【推荐1】

There are many things we remember from our childhood - the games we played, the music we listened to, but what about earning pocket money? This was our first ever pay for completing tasks such as tidying our bedroom or sorting the clothes that need washing. What we got was a handful of coins that we safely hid away.     1    

There was a time when cash was king. These days, though, using credit or debit cards, or making contactless payments are the easiest ways of paying.       2     Research has found that 84% of British parents nowadays give notes and coins to their children-usually ￡7 a week as pocket money.

But banks think that by 2028 only one in ten payments will be with cash, and that it’s something today’s children will have to deal with. One important topic is that children may not understand the value of cash because they never see it.     3    They either should find a new way to hand over pocket money or needn’t trouble to pay it all.

    4    Parents are advised to get children started with money as young as possible. Sarah Porretta from the UK’s Money and Pensions Service told the BBC that for parents who no longer carry cash, “The trick is to go and get some coins, just so your children have the opportunity to communicate with them.” Besides, banks also suggest setting up accounts for older children which gives them a cash card to use. Whatever method a parent chooses to adopt, their children will get some ideas of the value of pocket money.    5         

Word Bank
cash现金     contactless 不接触的     attitude 态度 finance财务
根据材料内容，从下面五个选项中选出能填入文中空缺处的最佳选项，使短文意思通顺、内容完整。

A．Parents face a difficult situation, too.

B．So where does that leave handing over pocket money?

C．But parents need to teach their kids that money doesn’t grow on trees!

D．Giving children lessons about finance at school is important.

E．But now, it seems parents' attitude to handing out cash is changing.

【推荐2】Everybody hates that feeling when you spend three weeks reading a book, and a month later somebody asks you about it and you can’t remember a thing you read. It makes you wonder why you wasted a couple of hours on the words that didn’t stick.

There are some effective ways to learn. And when I say “to learn effectively”, what I mean is to not just build up knowledge, but to be able to apply(应用)that knowledge effectively at some point in the future. By this definition, most of the courses people spend money on is not learning. Something is not truly learned until it changes you in some way.

1. Memory is based on relevance (相关性)

One of my favorite online book clubs is Mentor Box. What’s cool about the club is not only do they send you books to read, but they send you study materials related to them. The study materials, instead of being like school, where it asks you to repeat information in the book to help memorize it, are designed to help you apply the lessons to various areas of your life.

That’s because memory works based on relevance. We only remember what our brain has considered important to our own lives. If you don’t find a way to make it relevant to you and your well-being in some way, your brain will conveniently forget it.

You can do this on your own. When you come across something interesting in a book, write down its application or relevance to something in your life—how you can use the idea, how it explains something in your past, how it can help with your problems, etc.

2. Reading does not have to be linear

People believe they have to read everything, line by line, one after another. This is not only not true, but it’s often a waste of time and energy.

When you buy a book, you’re not buying the words, you’re buying the useful ideas. The point of a book is to gather the information that is relevant and important to you, not to finish it or to understand every word. What matters is the principle or key idea. Once you’ve received that principle or idea, there’s no reason to feel obligated to sit there and read the rest.

3.Think critically and ask the right questions

Everything you read should be questioned. You should question the writer’s biases(偏见 ), whether they’re explaining information correctly, whether they’re overlooking something. When reading something I agree with, I’ll ask myself, “Is it possible that this could be wrong?” Everything should be taken with a grain of salt, for the simple reason that almost everything is largely uncertain. And it’s the ability to manage those uncertainties effectively that will determine the depth of your knowledge and understanding, not the ability to memorize a lot of facts and numbers.

1. According to the writer, effective learning________.

A．is a practical method to have good feelings

B．helps you explain and remember difficult words

C．happens when knowledge changes you in some way

D．is the main goal of the courses people spend money on

2. What does the writer suggest when we learn something new?

A．Read line by line to receive useful ideas.

B．Repeat and rethink information to deepen our memory.

C．Build connections between books and our personal life.

D．Keep asking questions to understand the writer’s opinions.

3. The underlined word “obligated” probably means “________”.

A．worried

B．forced

C．relaxed

D．interested

4. Which of the following would be the best title for the passage?

A．How to Become A Better Learner

B．How to Memorize Things Effectively

C．Ways of Building Relevance in Your Life

D．The importance of Asking the Right Questions

【推荐3】Most people hope to have a memory which helps them succeed in study, work and life. Can memory be improved? Luckily, hundreds of studies in the past 50 years have already given us a definite answer.

A healthy lifestyle keeps your brain young and memory sharp. First of all, it is necessary to have a healthy diet. Eating more food rich in Vitamin B and Vitamin E, such as vegetables and lean meat helps you have a better memory.

Proper exercise provides much needed oxygen (氧气) for the brain. Running, riding a bike, swimming and even walking two or three times a week are helpful. Moreover, getting enough sleep is important. Only when your brain gets a good rest, can it work well. The healthier your lifestyle is, the better your memory will become, but do not expect a sudden change—it takes a long time to make a difference.

Memory skills help you remember things better. The following three are the most widely used. Chunking is a way of remembering a piece of information by cutting it into smaller ones. For example, to memorize a ten-digit telephone number 2127983630, you can divide the digits into three groups: first 212, then 798, and lastly 3630. This method is far more effective than remembering a string of 10 digits. Organization means organizing information into groups of the same kind. For example, trees, grass and flowers are plants; tigers, pandas, horses and cows are animals. Imagery is remembering newly learnt information by using your imagination and connecting it with something that you are familiar with.

However, memory skills will hardly work if you don’t understand the information. What’s more, only a regular review can make the memory last long. That is why students are always advised to go over what they have learnt after one day and then after three days, and then use it as regularly as possible.

Human brains are like muscles that need nutrients (营养) and exercise to become stronger. If you make a few lifestyle changes and try some memory skills, you can certainly improve your memory.

1. How many ways of keeping a healthy lifestyle are mentioned in the passage?

A．Three.

B．Four.

C．Five.

D．Six.

2. Which of the following examples is the use of the skill “organization”?

A．Remembering the word “sad” by putting it into the group of “feeling”.

B．Remembering the meaning of the word “red” by connecting it with fire.

C．Remembering a long and difficult passage by understanding its meaning.

D．Remembering the post number 0708591 by diving it into 070 and 8591.

3. According to the passage, why should we review what we’ve learnt?

A．To use it better every day.	B．To understand it in a better way.
C．To remember it for a longer time.	D．To improve memory skills.

4. The underlined word “it” in Paragraph 4 means _________.

A．Imagination

B．information

C．imagery

D．memory

5. What is the main idea of the passage?

A．Not everyone has a good memory.	B．Memory skills are not difficult to learn.
C．Memory can be improved in some ways.	D．It is important to have a healthy lifestyle.

【推荐1】The Garbage (垃圾) Project started at the University of Arizona in 1973. Since then, the students and teachers in it have studied the modern garbage in different cities.

To study the garbage, the students had to travel to landfills, the places where cities bury (填埋) their garbage. While the students were studying the garbage, they wore special clothes. Students were very careful when they opened bags of garbage.

One important thing the students have learned from studying the garbage is that the garbage in landfills disappears very slowly. That was surprising to both the students and many scientists who had thought that about 70% of the garbage in landfills would disappear quickly. Even in cities where it rains a lot, the students found newspapers from 1948, 40-year-old hot dogs, and vegetables from 1970. And the students also found many more empty bottles of cola than they expected.

As society develops, there is more and more waste produced in our daily life. How to dispose of our garbage well depends on what kind of garbage it is: regular (普通的) garbage, dangerous materials, or recyclable materials, such as newspapers and glass bottles. Regular garbage goes to regular landfills. Dangerous materials are harmful to people’s health and the environment. They shouldn’t go into regular landfills. And people should try their best to reuse the resource and reduce the amount of using them. It is high time that people need to divide different kinds of waste and put them into different dustbins, which will be a great help to cleaning workers as well as the whole society.

Homes are full of dangerous waste. One kind of the dangerous waste in homes is batteries (电池). When batteries are buried directly in a landfill, they often break open. The poison inside them moves through rain water to the bottom of the landfill. Then it can pollute the natural water in the ground.

Another dangerous waste from homes is motor oil. When people pour old motor oil on the ground or throw it in the garbage, it pollutes the environment.

Our garbage problem is not new, but as the world’s population continues to grow, it will become a bigger and bigger problem.

1. To study the modern garbage, the students had to do many things except _________.

A．wearing special clothes	B．traveling to landfills
C．burying the garbage themselves	D．opening bags of garbage

2. The words “dispose of” in Paragraph 4 probably mean “_________”.

A．put away

B．deal with

C．worry about

D．make up

3. What can we learn from the passage?

A．Old motor oil should go to regular landfills.

B．There are only two kinds of dangerous waste in homes.

C．Batteries are often broken when they are buried directly in a landfill.

D．The students found empty bottles of cola were not as many as they expected.

【推荐3】

Unable to stand, and suffering from a number of serious diseases in his advanced age, the world's last male northern white rhino(犀牛)was euthanized by a rescue team in Kenya on 19^th March, 2018.Only two of the northern white rhinos remain on Earth-his daughter,Najin, and granddaughter, Fatu.

“We are all saddened by Sudan's death.He was an amazing rhino,and will be remembered for the work he did to raise attention of the sad situation facing not only rhinos, but also the many thousands of other endangered annals,”Ol Pejeta Conservancy chief executive said.

Sudan was born in 1972, in what is now South Sudan, when there were still about 1.000 northern white rhinos living in the wild.But their home was then destroyed by human.As The Washington Post's Kevin wrote in a report of Sudan in 2015:“When wars broke out, the rhinos were largely killed for their meat or their horns (角), or sometimes exchanged for money or guns.”

Rhino horn being highly prized is another reason for the killing of this kind of animal.The horn is considered to have medicinal qualities and is sold at very high prices.Even a recent drop in the price of rhino horn did not come soon enough to save the northern white rhino from near-certain disappearing in the world.

But Sudan was saved from the horrible situation by people from a zoo in the Czech Republic when he was 3 years old.After the death of Suni in 2014, the second-to-last male, Sudan became the only male northern white rhino in the world.He spent the last years of his life under 24-hour protection.His horn had been cut off just in order to stop people from killing him for it, though it had began to grow back.But the effort to save the northern white rhino seems to have come too late for a real turnaround.

Sudan's death is a cruel symbol of human not caring about nature and it saddened everyone who knew him.Hopefully it will call on human beings to save the endangered animals in the world.

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

A．Killed

B．Hurt

C．Saved.

D．Found

2. What will Sudan be remembered for?

A．His big family.	B．His unusual long lite.
C．His work to encourage animal protection.	D．His courage of fighting against serious illnesses.

3. In what order did the following events take place?
a.Sudan died in Kenya.
b.Sudan was rescued by people.
c.Sudan was reported by The Washington Post.
d.Sudan became the last male northern white rhino.
e.Sudan lived with about 1,000 northern white rhinos in the wild.

A．e,b,d,c,a

B．b,a,c,d,e

C．b,c,a,e,d

D．e b,c,d,a

4. What made the northern white rhino almost disappear in the world?

A．People didn't cut off their horns,	B．Human beings destroyed their homes,
C．The price of the rhino horn dropped rapidly.	D．There was no female northern white rhino left on Earth.

5. What is the writer's purpose of writing this passage?

A．To introduce the northern white rhino.

B．To do a research on the northern white rhino.

C．To raise people's attention to save endangered annals.

D．To find out the reasons why the northern white rhino was dying out.