Every day as the sun rises, Ma Hongyi, a 66-year-old farmer, can be seen patrolling (巡逻) Yuncheng Salt Lake with his dog in Yuncheng city, North China’s Shanxi province.
Ma still remembers the day when he first saw two big pink birds wandering through the water. “I had never seen such pretty birds. They were even taller than me, with long wings,” Ma recalls. He was later informed that birds were flamingos, a rare sight in China, which were listed on the International Union for Protection of Nature’s red list of endangered species in 2013. From that day on, Ma started his second career as a volunteer to prevent human beings from interfering with the wildlife. “The birds are attracted by the good environment,” Ma says. “I will do my best to protect the lake so that birds can come here every year.”
Yuncheng Salt Lake covers an area of 132 square kilometers and used to serve as a salt production base. As the country began attaching greater importance to environmental protection, an ecological (生态的) protection and development center was set up in 2012 to carry out regular ecological protection and restoration (修复) of the lake. “The greatest value of the Salt Lake lies in its ecology, which should be properly restored and protected,” says Chu Xianghao, mayor of the city. The lake area hosts 292 types of wild animals, along with 782 plant varieties, some of which are newly recorded species in the country.
After patrolling the lake as volunteer for over four years, Ma was employed by the local government to help with wildlife protection in 2019. “The lake’s ecology is getting better,” Ma says, adding that he looks forward to the arrival of the flamingos every year. “Some of them are my old friends,” he says.
1. Why does Ma patrol Yuncheng Salt Lake every day?| A．To serve as a keeper of the lake. | B．To observe the rare flamingos closely. |
| C．To admire the scenery around the lake. | D．To come across the flamingos again |
| A．bringing benefits to | B．losing control of |
| C．sharing space with | D．causing problems to |
| A．It is still used as a salt production base | B．The restoration of it will be carried out soon. |
| C．It’s home to 292 types of endangered wildlife | D．The protection of its ecology is of great importance |
| A．Ambitious. | B．Responsible. | C．Generous. | D．Humorous. |
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【推荐1】A second-grade education has not stopped garbage collector Jose Gutierrez. He is bringing the gift of reading to thousands of Colombian children.
Gutierrez started saving books from the trash 27 years ago. He was driving a garbage truck at night through the country’s richer neighborhoods. The books that were thrown away slowly piled up. Now the ground floor of his small house is a community library. It is stacked (堆放) from floor to ceiling. They range from chemistry textbooks to children’s classics.
Books are luxuries for boys and girls in low-income neighborhoods. New reading material at bookstores is too expensive. There are 19 public libraries in Bogota, a city of 8.5 million people. But the libraries tend to be located far away from poorer areas.“They should be in all neighborhoods and on each comer of every neighborhood,” the 60-year-old says.“Books can save us. That is what Colombia needs.”
Gutierrez has a love of reading, which comes from his mother. She always read to him even though she was too poor to keep him in school. Gutierrez is a keen reader of works by authors such as Leo Tolstoy and Victor Hugo. His favorite books include One Hundred Years of Solitude and The Gencral in His Labyrinth by Colombia’s Nobel Prize-winning novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez. The first book Gutierrez found was a copy of the classic novel Anna Karenina. The Tolstoy book was later joined by The Little Prince, Sophie’s World, The Iliad and a number of novels. Today, he has collected around 25,000 books.
Now, Gutierrez still looks through the rubbish for additions to his library, named “The Strength of Words.”His fame as Colombia’s “Lord of the Books” has helped a lot. It has brought him thou-sands of donated books. He has sent many to other libraries around the country. Moreover, Gutierrez has traveled to book fairs in Mexico and Chile to share his experience of starting a library with the books that are thrown away.
Gutierrez says he doesn’t reject technology that allows books to be read digitally. But he prefers to read the printed words on paper.“There is nothing more beautiful than having a book in your pocket, in your bag or inside your car.”
1. How old was Gutierrez when he started saving books from the trash?| A．In his twenties. | B．In his thirties. | C．In his forties. | D．In his fifties, |
| A．Luxury books. | B．Garbage trucks. | C．Public libraries. | D．Poor areas. |
| A．The beginning of his charity project. | B．A window to the world. |
| C．One of his greatest achievements in life. | D．Some comfort in difficult times. |
| A．Actions speak louder than words. | B．A good book can shine a light upon the soul. |
| C．One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. | D．The palest ink is better than the best memory. |
【推荐2】Laura Stone is the founder of Sydney by Kayak(皮划艇), a company that offers guided kayak tours of Sydney Harbour in Australia. Not only did their business increase during the COVID-19, but one of their tours is actually more popular than ever.
A few years ago, Laura was paddling in the harbour when she noticed trash floating in the water. For reference, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) estimates that about 8 million tons of plastic end up in our ocean each year, causing big problems for wildlife and local plants. Laura was so shocked by the garbage in the water that she decided to dedicate a few paddles each week to trash cleanup. Incredibly, her clients were immediately on board with the idea, so Sydney by Kayak now leads four to five garbage-collecting tours every week!
At the start of the COVID-19, Laura thought her business would drop off as many others had. Instead, desperate for the purpose and a way to get outdoors, people flocked to her “Clean Up Kayak” tours. They now routinely take about 441 pounds of garbage out of the harbour each week! “We’ve been quite surprised, even through the COVID-19, we’ve been very busy,” Laura said, “Because they can’t travel, people are looking for something to do. That is not just good for them, but also good for the environment.”
Each tour begins with participants preparing for some working tools. Some people come back many times for the satisfaction of collecting trash from the harbour. Julie Greening, for example, has done about 10 tours so far and said, “Every little bit is worth it. We have 7 billion people on this planet. If everyone does a little, of course it’s going to help.”
1. What can Laura’s company mainly do?| A．Sell kayaks and paddles. | B．Provide guided kayak tours. |
| C．Offer tourism information. | D．Organise outdoor activities. |
| A．Reading a report about pollution. | B．Hearing of the appeal of the UNEP. |
| C．Talking with her clients on a tour. | D．Seeing the floating trash in the water. |
| A．Business continued dropping off. |
| B．People helped clean up the garbage. |
| C．Business increased because of garbage-cleaning. |
| D．About 441 pounds of garbage were cleaned per week. |
| A．Garbage-cleaning tools are popular in Sydney. |
| B．People actively participate in the garbage-sorting. |
| C．The public had a sense of environmental protection. |
| D．The idea of using tools wins support from the government. |
【推荐3】The will to live more sustainably is certainly growing in the UK, even if many are still unsure about how to put that into action.
Most have become well acquainted with recycling paper, cardboard, metal and glass, thanks in large part to council-provided recycling bins for each household. But when it comes to more difficult to recycle items, many households are all at sea. It is the case that the UK is rapidly becoming one of the worst offenders for e-waste in the world. Although it takes a little more conscious waste management, there are ways that you can recycle these more tricky household items and reduce your environmental impact.
E-waste like phones and laptops contains precious metals, like gold, nickel and copper, which leak toxins into the ground when they decompose (分解). Recycling the metals in electronics is vital then to lessen the tech industry’s environmental and social impact. For mobile phones, your retailer might already have a recycling initiative set up. O2 and Virgin Media offer customers money in exchange for their old devices, depending on their condition. As for old clothes, lots of shops, like M&, now offer clothes donation banks in-store, while councils are getting in on the act with on-street clothes recycling points. You can also sell your clothes or donate them to charity—second hand apps like Depop have already ensured that the resale market in Britain grew at an impressive speed. Mattresses (床垫) are especially difficult to get rid of when they reach their end of life, and many of us are resorting to landfill. Many of the materials in mattresses, such as box springs, are not biodegradable (可生物降解的), so it is better to save them from landfill by reusing them. Companies like Collect Your Old Bed pick up your old mattress and bed parts and take them to be dismantled and recycled.
Individual acts alone can’t fix social ills. But each of us can do our part to put more energy into the search for solutions.
1. What can we know from the second paragraph?| A．The UK is the world’s largest e-waste producer. |
| B．The British are having difficulty in handling e-waste. |
| C．The UK lacks relevant technology to deal with e-waste. |
| D．The British aren’t equipped with knowledge about waste recycling. |
| A．By giving definitions. | B．By explaining concepts. |
| C．By providing examples. | D．By making comparisons. |
| A．Donating extra items to non-profit organizations. | B．Purchasing new devices to replace old ones. |
| C．Abandoning outdated digital products. | D．Sending old mattresses to the landfill. |
| A．Negative impacts of e-waste. | B．Ways to recycle tricky items. |
| C．Resource conservation efforts. | D．Sustainable practices of the British. |
【推荐1】Sometimes you’ll hear people say that you can’t love others until you love yourself.
Sometimes you’ll hear people say that you can’t expect someone else to love you until you love yourself. Either way, you’ve got to love yourself first and this can be tricky. Sure we all know that we’re the apple of our parents’ eyes, and that our Grandmas think we’re great talents and our Uncle Roberts thinks we will go to the Olympics, but sometimes it’s a lot harder to think such nice thoughts about ourselves. If you find that believing in yourself is a challenge, it is time you build a positive self-image and learn to love yourself.
Self-image is your own mind’s picture of yourself. This image includes the way you look, the way you act, the way you talk and the way you think. Interestingly, our self-images are often quite different from the images others hold about us. Unfortunately, most of these images are more negative than they should be, thus changing the way you think about yourself is the key to changing your self-image and your whole world.
The best way to defeat a passive self-image is to step back and decide to stress your successes. That is, make a list if you need to, but write down all of the great things you do every day. Don’t allow doubts to occur in it.
It might be that you are experiencing a negative self-image because you can’t move past one flaw (缺点) or weakness that you see about yourself. Well, roll up your sleeves and make a change of it as your primary task. If you think you’re silly because you aren’t good at math, find a tutor. If you think you’re weak because you can’t run a mile, get to the track and practice. If you think you’re dull because you don’t wear the latest trends, buy a few new clothes. But remember, just because you think it doesn’t mean it’s true.
The best way to get rid of a negative self-image is to realize that your image is far from objective, and to actively convince yourself of your positive qualities. Changing the way you think and working on those you need to improve will go a long way towards promoting a positive self-image. When you can pat yourself on the back, you’ll know you’re well on your way. Good luck!
1. You need to build a positive self-image when you ________.| A．dare to challenge yourself | B．feel it hard to change yourself |
| C．are unconfident about yourself | D．have a high opinion of yourself |
| A．have positive effects | B．are often changeable |
| C．are probably untrue | D．have different functions |
| A．To keep a different image of others. | B．To make your life successful. |
| C．To understand your own world. | D．To change the way you think. |
| A．How to build a positive self-image. | B．How to face challenges in your life. |
| C．How to prepare for your success. | D．How to develop your good qualities. |
| A．Parents. | B．Adolescents. | C．Educators. | D．Senior Citizens. |
【推荐2】Arjun's Apps
One stormy day, twelve-year-old Arjun Kumar was late getting home from school. It had been raining heavily near his school in Chennai, India. This delayed his school bus, and when he finally arrived, Arjun’s parents were worried.
His parents’ concern gave Arjun an idea — he’d create an app, which can tell parents the location of their children’s school bus. While researching different ways to write apps, Arjun located an online programming tool on the website of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. MIT was making the tool, called App Inventor, available to anyone who wanted to use it. As the motto on MIT's website states, “Anyone Can Build Apps That Impact the World.”
Arjun got to work doing just that. Using App Inventor, he created an app called “Ez School Bus Locator.” If a school introduced this app into its bus system, parents could log on to see the locations and estimated arrival times of their children’s school bus. Like other mapping apps, Ez School Bus Locator relied on GPS. GPS helps users determine their location, based on signals from a set of twenty-four satellites that orbit Earth. GPS-based apps calculate the location of a device by measuring the distances from three different GPS satellites. That's how Arjun's app determined where the buses were located.
The app could also confirm whether individual children were on the bus. Ez School Bus Locator used a specific bar code to identify each student. Students checked in when they got on and off the bus by using bar codes on their phones. As the bus driver drove, the app sent automatic messages to parents.
Does Ez School Bus Locator sound like a good idea? MIT thought so. In 2012, MIT held a contest to honor the best apps that had been created using App Inventor. Arjun's app won first place in the K-8 division, and in 2013, the app was available for purchase online.
Arjun didn't stop there. He continued developing new apps and he even started his own software development company. When asked for pointers for other young inventors, Arjun advised, “Look for problems around you, and get inspired from them. You’ll see a lot of opportunities to use your skills to make this world a better place to live!”
1. What is the passage mainly about?| A．The life of inventor Arjun Kumar. | B．A student's invention of a bus locator app. |
| C．How App Inventor helped Arjun write an app. | D．How the rainy weather in India affected traffic. |
| A．It could be downloaded online for free. |
| B．It helped the children know where they were. |
| C．It was introduced by Arjun into the school bus system. |
| D．It used bar codes to track which children were on board. |
| A．To inspire more young inventors. | B．To win many awards for his inventions. |
| C．To solve problems that he saw in the world. | D．To earn money to continue his education at MIT. |
| A．Youth means limitless possibilities. | B．A man owes his success to his family support. |
| C．If you don't aim high, you will never hit high. | D．Good problem solvers are problem finders first. |
【推荐3】Small talk—the likes of “What do you have there? Popcorn?” or “The weather today is beautiful, isn’t it?”—is meaningless and a waste of time, according to some people. But scientists believe that it is actually more useful than it may appear to be.
One example comes when you are on a train or a plane. The thought of talking to the stranger sitting beside you can be scary, because you know the conversation is sure to be awkward. But a study by the University of Chicago in the US found that people who chat to strangers enjoy a better ride than those who sit in silence or occupy themselves with their phones.
In the study, researchers asked people at Chicago train stations to start conversations with fellow travelers. Most of them refused to do so at first because they expected not to get a friendly answer. But the result turned out to be just the opposite—most strangers were not only willing to be talked to, but also pleasant to talk to.
“Human beings are social animals,” Nicholas Epley, one of the lead researchers, told Live Science. “Other people are people, too. And it turns out that they’d like to get to know you.”
Apart from making you happier, small talk with strangers can also help you feel connected to your surroundings. Previous studies found that when people are frequently smiled at, made eye contact with and spoken to at coffee shops, they tend to have a stronger sense of belonging instead of feeling like they are being ignored and left out.
And if you are already comfortable enough to make small talk with strangers, you should try to develop it into something “bigger”.
A 2010 study proved that having a deep and meaningful conversation gives you even more happiness than small talk. Participants in the study—79 college students—reported after the four-day experiment that they were much happier when they had a third as much small talk and twice as many in-depth conversations.
But deep conversations can start with small talk, can’t they? So the first step is to start talking, no matter how casual the topic is. And who knows, maybe an opening line as simple as “I like your hat” could lead to a serious conversation in which you learn something new from a stranger.
1. Why are most people willing to have a talk during a trip, according to Nicholas Epley?| A．Most people are nice to strangers. |
| B．People are naturally curious about others. |
| C．People are afraid of loneliness or boredom. |
| D．People try to show their good side to strangers. |
| A．Wasting less time. |
| B．Developing useful contacts. |
| C．Disconnecting from phones for a while. |
| D．Feeling like being a part of your surroundings. |
| A．Starting with serious topics. | B．Starting with casual topics. |
| C．Making it important and deep. | D．Choosing pleasant surroundings. |
| A．Supportive. | B．Negative. |
| C．Doubtful. | D．Objective. |
