Peggy, a nine-year-old border collie (柯利牧羊犬), was signed over to the RSPCA (皇家防止虐待动物协会) after her handler could no longer communicate with her. He thought she could no longer work because she was not able to hear whistles or voice commands.
However, after being handed to the RSPCA, Peggy was taken in by Chloe Shorten, an animal welfare manager from the organization’s mid-Norfolk and north Suffolk branch.
Shorten, 28, and her husband Jason, 34, a shepherd, taught Peggy to understand hand signals and body language. The couple trained Peggy with the help of a sheepdog trainer and their two other working dogs, Sid and Nora.
Shorten said, “We completely fell in love with Peggy almost immediately, and it soon became clear that she wouldn’t be going anywhere. We knew Peggy wanted to be working, so we started the long process of teaching her how to herd and work with a shepherd without relying on voice commands.”
The couple began by training Peggy to look at them to receive hand signals. “We used repetitive and positive reinforcement (加强) and instead of pairing a verbal command with an action we’d use a hand gesture. She reads our hand signals and body language as a way of telling what we’re asking for. For example, thumbs up means ‘good girl’. A flat, outstretched palm means ‘stop’.”
Shorten and her husband point in a certain direction to indicate where they want Peggy to go and pat their knees to summon her back to them. To ask her to slow down, Shorten said she does a waving gesture.
Peggy is not working full-time but enjoys helping out in the fields. “It can be difficult with a deaf dog, because you have to wave at her to get her attention, and sometimes she doesn’t realize straight away,” she said. “But she’s such a happy little dog. She’s no spring chicken, and she is generally retired, but she loves going out to work with us and running around in the fields.”
1. What do we learn about Peggy from the passage?| A．Peggy was transferred from her former owner to RSPCA for her old age. |
| B．Peggy was trained without the aid of other dogs. |
| C．Peggy was adopted by the couple shortly after the couple met her. |
| D．Peggy is full of energy and now is working all day long. |
| A．By applying repeated and positive reinforcement. |
| B．By paring a verbal command with an action. |
| C．By patting their knees. |
| D．By doing a waving gesture. |
| A．not deaf | B．not young | C．not energetic | D．not positive |
| A．Sign language is of importance to training dogs to herd. |
| B．How RSPCA rescues the abandoned dogs and sends them to some families. |
| C．How Shorten and Jason teach deaf dogs to herd and work with a shepherd. |
| D．An elderly deaf sheepdog is now working again after learning sign language. |
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【推荐1】On a cool morning, Wilson Kasaine walks along a dirt path in southern Kenya. Actually, Kasaine is tracking lions. Particularly, he is tracking one lion called Marti.
Tracking lions on foot may sound dangerous, but Kasaine has been doing it for most of his life. Born in a traditional Maasai family, he understood the beauty and risk of the wildlife. Living with big game forces him to develop a good sense of where animals have been and where they might be going. During his 12-kilometer walks to and from school, he learned how to tell the paw prints of a lion from those of other animals.
Growing up, Kasaine knew that improving his tracking abilities would help him avoid other dangerous animals. But maybe Kasaine didn’t know that, years later, he would be tracking lions specifically to encounter them and to protect them. Today he leads a small group of wide-eyed tourists over a red sandy path in the reserve, searching for the lion that has left upon it his unmistakable prints.
Each year, tens of thousands of tourists come to Kenya’s national parks to try to visit the “big five”: elephants, rhinoceros, leopards, buffaloes, and lions. The attraction of these animals to people all over the world means that the nation’s economy is tied to the protection of its wildlife. If Kenya’s wildlife disappears, so does its second-largest source of income.
Considering the rapid urban development in Kenya, this isn’t unimaginable. In 2016, a study shows that many of the nation’s most treasured species have fallen to less than one-third of their population counting from just 40 years ago. The number of lions fell too. In 1998, the nation was home to over 15,000; only about 2,000 remain today. Several experts have predicted they could disappear entirely from the country in the next two decades.
Wildlife protection efforts in Kenya must be at the sacrifice of other things. People were forced to leave their land and into smaller surrounding regions. Communities like Kasaine’s are now finding it increasingly difficult to maintain a traditional Maasai lifestyle. But they are glad that their sacrifice really makes a difference.
1. What did Kasaine learn on his way to school and back home?| A．The beauty and risk of the wildlife. |
| B．The method of telling different plants. |
| C．The skills of telling different paw prints. |
| D．The lifestyle of a traditional Maasai family. |
| A．The lion. | B．The path. |
| C．The reserve. | D．The group. |
| A．To improve the nation’s economy. |
| B．To offer more jobs to the local people. |
| C．To show the importance of the “big five”. |
| D．To set a good example to other countries. |
| A．The lions in Kenya are in danger of dying out. |
| B．The number of species declined seriously in 2016. |
| C．The nation’s economy is experiencing a very hard period. |
| D．Species in Kenya decreased every year in the recent ten years. |
| A．Unpleasant. | B．Hopeful. |
| C．Doubtful. | D．Worthwhile. |
【推荐2】From Smells to Soundtracks
When a young sawfly, a bee-like insect, is threatened by its attackers like ants, it emits a mixture of unpleasant smells to defend itself. These emissions can seriously annoy a potential enemy.
Scientists wanting to study these smelly compounds—to understand which aspects of them discourage attackers and why—face great challenges. Meetups between sawflies and ants in a lab are difficult to carry out. There are also a very limited quantity of the insects’ emissions. On the side, Jean-Luc Boevé, a zoologist who studies insects, from the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, is an amateur musician and composer. He decided to try a different way—the sound approach. “To be honest, I considered this project so unpractical myself that I set it aside,” he said. It was months before Boevé and his partner, Rudi Giot, finally made a resolution to get started on it.
They chose 16 sawfly species’ emissions to translate into sounds. First, they figured out which molecules (分子) were present in each smelly compound and in what amounts. Then they assigned various characteristics of those molecules matching properties of sound. For example, smaller molecules like a kind of acid found in vinegar, a sour-tasting liquid, evaporate (挥发) quickly, so Boevé and Giot assigned them sounds with higher pitch ( 音 高 ). Larger molecules were given lower-pitched sounds. In all, the scientists created individual audio descriptions for 20 molecules. Then they combined the sounds of each molecule present in a sawfly’s smell to construct the insect’s soundtrack. If a molecule was of higher proportion in an emission, they assigned it a higher volume. In such a case, the smaller a molecule is, the higher its pitch will be; and the higher the proportion of a molecule is, the higher its volume will be.
To test out the audio descriptions they created, Boevé and Giot examined people’s reactions to the soundtracks and compared them to ants’ reactions to the original smells. They played the 16 emission soundtracks and the 20 molecule sounds through speakers to about 50 study participants. Then the scientists measured how far people backed up to get to a “comfortable position” away from the noise. Most of the study volunteers told the researchers that the high pitch, as well as the high volume, was what made them withdraw. “Ants and volunteers moved away from a chemical and its matching soundtrack respectively,” the researchers wrote.
Boevé said he hoped the process would give other zoologists a new way to compare sawflies’ chemical defenses with those from other insects. It may also offer researchers clues about which molecules fight off enemies most.
1. What do we know about Boevé from paragraph 2?| A．He was devoted to the research for several months. |
| B．He started a new approach after months’ hesitation. |
| C．He came up with a creative idea thanks to a composer. |
| D．He was faced with difficulties in studying rare sawflies. |
| A．The volume of sounds is based on the proportion of molecules. |
| B．Smaller molecules and lower pitch share similar characteristics. |
| C．Audio descriptions of the molecules can be divided into 16 kinds. |
| D．Participants were required to compare the sounds with the smells. |
| A．the soundtracks are more than what humans are likely to bear |
| B．the ants dislike the sounds as much as humans hate the smells |
| C．humans’ reactions to the sounds resemble ants’ responses to the smells |
| D．other zoologists are looking for innovative ways of studying molecules |
| A．explain ways to transfer smells into soundtracks |
| B．introduce research on sawfly’s effect on humans |
| C．demonstrate a scientific study on insects’smells |
| D．test out people’s reaction to various soundtracks |
【推荐3】The giant panda’s special black-and-white fur makes it one of the most recognizable animals on the planet. But why does it have this unique coloring? To hide from natural enemies, both in the snow and in the shadows, study lead author Tim Caro, a professor in the Department of Wildlife, Fish & Conservation Biology at the University of California, Davis, said in a new statement. Moreover, the large black circles around a panda’s eyes may help other pandas recognize it, the researchers said.
Understanding why the giant panda has such noticeable color has been a long-term problem to solve. To find out the answer, Caro and his colleagues looked at photos of pandas and 195 other carnivore(食肉动物) species, including 39 subspecies of bear. Then, they recorded the coloring on each area of those animals’ bodies, and compared them with areas of the panda’s body. “Compared with the previous studies, the breakthrough in this study was treating each part of the body as an independent area,” Caro said.
The research team tried to figure out the purpose of the dark-colored furry areas. After going through many comparisons, the researchers determined that the white parts of the giant panda help it hide in the snow. In contrast, its black arms and legs help it hide in the shadows, they said. The panda’s white-and-black coloring didn’t appear to be related to temperature regulation. Nor did they find evidence that the dark circles around a panda’s eyes helped to make them look cuter.
“This really was a great effort by our team, finding and scoring thousands of images and scoring more than 10 areas per picture from over 20 possible colors,” study co-author Ted Stankowich, an assistant professor of biology at California State University, Long Beach, said in the statement. “Sometimes it takes hundreds of hours of hard work to answer the simplest question: Why is the panda black and white?”
1. What does the new study focus on?| A．How pandas hide from natural enemies successfully. |
| B．Why pandas have unique black-and-white coloring. |
| C．Whether the black circles around a panda’s eyes are useful. ” |
| D．What makes pandas so cute and eye-catching. |
| A．Researching more carnivore species. | B．Using the method of comparison. |
| C．Treating each part of the body separately. | D．Recording the number of photos. |
| A．The giant panda gets used to living in the snow. |
| B．The white-and-black fur can help pandas hide. |
| C．The coloring of pandas is related to temperature. |
| D．The function of the dark-colored areas is unknown. |
| A．Keeping your curiosity can make a difference. |
| B．Hundreds of hours of hard work is annoying. |
| C．Scientists dislike doing research on simple issues. |
| D．It needs efforts to find the why behind what you see. |
【推荐1】I.M. Pei, the Chinese-American, who was regarded as one of the last great modernist architects, has died at the age of 102.
Although he worked mostly in the United States, Pei will always be remembered for a European project: His redevelopment of the Louvre Museum in Paris in the 1980s. He gave us the glass and metal pyramid in the main courtyard, along with three smaller pyramids and a vast subterranean (地下的) addition to the museum entrance.
Pei was the first foreign architect to work on the Louvre in its long history, and initially his designs were fiercely opposed. But in the end, the French — and everyone else — were won over.
Winning the fifth Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1983, he was thought as giving the 20th century “some of its most beautiful inside spaces and outside forms. His talent and skill in the use of materials approach the level of poetry.”
After studying architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard, Pei set up his own architectural practice in New York in 1955.
Designing the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum in 1964 established him as a name. His East Building of the National Gallery of Art in Washington in 1978 changed people’s ideas of a museum. The site was an odd trapezoid (梯形) shape. Pei’s solution was to cut it in two. The resulting building was dramatic, light and elegant — one of the first crowd-pleasing cathedrals of modern art.
Though known as a modernist, and notable for his forms based on arrangements of simple geometric (几何的) shapes, he once urged Chinese architects to look more to their architectural tradition rather than designing in a western style.
In person, I.M. Pei was good-humored, charming and unusually modest. His working process was evolutionary, but innovation (创新) was never an intended goal.
“Stylistic originality is not my purpose,” he said. “I want to find the originality in the time, the place and the problem.”
1. What can we learn about the result of redevelopment of the Louvre Museum?| A．It was criticized by the French. |
| B．It turned out to be a success. |
| C．It made the Louvre Museum look strange. |
| D．It changed the function of the Louvre Museum. |
| A．He is a master in applying materials. |
| B．He is skilled in writing poems. |
| C．He often combines poetry and construction. |
| D．He gets inspiration from poetry in designing. |
a. Design the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum.
b. Study architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard.
c. Design the National Gallery of Art.
d. Win the fifth Pritzker Architecture Prize.
| A．abcd | B．bacd | C．bcad | D．dacd |
【推荐2】A year back I received a full scholarship to attend the University of San Francisco. All of my hard work had paid off. My mom had spent a lot in my attending a private high school, so I made sure to push myself: I volunteered, joined different clubs, and graduated with honors.
I was so excited to start a new life. I had totally packed two weeks and wanted to go to college at once before it was time to leave.
Soon enough, the big day came, but it wasn’t like what I had thought. The first two weeks were the most difficult days of my entire life. Every night I would cry myself to sleep.
I was so homesick (想家) and I didn’t know how to deal with my broken heart. To distract myself, I threw myself into my studies and I applied for a lot of jobs. In any remaining free time, I started forcing myself to the gym. I wanted to keep every part of my day busy so I wouldn’t think how lonely I felt.
Soon after, I began to limit food, and then I became worse. Finally, I went to see a doctor. When the doctor weighed me, I was crazy about the number of my weight. So I continued to lower my goal, and convinced that controlling this number was the solution to my homesickness. But when I was told that I had no choice but to spend time on my studies. I quickly started recovery in my mind.
How could I do? I told myself that school was what I was best at. I decided to get rid of my homesickness and took exercise actively. My first term of college had passed by at last and I had gotten straight A’s. That’s why I want to share my story—to help other students feel less lonely.
1. How was the author during the two weeks before she left for the college?| A．She was as normal as before. |
| B．She couldn’t wait to leave for the college. |
| C．She was afraid to leave her home. |
| D．She didn’t enjoy her mother’s company. |
| A．Her weight. | B．Her diet. |
| C．Her homesickness. | D．Her bad study habit. |
| A．achieve my dream | B．earn money by myself |
| C．improve my studies | D．take my attention away |
| A．To look back at her past middle school life. |
| B．To help girls to lose weight. |
| C．To help lonely college students. |
| D．To increase her own confidence. |
【推荐3】Not many years ago, a wealthy and rather strange old man named Johnson lived alone in a village in the south of England. He had made a lot of money in trading with foreign countries. When he was seventy – five, he gave $ 60,000 to the village school to buy land and equipment for a children’s ground.
As a result of his kindness, he became famous. Many people came to visit him. Among them was a newspaperman. During their talk, Johnson remarked that he was seventy-five and expected to live to be hundred. The newspaperman asked him how he managed to be healthy at seventy-five. Johnson had a sense of humor. He liked whisky and drank some each day. “I have an injection (注射) in my neck each evening,” he told the newspaperman, thinking of his evening glass of whisky.
The newspaperman did not understand what Johnson meant. In his newspaper he reported that Johnson was seventy-five and had daily injection in his neck. Within a week Johnson received thousands of letters from all over Britain, asking him for the secret of his daily injection.
1. Johnson became a rich man through _______.| A．doing business | B．making whisky |
| C．cheating | D．buying and selling land |
| A．had many children in the school | B．was a strange old man |
| C．was very fond of children | D．was very kind |
| A．what kind of whisky he had | B．how to live longer |
| C．how to become wealthy | D．in which part of the neck to have an injection |
| A．he liked drinking a glass of whisky in the evening |
| B．he needn’t an injection in the neck |
| C．a daily injection in the evening would make him sleep well |
| D．there was something wrong with his neck |
