1 . The Best and Worst Things to Buy in March

Frozen food

Grocery store ads aren’t the only places to find deals on freezer-section treats. To take advantage of the deepest discounts, combine coupons (优惠券) from sponsoring brands, such as Dole, Green Giant and Tyson Foods, with grocery store sales. Plus, look for printable savings on Coupons. com and EasyHomeMeals.com. Brands participating in National Frozen Food Month will offer more than 180, 000 coupons that make frozen food among the best things to buy in March.

Boxed chocolates

If you desire to give a gift to a friend in March, consider chocolate. Two minor holidays in March provide the perfect excuse: National Chocolate Caramel Day on March 19 and National Chocolate-Covered Raisin Day on March 24. You can discover chocolate deals online as well as in stores. Head to sites like RetailMeNot.com to find discount coupons for boxed chocolate savings of 10 percent or more.

New cars

With the latest car models filling dealers’ lots, you’ll have a hard time finding discounted models from the year before. Car dealerships are less motivated to offer steep discounts from March through May. Instead, plan to buy your car during the fall or winter. You should also research the auto you want at TrueCar before heading for the dealership. The site offers information on what people in your area paid for vehicles equipped with the options you want.

Spring clothing

When warm weather makes you want to head outdoors, resist the urge to do so wearing the latest fashions. You won’t find March deals on swimsuits, Easter dresses or other spring items. To find discounts on clothes of this spring, hold off until Memorial Day weekend. You can also look for online and in- store savings at Amazon, Macy’s, Saks Fifth Avenue and other retailers.

1. Which things offer discounts in March according to the text?

A．Frozen food and new cars.

B．Boxed chocolates and new cars.

C．Frozen food and boxed chocolates.

D．Boxed chocolates and spring clothing.

2. What does the author advise us to do?

A．Register on a site.

B．Attend a holiday event.

C．Consult people in our areas,

D．Look for discount information online.

3. Which of the following festivals is celebrated after March?

A．Memorial Day.

B．National Frozen Food Month.

C．National Chocolate Caramel Day.

D．National Chocolate-Covered Raisin Day.

2 . Tired of eating at the same boring restaurants? Looking for a change? Here are some restaurants that offer an original restaurant experience. See for yourself which ones you fancy.

An Exciting Dinner

Looking for something adventurous? The Archipelago in London is just the thing for you. One of the most popular dishes in this restaurant is crocodile. Yes, you read it correctly, crocodile. If that is not daring enough for you, there are plenty of other dishes on the menu.

A Restaurant with a View

Want to enjoy the sights while you’re eating? Try the Top of the World restaurant. At about 244 meters above Las Vegas, diners can enjoy a spectacular view of Las Vegas in this revolving restaurant. However, the real adventure starts at the end of the meal. That’s when the customers are taken from their seats at ground level to the observation rooms in elevators that travel at a remarkable speed.

A Theatrical Experience

Longing for dinner with some drama? Dine with mimes at Mime in Manchester. The service is unique. Your waiter will communicate your order in mime and keep you entertained with performances in between courses.

An Unusual Setting

Don’t care about presentation? You’ll be fine at the Modern Toilet restaurant in Taiwan. The theme of this restaurant is the toilet, and you would be surprised how many people queue up for the experience of eating on toilet seats.

1. What would you expect at the Top of the World restaurant?

A．A free ride.	B．An interesting menu.
C．A show during the meal.	D．A bird’s-eye view of London.

2. Which restaurant requires customers to order in an unusual way?

A．Archipelago.	B．Top of the Word.
C．Mime.	D．Modem Toilet.

3. Where is the passage likely to be taken from?

A．A research paper.	B．An entertainment magazine.
C．A thrilling novel.	D．A fashion magazine.

3 . On the southern edge of Singapore’s Chinatown, Keong Saik Road has transformed into one of the city’s attractive places. Here are a few places worth going to.

Neon Pigeon

Now two years old, this industrial space with rude touches—exposed pipes and giant pictures of pigeons—is always packed with people and serves contemporary Izakaya-style dishes.

No. 1 Keong Saik Road; 65-6222-3623; neonpigeonsg.com

Meta Restaurant & Bar

Run by Sun Kim, a South Korean chef who has worked at a Singapore’s famous restaurant, Waku Ghin, this cafe opened in late 2015 with an Asian-French menu. Get a front-row view of the kitchen fireworks at the 16-seat bar.

No. 9 Keong Saik Road; 65-6513-0898; metarestaurant.sg

Hotel 1929

Uniting five well-preserved shophouses built in 1929 (hence it’s the name) , this fashionable property has 32 individually decorated rooms. Hotel 1929 started accepting bookings online on February 5, 2010. The hotel mixes contemporary technology (smart phones with free data and free international calls to a number of countries) with antique furnishings (家具陈设) including Eames and Arne Jacobsen chairs.

No. 50 Keong Saik Road; 65-6347-1929; hotel1929.com

Cure

Opened in July 2015, the 1,400-square-foot, softly lit shophouse is a perfect stage for the chef-owner Andrew Walsh’s lunch and dinner-tasting menus. These focus on seasonal ingredients, bought near and far, presented in dishes like Irish beef, cooked and raw.

No. 21 Keong Saik Road; 65-6221-2189; curesingapore.com

1. Which place has the longest history?

A．Neon Pigeon.	B．Meta Restaurant & Bar.
C．Hotel 1929.	D．Cure.

2. Which number will an Irish beef lover probably dial to reserve seats?

A．65-6222-3623.	B．65-6513-0898.
C．65-6347-1929.	D．65-6221-2189.

3. What do the four places have in common?

A．They have the native chefs.

B．They are located on the same road.

C．They can offer discounted accommodations.

D．They are famous for the antique furnishings.

4 . It’s both an exciting but frightening experience for parents the moment their teenager obtains a driver’s license. Here are some of the best and most recommended apps for teen drivers and for their parents’ peace of mind.

Safe Driver

This app works by monitoring the position and the driving speed of your child. You can also set a speed limit. Whenever your child drives over this speed limit, an alert(警报)will be sent to your phone. Its only drawback is that it’s only effective when your child opens the app on their phone while driving.

Drive Safely

If you’re scared of your teenagers’ tendencies to be on the phone while driving, this is a great app for them to use. Whenever a text message comes in, it’ll read the text message out loud. The driver needn’t take their hands off the wheel in order to check text messages on their phone. The user can even respond to the message via voice.

Textecution

This app locks a driver’s phone while he or she is driving, preventing the user from gaining access to any of the SMS functions of the phone. Parents can be alerted via the app’s website. For example, you’ll be sent an alert in the event that the driver has requested permission to access their phone’s messaging function. This function can only be activated if the driver is safely parked or in the event of an accident. If ever your child removes the application from their phone, parents can be informed, too.

Life 360

The initial purpose of this app is connecting family members together. Through the app, you can share your position with one another wherever you are. It provides real-time data for parents about position and driving speed. Parents can, therefore, feel safe and secure knowing that their child has reached their intended destination. The application can be turned off. But it’ll inform the members within the app that your child has disabled it.

1. What can the app Safe Driver do?

A．Control the user’s driving speed.

B．Keep working even when it’s turned off.

C．Help teenagers develop good driving habits.

D．Alert parents to their children’s overspeed driving.

2. Which app enables the user to receive and answer text messages easily while driving?

A．Safe Driver.

B．Drive Safely.

C．Textecution.

D．Life 360.

3. What do Textecution and Life 360 have in common?

A．They are intended to bring family members closer.

B．Teenagers can’t delete them without parents’ permission.

C．Parents can know if they stop working on teenagers' phones.

D．They offer parents real-time data about position and driving speed.

5 . Every morning I walk outside and bring in the morning newspaper. There was a time when every house on both sides of the street had a newspaper in the driveway. There was also a time when every house had a landline telephone, but not anymore. Not for a long time.

My husband is less willing to accept the downward trend of print-edition newspapers, as he has worked in newspapers since the age of 16. Even before that, he was what you would call an “independent publisher”.

Recently, we were at a Chicago park with our grandchildren. My husband had a newspaper folded under his arm. He sat down and put the paper on the bench beside him. A young girl walked over, looked at the newspaper, picked it up and asked, " What's this?"

I thought he was going to fall over. The color faded from his face. His eyes rolled back in his head and his legs were giving out. I rolled up his paper and waved it under his nose. The smells from the ink woke him up.

Some people simply love paper ― the feel, the portability, and the pleasure of piling them higher and higher until their wife cries, “Enough!"   My husband was happy when he spent time with our youngest daughter and her husband. When they lived with us, they raced to pull the crossword puzzle from the paper every day. It's hard to do a crossword online. Pencil doesn't come off a computer screen as easily as you might think.

Now my husband will be very excited that I have found further proof that there may still be hope for the survival of print. I was chatting with a young mother who subscribes to the daily newspaper. I asked why she did something so conservatively. She looked shocked. "Because it's print!" she said. "I love print! When the paper didn't come one day, would you believe I called the main number to let them know and the lady said, ' Why don't you just subscribe to the online version? '” She shook her head in disbelief.

My husband will be so thrilled that he might write this young woman into his will. I say we leave her all our piles of old newspapers.

1. How did the author's husband feel when a girl asked a question in the park?

A．Shocked.	B．Thrilled.
C．Disappointed.	D．Confused.

2. What does the author probably mean by saying “his legs were giving out” ？

A．He was feeling tired and needed a rest.

B．He was very old and unable to stand long.

C．He almost lost his balance and became unconscious.

D．He was annoyed with the girl and played a trick on her.

3. What does the author intend to tell us with the example of the young mother?

A．Many young people follow an old-fashioned lifestyle.

B．It's inconvenient for the old to read online newspapers.

C．There're still young people who love printed newspapers.

D．Printed newspapers will be replaced by online newspapers.

4. What does the author mainly talk about in the passage?

A．The new rise of digital newspapers on the line.

B．A man's everlasting love for printed newspapers.

C．The pleasure of looking through daily newspapers.

D．A family's memory of reading printed newspapers.

6 . National Park Association of Queensland Activities Vegetation Management Group

Saturday 14th March 2020

Location: Jolly’ s Lookout carpark, D’Aguilar National Park

Leader: Angus McElnea (0429854446 or gus mcelnea@hotmail.com)

Get your hands dirty! Come and spend a couple of hours to help with lantana(a type of flowering plant) control and revegetation(植被再造) work in the Boombana and Jolly’s Lookout areas of D’Aguilar National Park, west of Brisbane.

Wynnum North Boardwalk

Sunday 15th March 2020

Location: Wynnum North Boardwalk Leader: Jocelyn Dixon (0733788486)

Fee: $5(members) $10(non-members)

Join with us to view the water and bush birds of this area. A track from Wynnum North Road leads to a secret place for viewing a diverse mix of birds walking around in water. From there we will take a short walk to the Mangrove Boardwalk.

May Long Weekend Camp

Saturday 2nd May to Monday 4th May 2020 Leader: Tony Parsons (0433224544)

Join us for a long weekend in Border Rangers National Park, camping at Sheep Station Creek campground. Spend the days exploring the national park, and evenings around the campfire. We will have the chance to view Mt Warning from the Pinnacle at sunrise and sunset. Bring your family and stay for the weekend or come down for a day. It will be enjoyable.

Central West Qld National Parks

Saturday 29th August to Sunday 6th September 2020 Leader: Wendy Bell(0733002473)

Exciting opportunity to visit and explore at least six national parks in the comfort of a big coach and be accommodated, rather than camping. Basic cost of the tour is $3, 400 per person. Total cost includes all transport, all meals, and activity fees.

1. Who will you call if you are interested in bird-watching?

A．Angus McElnea.

B．Jocelyn Dixon.

C．Tony Parsons.

D．Wendy Bell.

2. In which of the activities will a fire be built?

A．May Long Weekend Camp.	B．Wynnum North Boardwalk.
C．Vegetation Management Group.	D．Central West Qld National Parks.

3. How is Central West Qld National Parks different from the other activities?

A．It is a weekend activity.

B．Lots of walking is involved.

C．The organizer provides the transport.

D．Visitors have to bring their own food.

7 . With the average American going through more than 700 pounds of paper per year, many firms are looking for ways to discourage their employees from over-using the office printer.

Toshiba America Business Solutions has come up with an alternative idea. It has introduced the e-STUDI04508LP, a printer that gives users the option to print with erasable toner (墨粉) — allowing a single piece of paper to be reused several times.

To reuse a piece of paper, the printer basically uses the same process as a normal printer, but in reverse (反过来), said Bill Melo, chief marketing executive for Toshiba America Business Solutions. Paper printed with the erasable toner is fed back into the printer, superheated, and the toner gets removed and put in a discard tank.

There are a couple of catches. All of the printouts using the erasable toner have to be in blue ink, which is the only color in which erasable toner is now available. And the company said that people may want to stop reusing the printouts after five times through the eraser because small traces of erased text will build up over time.

The $15,420 printer is aimed at offices and   schools, where there are often large numbers of printouts that outlive their usefulness quickly. With the erasable toner, it' s possible to load any short-lived handouts back onto the printer to be erased and then reused.

Still, convincing customers to commit to erasable toner isn't always easy. Melo said not all its customers were happy about only having the erasable option.

The model, Melo said, should better serve the needs of those who want to be environmentally conscious but also may need something more permanent on occasion.

1. What' s special about Toshiba' s printer?

A．It' s low-priced.	B．It' s fashionable.
C．It' s lightweight.	D．It' s eco-friendly.

2. What' s the key to making the printer work?

A．A discard tank.	B．Light colored ink.
C．Special writing paper.	D．A high enough temperature.

3. What does the underlined word "catches" in Paragraph 4 mean?

A．Theories.	B．Differences.
C．Problems.	D．Characteristics.

4. How did the public respond to the printer?

A．They asked for more patterns.

B．Some expressed dissatisfaction.

C．They considered it hard to operate.

D．Some worried about its recycling.

8 . Need a Job This Summer?

The provincial government and its partners offer many programs to help students find summer jobs. The deadlines and what you need to apply depend on the program.

Not a student? Go to the government website to learn about programs and online tools available to help people under 30 build skills, find a job or start businesses all year round.

Jobs for Youth

If you are a teenager living in certain parts of the province, you could be eligible(符合条件) for this program, which provides eight weeks of paid employment along with training.

Who is eligible: Youth 15-18 years old in select communities(社区).

Summer Company

Summer Company provides students with hands-on business training and awards of up to $3,000 to start and run their own summer businesses.

Who is eligible: Students aged 15-29, returning to school in the fall.

Stewardship Youth Ranger Program

You could apply to be a Stewardship Youth Ranger and work on local natural resource management projects for eight weeks this summer.

Who is eligible: Students aged 16 or 17 at time of hire, but not turning 18 before December 31 this year.

Summer Employment Opportunities(机会)

Through the Summer Employment Opportunities program, students are hired each year in a variety of summer positions across the Provincial Public Service, its related agencies and community groups.

Who is eligible: Students aged 15 or older. Some positions require students to be 15 to 24 or up to 29 for persons with a disability.

1. What is special about Summer Company?

A．It requires no training before employment.

B．It provides awards for running new businesses.

C．It allows one to work in the natural environment.

D．It offers more summer job opportunities.

2. What is the age range required by Stewardship Youth Ranger Program?

A．15-18.

B．15-24.

C．15-29.

D．16-17.

3. Which program favors the disabled?

A．Jobs for Youth.	B．Summer Company.
C．Stewardship Youth Ranger Program.	D．Summer Employment Opportunities.

9 . Leila’ s Hair Museum

Before the invention of photography, people kept memories of loved ones by creating mementos(纪念物)using human hair. In 1986, Leila Cohoon opened a museum in Independence,   Missouri, to show her collection of more than 2, 000 pieces of hair-based art collected over 30 years. Billed as the only hair museum in the world, it includes more than 400 braided hair wreaths(花环)and 2,000 pieces of jewellery dating back to the mid-1600s. “My museum is filled with other people’s families,” Leila says. “It tells a story. ”

International UFO Museum and Research Center

On July 7, 1947, a farmer discovered mysterious metallic debris(金属碎片)in his farm outside Roswell, New Mexico. Roswell Army Air Field (RAAF)originally said it recovered a flying disc. The next day, RAAF changed its words: The object was a weather balloon.   Stories of a UFO and a government cover-up spread. Each year, 180,000 people check out the dirt from the UFO crash site, photos, and reports about the Roswell incident.

Museum of Bad Art

Not all art is created equal. After finding an oil painting in the rubbish in 1993—the now classic Lucy in the Field with Flowers—Scott Wilson started collecting bad art. Before long, he showed his finds at the Somerville movie theater. The Museum of Bad Art (MOBA) gives the public a firsthand look at some of the world’s worst “disaster-pieces”. Popular paintings include Mana Lisa, Hollywood Lips, and Drilling for Eggs. “MOBA is always on the lookout for the best of the worst,” said co-founder Marie Jackson. “But what an artist considers to be bad doesn’t always meet our low standards. ”

Mutter Museum

Welcome to the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania—home to more than 5,000 brains, bones, and dead bodies! In 1858, Dr. Thomas Dent Mutter gave his collection of preserved body parts, and bones to the College Of Physicians to improve medical education, which led to the museum’s creation in 1863. Today, Mutter is the most famous medical museum in America, housing a wall of bones, and pieces of Albert Einstein’ s brain.

1. What is special about Leila’s Hair Museum?

A．It is full of family stories.

B．It houses the world’s greatest photos.

C．It holds collections from around the globe.

D．It was opened to remember Leila’s loved ones.

2. What can you find in the Mutter Museum?

A．Photos about the Roswell incident.	B．Some of Albert Einstein’s brain.
C．2,000 pieces of jewellery.	D．Mana Lisa.

3. What do the four museums have in common?

A．They are newly-founded museums.	B．They are art-centered.
C．They are unpopular among visitors.	D．They are quite unusual.

10 . Amsterdam is a special city. There are many places you should not miss during your visit. Here is our list of the best.

Amsterdam canal ring

The city old centre is formed from canal rings, which give you the feeling of space, freedom and peace. Walk through these canal streets or better — take a trip by renting a boat yourself. Another way to explore the Venice of the North is to take a ride on a bicycle. Any way you decide for - enjoy this city.

The National Maritime Museum

The Maritime Museum is an attractive place to visit, especially with children. With many attractions in it, this colourful and enjoyable museum will help you understand the history of the Netherlands - a small nation which was one of the world’s greatest sea powers.

Amsterdam Brown Cafe

When you enter Amsterdam old cafes called Brown, at first it will seem too much from the past and too crowded, but the atmosphere is unique. Relax and watch - most of people around will be locals. Feel like one of them — the real Amsterdammers.

Civic Guards Gallery

This gallery is filled with old paintings from the Dutch Golden Age. The exhibited canvas may be not always the masterpieces of art, but these group portraits of Amsterdam citizens and their wives are an exquisite (精致的) document of the Dutch civilization and culture centuries ago.

To avoid waiting lines we advise you to buy your tickets in advance online through our Amsterdam attractions and museums tickets webpage.

1. How many ways are there for tourists to visit the city old centre?

A．2.

B．3.

C．4.

D．5.

2. Where would you go to learn more about local life?

A．Amsterdam canal ring.	B．The National Maritime Museum.
C．Amsterdam Brown Cafe.	D．Civic Guards Gallery.

3. Where does the passage probably come from?

A．A travel guide.

B．A novel.

C．A textbook.

D．A science magazine.