I wanted a cat and I visited the American Humane Society in Ann Arbor, Michigan, looking for the perfect cat and began playing with several playful kittens through the cage opening.
A little black kitten I nearly ignored stuck his paw (爪子) through the cage, calling me to play. He was clearly interested in me, so I asked to hold him. Our connection was immediate. I adopted him, named him Aladdin, and brought him home. Over the next 16 years, Aladdin and I were inseparable. He was the gentlest and sweetest cat. But one night in late 2013, everything changed.
It was as if one day Aladdin was still acting like a kitten, and then the next day he was vomiting (呕吐) frequently. I took him to the vet and sadly was told he had stomach cancer. A month later, Aladdin got worse. The vet said it was time to put him down. Heartbroken, I said my goodbyes as he went to sleep. Once I got back home, reality hit me hard. Usually, Aladdin was there to greet me at the door, demanding hugs and kisses. But he was gone, leaving a huge emptiness in my life and in my home. I couldn’t catch my breath. I suffered from panic attacks that entire week.
About a week after losing Aladdin; my friend Amy called me. She had saved a cat and asked if I could come over and hold the kitten while she cleaned her cage. I unwillingly agreed. When I arrived, I picked up the kitten and held her in my arms. To our amazement, she didn’t move once in the entire 30 minutes I held her. As I kept petting her, I knew I was going to adopt her. And I was going to name her Fiona. Once I brought Fiona home, my panic attacks stopped.
To this day, six years later, having her near me is very comforting. A sense of calm comes over me when I hold her. Whenever I feel sad, I lay my head on her, and everything feels better.
1. What did the author say about Aladdin?| A．He was well trained. | B．He ignored her at first. |
| C．He got along well with other cats. | D．He felt closely connected to her. |
| A．She suffered greatly after Aladdin’s death. |
| B．She was responsible for Aladdin’s death. |
| C．She was regretful about raising a cat. |
| D．She acted like a careless pet owner. |
| A．Unexpectedly pleased. | B．Unsurprisingly calm. |
| C．Frightened. | D．Unconcerned. |
| A．Why I cannot live without cats. | B．What I did to get a cat to like me. |
| C．How keeping a cat made me sociable. | D．How accidentally adopting a cat saved me. |
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【推荐1】1 A few cookies in the afternoon might seem like a harmless pleasure, but they could have lasting influence on global biodiversity (生物多样性). Cookies often contain palm oil, the production of which is one of the fastest growing causes of deforestation. That in turn leads to reduced biodiversity according to a recently published study in Nature Ecology & Evolution.
2 Looking at data from 2000 to 2011, we found the number of bird species that became endangered due to land use activities increased by seven percent. We also studied the degree to which agriculture and forestry prevented carbon sequestration (封存) over the same period. We estimated (估计) that the opportunity costs, in terms of prevented carbon dioxide absorption on used lands, increased by six percent.
3 For both biodiversity influences and lost carbon sequestration, growth in international trade between world regions was a major driver, contributing 82% and 53% to the overall increases.
4 We found that global consumption (消费) trends are shifting from North America and Western Europe to Asia, the Middle East and Eastern Europe.
5 Another factor at play was that developed nations often effectively reduced the environmental damage caused by land-use activities through the purchase of raw materials from abroad.
6 Just as certain choices carry negative consequences, unintended though they may be, other choices carry positive ones. The public can make a difference — they can change the world with their choices. For example, we know that cattle farming is one of the largest drivers of biodiversity loss, and so reducing meat consumption will have a positive effect. Similarly, reducing the use of short-lived forestry products can reduce the growth of industrial wood farms, which often replace diverse forests with more homogeneous (同类的) plantations.
7 The findings will also help inform policy makers, particularly those involved in international environmental talks. Our paper shows clearly that this is a global phenomenon, and we need to treat it as such.
1. Why does the author mention cookies in the beginning?| A．To prove its effect on biodiversity. |
| B．To introduce the topic of the passage. |
| C．To present the causes of deforestation. |
| D．To arouse readers' sympathy about the pleasure. |
| A．By listing data. | B．By giving examples. |
| C．By making comparisons. | D．By using sayings. |
| A．promote the change of consuming habits |
| B．introduce the findings of certain researches |
| C．analyze the reasons behind the phenomenon |
| D．expose the relationship between cookies and biodiversity |
| A．Cookies and food consumption |
| B．International efforts to save species |
| C．Food consumption and biodiversity |
| D．Rise in consumption to answer for species loss |
【推荐2】Canada has reintroduced some bisons (北美野牛) to the country’s oldest national park in Banff, Alberta, officials said on Monday, more than 130 years after the North American animal last appeared on the eastern slopes of the Canadian Rockies.
The protection team moved a group of 16 bisons into enclosed grassland in Banff National Park in the west of the province last week. The group will stay under observation in the Panther Valley until next summer, when the animals will be released into the full 1,189 sq km reintroduction zone in the park’s eastern valleys.
Parks Canada said bisons were once main grazers (plant-eaters) and that bringing them back would recover their missing role in Banffs ecosystem. “This would be one of only four bison groups in North America that would be fully interacting with their predators (meat-eaters) and shaping the ecosystem as they did over a hundred years ago,” said Karsten Heuer, the bison reintroduction project manager. Those predators will include wolves and bears native to the park.
Ten pregnant female bisons and six young bulls were disease-tested before being driven 400 km across Alberta by truck. Since the Panther Valley is not easy to reach by road, officials attached the containers by a long line to a plane and flew them in one at a time for the last 25 km.
Vast bison groups of up to 30 million animals once lived freely across North America. The animal was nearly hunted to extinction, and park keepers estimate bisons have not grazed in Banff National Park since before it was set up in 1885.
1. Why did the protection team move bisons into enclosed grassland?| A．To observe them. | B．To protect them. |
| C．To cure diseases. | D．To change their habits. |
| A．To reshape Banff’s ecosystem. |
| B．To help the bison population expand. |
| C．To make the oldest national park worth visiting |
| D．To recover their predators’ role in the ecosystem. |
| A．Deadly diseases. | B．Cruel hunting. |
| C．Natural predators. | D．Worsened ecology. |
| A．To show how to protect bisons. |
| B．To describe the living condition of bisons. |
| C．To explain how to transport bisons to Banff. |
| D．To inform readers of bisons returning to Banff. |
【推荐3】Giant pandas are among the most lovable animals alive today.
Pandas today don’t eat meat. However, they’ve kept much of their meat-eating adaptations from times past. Their digestive systems have not changed much from their meat-eating days.
The giant panda’s shift to a vegetarian diet is in line with the inactivation (失活) of a specific gene—Taslrl, which provides them with the ability to taste certain amino acids (氨基酸) abundant in meat.
Pandas have evolved (进化) to a great degree to cope with their relatively recent bamboo-eating lifestyle. Pandas must seize long and thin pieces of bamboo shoots. To help with this, they have developed a long “fake-thumb” (伪拇指). So giant pandas have six fingers in each paw which provides better support for them to seize objects such as bamboo in one paw quickly.
Time will tell if pandas will adapt and survive, go back to eating meat, or disappear in the wild.
| A．They eat 12.5 kg of bamboo in a single day. |
| B．Bamboo is the healthier diet for captive (圈养的) pandas. |
| C．Its inactivation in pandas would lead to their dietary change. |
| D．The newborn panda is blind and covered with only a thin all-white coat. |
| E．Researchers have found that the surface of the panda’s tongue is different. |
| F．Unlike their relatives, pandas don’t eat meal but survive on a diet of only bamboo. |
| G．Whatever the future holds, we get to share our planet with these adorable animals. |
【推荐1】Having your shoes shined is absolutely good! With your shoes looking almost brand-new, you feel brand-new and totally refreshed too, not to mention confident. When I step out of my car and onto the driveway, I feel like a new man. I look good and feel great.
My wife had an event where she hired a shoeshine guy called Darrin. However, it turned out that he's not just any shoeshine guy; he is an extraordinary shoe shiner. This guy is amazing. He's a shoeshine expert. I guess I got to see the different side of the shoeshine business because of Damn. He set up a shop and shined shoes without feet in them. People would leave their shoes with him and start off to work. And during the time they were away at work, Darrin would “shine them up”.
I brought a couple pairs of my own shoes to Darrin and they came out perfect. They actually looked totally new. Darrin did about a dozen pairs in a two-hour time span, winch is pretty impressive, considering that he did them all by hand and without a helper, although he does own one. The helper normally does not come out unless it is seriously needed, like a really busy day or a larger event where many folks would be leaving their shoes for shining.
Author Maryrose Wood once wrote, “If both of your shoes are shined, then your best foot will always be forward.” With shined shoes, we know we're walking to our best foot, that we're walking to our bright future, and that success is just there waiting for us. Now never again will I wear shoes with no shine. If you're wearing a pair of nicely shined shoes, you are ready for the world. And if you are ever in the DC area, look for Darrin.
1. What does the author think of Darrin as a shoe shiner?| A．Patient. | B．Professional. |
| C．Generous. | D．Ambitious. |
| A．wearing shined shoes makes us confident |
| B．we should always put our best foot forward |
| C．the path ahead is always bright and hopeful |
| D．we should dress properly to leave a good impression |
| A．Useful tips on succeeding in life |
| B．Darrin — a good shoe shiner |
| C．Shine your shoes for success |
| D．My different way of life |
【推荐2】The 3-hour lab is supposed to be the important part of a week-long research project, the day my students determine whether their experimental results support their carefully crafted hypotheses (假设). With class about to start, I printed 14 Western images for my students to discuss. But the images were all the same. My students were about to have a hard lesson in scientific failure and how to be resilient (坚韧) in the face of it. It’s a lesson I wish I’d learned before starting grad school.
As a Ph. D. student, I went through many frustrating hypotheses that would later get nowhere because of technical failures or ambiguous experimental results. When I graduated, I thought I would never do bench research again. I wasn’t willing to sacrifice so many hours with so little to show for it in the lab.
However, a decade later, my scientific curiosity returned. I secured a position at a college, where I established my own lab. In my classes, I asked my students to complete lab experiments that were virtually guaranteed to yield (产生) interpretable data. But after a few years, I grew uncomfortable with the gap between those picture-perfect experiments and my own research projects. Yes, my students left the lab with results, feeling their time had been well-spent.
But I worried I was cheating them about the actual experience of practicing science, which rarely produces data on the first try. Research is messy and full of failed attempts. Trying to protect students from that reality does them a disservice.
I decided to develop a new course that would give my students experience performing real experiments, ones that had the potential to fail. Now it was time for me to try out my course.
1. What did the author want to do?| A．Prove failure is the mother of success. |
| B．Show he didn’t give up in the face of failure. |
| C．Let his students know life is full of pain. |
| D．Tell his students success doesn’t come easy. |
| A．Satisfied. | B．Curious. | C．Disappointed. | D．Confused. |
| A．He didn’t make all his efforts to teach them. |
| B．He failed to offer them a well-equipped lab. |
| C．He was stopping them facing the pain of reality. |
| D．He exposed them to some wrong messy experiments. |
| A．The time for his course. | B．The advantage of his course. |
| C．The effect of his course. | D．The specific steps of his course. |
【推荐3】Get up at 6 a.m., arrive at the hospital one hour earlier to help patients check in, and accompany patients during consultations... In recent years, the patient escort has emerged as a new occupation, and those who have taken on this career are known as “people who sell time”. 26-year-old Zhang Tian is one of them.
September 4, 2022 was a lucky day for Zhang Tian. On this day, Zhang Tian saw a video about patient escorts on a short video platform. The daily routine of patient escorts shown in the video fascinated her and inspired her to take this on as a business. She browsed through many platforms and searched for information and found there indeed exists a certain demand for patient escorts, especially for the elderly, children and pregnant women. Since she had never engaged in this kind of work before, she spent two days in major hospitals in Wuhan, in order to familiarize herself with all the departments on different floors, as well as the processes of medical consultations and preparations for surgery.
After the preparations, Zhang Tian posted a video of self-introduction on major social media sites, talking about the help and services a patient escort provides, as well as some tips for a quick and convenient medical consultation. At first, she was a little worried that her video would go unnoticed. However, after she uploaded the video, it got over 100 likes and she received her first offer as a patient escort.
The memory of her first task is still vivid in her mind. She received a phone call on September 9 from a man whose father was seriously ill and might need surgery. He wanted Zhang Tian to accompany his father through his consultation and treatment. Zhang Tian made all the preparations before meeting her first client and did a very good job despite her nervousness.
“Later, the family expressed their gratitude to me over and over again, which warmed my heart and gave me a sense of achievement,” Zhang Tian said.
1. What do patient escorts do?| A．They assist doctors in hospitals. | B．They arrive at hospitals early to check in. |
| C．They post videos for money. | D．They help patients get treatment in hospitals. |
| A．She enjoyed seeing an interesting video. | B．She got inspiration for her own career. |
| C．She found a demand for medical workers. | D．She was popular on social media. |
| A．She got familiar with the routine work in hospitals. |
| B．She spent two days in major hospitals meeting patients. |
| C．She post a video in search of clients on social media. |
| D．She happened to know an old man in need of surgery. |
| A．Considerate and responsible. | B．Humorous and careful. |
| C．Ambitious and imaginative. | D．Talkative and positive. |
