【推荐1】

All about Electric Cars

Electric vehicles（电动车辆）have been around for more than a hundred years. But they have really been liked by a large number of people over the last ten years. More than three million all-­electric cars, trucks, and vans are now on the road worldwide.

Helping the Environment

Most cars run on gasoline（汽油）. Burning gasoline and other fossil fuels（矿物燃料）produces greenhouse gases. Electric vehicles don’t burn gasoline. Instead, strong batteries run their electric engines. So, electric vehicles don’t directly produce greenhouse gases.

Poop Power!

Electric vehicles are better for the environment. But they are not perfect. Their batteries often use electricity（电）that was made by burning fossil fuels. But an electric vehicle uses less energy than a vehicle that runs on gasoline. Plus, some of the electricity comes from “greener” sources, such as solar and wind power. And some may soon come from Anew source—cow poop（牛粪）! An electric car company has worked together with a large dairy farm. They plan to make electricity using a greenhouse gas from cow poop.

Always Improving

One of the problems for electric vehicles is their limited range. This is how far they can travel before their batteries need another charge（充电）. But now their range is improving. Some new electric vehicles can travel almost three times as far as older ones did. Another problem is finding a place to recharge the batteries. But the number of charging stations is going up as well. China now has thousands more charging stations than it did ten years ago. In Sweden, engineers have even designed a road that will charge electric vehicles as they drive along.

1. Which of the following truly describes electric vehicles according to Paragraph 1?

A．Useless.

B．Popular.

C．Cheap.

2. What does the picture above show?

A．Parts of an electric car.

B．Ways of driving a car.

C．Wheels on an electric car.

3. How does the electric car company plan to make electricity according to Paragraph 3?

A．By burning gasoline.

B．By burning fossil fuels.

C．By using a gas coming from cow poop.

4. What is the last paragraph mainly about?

A．Problems and improvements of electric vehicles

B．Importance of electric cars in our life.

C．Ways to produce more electric vehicles.

【推荐3】If you know a place really well, you might say that you know it "like the back of your hand". How well do you know the back of your hand, though? New research shows that we don't know as much about our hands as we think we do.

Wider and shorter

Professor Matthew Longo, at the University of London, tried an experiment. His team of researchers covered the left hands of 100 people. They then asked the people to point to where they thought their fingertips and knuckles(指关节)were. They found this very difficult.

"People think their hand is wider than it actually is," said Longo. Fingers also seem shorter.

Sense of position

"It is connected to our sense of position" explained Longo. This is our ability to tell where different parts of our bodies are, even when we can't see them. "It tells us whether a joint(关节) is straight or not," he said. It also tells us whether we are going up or down in an elevator. All the information comes from our nerves. It's like our brains have maps for the size and shape of our bodies. "This experiment tried to find those maps," said Longo.

Strength of feeling

These maps make mistakes. "Our brains see areas as larger where the skin feels touch strongly," said Longo. Body parts don't appear as their true size, but appear bigger or smaller depending on how strongly they feel touch. Our lips, for example, have more nerves than our noses, so our "maps" show lips as being bigger than our noses.

1. What do we know about Longo's experiment?

A．It examined left-handed people.

B．People could find their knuckles.

C．People thought their hands were smaller than they actually were.

D．People thought their fingers were shorter than they actually were.

2. What does the underlined "it" refer to?

A．The new experiment.

B．The misbelief people had.

C．The size of the hand.

D．The location information.

3. Where does our sense of position come from?

A．The maps people draw.

B．The nerves in our brains.

C．Other people's descriptions.

D．The shape of our bodies.

4. We can infer from the article that ________.

A．there are more nerves in the fingers than in the toes

B．our lips have a weaker sense of touch than our nose

C．the hand feels touch more strongly than fingers do

D．our brains can see the world better than other mammals

【推荐2】

My name is Mary. This is my family tree. These are my parents. Their names are Mike and Grace Brown. Those are my grandparents. Their names are Jack and Linda Brown. This is my uncle. His name is Frank. That boy is my brother. His name is Tom. This is Jane. She is my uncle’s daughter.

1. Who is Mary’s brother?

A．Jack.

B．Frank.

C．Mike.

D．Tom.

2. Frank is Mike’s ______.

A．uncle

B．Father

C．brother

D．grandfather

3. Jack is Jane’s ______.

A．father

B．grandfather

C．uncle

D．brother

4. Tom and Mary are Jane’s ______.

A．cousins

B．parents

C．grandparents

D．friends

【推荐3】Friends are very important in our everyday life. Everyone needs friends. We all want to be close to someone. It is nice to have a friend to talk, laugh and do with things. Of course, sometimes we need to be alone (独自). We don’t always want people around. But we would feel lonely if we never had a friend.

No two people are just the same. Friends sometimes don’t get on well. That doesn’t mean that they no longer (不再) like each other. Most of the time they will make it up and become friends again.

Sometimes friends move away. Then we feel very sad. We miss them very much but we can call them or write to them. We can also make new friends. It is encouraging (鼓励) to find out how much we like new people when we get to know them.

There’s more good news for people who have friends. They live longer than people who don’t. Why? Friends can make you feel happy. Being happy helps you stay well. If someone cares about you, you will take better care of (照顾) yourself.

1. All people need friends because ________.

A．we want to live longer	B．we want to get good news
C．we always like people around us	D．we can share many things with them

2. What does the underlined word “lonely” mean in Chinese?

A．害怕的

B．孤独的

C．危险的

D．痛苦的

3. People make new friends when their old friends ________.

A．move   away

B．don’t need them

C．have new friends

D．are angry with them

4. If we can’t see our friends for a long time, ________.

A．We can become ill	B．we can go to visit them
C．we can call them or write to them	D．our friendship will break off

5. The writer wants to tell us that ________.

A．friends are like books	B．friends are necessary in life
C．Friends bring out the best in us	D．a friend in need is a friend indeed.(患难朋友才是真朋友)

【推荐1】Glaciers (冰川) are large bodies of ice and snow. Because they’re so icy, it’s very hard for things to live on them. But glacier mice do somehow.

Of course, glacier mice aren’t mice. They’re round balls of moss (苔藓) that can grow to about the size of a tennis ball. They’re usually found in groups near small rocks on the surface of icy glaciers.

Normal moss can’t form on a glacier, so scientists believe glacier mice probably form around something small, like a bit of dust (尘土). Because staying on the ice too long would kill the moss, glacier mice form into a ball. It allows them to move around, so that their different parts touch the ice at different times.

Some scientists once did an experiment on glacier mice. They put a small device (装置) inside 30 glacier mice to follow their movements. They learned that the mice traveled about 2.5 centimeters (厘米) a day. They seemed to move in groups. They moved in the same direction and at about the same speed, almost like a group of animals. The scientists tested several ideas that might explain how the mice moved together, such as rolling downhill, being blown by the wind, or following the sun. None of these could explain the movement of the glacier mice.

Glacier mice are still a mystery to scientists. For their next experiment, the scientists said they would use cameras to take pictures of the movements of the mice over a long period of time. Are you looking forward to getting the answer?

1. Glacier mice are a kind of ________.

A．animal

B．plant

C．rock

D．glacier

2. Why can the glacier mice live on the ice?

A．Because they get heat by rolling downhill.

B．Because they live together to fight against the wind.

C．Because they get more light by following the sun in groups.

D．Because they can touch the ice with different parts at different times.

3. How far can the glacier mice move in a year?

A．About 10 meters.	B．About 2.5 centimeters.
C．About half a kilometer.	D．More than 10 kilometers.

4. Which of the following statements is TRUE?

A．Scientists know everything about the glacier mice.

B．We have known about how the glacier mice move.

C．There is still something unknown about the glacier mice.

D．Scientists have taken some photos to learn about the movements of the glacier mice.

【推荐2】There were two men who lived next to each other. One of them was a retired teacher and the other was a businessman. Both of them had planted many different plants in their gardens. The retired teacher seldom watered his plants and didn’t pay a lot of attention to them. But his neighbor was very careful with his plants and watered them often.

The retired teacher’s plants were small, but still looked okay, while the businessman’s plants were much bigger and greener. One night, there came a storm with a heavy rain and strong wind. The next morning, both of the neighbors came out to check in their gardens. The businessman saw that his plants had come out from the earth and were totally out of life. But the retired teacher’s plants nicely stood where they were.

The businessman was surprised. He went to consult (咨询) the retired teacher. “We both grew the same plants and I cared for my plants better than you did. How could your plants still be okay?”

The retired teacher smiled and said, “Because you gave your plants too much attention. You made it too easy for them to grow. I gave my plants just a little bit of water, so they had to grow deeper to absorb (吸收) more water. That is why my plants survived.”

1. What did the retired teacher do with his plants?

A．He often watered his plants.

B．He was careful with his plants.

C．He paid little attention to his plants.

2. How were the businessman’s plants before the storm?

A．They looked better than the teacher’s.

B．They looked worse than the teacher’s.

C．They grew shorter and thinner.

3. The underlined word “survived” means ________ in Chinese.

A．存活

B．生长

C．枯萎

4. Which of the following is NOT true?

A．The neighbors had different jobs.

B．The teacher’s plants were still good after a storm.

C．The businessman looked after his plants worse than the teacher.

5. Which is the best title for this article?

A．A businessman and his plants.

B．Different treat, different results.

C．A retired teacher and his plants.

【推荐3】Every year, as the summer days grow shorter, an amazing change happens in Canadian forests. As summer changes to autumn, the trees turn colors, changing from summer greens to shades of red, orange, and yellow.

When I was a boy, my grandmother told me that a strange little man came at night with a paint brush to paint the leaves those wonderful colors. And I believed her for it was a wonderful way of explaining this change to a little boy. But as I grew older, my natural curiosity (好奇心) led me to do some research on my own. As always, science had the answer.

Trees need food, just like all lives. Leaves produce food for the tree. It’s just sugar, which is sometimes called glucose (葡萄糖). Leaves use sunlight to change water and CO₂ into oxygen (氧气). The process is known as photo-synthesis (光合作用). A chemical called chlorophyll (叶绿素) helps make this happen. Chlorophyll is the reason why leaves are green in summer.

However, Canadian winters are long, cold and dark. There isn’t enough sunshine in winter for the leaves to make food. In autumn, as the days shorten, the trees get a signal (信号) to slow down. It’s time to take a rest. Don’t worry, though. They have enough food prepared to last all winter.

When the leaves stop making food, they no longer need to make chlorophyll. Slowly, the chlorophyll disappears. Remember, this is the chemical that makes leaves green. As the chlorophyll goes away, so does the green color. We begin to see the other colors that are always there. We could not see them before because green is a strong color.

1. The writer thought _________ changed the color of leaves in autumn when he was a child.

A．the sun

B．a strange man

C．the wind

D．his grandmother

2. Why do leaves become red, orange and yellow in autumn?

A．Because the chlorophyll goes away in the leaves.

B．Because green color has a chemical change with sunlight.

C．Because the trees need more food in winter.

D．Because cold and dark environment can make new colors.

3. Which of the following shows the structure of this passage? (①= Paragraph 1)

A．

B．

C．

D．

4. Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?

A．We could not see the other colors before because they are not always there.

B．The writer always believes his grandmother’s explanation.

C．When the leaves no longer need to make chlorophyll, the trees can change from summer greens to shades of red, orange, and yellow.

D．When the writer was a little boy, he did some research on his own to know the answer.

5. What is the passage mainly about?

A．How a strange man painted trees.	B．What food trees need during a year.
C．Why leaves change colors in autumn.	D．What magic chemicals we have now.