【推荐3】That your kids are learning at home doesn’t mean you don’t have time to take them on field trips. When you can’t get away, your kids can still travel by taking virtual field trips. We have prepared our list of favorites to help you keep your kids engaged and entertained.

AirPano

AirPano has a variety of tours in China, Portugal, Switzerland and more countries. Children can visit Zhangjiajie Glass Bridge in China, an underwater cave in Indonesia, ski resorts in France, and more destinations around the globe. What makes this site so good is that it offers narrations (解说) of several tours and provides closeups through interactive actions.

Will-O-Crest Farm

This 45-minute tour of Will-O-Crest Farm in New York state walks through every step of work on the farm. It shows how calves are housed, how cow are milked and everything in between. The video is hosted by a narrator with a live instructor (employee) from the farm onsite.

Yellowstone

Yellowstone offers seven virtual tours appropriate for school ages. There’s a lot of written information along with the images, and the tours aren’t in video. However, the information is fascinating, and the photos are wonderful. These tours are a great way for kids to discover unique facts about America.

Slime (粘液) in Space

What happens to slime when it’s in space? That’s the concept behind the Slime in Space virtual field trip. Featuring real astronauts and celebrities (名人), the 15-minute video shows kids how slime and water react in a microgravity environment. Along the way, it answers burning questions like. “Is slime a solid or a liquid?” and “Can you slime a person in space?”.

1. Who is the text intended for?

A．Graduates

B．Teachers

C．Farmers.

D．Parents.

2. Which of the following tours offers views of many countries?

A．AirPano	B．Yellowstone.
C．Slime in Space	D．Will-O-Crest Farm.

3. What can kids do on the tour of Yellowstone?

A．Interact with astronauts.	B．Learn how to milk cows.
C．Appreciate great pictures.	D．Watch videos of live tours.

【推荐1】Learning online should make use of a number of Internet tools. For example, e-mail lets you exchange letters between continents very cheaply and almost immediately. Large groups of people can share their discussions by using electronic lists to send every letter to everyone on the list. Electronic magazines bring you up-to-date topics, such as news, arts, and sports. Search engines allow you to look for anything you want on the Internet, including the holdings of major libraries. In a chat room you can have a real-time written talk. Audio and video bring the world to your computer—you can listen to the world’s radio stations, and watch the evening news from another continent. And in an online conference you can even talk to your teacher and fellow students abroad.

Do you have an e-mail box? How much time do you spend communicating with your friends over the Internet? The Internet, the newest child in technology, is like a modern communication highway. It’s also a kind of super-shop where you can buy almost anything—you can get anything through the Internet, without leaving home at all.

1. What is the passage mainly about?

A．The Internet.	B．Radio stations.
C．Magazines.	D．Libraries.

2. What is the quickest and cheapest way of getting in touch with your friends abroad?

A．By telegraph.	B．By airmail.
C．By e-mail.	D．By telephone.

3. Where might the writer suggest we work?

A．In the office.	B．At home.
C．At the library.	D．In the store.

【推荐2】In the far North, fire season usually doesn’t start until June, when snow has melted away and summer lightning storms sweep into the region. So scientist Sander Veraverbeke was confused when in May of 2016 he saw little patches of fire on some satellite images from Alaska and the Northwest Territories.

“I was like, what the hell is going on?” says Veraverbeke, an Earth scientist at the Vrije Universiteit of Amsterdam in the Netherlands.

What he saw on the satellite images were “zombie fires,” remains of burns from the previous year that somehow stayed alive, smoldering underground, through the long, cold winter.

Zombie fires aren’t an entirely new phenomenon in the Arctic; fire managers have noted occasional flare-ups in past decades. But Veraverbeke’s team found that their occurrences are tightly linked to climate change, happening more often after hot, long summers with lots of fire and suggesting that these still-rare events could become more frequent.

“The sheer fact that this is happening is evidence for how quickly the region is changing,” he says.

Like all forests, the wooded stretches of the Arctic sometimes catch on fire. But unlike many forests in the mid-latitudes, which thrive on or even require fire to preserve their health, Arctic forests have evolved to burn only infrequently.

Climate change is reshaping that mode. In the first decade of the new millennium, fires burned 50 percent more acreage each year in the Arctic, on average, than any decade in the 1900s. Between 2010 and 2020, burned acreage continued to creep up, particularly in Alaska, which had its second worst fire year ever in 2015 and another bad one in 2019. Scientists have found that fire frequency today is higher than at any time since the formation of boreal (北极的) forests some 3,000 years ago, and potentially higher than at any point in the last 10,000 years.

1. Why did Sander Veraverbeke feel puzzled?

A．Because he saw something unusual from some newspaper pictures.

B．Because he didn’t realize there were zombie fires in the Arctic.

C．Because the fires started burning earlier than he previously expected.

D．Because there was much snow in Alaska and the Northwest Territories.

2. What does the underlined word “smoldering” in paragraph 3 mean?

A．Burning

B．Releasing

C．Exploding

D．Weakening

3. What can we know about the fires in the Arctic?

A．They play a role in preserving the forests.

B．Zombie fires are a new discovery of Sander Veraverbeke.

C．Zombie fires tend to happen after hot summers with lots of fire.

D．They burned 50 percent of the area in the Arctic between 2000 and 2010.

4. What’s the author’s purpose in writing the text?

A．To help readers learn about the Arctic.	B．To show concern about climate change.
C．To call on people to control zombie fires.	D．To warn readers of the dangers of zombie fires.

【推荐3】In the modern age, social media platforms have emerged as powerful tools for communication, networking, and self-expression. With billions of active users worldwide, these platforms have profoundly influenced the human interaction. Recent psychological studies have delved into understanding the influence of prolonged (长期的) social media usage on individual self-esteem (自尊) and identity formation.

Context and Prevalence (流行)

Social media platforms, including Weibo, WeChat Moments, Douyin, and Little Red Book, offer ways for individuals to project curated versions of their lives. While this can serve as a medium of affirmation, it also compares one’s daily life against the specially edited highlights of others, which could potentially lead to feelings of failure and unsatisfactory.

Research Findings on Self-Esteem

A study conducted among adolescents aged 13-19 showed that extreme social media use correlates with lower self-esteem scores. Participants who spent over five hours daily on these platforms demonstrated significant tendencies towards self-devaluation (自我贬低) and negative self-perception (自体感受). The study believed that the constant exposure of idealized images and lives leads to an involuntary (不自主的) comparison, often placing the individual on the lesser end of the spectrum.

Implications for Identity Formation

For adolescents, a critical time of identity formation happens during the teenage years. Social media can often blur the lines (模糊界限) between personal identity and digital persona (面貌，形象). A study tracked teenagers for five years and found that heavy social media users often experienced identity confusion. Their digital avatars, formed under societal pressures, sometimes overshadowed their real personalities, leading to internal conflicts and a confusion to real selfhood.

Possible Solutions and Future Research

While the negative influence of social media on mental well-being are evident, it’s also essential to highlight its potential benefits. Platforms can help to add a sense of belonging, provide informational support, and serve as outlets for creative expression. Future research could explore potential interventions (介入，干涉) to reduce the negative effects.

In conclusion, while social media offers a huge number of opportunities and ways for expression, it’s important that teenagers approach it with awareness. The psychological landscape it shapes is hard to understand, and understanding its depths requires continued research, empathy (共鸣), and active measures.

1. What do we know about the study involving adolescents aged 13-19?

A．It took five hours for participants to take part in the study

B．It suggested that we should not compare our lives with others

C．It caused self-devaluation and negative self-perception to participants.

D．It showed that too much social media use resulted in low self-esteem.

2. What does the term “digital avatars” refer to in paragraph 4?

A．Social media algorithms (算法).	B．Digital marketing tools.
C．Online versions of individuals.	D．Digital assistants.

3. Why social media are especially bad for adolescents?

A．They cause identity crises (危机) to them.	B．They lead to feelings of unsatisfactory.
C．They project version of their lives.	D．They overshadow their personalities.

4. How does the author feel about the effect of social media on users?

A．Entirely negative.

B．Quite positive.

C．Mixed with caution.

D．Indifferent and neutral.