【推荐1】

Over time, the cuckoo (布谷鸟) has learned to get other birds to care for its babies. The cuckoo is an amazing bird. Most birds lay their eggs and look after them until their babies hatch out. Then they feed their babies until they are ready to leave the nest.

Some birds are not such good parents. Cuckoos lay their eggs in the nest of other birds and do not care for their own babies. They get other birds to act as the parents. The other birds raise the young cuckoos as well as their own babies!

If the cuckoo egg hatches first, the baby cuckoo will often push the other eggs out of the nest so that it can get all the attention of its new mother. The young cuckoo sometimes even push the other babies out of the nest. The young cuckoo has a loud cry and is often bigger than the other baby birds, it will take all the food and the space in the nest.

If the cuckoo lay around 25 eggs each year in the nests of other birds. This means that many other birds spend all their time looking after young cuckoos instead of their own babies. Some birds have learned to recognize the cuckoos’ eggs and they push them out of their nests. But the cuckoos have also found ways of fooling (欺骗) the other birds. They can change their eggs to make them look just like the other birds’ own eggs.

1. What has the cuckoo learned?

A．Making a wonderful nest.	B．Singing songs.
C．Catching food quickly.	D．Getting other birds to care for its babies.

2. What will most birds do after they lay their eggs?

A．They will look after them until their babies hatch out.

B．They will do nothing but leave them in the nest.

C．They will push the eggs out of the nest.

D．They will eat all the eggs.

3. What does the underlined words “hatch out” mean?

A．Lay eggs.

B．Eat eggs.

C．Get out of the eggs.

D．Push eggs.

4. If the cuckoo eggs hatches first, the baby cuckoo will often ________.

A．push the other eggs out of the nest	B．fly to find its own parents
C．help to warm the other eggs	D．do nothing but wait for food

5. Which of the following statements is TRUE?

A．The young cuckoos look like the other babies in the nest.

B．No birds can recognize the cuckoos’eggs and push them out of the nest.

C．Some birds can recognize the cuckoos’ eggs and push them out of thenest.

D．It’s impossible for cuckoos to lay eggs in the nests of other birds.

【推荐2】In Canada you can find dogs, cats, horses etc. in almost every family. These are their pets.     1     Before they keep them at their houses, they take them to animal hospitals to give them needles（针）so that they won't carry disease（疾病）. They have special animal food stores, though they can get animal food in almost every store.     2     When you visit people's homes, they would be very glad to show you their pets and they are very proud of them. You will also find almost every family has a bird feeder in their garden. All kinds of birds are welcomed to come and have a good meal.     3     Nobody is allowed to kill any animals in Canada.    4    If you killed an animal, you would be punished（处罚）. If an animal happened to get run over by a car, people would be very sad about it.

    5     One of them might be: When children grow up, they leave their parents and start their own career（生涯）. Then the seniors（老人）will feel lonely. But pets can solve this problem. They can be good friends and never leave them alone.

根据短文内容，从短文后的七个选项中选出五个能填入空白处的最佳选项，并将选项的字母标号填写在对应的横线上。

A．They are free to come and go.

B．Why don't people kill animals?

C．People in Canada have many reasons to like animals.

D．They have a law（法律）against killing wild animals.

E．People usually use cages（笼子）to keep them at home.

F．People love these pets and regard（把……看作）them as their good friends.

G．Some people spend around two hundred Canadian dollars a month on animal food.

【推荐3】阅读下列材料，从材料后所给各题的四个选项中选出最佳选项。
To help you decide what might make a good pet，we’ve put together a pet checklist．We’ve named some of the animals that are often kept as pets．We’ve shown some good points and bad points about each．And we hope it may help you make the best choice．

Pick-a-Pet Checklist
Pets	Good Points	Bad Points
	Easy to keep Enjoy being petted Good to hold	Hard to house train Drop lots of hair Easily upset by high temperature
	Can be very interesting Can be friendly when young	Against the law to keep in many states in the U.S. Can get unkind when older
	Easy to feed ＆ care for Can live indoors or out Fun to hold Very friendly	Little pans can be messy May kill birds May make you sneeze
	Come in many sizes Can live indoors or out Fun to love ＆ play with Very friendly Can give safety	Can be noisy Need to be trained May bite if angry Need lots of attention

1. It would be easier for you to keep a ____ as a pet if you’re often too busy to take care of it．

A．rabbit or raccoon	B．rabbit or cat
C．raccoon or dog	D．dog or cat

2. If you feed birds at home，you should be very careful to choose a ____ as your another pet．

A．rabbit

B．raccoon

C．cat

D．dog

3. The dog may ________ you if you make it angry．

A．hurt

B．fix

C．train

D．smell

4. .which pet may be friendly only when it is young?

A．rabbit

B．dog

C．cat

D．raccoon

5. The writer tries to help us ________ with the checklist．

A．learn how to look after our pets

B．find which animal is our best choice as a pet

C．know what kind of animals can be kept as a pet

D．keep a pet in a easy way

【推荐1】“That Susan is so funny..., I need to bring the car to the wash tomorrow..., why is this person being so loud...here comes the Sun, doo-doo-doo.” We often find ourselves in an endless thought loop(思考圈). And every so often, we try to stop this endless flow(流动) of thoughts by telling ourselves to just stop thinking. But do we or can we ever really stop thinking?

It depends on your definition(定义) of “thinking”, according to Michael Halassa, a researcher at MIT, the US. We mainly go through each day in one of the two situations—we either realize that we’re thinking or we don’t. Our brains won’t stop thinking completely until we die.

“The brain never stops thinking in a way. Most thoughts are actually in the background and we don’t notice them. And there’s no real way to stop thinking.” Halassa said.

You can compare this to how a computer works. Even when you aren’t using your computer while it’s turned on, it is still running operations “in the background”. Your computer, much like your brain, is always “thinking”, even if you’re not actively using it.

“If you see a familiar face in a crowd and think you know him, you might not be able to come up with how you know him right away.” Halassa said. “But maybe hours later, you’ll suddenly remember. That’s a result of your brain thinking in the background.” he said.

“We even make decisions mostly unconsciously or without realizing them. For example, some of this background “thinking” results in what we call a gut feeling(直觉)”, Halassa said. “During our brain’s decision—making process, sometimes we create a story to explain the decision—sometimes it’s accurate(精确的), sometimes it’s not”, he added.

Even sitting here reading this, thinking about thinking is sending messages across a chain of neurons(神经元) in the brain. So if we somehow manage to stop ourselves from “thinking”, the brain won’t stop working. It will continue to have thoughts—we just won’t realize them.

根据短文内容，选择最佳答案。
1. When you are in an endless thought loop, you ________.

A．can’t think about a problem very clearly

B．are thinking about one thing after another.

C．can’t stop thinking about past events.

2. What does Paragraph 4 try to tell us?

A．Human brains are thinking all the time.

B．Human brains work faster than computers.

C．A computer can deal with plenty of information.

3. In Paragraph 6, the underlined word “unconsciously” means “________” in Chinese.

A．有目的地

B．很清楚地

C．无意识地

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

A．Will We Continue to Have Thought after We Die?

B．What is the Definition of “Thinking”?

C．Can We Ever Really Stop Thinking?

【推荐2】

Science is proving what pet owners have long believed: Dogs understand what we're feeling. Especially, dogs can recognize(识别) the difference between a happy
and an angry human face, a study published Thursday in Current Biology suggests.
It's the first research to show that dogs are sensitive (敏感) to our facial expressions, says the author Ludwig Huber at the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna.
In the Austrian study, 20 different kinds of pet dogs were taught to play a computer game through a series of exercises. In the first step, the dogs were shown two touch screens, one with a circle and one with a square. Through the exercises, they learned that a treat would appear if they chose the right one.
Eleven of the 20 dogs were able to catch on to rules of the game and make it to the next test, where they were shown photos of happy and angry faces. The dogs were rewarded if they picked certain expression correctly. During the test, the dogs were shown only the upper half or the lower half of a face.
It was easier to teach the dogs to choose a happy expression than an angry one, suggesting the dogs do indeed understand the meaning behind the expression, Huber
says.
As a test, the dogs were then presented with:the same half of the faces they saw during the training, but from different people，
the other half of the faces used in training，
the other half of new faces，
the left half of the faces used in training.
In the cases, the dogs chose the right answer 70 to 100 percent of the time.
Dogs who had been trained to recognize an expression of anger or happiness on the upper part of a face could find the same expression when shown only the lower part. Huber says, "The only possible explanation is that they recall from memory of everyday life how a whole human face looks when happy or angry."
Dog owners know their pets not only recognize emotions but also understand the feelings.
1. The passage may come from    .

A．a news report	B．a science magazine
C．a pets guide	D．a history book

2. How many dogs in the research could understand the rules of the game?

A．11

B．20

C．70

D．100

3. During the test, the dogs were presented with the following faces    .
①the other half of some new faces
②the right half of the faces used in training
③the other half of the faces used in training
④the same half of the faces they saw but from different people

A．①③④

B．①②③

C．①②④

D．②③④

4. Why was it easier to teach the dogs to choose a happy expression than an angry one?

A．Because dogs wanted to make a happy expression.

B．Because dogs were rewarded for picking a happy expression.

C．Because dogs saw a happy expression more often from their owners.

D．Because dogs indeed didn’t understand the meaning behind the expressions.

5. What can we learn from the passage?

A．Dog owners know if their pets are happy.

B．Dog owners know how to train their dogs.

C．Dogs can make different facial expressions.

D．Dogs can understand their owners' feelings.

【推荐1】Most of us believe that our parents will always be there for us. But this is not the case for “left-behind” children (留守儿童). Their parents work in cities, leaving them behind in the countryside to be cared for by their grandparents.

As of August, China had 6.97 million left-behind children, accounting for about one-third of all rural (农村的) children. With Spring Festival arriving, Ministry of Civil Affairs is calling on migrant (外出打工的民工) parents to return home and celebrate the new year with their kids.

In fact, children living without their parents can face many problems in terms of their education, safety and mental (心理的) health. For example, their grandparents may not be able to help them with their homework or raise them properly. This can result in children having an unsociable (孤僻的) personality, according to Workers’ Daily.

The government has taken some action to care for and protect left-behind children, such as sending social workers to rural areas. They will report to the government if they find that any left-behind children are suffering from abuse (虐待), China Daily noted.

But the best way is to bring their parents back. The government has encouraged migrant workers to return to their rural hometowns to look for work. Another solution is to make it easier for rural children to attend urban schools in the cities, People’s Daily noted.

Some of the government’s efforts have paid off. The number of left-behind children has dropped by 22.7 percent from 9.02 million last year, according to Xinhua.

1. According to the report, China has about________rural kids.

A．2.3 million

B．6.97 million

C．9.02 million

D．20.91 million

2. The third paragraph mainly tells us________.

A．what problems left-behind kids have	B．how left-behind kids get on with their grandparents
C．how left-behind kids study at school	D．why left-behind kids get poor grades

3. What do social workers in rural areas do?

A．They help left-behind kids with their schoolwork.

B．They build a bridge between left-behind kids and their parents.

C．They give medical care to left-behind kids.

D．They report whether left-behind kids are suffering from abuse.

4. What is the best way to help left-behind kids?

A．Send social workers to the countryside.	B．Bring their parents back.
C．Help rural kids attend city schools.	D．Train more volunteers to help left-behind kids.

【推荐3】Elsie Comer is nearly 92， but she can still play a game of Words with Friends on her iPad and claims (宣称)   that the Apple product has changed her life.
Mrs. Comer， who lives in a house close to Manchester Airport. admits(承认) to playing the hugely popular puzzle game at a time. and also uses her iPad to track the planes that fly overhead and explore the world with Google Earth.
"It's been a wonderful way to keep in touch with my family， " she said. "I use it nearly all the hours of daylight. 2-3 hours in the morning. then again in the afternoon.
" I live near the airport， so I love being able to look at the Flight Tracker and see where the planes that fly overhead are going. I also really like Words with Friends，and have 16 games going at the moment.
Mrs. Comer taught painting when she left school. She did own a laptop, but struggled(费力 ) with it. “She had a laptop before， but the problem was that she couldn't see the cursor(光标) . And that she also has shaky hands that struggle with the mouse.” said her 63-year-old daughter， Jean Holt ， from Citheroe, “I was in America visiting my daughter. and I played with an iPad and decided to buy one for my mother.”
Mrs. Holt loaded the iPad with apps(应用程序) gradually so her mother could learn how to use them. "She uses it several hours a day， and is determined (决定) to keep up with everything new. So she reads the news， sends emails， and uses FaceTime to make video calls to us all." she said.
ELSIES FAVO RITE APPS
★Words with Friends-a free Scrabble-like puzzle app
★Flight Tracker-allowing her to see the details of planes that fly over
her home
★ FaceTime-used to make video talk to her family around the world
★iMessage-used to send text messages to mobile phones
★Solitaire-a classic card Same
1. Why does the writer write this passage?

A．To tell us the secrets of how Mrs. Comer keeps healthy.

B．To describe how to use Apple apps in our daily life.

C．To explain Mrs. Corner makes a living alone.

D．To prove iPad has good effect on Mrs. Comer's life.

2. What does the writer mainly tell us in the passage?

A．What Mrs. Comer uses her iPad to do in her daily life.

B．How Mrs. Comer explores the world with Google Earth.

C．When Mrs. Comer sends text messages to mobile phones.

D．Why Mrs. Holt bought an iPad for her mother instead.

3. What does the underlined word " track" mean in the second paragraph?

A．catch up with	B．follow the route of
C．take a photo of	D．keep in touch with

4. What can we learn from the passage?

A．A friend in need is a friend indeed.

B．Where there is a will， there is a way.

C．One is never too old to learn.

D．A good beginning is half done.