at a school in Scotland.

B．He followed Ridgway to explore the North Pole.

C．He was chosen for the school sports team as a kid.

D．He was the first Briton to ski alone to the North Pole.

3. The underlined word “Intrigued” in the third paragraph probably means ______.

A．excited.

B．convinced.

C．delighted.

D．fascinated.

4. It can be inferred that Saunders’ journey to the North Pole ______.

A．was accomplished by his old playmates.

B．set a record in the North Pole expedition.

C．was supported by other Arctic explorers.

D．made him well-known in the 1960s.