【推荐3】When Nejat began developing robots in 2005, she spent much of her time knocking on doors to let people know how her robots worked, but few showed interest. “But now, it’s different,” says Nejat. “People calling from around the world ask when my robots are going to be ready.”

Nejat’s robots are designed to fill an increasing need: care-giving for the old. The population of the people over age 80 will be 426 million in 2050, three times larger than that now.

Such robots could be especially useful for patient with Alzheimer’s disease (阿尔兹海默症). They can help with everyday activities from preparing food to reminding the patients of taking their medicine. They can also play games with patients to keep them active.

Some have worried that care-giving robots might cut down human interaction (互动) and cause more humans to lose their jobs. “But the aim is to support human care, not to take the place of it,” says Brian Scassellati. He has tested robots with different patients, and found that daily interaction with robots can help children with autism (自闭症) improve communication skills.

As a field (领域) grows, scientists aim to understand human-robot relationships better. Do robots offer advantages because they don’t have feelings and don’t give opinions? Will patients lose interest? “One thing is clear,” Scassellati says, “Robots can provide care for the customers and the need for that will increase in the future.”

1. The writer starts the passage by ______.

A．telling two stories	B．comparing two facts
C．asking a question	D．giving an example

2. Nejat’s robots are designed to ______.

A．test the patients	B．play games
C．take care of the old	D．knock on doors

3. Which paragraphs mainly tell us the functions (功能) of the robots?

A．Paragraphs 3 and 4	B．Paragraphs 2 and 3
C．Paragraphs 1 to 3	D．Paragraphs 2 to 5

4. According to Scassellati, we can infer that Nejat’s robots ______.

A．will be more expensive soon	B．can take the place of humans
C．won’t give their own opinions	D．should be produced more

【推荐2】We all know the Sun is important. It gives sunshine to plants, animals and people on the Earth.     1     It’s the Sun’s energy. It makes life on our earth possible. Energy from the Sun is called solar energy.

    2     They built houses with windows so that the sunlight could get inside and make them warm.

We can also turn the Sun’s light into electricity. It has something to do with solar panels（太阳能电池板）.

    3    

But what happens when it is cloudy or rainy? Solar panels cannot collect energy from sunlight on cloudy and rainy days.     4     Because solar panels have batteries（电池）in them to keep electricity.

At the same time, solar energy is good for the environment.     5     And we can’t use it up. So we should try our best to find more good ways to use it in our life.

A．They collect energy from sunlight to make electricity.

B．It will not pollute the air and water.

C．But how does the Sun do that?

D．People started to use solar energy many years ago.

E．It can produce electricity from water.

F．You can do many things to protect the environment.

G．We needn’t worry about it.

【推荐3】Researchers at Georgia Tech have been working to improve a musical robot called Shimon. Now Shimon doesn’t simply play music, he also writes the words to his own songs and sings them.

Shimon has been around for quite a while as a musical robot. Even back in 2015, he was playing with other musicians at the Kennedy Center in New York. What Shimon could do back then was already pretty cool.

Using AI（人工智能）, Shimon was taught to write his own music. ① For Shimon, that meant he could not only make up his own music, but do it in real time, while playing with other musicians.

Now Shimon can write the words to his own songs. ② Shimon learned to write the words for the songs the same way he learned to write music—by being “fed” thousands and thousands of examples. Shimon was trained on the lyrics （歌词） to 50, 000 songs.

Georgia Tech professor Gil Weinberg, who leads the Shimon project, gets Shimon going with a starting idea. Shimon then writes the lyrics based around that idea. “You’ll get a word like ‘storm’, and then it’ll produce a lot of relational words, like ‘wind’ and ‘rain’.” He says Shimon gets many ideas, keeps the good ones, and builds on them.

③ To give Shimon a voice, the Georgia Tech team worked with experts at Pompeu Fabra University in Spain. The voice was created using AI and sounds very much like a man.

④ To show off Shimon and his new abilities, the researchers have recorded one of Shimon’s songs, called “Into Your Mind”. They have made a video for the song, which is out on Youlube.

Later this spring, the team plans to put out an album（专辑） of about 8—10 of Shimon’s songs. There are also plans for Shimon to go on tour with a band to play and sing his songs live.

For Mr Weinberg, that’s the main goal behind the Shimon project—not to have robots take over, but to have robots and humans make something beautiful together.

1. The aim of the first paragraph is ________.

A．to give an introduction	B．to lead a music topic
C．to explain a science problem	D．to make a conclusion

2. Paragraphs 3—5 mainly talks about ________.

A．the number of the songs he writes	B．the process to write his own songs
C．the history of Shimon’s development	D．the reasons for developing a musical robot

3. Where can the sentence “Singing songs is another story” be best put?

A．①.

B．②.

C．③.

D．④.

4. Which of the following is NOT true according to the passage?

A．Shimon was produced before 2015.

B．Shimon writes songs beginning with his own ideas.

C．Researchers are expecting more things from Shimon.

D．“Into Your Mind” is a song written by Shimon with the AI voice.

【推荐1】Now Chinese students in middle schools have one labor (劳动) class a week. How do students like the new subject? Let’s have a look.

In our school, students learn to grow (种植) vegetables. We have labor class on Friday. We grow carrots, potatoes and we grow strawberries, too. We like labor class very much. It is really relaxing.

—Li Yang, Changsha

I can learn to cook (煮)from my teacher. At first, it is very difficult to learn. I feel great when I cook good food. I can scramble (炒) eggs with tomatoes for my family. I can do salad, too. I like the new subject. Thanks to it, I can learn a lot. I think it is useful.

—Wang Meng, Zhuzhou

We keep (饲养) chickens at school. We take vegetables, rice to them to eat on Tuesday. We can play with chickens. So much fun, right? It is my favorite subject.

—Ye Jun, Zhangjiajie

1. How many labor classes do Chinese middle school students have every week?

A．1.

B．2.

C．3.

2. The underlined word “it” refers to (指代) ________.

A．the meal

B．the family

C．the subject

3. Which of the following is NOT TRUE according to the passage?

A．Li Yang thinks having labor classes is relaxing.

B．Wang Meng thinks cooking meals is not useful.

C．Ye Jun thinks keeping chickens is fun.

4. The passage is about ________.

A．how students like labor classes

B．how students learn labor skills

C．how teachers teach students labor classes

【推荐2】Every day I pass by a homeless old man on the street. He usually sat near where I go to school. Whenever I pass by, he says “hello” in a cheerful manner, and I always say it back. I give him any extra change I have.

The old man always wears an old watch. It is not an expensive watch by any means, but it serves its purpose. One day I noticed he wasn’t wearing it any more. I asked him why and he looked down and told me that the battery (电池) had died so he threw it away. I knew he couldn’t buy a new battery and he didn’t have enough money to buy a new watch.

He stayed on my mind all day, and I knew what I had to do. I went out to a shop and bought him a watch. It was not an expensive one, but one that was very similar to the one he had.

When I saw him the next day, he was smiling and cheerful as ever. When I bent down to put some change in his cup, I also dropped the watch in. I didn’t say anything about it. I just smiled at him and kept on walking. He didn’t even notice it until I left. I looked back and watched as he pulled the watch from the cup. He looked at me and I just smiled and nodded. He put the watch on with a big smile on his face and I walked happily on my way.

1. The old man always greeted the writer when she passed because ________.

A．she was a student	B．she usually gave him some money
C．she had a lot of money	D．she was always cheerful

2. Why did the old man throw the watch away?

A．He wanted to get a new one.	B．The writer said she would give him one.
C．The battery had no power.	D．The watch didn’t serve its purpose.

3. From the passage we can learn that ________.

A．the old man knew the writer had brought him a new watch

B．the old man didn’t see it when the writer put the watch in the cup

C．the writer dropped nothing but a watch in the cup

D．the watch must have cost the writer a lot of money

4. What do we know about the new watch?

A．It was a little expensive.	B．It was cheaper than the one the old man had.
C．It was more beautiful.	D．It looked like the one the old man had.

【推荐3】根据短文内容判断正误（正确“T”，错误“F”），并将所选答案填到相应位置上。

Once there was a boy, and he loved sweets very much. He always asked his father for sweets. The boy’s father thought hard about how to stop the child from asking so many sweets. An old man lived nearby. The boy’s father decided to take the boy to visit him. He might be able to make the child give up sweets.

So they went to the old man. The father asked the old man to help him. But the old man liked sweets himself. He told the father bring his son back after a month. During the month the old man tried to give up eating sweets. At last he did it. When the boy and his father returned after a month, the old man had a talk with the boy. From then on the boy did not ask for sweets anymore. The boy’s father surprised. He asked the old man, “Why didn’t you ask my son to give up sweets when we came to you a month ago?” The old man answered, “How could I ask a boy to give up sweets when I love them myself? In the last month I gave up eating sweets.”

A person’s examples are always stronger than words. We should not ask others do what we can’t do ourselves.

1. The boy had a hobby of eating sweets.
2. The father loved sweets more than his son.
3. The father and the son visited the old man again after a month.
4. The old man tried to give up sweets but he failed.
5. The passage mainly tells us examples speak louder than words.

【推荐1】People like to say：“The hand that rocks(摇动)the cradle(摇篮)rules the world．”Or theysay：“Behind every successful man，there is a woman．”
Now some women still like making their husbands and sons successful．But some women want more for themselves．They want to be successful as men．
Today the best jobs are still given to men．Even when women do the same work，they are often paid less than men．Some women want these things changed．They want to stand beside the men，with the same chances for success．
Now many American women are earning money outside their homes．More than half of the women at the age of eighteen to sixty-five have good jobs．In general，working women have more education than those who stay at home．
Among women with jobs，eight out of ten drive a car to work，and most of them often spend their holidays away from home．They like traveling by air．Women’s work has made several changes in women’s lives and in men’s lives，too．
But things are quite different from those in the Middle East countries．
In the Middle East countries，women have to stay at home．They look after their families and do all the housework．They can’t find work outside．When they go out in public．they cover their faces with something and walk behind their husbands．
For the past few years the women’s life has been changing in those countries．Many women want to play an active role in the society．Though working gives them few chances of getting married，many men still want to marry them in the old ways．
1. More and more women want to get jobs because        ．

A．they don’t want to stand behind their husbands in the street

B．they think they are more important than men

C．they think they are as important as men

D．housework troubles them too much

2. Some women are still badly paid       ．

A．because women want more money

B．because of the old ways of thinking

C．because women can’t do as well as men do

D．but we don’t know why

3. If women have got higher education       ．

A．they can get better jobs more easily	B．they don’t have to do any housework
C．they can travel by plane	D．they can be paid better than men

4. Working gives women      ．

A．the chance to receive more education than men

B．chances to play an important role in the society

C．more pay than men

D．fewer chances of getting married

5. From this passage we know       ．

A．women have the same rights as men today

B．women don’t want to work outside their homes

C．more and more women want to play an active role in their countries

D．in the Middle East countries all the women stay at home

【推荐2】Mrs. Smith has a happy family. She and her husband are kind（善良的）. She has a son and two daughters. The son was born（出生）in America. His name is Jack. Her daughters' names are Qianqian and Mikou. Qianqian is from China, and Mikou is a Japanese girl.

Mr. and Mrs. Smith are not real（真正的）parents, but they love their children. In their free time, they often watch TV, listen to music, and talk to each other. Jack, their son, likes basketball. He often plays sports after school, and then walk home after that. On weekends, the girls usually stay at home and watch TV. They sometimes help Mr. and Mrs. Smith with some housework. This weekend, Mr. and Mrs. Smith go to Disneyland in American happily with their children. They buy their children things and they see people in the street（街道）. They all have a good time.

1. According to the passage, how many people are there in Mrs. Smith's family?

A．4.

B．5.

C．6.

2. Who was born in American?

A．Mikou.

B．Jack.

C．Qianqian.

3. When（什么时候）does Jack often play sports?

A．In the morning.

B．On weekends.

C．After school.

4. Who sometimes help Mr. and Mrs. Smith with the housework?

A．Jack and Mikou.

B．Jack and Qianqian.

C．Mikou and Qianqian.

5. What does the passage mainly talk about?

A．The Smiths' happy life.

B．Mrs. Smith's children.

C．The Smiths' weekend.

【推荐3】Want to know what we can do to help make our city a better place to live in? Why not take part in “Clean & Green weekend”? Join us, and you can make new friends and help protect the environment at the same time.
Park Life
Do you like hanging out (闲逛)in the park with your friends? If so，why not take the chance to come with us and tidy up the park as you go？To add some fun, there is a gift for the person who collects the most rubbish! Meet us at the south entrance to Taohe Park at 9 a.m. next Saturday if you want to join in.
The Air You Breathe
A great way to make the air cleaner is by planting lots of trees！It is a fact that trees slowly filter（过滤）a lot of pollutants from the air. So come and help us plant some new ones in Fenhe Park at 2 p.m. next Sunday.
War on Graffiti（涂鸦）
Some people think graffiti is cool. Well, it is not! The best way to stop buildings from becoming totally covered in ugly graffiti is to get rid of（处理） it as soon as possible. And that is exactly what we are going to do. We are repainting the school walls from 1 p.m. on Saturday. You don’t have to bring any tools, just remember to wear some old clothes！
根据上面三个倡议的内容，选择正确答案。
1. The main purpose of “Clean & Green Weekend” is to     .

A．make our city more beautiful

B．offer the chance to have fun

C．have a nice weekend

2. The students who want to join in the rubbish collecting activity must meet       .

A．at 1 p.m. on Saturday

B．at 2 p.m. next Sunday

C．at 9 a.m. next Saturday

3. If we’re going to repaint the school walls, we need to      .

A．draw pictures well

B．wear some old clothes

C．bring some tools with us

4. According to the passage, we know

A．graffiti can make the buildings look cool．

B．we can draw pictures on the wall.．

C．we can plant trees to improve the environment．

5. We might read the above passage

A．in a fashion magazine．

B．on a school notice board．

C．in a newspaper advertisement．