A few years ago, I read about an eightyearold girl who studied elephant poaching (偷猎) in school and made a poster for her local grocery store. The slogan read, “Save the elephants. Don’t buy Ivory Soap, or they will die out.”What the girl had done taught me a lesson. Since then, I have looked at eightyearolds in a different way. As an environmental educator, I used to teach eightyearolds about the harm of elephant poaching, rainforest destruction, and global warming. I had a degree in natural science — but not in child development. What did I think I was accomplishing by putting my environmental concerns on the shoulders of kids who still believe in fairy tales (童话故事)?
Kids develop the fear of nature when their primary contact with the natural world is hearing bad news about the environment. If I wanted to inspire conservation action, I needed to change my ways, but how? I came across some research by psychologist Louise Chawla. She wanted to know what had gone on in the childhoods of adults who are good environmental citizens. She found two things most common.They had free time to explore the rivers or woods down the street, and they had an adult in their lives who was enthusiastic about the natural world. I understand now that what turned me into a good person today was a childhood spent playing in the field and having a Dad who knew that finding a lobster (龙虾) under a rock was better than finding treasure.
So that’s what I was doing when I was eight years old — looking under rocks, climbing trees, and picking wild flowers. I didn’t know a thing about the Clean Air Act that was being debated in congress at that time. I didn’t hear a lot of environmental problems. But I built a relationship with nature and I grew up to care. Now I treat my own kids like the child I was. My kids turn off the water when they brush their teeth and turn off the lights when they leave a room.
1. What can be inferred from the first two paragraphs?| A．The author felt very proud of herself. |
| B．The author took action to save the elephants. |
| C．The author thought her teaching was a failure. |
| D．The author doubted the natural science. |
| A．They tend to ignore the problems. |
| B．They become scared of nature. |
| C．They hate to learn natural science. |
| D．They want to help solve the problems. |
| A．In order to show how to have a happy childhood. |
| B．In order to show what the best way to get close to nature is. |
| C．In order to show how to change the children’s bad behavior. |
| D．In order to show what makes children care about the environment. |
| A．The harm of hunting animals. |
| B．The causes of environmental problems. |
| C．The importance of encouraging kids to protect nature. |
| D．The right methods of developing children’s idea of nature. |
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【推荐1】It’s often said that creative people see the world differently from the rest of us and a Harvard study is providing one explanation. Scientists studied brain scans of people after asking them to come up with creative uses for everyday objects. And they found a specific pattern of connectivity (连接) that correlated (与……相关) with the most creative responses.
“What this shows is that the creative brain works differently,” said Roger Beaty, the first author of the study. Beaty and his colleagues examined brain data from previous studies and found that, by simply measuring the strength of connections in these people’s brain networks, they could estimate the originality of these people’s ideas.
While the data showed that regions across the brain were involved in creative thought, Beaty said the evidence pointed to three subnetworks. And they were the default mode (默认状态) network, the salience (突出) network and the executive (管理的) control network. They appear to play key roles in creative thought. The default mode network influences memory and mental acting (心理活动), so theoretically it plays an important role in processes like mindwandering, imagination, and natural thinking. The salience network notices important information. Lastly, the executive control network works to help people keep their focus on useful ideas while getting rid of those that aren’t working. Beaty said, “People who think more flexibly and come up with more creative ideas are better able to use these networks that don’t typically work together and bring these systems online.”
Based on the results of that study, Beaty and his colleagues have achieved a lot. “We used already-published data ... we found that based on how strong the connections are in this networks, we could guess pretty accurately how creative you’re going to be on a task,” Beaty said. He added, “It’s also not clear whether this can be improved with some kind of training. Creativity is complex, and we’re only working on the surface here.”
1. What were the participants asked to do in the study?| A．To tell scientists their different ways of seeing the world. |
| B．To show their special ways to connect with others. |
| C．To talk about their most exciting experiences. |
| D．To think of new uses of ordinary objects. |
| A．Improve. | B．Judge. |
| C．Spread. | D．Praise. |
| A．giving up useless ideas | B．organizing thoughts |
| C．making decisions | D．brainstorming (集思广益) |
| A．The study is very helpful in determining one’s creativity levels. |
| B．We can become more creative with the help of some training. |
| C．Enough work has been done to better understand creativity. |
| D．Some people can be born with higher levels of creativity. |
【推荐2】Learning a second language is difficult at any age and it only gets harder the longer you wait to open that dusty French book. Now, in a new study, scientists have pointed the exact age at which your chances of reaching fluency（流利）in a second language seem to rise： 10.
The study, published in the journal Cognition, found that it's "nearly impossible” for language learners to reach native-level fluency if they start learning a second language after 10. But that doesn't seem to be because language skills go downhill “It turns out you're still learning fast. It's just that you run out of time, because your ability to learn starts dropping at around 17 or 18 years old,“ says study co-author Joshua Hartshorne, an assistant professor of psychology at Boston College.
Kids may be better than adults at learning new languages for many reasons. Children's brains are more plastic than those of adults, meaning they're better able to adapt and respond to new information. "All learning involves the brain changing,“ Hartshorne says, “and children's brains seem to be a lot more skilled at changing. "
These findings may seem discouraging, but it was heartening for scientists to learn that the critical （关键的）period for fluent language acquisition might be longer than they previously thought. Some scientists believed that the brief window closes shortly after birth, while others stretched it only to early adolescence. Compared to those estimates, 17 or 18 when language learning ability starts to drop off——seems old.
“People progress better when they learn by immersion （沉 浸）rather than simply in a classroom. And moving to a place where your desired language is spoken is the best way to learn as an adult. If that's not an option, you can create an immersive environment by finding ways to have conversations with native speakers in their own communities," Hartshorne says. By doing so, it's possible to become conversationally fluent——even without the advantage of a child's brain.
1. What is the most important finding of the new study?| A．The best age to learn a second language. |
| B．The possibility of speaking fluent language. |
| C．The change of language skills over the time. |
| D．The great approaches to learning a language. |
| A．Their focus is language learning only. |
| B．They are more interested in languages. |
| C．They are more adaptable to new things. |
| D．Their brain always ignores big changes. |
| A．Joining friends in their learning. | B．Turning to immersive learning. |
| C．Studying in a quiet classroom. | D．Training the brain to a kid's brain. |
| A．Science. | B．Travel |
| C．Health. | D．Education. |
【推荐3】Mercury(水星) is the closest planet to the sun. It is a planet slightly larger than the Earth’s moon. It is covered in craters. Some craters have ice in them, even though the planet is hot. Sunlight never touches some parts because of the planet’s special position. Without air, there are great temperature differences between the coldest and hottest parts. Mercury days are so long that there are big differences between temperatures on the daylight side and the night side.
Mercury was created billions of years ago, when big rocks ran into each other. After these accidents, the planet was frequently visited by meteorites (流星) for several hundred million years. There were also many volcanic eruptions. As the planet cooled, the thin, rocky outside shell reduced in diameter(直径) by about 3 kilometers.
The Caloris Basin is one of the largest craters on Mercury. This big crater is 1, 300 kilometers wide and was formed when a large rock, about 100 kilometers across, knocked into the surface. Beethoven, another large crater, is 643 kilometers across.
The cliffs on Mercury are up to 2 kilometers high and hundreds of kilometers long. The cliffs were formed when the thin surface fell apart, as volcanic activity slowed down and Mercury became cooler.
One Mercury day lasts about 59 Earth days. Mercury takes about 88 Earth days to have a complete year, instead of the 365 days that we have on the Earth. Mercury speeds around the sun so that there are three Mercury days every two Mercury years! Mercury has a strange relationship with the Earth. Every 117 days, when Mercury is closest to the Earth, it always has the same side facing us.
Mariner 10 is the only spacecraft to visit Mercury. It made three visits to Mercury in, the 1970s, taking photos of many cliffs and craters. Although the first three visits answered many questions, they have raised others.
1. What is the surface of Mercury like?| A．It’s generally flat. | B．It’s hot everywhere. |
| C．It’s bright everywhere. | D．It’s cold in some parts. |
| A．A drop in temperature changed its size. |
| B．A great many meteorites ran into it. |
| C．It got out of shape as time passed. |
| D．Lots of surface rocks fell off. |
| A．One Mercury day lasts about 88 Earth days. |
| B．It turns around the sun faster than the Earth. |
| C．Six Mercury days are two Mercury years. |
| D．It has more cliffs than large craters. |
| A．Another spacecraft visited Mercury. |
| B．New cliffs and craters were formed. |
| C．New signs of volcanic activity appeared. |
| D．Lots of new puzzles needed to be solved. |
【推荐1】Global warming is the increase of the earth’s average surface temperature due to the effect of greenhouse gases, for example, carbon dioxide, which trap heat that would otherwise escape from the earth. After the trees are cut down and more greenhouse gases are released, the “blanket” around the earth called the ozone layer (臭氧层), will get thicker. This catches more heat and makes the earth hotter. Luckily, there are many things that every citizen of the earth can do to help reduce the effects of global warming, and it’s never too late or too early for children to take action.
The children should learn what a carbon footprint is. A carbon footprint is the amount of carbon and greenhouse gases people make as they lead the daily life and go about the normal activities. In other words, the carbon footprint is a measure of the environmental impact (冲击) the life has. To live an environmentally friendly life that doesn’t contribute to global warming, people want to have the smallest carbon footprint possible.
Almost everything people do contributes to global warming and is related to fossil fuel consumption. These can be direct uses of fossil fuels, like riding in a gasoline-powered car, or indicrect contributions to greenhouse gases, such as eating fruits or vegetables that had to be shipped from far way to reach their tables.
If a child wants to make a contribution to reducing global warming, he should ride a bicycle to the near park, school, his friend’s house, or anywhere else instead of taking the car. Or he may try to walk or jog, which is also helpful. In addition, although trains and buses often run on fossil fuels, on average, each person uses less energy and produces less pollution to run. Next time if children with their parents have to get around town or it’s too far to walk or bike, take the bus or other public transportation instead of asking for a ride.
1. What is the first paragraph mainly about?| A．A brief description of carbon footprint |
| B．The serious water pollution. |
| C．The protection of ozone layer. |
| D．The causes of global warming |
| A．Useless. | B．Expensive. |
| C．Helpful. | D．Attractive. |
| A．Go to the near park by bus. |
| B．Walk or cycle as much as possible. |
| C．Keep staying at home or school. |
| D．Go around the town with parents by car. |
| A．What Can People Do to Use Less Energy? |
| B．How Can Kids Help Reduce Global Warming? |
| C．How Does Carbon Footprints Measure Pollution? |
| D．Why Global Warming Affects Humans’ Life? |
【推荐2】Lagos, a big city in Nigeria, has a population of 20 million, and they can produce between 13, 000 and 15, 000 tonnes of waste every day including 2, 250 tonnes of plastic.
Despite a lot of cleaning, Lagos has no proper system to dispose of rubbish, and not having public awareness of pollution brings a huge environmental challenge. Litter gets washed away by the rains and waterways and ends up in mountains of rubbish on the beaches. Light- house Beach is one of the beaches. It stretches for about 100 kilometers along the Atlantic, all the way to neighboring Benin. Lined with palm trees, the beach could be beautiful if it weren’t for all the pollution.
“It is time that we should raise awareness of keeping the environment clean and clean up all the plastic,” says Chioma Chukwura, who helped pick up rubbish on Lighthouse Beach. At the end of a tiring day, 230 large bin bags were put together on the hot sand, filled with dirty plastic.
“Although the job is challenging,a company will come and pick them up tomorrow. All the plastic here will get reused. Sold for $500 a tonne, the plastic could bring $250 million to Lagos each year, and a cleaner environment could promote the development of the city,” says Owoade Yussuf, organiser of the cleanup.
As the volunteers leave at the end of the day,always just 100 meters is clean. “There is still a lot to do. Maybe we need two months, continuously, to get this cleaned up,” says another volunteer. “We have to find a way to prevent the plastic from coming back. After we’ve finished, I’m sure we may still see litter here when we come back.”
On Lighthouse Beach, the problem isn’t just plastic. Destroyed ships also pollute the beach. With that kind of pollution, even an army of volunteers may struggle. However, with more help, they can still make a difference.
1. How does the author show the severity of rubbish in Lagos in paragraph l?| A．By listing numbers. | B．By giving examples. |
| C．By asking questions. | D．By making comparisons. |
| A．Pick out. | B．Deal with. | C．Bring about. | D．Adapt to, |
| A．There is no need to recycle the beach litter. |
| B．It is tough to clean all the plastic on the beach. |
| C．It is nccessary to sell the beach litter for money. |
| D．There is no fund to remove all the beach plastic. |
| A．Destroyed Lighthouse Beach in Lagos |
| B．Plastic Pollution is a Worldwide Problem |
| C．Lagos Faces Many Environmental Challenges |
| D．Cleanup Efforts on Lagos’Lighthouse Beach |
【推荐3】When my friend suggested going to the thrift shop (慈善商店), instantly I thought “I hope no one I know sees me”. It was the same when my cousin commented on my new furniture and Japanese finebonechina bowls and asked where I got them. They were from the local thrift shop but instead I said “from the antique shop”.
Many people in my Greek-Cypriot community would look down on me if I said I shopped at the thrift shop.They may pity me, consider me a failure. Immigrants sacrificed their families and homes for a better life. Buying a house and having enough money to live comfortably, to educate children and see them also live comfortably, are a big part of the immigrant dream. But has this dream made us materialistic at the cost of our own planet?
Our love for purchasing the latest trendy clothes or furniture, and then donating them when we are tired of them has become normal. I was once like this. But after watching the documentary The True Cost, I learned donated clothes that don’t get sold are sent to developing nations, many of them ending up in landfills (垃圾填埋地)．In addition, your new dress requires electricity and materials to make. But if you buy a second-hand dress, there’s one less dress in a landfill and one less new dress to be made.
A friend introduced me to the thrift shop only a few years ago. My first item was a dress she gifted me. It was lovely and I loved it.Nobody could tell it was secondhand. Then I began to purchase more second-hand branded clothes of high quality. Once I visited a friend and was impressed by how she decorated her apartment. “It’s all second-hand,”she said. I couldn’t believe it. The truth is that a lot of things sold at the thrift shop are in new or almost new condition. That’s when I made the decision to only buy secondhand things.
Selling secondhand things isn’t anything new but what the planet needs is more buyers. There is so much excess (过度的) production in the world. So stop feeling ashamed, and let’s get shopping.
1. What kind of feelings is expressed in Paragraph 1?| A．Pride. | B．Embarrassment. |
| C．Delight. | D．Sympathy. |
| A．They are probably materialistic. |
| B．They care about the environment. |
| C．They think highly of thrift shopping. |
| D．They look down upon immigrants. |
| A．Watch the documentary The True Cost. |
| B．Donate more to local charities. |
| C．Avoid shopping too much. |
| D．Stop buying new things. |
| A．To entertain. | B．To advertise. |
| C．To persuade. | D．To describe. |
【推荐1】Charles Wang has been to e mail hell, and returned to tell the tale. His journey there began innocently enough when, as chairman of Computer Associates International, a software company, he first heard how quickly his employees welcomed their new electronic mail system. They were sending messages to one another like crazy. “I said, ‘Let’s check into how people are using it.’” But instead of a pleasant e mail culture, what had developed was a behavioral nightmare. “It was a disaster,” he says. “My managers were getting 200 to 300 e mails a day each. People were so fond of it that they weren’t talking to each other. They were hibernating, e mailing people in the next room. They were abusing it.” In just a few years, Wang’s high-tech communications system had gone crazy.
To stop that, Wang short circuited the system, taking the astonishing step—considering what his $3.9 billion company does for a living—of banning all e mails from 9:30 a.m. to 12 noon and from 1:30 p.m. to 4 p.m. These hours are now observed as a sort of electronic quiet time. Says Wang: “It worked wonderfully. People are walking the corridors again talking to other people. ”
Almost everyone agrees that e mail is a wonderful invention. It is a convenient, informal medium for conveying messages that well meets human needs. E mail is perhaps the ideal means by which one can run a global project. “It is one of the greatest innovations of the last 20 years,” says Paul Argenti, a professor of management communications at Dartmouth’s Tuck School. But Argenti and others also say it is a medium whose function is confusing, in parts because the process is so easy and informal that people treat it as they do conversation but informal as it may be, e mail is writing and constitutes a permanent record, and because so much of human conversation is nonverbal, e mail messages, especially critical or complex ones, can easily be misunderstood.
1. From the first paragraph,we can infer that Charles .| A．was very glad to see the benefits of e mails to his employees |
| B．thought it unbelievable that his employees used e mails so much |
| C．doubted the public enthusiasm about e mails for communications |
| D．considered the e mail application a somewhat happy experience |
| A．get sleepy more easily for no actual work to do |
| B．have more time for sleep for their high efficiency |
| C．are not moving around and not talking to each other |
| D．become indifferent to each other even in the same office |
| A．restricted the time for e mail correspondence |
| B．invented other media for communication |
| C．closed the e mail system in his company |
| D．closed his company for other business |
| A．it is computer borne | B．it doesn’t help global business |
| C．it may be misunderstood | D．it is a written language |
【推荐2】We all know the names of certain famous male inventors throughout history, from Galileo to Alexander Graham Bell to Steve Jobs. Do you know the outstanding ladies listed below?
Margaret Knight (1838-1914)
Margaret Knight was nicknamed “the lady Edison’’ for her productive inventions which included a safety device for textile looms, shoe manufacturing machines, a rotary engine and internal combustion engine (内燃机), among many others. Knight received 27 patents in her lifetime.
Josephine Cochran(1839-1913)
Cochrane, a wealthy woman who entertained often, wanted a machine that could wash dishes faster than her servants, and without breaking them. When she couldn’t find one, she built the first dishwasher herself in 1886. She received a patent for her famous invention and started a company to sell her invention to restaurants and hotels.
Katharine Burr Blodgett (1898-1979)
Katharine Blodgett was the first woman to receive a Ph.D in physics at England’s Cambridge University and the first woman hired by General Electric. Her most influential invention was non-reflective glass, which today is still essential for eyeglasses, car windshields and computer screens.
Stephanie Kwolek (1923-2014)
In 1965, Stephanie Kwolek created an unusually lightweight and durable new fiber which was later developed by a chemical company DuPont into the synthetic Kevlar (凯夫拉尔纤维), used in everything from military helmets and bulletproof vests to work-gloves, sports equipment, and building materials. Kwolek was awarded the National Medal of Technology for her research on synthetic fibers and was admitted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1994.
1. What did Cochrane invent the dishwasher for?| A．To make a fortune. | B．To entertain more guests. |
| C．To receive a patent. | D．To wash dishes more effectively. |
| A．Stephanie Kwolek | B．Josephine Cochran |
| C．Margaret Knight | D．Katharine Burr Blodgett |
| A．To tell us some important inventions. |
| B．To recommend four outstanding scientists. |
| C．To introduce four excellent women inventors. |
| D．To compare female inventors with male inventors. |
【推荐3】A laser (激光) is a device that makes a beam (束) of light so narrow and strong that it can cut like a knife. When it was invented, no one knew that it would change modern medicine. But now, with this wonderful tool, doctors can safely perform operations and treatments that were once very dangerous or painful, or simply impossible with regular surgical instruments.
The first person to imagine something like a laser was Albert Einstein in 1917. He realized that it might be possible to create a very strong, bright beam of light by changing the way light acted. However, he never thought about this idea any further and neither he nor anyone else tried to produce a laser beam for many years.
Finally, in the late 1950s, scientists began experimenting with light and figured out how to create the strong beams we now know as laser beams. In these first experiments, they used mirrors and artificial gemstones (人造宝石) to change the light. Other scientists soon were producing the same results by sending light through special gases. The light created by either of these methods was very different from normal light. The beams from lasers remain narrow and do not spread out as light normally does, even over great distance.
In the early years after the invention of lasers, scientists called them “a solution looking for a problem.” It was obvious that lasers were very special, but it took scientists a while to find practical application (应用) for them. Over time, hundreds of uses have been found for lasers in many areas of science and technology. They are used in the newest telecommunication systems, in computer printers, and in CD players. They are also used in show business to create special lighting effects. But where lasers have made the most difference is undoubtedly in the world of medicine, where they can be used for many tasks that require fine exactness.
1. What did Albert Einstein think of the laser beam?| A．It could be created. |
| B．He could change it. |
| C．It might be dangerous. |
| D．He could experiment with it. |
| A．They used mirrors to spread out the light. |
| B．They sent the normal light over great distance. |
| C．They made the light pass through special gases. |
| D．They used artificial gemstones to cover the light. |
| A．They were applied quickly and widely. |
| B．They help create special sound effects. |
| C．They made a difference in medicine. |
| D．They cannot be found in modern science. |
| A．How to Create Strong Laser Beams |
| B．Einstein’s Stories on Laser Beams |
| C．Everything You Need to Know on Lasers |
| D．Lasers: The Invention and Applications. |
