In the 13th century, Marco Polo, the world-known Italian traveler, saw many wonderful things in China. One of the things he discovered was money made of paper. People in the West did not have such kind of money until the 15th century. However, the Chinese began to use it in the 7th century.
Paper was invented by a Chinese man called Cai Lun almost 2,000 years ago. But it was not made in Europe until the year 1,100. Four hundred years later, a German discovered that he could make the best paper from trees. After that, countries, rich in forests, such as Canada, Sweden, America, and Finland, became the most important ones in paper making.
Paper can be used in many ways. The common uses include newspapers, magazines and books. But do you know that paper can be used for keeping warm? In Finland, the farmers wear paper boots to keep their feet warm in the snow. And even houses can be insulated （使绝缘）from heat or cold with paper.
However, we have to understand that paper still comes from trees now. If we keep on wasting so much paper, there will not be any trees left on the earth some day in the near future. Every day people throw away about 2, 800 tons of paper in our city. It takes 17 trees to make one ton of paper. This means that we are cutting down nearly 48,000 trees every day. The fact is that it takes more than 10 years for a tree to grow.
So we must start saving paper right now. We can use both sides of every piece of paper. We can make useful things out of used paper. We can use china cups instead of paper ones. When shopping, we can use fewer paper bags and reuse them if we have some.
In short, we should keep a balance between using paper and protecting trees, and do it now before it is too late.
1. When did the Chinese begin to use paper money?| A．In the 5th century. | B．In the 6th century. |
| C．In the 7th century. | D．In the 15th century. |
| A．It had lots of forests. | B．It was a large country. |
| C．It was a very rich country. | D．It produced the paper inventor. |
| A．10. | B．17. | C．2,800. | D．48,000. |
| A．How we can make useful things. | B．How paper boots are made. |
| C．How paper was invented. | D．How we can save paper. |
相似题推荐
【推荐1】What is a mistake? A mistake is something wrong. It can be an action, a concept (概念), or a thing that was not done correctly. It can leave you feeling negative and unsuccessful. However, research shows that making mistakes is beneficial to you. Whether mistakes are beneficial or harmful depends on how much you know about them.
There are many reasons why humans make mistakes. A lack (缺乏) of experience in a certain field or situation may result in the mistakes.
What do I do when I make a mistake?
| A．The first thing to do is to reflect. |
| B．Today’s mistake helps you get it right tomorrow. |
| C．Overconfidence can also cause us to make many mistakes. |
| D．The first thing when you make a mistake is to control your emotions. |
| E．Most people are afraid of making mistakes because they think it is not good. |
| F．So it is important to understand why you make mistakes and what to do with them. |
| G．Reflecting on your improvement can help you view mistakes positively in the future. |
【推荐2】Parents play a very important role in children’s development, but that doesn’t mean that parents should spend all their money in educating their children. Or else, it would be unfair to them. However, some modern Chinese parents often send their children to the best schools or even abroad to England, the United States or Australia without caring about the money. They also want their children to take extra-course activities where they will learn a musical instrument or ballet or other classes which will give them a head start in life. The Chinese believe that the more expensive an education is, the better it is. So the parents will spend an unreasonable amount of money on education. Even poor couples will buy a computer for their son or daughter.
However, what most parents fail to see is that the best early education they can give their children is usually very cheap.
Parents can see that their children’s skills vary, skilled in some areas while poor in others. What most parents fail to realize though, is that today’s children lack self-respect and self-confidence.
The problem is that parents are only educating their children on how to take multiple-choice tests and how to study well, but parents aren’t teaching them the most important skills they need to be confident, happy and clever.
Parents can achieve this by teaching practical skills like cooki
ng, sewing and doing housework.Teaching a child to cook will improve many of the skills that he will need later in life. Cooking demands patience and time. It’s an enjoyable but difficult experiment. A good cook always tries to improve his cooking, so he will learn to work hard and gradually to finish his job successfully. His result, a well-cooked dinner, will give him much satisfaction and a lot of self-confidence.
Some old machines , such as a broken radio or TV set that you give yo
ur children to play with will make him curious and arouse his interest. He will spend hours looking at them, trying to fix them; your child might become an engineer when he grows up. These activities aren’t merely teaching a child to read a book, but rather to think, to use his mind. And that is more important.1. According to this passage, there are some problems with _________.
| A．the Chinese children’s skills |
| B．the education system of China |
| C．the Chinese parents’ idea of educating their children |
| D．the Chinese children’s hobbies |
| A．are too strict with their children |
B．are t oo rich to educate their children |
| C．are too poor to educate their children |
| D．have some problems in educating their children correctly |
| A．benefit from it and prepare themselves for the future |
| B．learn how to become strong and fat |
| C．learn how to serve their parents |
| D．make their parents believe that they are clever |
| A．broken radios and television sets are useful |
| B．an engineer must fix many broken radios |
| C．one’s curiosity may be useful for his later life |
| D．a good student should spend much time repairing radios |
【推荐3】For most of us, a large part of our work requires us to look at the screen for a long time.
Keeping up to date on your social media channels is fun and socially very important for many users. But these channels can also be a big time waster for many people.
If you live with someone else, you can try to take on your screen time together. Establish certain areas in your home, or time periods in the day, where you both agree to stay off of your phone.
One of the biggest tech no-no’s that people commonly commit is bringing phones, computers, and more into bed with them. Don’t charge your phone next to your bed, as it will cause you to check for messages or even the time if you wake up during the night.
| A．One of the useful strategies is setting clear boundaries. |
| B．Try to limit how much time per day you will spend on social media. |
| C．You need regain control over the time spent on these digital devices. |
| D．Many of our online time-killing activities also add to the screen time. |
| E．Looking at the phone’s screen just before bed can affect your sleep too. |
| F．During that time, you can enjoy some face-to-face communication instead. |
| G．The Internet gives us various ways to stay in touch with friends and family. |
【推荐1】Alaska’s Mendenhall glacier (冰川) is about 20 minutes by car from Juneau, the state capital. It is one of the area’s most popular sites for tourists. But climate change has caused the ice to melt (融化). That means it is losing more snow and ice than it gains.
Experts guess that by 2050, people will not be able to see the Mendenhall glacier from the visitor center that was built for it. That is already the case at some other glacier visitor centers in Alaska. The disappearing glacier leads to problems for the Alaskan tourism industry.
Tourism is an important part of Juneau’s economy. About 1.6 million cruise ship passengers are expected to stop in Juneau in 2023. That is the most ever in one year. On especially busy days, 20,000 people arrive each day in the city that has only 30,000 full-time people. Cruise ships are large boats with sleeping places that carry tourists from one place to another. Many cruises start a week-long trip to Alaska in either Seattle, Washington, or Vancouver, Canada.
Manoj Pillai is a cruise ship worker from India. He recently got off his ship and went to see the Mendenhall glacier. “The glacier is so beautiful now,” he said. But he wondered what it looked like 10 or 20 years ago.
Jennifer Dumas lives in Washington, D.C. She knows what Alaska’s glaciers looked like in the past. She and her husband first visited the state and its glaciers in the 1990s. She talked about seeing the Mendenhall glacier over 20 years ago. She went to Glacier Bay National Park and spent the night near the Mendenhall glacier.
“Where we used to camp, you could see the glacier. It has retreated (退缩) so far that you can’t see the glacier anymore. So we have pictures of us in front of the glacier, but you can no longer take such pictures,” Jennifer said.
1. How does the author stress the importance of tourism to Alaska?| A．By listing the number of tourists. | B．By showing the great benefit from tourism. |
| C．By describing native people’s living conditions. | D．By sharing the governments’ support. |
| A．The ship. | B．India. | C．The glacier. | D．Juneau. |
| A．The tourism value of the glacier. | B．The glacier is melting quickly. |
| C．The glacier is losing its attraction. | D．The memory of visiting the glacier. |
| A．Alaska’s Glaciers May Disappear in the Future |
| B．Alaska Is Challenged by Too Many Tourists |
| C．It’s Time to Take Action to Stop Global Warming |
| D．Climate Change Influences Alaska’s Tourism Industry |
【推荐2】When you think of a national park, you generally picture fresh air and wild animals, right? Well, now you're going to have to add tea shops and something called "the Tube" to your definition, because London, England has signed up to be the first "National Park City."
London was established by the Romans around 2.000 years ago and has been continually inhabited (居住于) since then. In all that time, however, nobody had the idea to replace all the parks with big box stores or high buildings, which means London already has a much lower urban density (密度)than most of the worlds cities. Nowadays about a third of the city is green space,
In July 2019, London announced its willingness to become the world's first National Park City. Now the city is moving toward the goal of achieving 50% green space by the year 2050 by connecting and expanding public parks, greening up unused parking lots and the private yards of existing and new houses, fixing some green roofs on existing buildings and even cutting holes in fences for wildlife to pass through.
"Inspired by the aims and values of our precious rural national parks, the London National Park City is basically about making life better in the capital through both small everyday things and long-term strategic thinking." Daniel Raven-Ellison, who began the campaign to make London a National Park City six years ago said in a press release. "We’ ve been doing that in London for centuries, which is why London is so green and diverse.”
London will have a much easier job achieving this type of green transformation than more densely-urbanized cities like Paris and New York, which have 10% and 27% greenspace respectively. But that doesn't mean it's not possible--- the National Park City Foundation hopes to employ 25 more cities in addition to London by the year 2025. Glasgow. Scotland and Newcastle upon Tyne in northeast England are both currently considering becoming National Park Cities.
1. What makes London more likely to become a national park city than other cities?| A．Its smaller population. | B．Its less dense urbanization. |
| C．Its citizens' great support. | D．The government's efforts. |
| A．In Paragraph 1. | B．In Paragraph 2. |
| C．In Paragraph 3. | D．In Paragraph 4. |
| A．The significance of London's campaign. |
| B．The effects of national parks on London. |
| C．The resources of London's green space. |
| D．The strategic thinking of London for long. |
| A．Trying to be a national park city is turning new trend. |
| B．National park cities are springing up around the world. |
| C．It is so easy for London to become a national park city. |
| D．National park cities are making improvements to our life. |
【推荐3】Last week the electricity in my flat went out.
So for me it was an early night,
How would we survive in a world without electricity? Our daily lives go around it. We wouldn’t be able to function.
| A．Yet we know one day we will run out of it. |
| B．Our over-use of electricity is a big problem. |
| C．This left me in complete darkness the whole night. |
| D．It is a real problem to cut down on the use of electricity. |
| E．I know for sure I could cut down on my use of electricity. |
| F．I couldn’t help but think, do we rely too much on electricity? |
| G．I turn on the TV in the background even when Tm not watching it. |
【推荐1】In the UK, the best racecourses (赛马场) are in all corners of the country, which means that it is accessible for all fans of the sport to see the biggest stars. So, what are the four best racecourses in the UK?
Cheltenham
Nothing comes close to excitement levels when the Cheltenham Festival is approaching. It is the home of National Hunt racing, and every year millions of fans are glued to the horse racing on the track. It is the festival for the die-hard lovers of the sport, as the racing takes front and centre of the attention as the biggest prizes are handed out.
Aintree
The race that draws the viewers to the sport is the Grand National. The race is an essential part of British life, as everyone makes a habit of watching the race annually with friends and family. It is a perfect course for visitors too, as it is situated just a short distance outside of Liverpool. There is extra emphasis on fashion when attending Aintree.
Ascot
For lovers of flat racing (无障碍平地赛马), Ascot meetings are a must. The biggest of the season is Royal Ascot, which is one of the most fashionable race days on the calendar, as all visitors entering certain zones must be wearing a top hat. However, there is no better reason to get dressed up.
Newmarket
Newmarket is a hotbed full of racing fans, and is a must-visit for all lovers of the sport. It is the headquarters of flat racing, as the whole town is devoted to the sport. There are two racecourses, the July Course and the Rowley Mile. The final race day of the season takes place in October. Regardless of when you visit in the season, you will feast your eyes!
1. What is the highlight of Cheltenham Festival?| A．It offers grand awards. | B．It invites millions of fans. |
| C．It promotes the local tourism. | D．It attracts a lot of film stars. |
| A．They are team-centred. | B．They are for flat racing. |
| C．They are for royal family. | D．They are fashion-featured. |
| A．A play review. | B．A travel guide. |
| C．A fashion magazine. | D．A university newspaper. |
【推荐2】Many college students turn to ADHD（注意缺陷障碍）medicine during the exam week, which is regarded as “smart drugs” that will help their academic（学术的）performance. The thinking is that if the drugs help students with ADHD improve their focus, they should provide the same benefit for people who don’t have the disorder.
But a new study shows that drugs can actually damage brain function of healthy students who take the drug hoping to boost their intelligence. “It’s not a smart drug which will suddenly improve their ability to understand information they read,” said Lisa Weyandt, a professor at the University of Rhode Island.
To test whether this effect is real or not, researchers organized 13 students to take part in two five-hour study sessions（一段时间）in the lab. The students took the standard 30mg ADHD drugs before one session, and a sugar pill before the other. Students on ADHD drugs did experience an increase in their blood pressure and heart rates. “The medicine was having an effect on their brain,” Weyandt said. The students also showed an improvement in their ability to focus, the researchers found.
However, students on ADHD drugs experienced no improvement in reading comprehension, reading fluency or knowledge reviews, compared to when they’d taken a sugar pill. “We read aloud stories to them and asked them to recall information from the stories, ”she said. “That didn’t improve.”
Worse, the ADHD drug actually harms students’ memory. It’s often misused because people pull all-nighters and they’re tired, and they think it’s going to keep them awake. Maybe it does, but it’s certainly not going to help their academic work. The brain is still developing until the mid to late 20s. It’s important to keep it healthy. There’s also a chance that ADHD drugs could endanger a student’s heart health.
1. Why do some college students take ADHD drugs?| A．To improve their sleeping. | B．To get higher marks. |
| C．To make them feel relaxed. | D．To treat brain disorder. |
| A．Analyze. | B．Affect. |
| C．Improve. | D．Understand. |
| A．They became more focused. |
| B．Their blood pressure was reduced. |
| C．Their reading fluency was greatly raised. |
| D．They could remember better and more quickly. |
| A．In a drug instruction. | B．In a biology textbook. |
| C．In a travel magazine. | D．In a news report. |
【推荐3】Who would have thought a teenager’s mobile phone could help them manage their mental health by supporting a good night’s sleep? A new app aimed at 12-to 16-year-olds is showing strong early results, improving both the hours of sleep and reducing depression and anxiety.
Sleep Ninja, a free app created by a mental health research organization — the Black Dog Institute, has shown significant early results in improving teenagers’ sleep patterns (模式), so critical not just for school readiness but for overall good mental health, co-creator Aliza Werner-Seidler said.
“Adolescents (青少年) struggle to get the recommended 8 to 10 hours of sleep each night,” Dr Werner-Seidler, a clinical psychologist, said. “As a result, approximately 40 per cent of all young people will experience a significant sleep problem by early high school which heightens their risk of mental ill-health, which is a risk factor for a range of disorders including depression and anxiety.”
Those using the app nominate a time to be up in the morning to make it to school or other activities. From there, it work backwards, determining when they should be in bed. The app gives an alert to start a pre-bed routine, which launches at least an hour before bed time. Part of that routine is to put the phone and other devices away, and engage in behaviors more suitable to sleep. Some of this is simply to have a shower, clean teeth, read a book. But the app also offers a form of practical tips to help them establish sleep routines, things like how to set up their bedroom, what to do during the day to improve their chances of sleep and how to reduce those negative repetitive thoughts that come in at night.
Dr Werner-Seidler said Sleep Ninja was the only such app designed specifically for adolescents, and the results so far had been very encouraging. She added that we also saw rates of depression drop from 77 percent at the start of the study to 44 percent after using the app.
1. What do we know about Sleep Ninja?| A．It aims to improve adults’ mental health. |
| B．It’s a new mobile phone for teenagers. |
| C．It is invented by 12-to 16-year-olds. |
| D．It’s a free app designed by Black Dog Institute. |
| A．The creating process of Sleep Ninja. | B．The heavy burden of schooling. |
| C．The practical need for Sleep Ninja. | D．The cost of making Sleep Ninja. |
| A．By reducing negative repetitive thoughts. |
| B．By setting an alert in the morning. |
| C．By putting digital devices away. |
| D．By helping form good sleep routines. |
| A．Education Report. | B．Society Report. | C．Health Report. | D．Entertainment Report. |
【推荐1】The time that cars could go completely driverless is coming "very soon", according to Jianxiong Xiao, CEO and founder of AutoX, a Shenzhen-based start-up developing autonomous driving technology.
Now, most regulations across various cities in China still require the presence of a safety driver in vehicles, but the company foresees that as more data gets captured over time, that requirement would be reduced, Xiao told CNBC's "Street Signs Asia" on Wednesday.
The autonomous driving tech firm chose to partner with Alibaba's AMAP—a Chinese mapping service provider—to roll out its RoboTaxi ride hailing service in Shanghai on Monday. AMAP is a "super mobility app" with almost 500 million active monthly users, according to Xiao.
AutoX had received support from Shanghai authorities to roll out a fleet of 100 autonomous ride-hailing cars in Shanghai's Jiading district in September last year.
Earlier this month, AutoX announced that it had set up an 80, 000 square feet RoboTaxi operations center in Shanghai to help facilitate(使容易)operations of its driverless fleet, as well as act as a center to collect data from daily operations.
Backed by investors such as Alibaba, Shanghai Motor and Dongfeng Motor, AutoX is one of the players in the trillion U. S. dollar Chinese autonomous driving vehicles market alongside others like DiDi Chuxing.
Xiao said they were working with the technology to ensure the vehicles were "very, very safe" and are carrying out a lot of testing.
Over a hundred vehicles have been arranged on roads daily to obtain enough data needed to validate the software and system, according to Xiao.
He added that the company was also running a hundred times more simulations(模拟)in the car every day, and the "huge amount of data" would help to prove that the vehicles could be used in "full safety".
"Our goal is not to just make(it)as safe as human beings, but going one step forward to really make…a superhuman safety standard; (cars)that(can)drive much safer than any human being ever, " Xiao said.
1. What will be most required to go driverless according to CEO of AutoX?| A．Traffic regulations. | B．Driving technology. |
| C．Enough data. | D．Mapping service. |
| A．Doubtful. | B．Favorable. |
| C．Critical. | D．Uncaring. |
| A．test | B．invent |
| C．develop | D．design |
| A．A biography. | B．An advertisement. |
| C．A textbook. | D．A news report. |
【推荐2】According to a new review of research about good moods（心情）and physical activity, people who work out even once a week or for as little as 10 minutes a day tend to be more cheerful than those who never exercise. And any type of exercise may be helpful.
The idea that moving can affect our moods is not new. A number of past studies have noted that physically active people have much lower risks of developing anxiety than people who rarely move. But that research centered on the relationship between exercise and mental problems. Fewer past studies explored links between physical activity and positive emotions, especially in people who already were mentally healthy, and those studies often looked at a single age group or type of exercise.
So for the new review, researchers at the University of Michigan decided to collect and analyze various past studies of working out and happiness. They began by combing research databases for relevant studies. Most of those were observational, meaning that the scientists simply looked at a group of people, asking them how much they worked out and how happy they were. A few of the studies were experiments in which people started exercising and researchers measured their happiness before and after. The number of participants（参与者）in any one study was often small, but together, they represented more than 500,000 people ranging in age from teenagers to the old.
For most of them, the Michigan researchers found, exercise was strongly linked to happiness. Every one of the observational studies showed a beneficial relationship between being physically active and being happy. The type of exercise did not seem to matter. And the amount of exercise needed to influence happiness was slight（微小的）. In several studies, people who worked out only once or twice a week said they felt much happier than those who never exercised. In other studies, 10 minutes a day of physical activity was linked with cheerful moods.
1. Paragraph 2 mainly focuses on .| A．the benefits of working out | B．the risks of developing anxiety |
| C．the effects of positive emotions | D．the limitations of the past studies |
| A．By getting more age groups included in the research. |
| B．By recording the types and amounts of exercise people take. |
| C．By measuring participants9 happiness after they take exercise. |
| D．By gathering and analyzing past studies of exercise and happiness. |
| A．Those who never exercise are more likely to suffer mental problems. |
| B．The type of exercise plays an important role in influencing happiness. |
| C．There is a strong connection between physical activity and good moods. |
| D．People working out daily feel happier than those exercising once a week. |
| Electronic Village Program (Thursday, June 18, 2015) | |
| Nearpod ❖9:00 am to 10:00 am ❖Room 501 Nearpod is a software program that creates a rich context (语境) for students to learn vocabulary. The presenter will show how to use it. | TEO ❖2:00 pm to 3:00 pm ❖Room 502 Our students come from different backgrounds but have the same desire to learn on-line. The presenter will use examples from his first on-line class to explain how any teacher can begin teaching on-line with TEO. |
| Kahoot ❖10:30 am to 11:30 am ❖Room 601 Kahoot software can be used to create grammar tests which can be graded on a network. It can provide students with instant feedback (反馈), including reports about their strengths and weaknesses. | Prezi ❖3:30 pm to 4:20 pm ❖Room 602 Uses of Prezi in listening and speaking courses draw students' attention to speaking more fluently. The presenter will show how students can use Prezi to confidently present on a variety of topics, including introducing family, friends, and hobbies. |
1. Nearpod can be used to ______.
| A．offer grammar tests |
| B．teach listening on-line |
| C．help vocabulary learning |
| D．gain fluency in speaking |
| A．Room 501 | B．Room 502 | C．Room 602 | D．Room 601 |
| A．9:00 am | B．10:30 am | C．3:30 pm | D．2:00 pm |
