【推荐1】Tomatoes taste great. With a lot of vitamins, they are good for you, too! People all over the world enjoy this amazing fruit.

Not all tomatoes are red. They can be yellow, orange, pink, or white. All tomatoes are green before they are ready to be picked. Then the tomatoes turn their true color. That’s when they’re ready to eat!

Tomatoes first grew in the Americas. The Incas grew them over 1,000 years ago. They were introduced to Europe by the Spanish in the early 16th century. The Spanish and Italians seem to have been the first Europeans to accept them as food. In France, people grew tomatoes in the garden just to enjoy their beauty. Many people there thought tomatoes would make them sick. It was years before some of them would eat tomatoes.

Tomatoes are fruits. They grow from seeds. They won’t grow in cold weather. But with water, sunlight and warmth, tomatoes grow fast. They can grow in pots or in the ground. As the plant grows taller, people may tie it to a stick. Next is the blooming stage. Flowers appear. The flowers turn into fruit.

Some kinds of tomatoes can be picked in about six more weeks. Some tomatoes are large. One kind of tomato can weigh as much as two pounds.

You can eat raw tomatoes. First, wash them. Then, cut them up for salads or sandwiches. Tomatoes can be cooked, too. They can be grilled, boiled, or even fried. Do you use ketchup? It is made from tomatoes. Tomatoes don’t have a smell. But they taste great in foods around the world. Many dishes from India use tomatoes. Italians use them to make spaghetti sauce and pizza, too. Raw tomatoes are in Mexican salsa.

A．

B．

C．

D．

【推荐3】Few people can stop themselves from looking at pictures of cute animals. Take Sally chicken which is famous on the Internet as an example. The chicken with a yellow body and a flat mouth always looks lovely. Seeing her cute picture cheers people up. But there’s another useful effect of cuteness.

New research has found that looking at cute pictures of animals can also help us concentrate（专注）better. The finding comes from researchers at Hiroshima University in Japan. They invited 132 university students to take part in some experiments. In one experiment, students were asked to find a given number from a list of numbers within a time limit. They performed the given tasks twice-before and after looking at seven pictures of either baby cats and baby dogs, or cats and dogs. Researchers were surprised to find that students who were shown cute baby animal pictures made fewer mistakes.

However, baby animals look both “cuter” and more “pleasant” than adult animals. What would happen if the test difference came from their being “pleasant”? To find the answer, the researchers chose some food pictures which looked pleasant but not cute, and gave them to another group of students. But seeing the foods did not make the students perform any better in the number test. This finding suggests that seeing cute pictures makes students behave more deliberately, that is to say, they perform tasks with greater time and care.

The “power of cuteness” could be of great use. Think about situations in which people need to act carefully: driving, office work and exams. In my first year of high school, I brought small plastic toys to school during tests. I would set them up in a row on my desk, facing me, and then get busy answering exam questions,” Susana Martinez-Conde wrote in Scientific American.

【推荐1】What time is it? The answer you give can be different, because you are in different Earth’s time zones (时区).     1    

Scientists are now thinking of creating a lunar (月球的) time zone.     2     At the moment, astronauts are using time zones of their own countries. But there could be safety problems caused by the differences in time-telling.

Setting up a lunar time zone is not easy.     3     Since gravity is weaker in the Moon, clocks run a bit faster there. After 24 hours, a lunar clock would be 56 microseconds ahead of a clock on the Earth. Another point to consider is that a full day on the Earth is about 24 hours between two sunsets.     4     This means that lunar nights can be around two weeks long. With all this to think about, scientists need to decide whether it would be better to follow a time zone on the Earth, or for the Moon to have its own special zone.

    5     For example, who should be responsible for keeping the time zone going? And how can it be made practical for astronauts to use?

There are more countries planning Moon trips in the future. The idea of creating a time zone on the Moon would make these easier.

【推荐1】Ride of Your Life

Are you a big fan of theme parks and scary rides？Well，the world's longest hybrid(混合动力的)roller coaster(过山车)is at the popular theme park Six Flags Magic Mountain in California，US.

Its name is Twisted Colossus. It is made out of steel(钢)and wood. The coaster is 1，520 meters long and has a lot of ups and downs. This is the ride: you begin by sitting in one of the carts(车厢)．After you begin，you get to one loop(弯曲部分)，and the cart turns upside down for a few seconds！Hopefully you've got nothing in your pockets.

Then it's on to the part of the ride known as the High Five. This is when two trains come so close that you could give a high five to someone on the other train！And it's not over yet；there are still two 116 ­foot (about 35m) large drops(下落)waiting for you！This is as high as a 12-­story building.

The ride lasts for just under four minutes. Do you want to have a ride?

【推荐3】As we know,Chinese dinner is different from the western dinner.Chinese dinner mainly shows friendship and enthusiasm(热情).People often sit and eat together around the table,drinking and laughing.But,how do you do at a western dinner?Here are some rules:

Don't circle your plate with your arms. If you do so,everyone will wonder,“Is there anything wrong with the food?” This may give a wrong message that you don't like the food or something like that.

Don't push the plate back when finished. Leave where it was.Do you want to let the hostess know that you've just done a labor?

Don't lean back and say “I'm full”. Just put the fork and knife across the plate.That's all.Don't cut up everything you start to eat.Cut only one or two pieces at a time.

Never take a huge mouthful of anything. Don't you want to show how hungry you are?Don't do that.It's not so good.

It's never good to reach across the table for anything. If the thing you want is not at hand,simply ask the nearest person for help,like “Mrs Smith,could you pass me the dish?”

【推荐1】

WeChat, known as Weixin in China, is a mobile phone communication service which was developed after QQ by Tencent on January 21, 2011 in China. It has been the most popular in China.

It is so easy to use WeChat. First, you can register WeChat with your phone number, and then add your friends’ numbers in your contact list. It works just like talking on QQ. You can send your pictures and share your feelings. And your friends are able to find them as soon as they get online. What’s more, they can also give you their comments（评价）such as “ ”.

WeChat is powerful. It can send voice messages, text messages, pictures and videos. Varied information could be sent to your friends. Besides, Wechat provides us with services such as shopping, games, news and e-banks, which are popular with most people. For example, if you want to order a dinner in a restaurant, you can just scan its QR code by your WeChat and order the dinner without making a call or visiting the restaurant. You can even pay for it by WeChat. In this way, it will help you save time and money.

WeChat is supported on Wifi, 2G, 3G and 4G. So you can chat with your family or friends in a new way by using your phone at a low price anytime and anywhere. Even though your friends stay abroad, they are still able to use WeChat to communicate with you and share their interesting experiences with you.

However, there are some dangers of WeChat. It is often reported that many traffic accidents are caused by careless drivers who can’t help playing on WeChat while driving. And some bad guys even use WeChat to gamble (赌博), which breaks the law. Luckily, WeChat is improved now and then. So it seems impossible that WeChat will be replaced in the near future. It is going to solve these difficulties and develop better and better.

A．

B．

C．

D．

【推荐2】It is the fifth day. Robinson Crusoe is all alone on a small island. He feels hopeless. He is tired and hungry. Now he can catch fish for food but he doesn’t have a fishing rod ling enough. He sleeps in a cave but he also has some unfriendly visitors at night. Every day he stands on a rock by the sea. He can not see a boat or a sailor. He can only feel the wind from the sea and the waves under his feet. How he misses his beautiful hometown! How he wishes to be away from this place! But he can not, just wait to die! Robinson Crusoe tells himself, “I have to do something!” the next day he starts a long walk around the small island…..