【推荐1】

A 108-year-old Message in a Bottle

On November 30, 1906, George Bidder dropped a bottle from a boat into the North Sea. The weighted glass bottle sank almost to the sea floor, and then it moved slowly for 108 years and 138 days.

Its journey ended when Marianne Winkler found the bottle in 2015. Winkler was then on vacation on Amrum Island. She picked up the bottle when it was washed up onto the beach. She saw a piece of paper inside, but didn’t break it open. She could tell that the bottle was old, so she didn’t want to damage it. Finally she got the piece of paper out of the bottle. She found that the paper was actually a post-card. On the back of the card there was this message: The Marine Biological Association (海洋生物学会协会) would pay a shilling (先令) for the bottle. A shilling was a unit of money that was used in Great Britain before the early 1970s.

Winkler filled out the card and posted it. The association was surprised to get a postcard addressed to George Bidder, the president of the association from 1939 to 1945. The workers of the association searched on the Internet to find a shilling. They found one and sent it to Winkler as a reward.

The message in the bottle was the oldest ever re-discovered. For this reason Marianne Winkler got a place in “Guinness World Records” (吉尼斯世界纪录). She broke the record for the oldest message in a bottle.

Winkler’s bottle was not the only one Bidder sent to sea. Between 1904 and 1906, he sent away more than one thousand bottles. He placed postcards inside them. The bottles were part of a research project to map currents (洋流) in the North Sea. This was the best method at that time. But whether the association could get the bottles back depended on the people who found them. The association reported that about 55 percent of the bottles were returned. They added that the experiment was a success as it showed the east-to-west flow of the North Sea’s currents.

1. How long did the weighted glass bottle move in the sea?
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2. When did Marianne Winkler find the bottle?
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3. What was in the bottle?
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4. Who was George Bidder?
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5. Why did Bidder drop bottles into the sea?
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【推荐2】Born to Travel

Burton Holmes was a born traveller if ever there was
one. He was born in Chicago in 1870. When he was 16, his
grandmother took him to Europe. He took a camera with him, and took pictures. When he was 17, he went to Europe again with his grandmother. That year they also went to California and to Cuba.

Burton was on the road all the time after that. Everywhere he went, he took at least one camera. Then Holmes began giving talks to the Chicago Camera Club. His talks were so popular that he decided to build a business on them.

Holmes’s first travel pictures were on glass slides(幻灯片). These were in black and white. Then he decided to have the slides painted so that his pictures would appear in colour. A few years later, in 1897, Holmes began showing moving pictures of his travel experiences. This was only a year after movies first were shown to a group of people in New York. Later, he set up a film company and his films became popular. There is even

a star with his name on Hollywood Boulevard. In 1910 Holmes published a set of books about his travel experiences. These books also included the general travel information for others to follow.

Burton Holmes had many adventures over the years. He took pictures at the first modern Olympics, in Athens, Greece, in 1896. In 1899 Holmes took the first moving pictures of a war. He was the first person to take moving pictures in China, and the first person to drive a car in Denmark. He photographed the opening of Yellowstone National Park, in 1916. When things happened, Burton Holmes was there. In travelling for 62 years Holmes kept time in his photographs, saving it for generations to come.

1. When was Burton Holmes born?
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2. Did Burton take at least one camera with him everywhere he went?
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3. Why did Burton decide to have the slides painted?
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4. What did Burton Holmes do in 1910?
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5. What was the most valuable thing Burton did for future generations?
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【推荐3】阅读下面的短文，按要求完成后面的小题。

Spring View On war-torn land streams flow and mountains stand; In spring town grass and weeds are overgrown. Sad over the years, flowers make us shed tears; Hating to part, hearing birds breaks our heart. The beacon fire has gone higher and higher; Words from home are worth their weight in gold. I cannot bear to scratch my grey hair; It grows too thin to hold a light hairpin.

Poet Du Fu (712—770) wrote this poem in springtime, when he caught by An Lushan’s rebel army (叛军) and locked up in Chang’an, the capital city at that time. The poem shows his love for his motherland and how he missed his family. The poet used imagery of flowers and birds to express his feelings, which is seen as classic. The spring flowers and birds were joyful,① ____▲____, in the eyes of the sad poet, they reminded him of the past and made him cry. Flowers came to life again in spring, however, the broken country could not be easily restored (恢复). This shows his care for his country and his people.

②The birds were singing freely, while the poet lost his freedom. He was alone without any relatives or friends. Thus the birds’ singing frightened him. This shows that he missed his family. His depressed (绝望的) feeling got even deeper in the next lines. As the war was going on, it was hard to receive letters from family members. The letters were as valuable as gold.

1. When did Dufu write this poem?
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2. 请结合文意，在文中找出一个连词填入①处，使上下文通顺、连贯。
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3. ___________ is the most valuable this in the war times.
4. 请将②处划线句子翻译成中文。
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5. What do you think of this poem?
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【推荐1】阅读并回答问题

There are many wetlands in China and some of them have become the world’s important wetlands.

The Chinese Yellow Sea Wetlands are among them. They are in Yancheng, Jiangsu Province. They are home for many different kinds of animals. The world’s largest Milu Deer Nature Reserve is in them. More than 700 Milu deer live freely there. There are not many red-crowned cranes in the world, but every winter you can see some in the Red-crowned Crane Nature Reserve in the Yellow Sea Wetlands.

The temperature in the wetlands is usually neither too high nor too low. There is a lot of rain and sunshine, too. They are really good places for wildlife. Offering (提供) food and home for some special kinds of animals is not the only reason why we need to protect wetlands. Wetlands are important because they also prevent flood. But some people want to change the wetlands to make more space for farms and less space for wildlife.

Luckily, more and more people are beginning to realize that we should protect the wetlands as soon as possible. Every year, on February 2nd, many activities are held to tell people more about wetlands.

1. Where is the Chinese Yellow Sea Wetlands?
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2. How many Milu deer live in Milu Deer Nature Reserve?
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3. Why are wetlands important for human beings besides offering food and home for some special kinds of animals?
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4. What special birds can you see in the Yellow Sea Wetlands every winter?
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5. When are many activities held every year to protect the wetlands?
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