【推荐2】For centuries, Central America’s Garifuna people have kept the culture’s spoken history alive through their ancestors’ native language. But decades of modernization, random native-language training in Garifuna schools, intermarriage between cultures, and the ridicule (嘲笑) of young people who speak the language, together led to Garifuna being listed on the UNESCO Atlas (地图集) of Endangered Languages in 2001.

The threat of language extinction isn’t new. Some linguists estimate that a language dies every two weeks, as some languages become important tools for social and economic exchange, while others are pushed to the margins (边缘). But there are ways to save at-risk languages as well. The key is that the language needs to be thought of less as preserved, “but indeed part of their present and future life,” says Liliana Sanchez, a linguist and professor at the University of Illinois.

That’s exactly what the Garinagu (Garifuna people) are doing. For the past two decades, Garifuna artists have used a cultural cornerstone—spirited dance music—to inspire young Garinagu to learn and share their native language. Now, with a new Garifuna Tourism Trail project in Belize, travelers can experience and support the cultural revival, too.

Palacio, a leader in the cultural revival, gathered Garifuna musicians across Central America to form a band named the Garifuna Collective in 2007. Their Garifuna lyrics sent a powerful message: It’s time to defend our culture. With multiple world tours and international music awards later, the Garifuna Collective put Garifuna on the international map and took Belize along with it. Although Palacio passed away in 2008, his lyrics and the work of Garifuna musicians lit a cultural flame for Garinagu worldwide.

Will music save the Garifuna language? Time will tell. Garifuna remains on UNESCO’s endangered-language list, last updated in 2010. And, as the Hawaiians just learned from revitalizing (使恢复生机) their own language, this kind of revival is a long, multi-generational road.

How does the author like Palacio’s work?

A．Overwhelming.

B．Challenging.

C．Interesting.

D．Rewarding.

【推荐1】Finding fish is going to get harder as climate change continues to heat the world’s oceans. A new study finds that warming seas over the past 80 years have reduced the sustainable catch of 124 species of fish and shellfish. Sustainable catch refers to the amount that can be harvested without doing long-term damage to the health of populations of some species.

Overfishing has made that decline worse, researchers say. Overfishing refers to catching so many fish that the size of the population falls. In some parts of the world, such as the heavily fished Sea of Japan, the decrease is as high as 35 percent. That’s a loss of more than one in every three fish.

Researchers examined changes in 235 populations of fish and shellfish between 1930 and 2010. Those fish populations spread far apart across 38 ocean regions. Temperature changes vary from one ocean site to another. But on average over that time, Earth’s sea-surface temperatures have risen by about half a degree Celsius.

On average, that warming has caused the sustainable catch to drop by 4.1 percent, the study found. About 8 percent of the fish and shellfish populations the team studied saw losses as a result of the ocean warming. However, about 4 percent of some populations increased. That’s because certain species have thrived in warmer waters. One example is a kind of black sea fish. It lives along the northeastern U.S. coast. As warming continues, these fish will reproduce faster until they reach their limit.

About 3.2 billion people worldwide rely on seafood as a source of food. That means it’s urgent for commercial fishing fleets and regulators to consider how climate change is affecting the health of all of those fish in the sea.

What does the underlined word “thrived” in paragraph 4 probably mean?

A．Survived narrowly.

B．Disappeared soon.

C．Decreased sharply.

D．Developed quickly.

【推荐2】        PERU is a country on the Pacific coast of South America with three main areas: narrow, dry, flat land running along the coast, the Andes Mountains, and the Amazon rainforest.
       In the 1400s and 1500s, Peru was the centre of the powerful ancient Inca Empire. The Inca emperor lived in the now-famous site Machu Picchu. Spain took control of Peru in the 16th century and ruled until 1821. It is for this reason that Spanish is the main official language of Peru.

TRAVEL PERU

Amazon Rainforest Tour

A short flight from Cusco takes you from the Andes into the Amazon rainforest. From there, you’ll spend one day travelling by boat to your accommodation in the middle of the forest. You can then spend three days exploring the rainforest with a local guide and enjoying the plants and animals unique to the rainforest.

Machu Picchu Tour

This four­day walking tour will take you on amazing paths through the Andes Mountains on the way to the city of Machu Picchu. After reaching your destination you will have a day to explore and be amazed by this ancient city. Especially amazing is the Incas’ dry stone method of building. Inca builders cut stones to exact sizes so that nothing was needed to hold walls together other than the perfect fit of the stones.

Cusco Tour

Spend four days enjoying the unique Spanish and local Indian culture high in the Andes at Cusco, the capital of the Inca Empire from the 13th until the 16th century. Stay in a local hotel, visit the museums, admire the architecture, enjoy the excellent local food, and go shopping at the local markets.

Lake Titicaca Tour

Enjoy the beautiful countryside as you spend a day driving along the new highway connecting Cusco to Lake Titicaca. There, a boat will take you to stay with a local Uros family on an island for three days. Both the island and the Uros homes are made of water plants from the lake.

So come and experience what Peru has to offer: everything from the ancient Inca culture and centuries­old Spanish villages to deep rainforests, high mountains, and a beautiful coastline.

For more brochures about other package tours around Peru, contact us at   tourinfo@travelperu. org.

1. What’s the main idea of the first text?

A．Introducing the Pacific coast.

B．Introducing the geographical location, the history and the official language of Peru.

C．Introducing the ancient Inca Empire.

D．Introducing the Andes Mountains.

2. Read the passage quickly and then fill in the blanks.

(1)________ (2)________ (3)________ (4)________
(5)________ (6)________ (7)________ (8)________
3. What can we learn from the first text?

A．Peru is a coastal country with a pleasant living condition.

B．Spain controlled Peru for about three centuries.

C．The Andes Mountains surround Peru.

D．Spanish is the second language of Peru.

4. What does the word “fit” in the second paragraph in the second text probably mean?

A．Enough space for people or things.

B．A very strong emotion that you can’t control.

C．The way that something is suitable for a particular person, space, etc.

D．A short period of time when someone stops working.

5. What is the author’s intention of writing the second text?

A．To recommend four tourist attractions of Peru.

B．To tell people to travel as often as possible.

C．To encourage people to do outdoor activities.

D．To help people learn more about Peru.

6. Where does the second text probably come from?

A．An agricultural magazine.

B．A medical journey.

C．An engineering textbook.

D．A tourist brochure.

7. 标出句中含有环境描写的词汇
①PERU is a country on the Pacific coast of South America with three main areas: narrow, dry, flat land running along the coast, the Andes Mountains, and the Amazon rainforest. narrow, dry, flat
②You can then spend three days exploring the rainforest with a local guide and enjoying the plants and animals unique to the rainforest. enjoy the plants and animals; unique
8. 细读短文并找出描写交通方式的句子
①_____________________________________________________________________________
②_____________________________________________________________________________
③_____________________________________________________________________________

【推荐3】Commuting to and from work can be a nightmare. Cars advance slowly in stop and go traffic, crawling from one traffic jam at stoplights to the next. At peak rush hour especially, there is no chance of sailing through a series of green lights. Now, thanks to artificial intelligence, German researchers have found a way to reduce time spent at the crossroads.

Called the KI4LSA project and funded by the Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure, the innovation is being tested. Scientists first studied algorithms taken from a busy intersection to learn about traffic patterns and where improvements were most needed. Then, the technology, using high-resolution cameras and radar sensors, more precisely captured the actual traffic situation and detected the average speed of the cars and their waiting times. Finally, the AI uses deep enhanced learning algorithms to calculate the best switching behaviour for the traffic lights and determine the best phase sequence to shorten waiting times at the crossroads.

The results are encouraging when it is being tried out at a busy intersection in Lemgo, Germany. The intelligent lights are said to improve traffic flow by 10 to 15 percent, which results in money saved; the EU estimates that traffic jams create economic damage that adds up to 100 billion euros a year. Aside from reducing commuting time, these traffic lights will reduce noise and CO2 emissions from cars waiting at the crossroads.

Another exciting development in this research is the K14PED project, which studies pedestrians crossing the crossroads. Using AI as well as a 3D points cloud, researchers can identify how many people are waiting at a pedestrian crossing and whether some of the disabled or elder people will need extra time to cross the street. Such a needs-based system could reduce pedestrian waiting time by 30 percent, which could then decrease jaywalking (乱穿马路) by 25 percent.

Researchers are optimistic that it will be adopted by many countries after the tests in the German towns of Lemgo and Bielefeld. This technology is exciting news for pedestrians and drivers alike. It encourages safety, protects the environment, and may even give you more time to enjoy your morning coffee before heading off to work!

Which of the following is true according to the passage?

A．The intelligent lights serve the mere purpose of reducing commuting time.

B．The better traffic flow is improved, the less economic damage is caused.

C．The more cars are waiting at the crossroads, the more noise is reduced.

D．The effect of traffic jams is heavier on environment than on economy.

【推荐1】Road trips can seem extra-long when someone else’ s unpleasant music fills the car. What if you could listen to only your music without headphones and no one else would hear it? Now researchers in France are working lo deliver such personal sound zones that adapt as conditions in your car change.

       Why bother? Headphones are good at controlling what you hear, but they can be uncomfortable and even damage your hearing.

Personal listening zones inside a car could let you hear well without having to drown out other sounds with high volume. They also would bring many new possibilities. Everyone in a car could listen to their own audio privately. GPS alerts (警报) could go only to the driver. Passengers could make phone calls without being overheard.

Engineers are working to create these personal sound zones using multiple loudspeakers. They don’t tall broadcast the same signal, but the signals are coordinated (协调的). A listener whose head is in some “sweet spot” hears high-quality sound. But as one gels farther from the sweet spot, the sound diminishes. That’s because sound waves from different loudspeakers interact to cancel out each other’s sound.

According to Patricia Davies, an engineer studying sound, creating quiet zones anywhere in a three-dimensional space, like the inside of a vehicle, is challenging. One reason is that sound waves are sensitive. Changes in temperature can change how fast the waves travel. So can the number of people in the car and other factors. A small change in even one of these can have a big impact.

Still, it’s easier to create personal sound zones in cars than in other spaces. In a car, what’s interesting is that we know where the people are. The loudspeakers can be built right into the headrests.

        Personal sound zones will only catch on if they work as well as headphones. If you turn on the air conditioner or pick up a passenger, the sound quality can’t go downhill. With this in mind, Melon and his team recently modified an existing system.
What is mainly talked about in paragraph 3?

A．The popularity of personal listening zones.

B．The advantages of personal listening zones.

C．The safety offered by personal listening zones.

D．The differenccs among 8ounds with high volume.

【推荐2】California has lost half its big trees since the 1930s, according to a study to be published Tuesday and climate change seems to be a major factor (因素).

The number of trees larger than two feet across has declined by 50 percent on more than 46, 000 square miles of California forests, the new study finds. No area was spared or unaffected, from the foggy northern coast to the Sierra Nevada Mountains to the San Gabriels above Los Angeles. In the Sierra high country, the number of big trees has fallen by more than 55 percent; in parts of southern California the decline was nearly 75 percent.

Many factors contributed to the decline, said Patrick McIntyre, an ecologist who was the lead author of the study. Woodcutters targeted big trees. Housing development pushed into the woods. Aggressive wildfire control has left California forests crowded with small trees that compete with big trees for resources (资源).

But in comparing a study of California forests done in the 1920s and 1930s with another one between 2001 and 2010, McIntyre and his colleagues documented a widespread death of big trees that was evident even in wildlands protected from woodcutting or development.

The loss of big trees was greatest in areas where trees had suffered the greatest water shortage. The researchers figured out water stress with a computer model that calculated how much water trees were getting in comparison with how much they needed, taking into account such things as rainfall, air temperature, dampness of soil, and the timing of snowmelt (融雪).

Since the 1930s, McIntyre said, the biggest factors driving up water stress in the state have been rising temperatures, which cause trees to lose more water to the air, and earlier snowmelt, which reduces the water supply available to trees during the dry season.

What is the second paragraph mainly about?

A．The seriousness of big-tree loss in California.

B．The increasing variety of California big trees.

C．The distribution of big trees in California forests.

D．The influence of farming on big trees in California.

【推荐3】On March 7, I907, the English statistician Francis Galton published a paper which illustrated what has come to be known as the “wisdom of crowds” effect. The experiment of estimation he conducted showed that in some cases, the average of a large number of independent estimates could be quite accurate.

This effect capitalizes on the fact that when people make errors, those errors aren’t always the same. Some people will tend to overestimate, and some to underestimate. When enough of these errors are averaged together, they cancel each other out, resulting in a more accurate estimate. If people are similar and tend to make the same errors, then their errors won’t cancel each other out. In more technical terms, the wisdom of crowds requires that people’s estimates be independent. If for whatever reasons, people’s errors become correlated or dependent, the accuracy of the estimate will go down.

But a new study led by Joaquin Navajas offered an interesting twist (转折) on this classic phenomenon. The key finding of the study was that when crowds were further divided into smaller groups that were allowed to have a discussion, the averages from these groups were more accurate than those from an equal number of independent individuals. For instance, the average obtained from the estimates of four discussion groups of five was significantly more accurate than the average obtained from 20 independent individuals.

In a follow-up study with I00 university students, the researchers tried to get a better sense of what the group members actually did in their discussion. Did they tend to go with those most confident about their estimates? Did they follow those least willing to change their minds? This happened some of the time, but it wasn’t the dominant response. Most frequently, the groups reported that they “shared arguments and reasoned together”. Somehow, these arguments and reasoning resulted in a global reduction in error. Although the studies led by Navajas have limitations and many questions remain, the potential implications for group discussion and decision-making are enormous.

What is paragraph 2 of the text mainly about?

A．The methods of estimation.

B．The underlying logic of the effect.

C．The causes of people’s errors.

D．The design of Galton’s experiment.