Adopting (领养) a new pet should be an exciting and rewarding experience. But just as all families are different, so are all pets. Learn what to consider before you find your new furry family member.
All pets require their owner’s time, so Theisen, an expert in pet care, says how much time you can give to the pet is the top thing to consider. “If you adopt a 4-year-old cat, she’s not going to need the same amount of care as a 9-week-old dog”. says Theisen.
Like dating and finding the perfect partner, you want a pet that shares your interests and activity levels, particularly if you’re looking for dogs. “Consider activity levels in the family,” says Theisen. “If you’re a couch potato, or in other words, a homebody, look for a pet that matches that activity level.”
Some dogs, like Dalmatians and Terriers, can be loud and noisy and demand a more active lifestyle and room to be outside; they might not fit as well in close living situations as more sedentary pets. The Humane Society of the United States encourages potential owners to research books and websites and talk to other pet owners when considering adopting a new pet.
Theisen says that potential owners should go beyond the first impression of loveliness and watch how the animals interact with them. “There are dogs that will jump to the gate to meet you,” says Theisen. “And there are dogs that sit there with their sad doggy eyes — you know they’re not going to be high-energy dogs”.
Some exotic pets, like tortoises and parrots, are likely to live longer than dogs and cats — and even their human owners. They can also grow to be much larger than they were when they first came to live with their owners. Owners should make sure that their living situations should be continually updated and also prepare for the animal’s future.
1. What will people have to consider first of all when they plan to adopt a pet?| A．The amount of time they can give to the pet. |
| B．The money that the pet will cost them. |
| C．Whether the pet is lovely or not. |
| D．Whether the pet is active or not. |
| A．weak. | B．noisy. |
| C．loud. | D．inactive. |
| A．Dalmatians. | B．Terriers. |
| C．Parrots. | D．Bulldogs. |
| A．A guidebook. | B．A fashion magazine. |
| C．A Life magazine. | D．An entertainment newspaper. |
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【推荐1】Being a teenager is a difficult challenge. You frequently jump up and down between childhood and adulthood, testing parental(父母的) power and then depending on it. Parents often do not know what to expect. Many often find it difficult to understand your growing need for independence.
Some adults and parents view adolescence as a period of friction, change and problems. For you, it’s a time of concern about acne(粉刺), weight problems, late or early development, or school pressures and so on．
It’s easy to understand why many find this a difficult time．But once it’s over, you realize that most of your parents’ “irritating” behavior was caused by feelings of love and concern. Yes, adolescence can be a suffering time. But how to make this period will less suffering and find more fun．Here are a few tips:
◆Be honest with your feelings．Your parents are a great resource of support and knowledge, but they don’t know what’s going on in your life if you don’t tell them．
◆ If your parents upset you by setting a curfew(宵禁)or by grounding you, don’t immediately take the defensive side. If you start yelling or crying, you won’t be able to express your important feelings. Make sure you talk to your parents when you’re not emotionally upset.
◆Calmly tell your parents what’s on your mind. Try not to use “you” statements like, “You don’t give me enough freedom” or “You’re never happy with anything I do.” These types of criticizing statements will only cause more conflict(冲突)．Instead use “I” statements such as “When I go out with my friends, your early curfew makes me feel as if you don’t trust me,” or “Sometimes I feel hurt when you don’t give me credit for being responsible.”
◆Listen to what your parents have to say.If they say something you disagree with ,don’t immediately overreact(反应过度)．Give them a chance to express their feelings and then calmly explain why you may disagree with them．If you’re getting a chance to express yourself, it’s only fair to give the same opportunity to your parents．
1. From the passage, we can infer that as a teenager, he/she is likely to feel________．| A．confused | B．exhausted |
| C．frightened | D．wronged |
| A．unawareness | B．uncertainty |
| C．disagreement | D．discouragement |
| A．If possible．we should hide our feelings in order not to make our parents worry． |
| B．Our parents inspire us to get more life experience and learn more knowledge． |
| C．Whenever we have an argument with our parents,we should react actively． |
| D．We are likely to come to know why our parents treated us like that before． |
| A．ignore our parents’ demands |
| B．avoid blaming our parents |
| C．ask someone else to convey |
| D．choose proper place and time |
| A．list some difficulties in the growth process of the teenagers |
| B．make some suggestions on how to communicate with parents |
| C．show some methods to remove misunderstanding between children and their parents |
| D．give some explanation of balancing the relationship between children and their parents |
【推荐2】You need some bread and milk. But half an hour later, you leave the supermarket with a trolley（推车）full of food. What games do supermarkets play to make us spend so much money?
The tricks usually start before you walk in. Outside the supermarket entrance, anybody who walks past can smell warm, fresh bread. That makes us hungry and ready to buy lots of food, not just bread.
Now you’re inside and, of course, a small basket would be fine, but all they have are trolleys. And of course the problem with a trolley is that it looks sad and lonely with just one or two goods inside. So we may fill it with something. In fact, supermarket trolleys are actually getting bigger so that we buy more.
Of course, many people shop in supermarkets because they think everything is cheaper than in other shops. So supermarkets offer very cheap prices on some things but then have higher prices for other goods. One new trick is to put red stickers（标签）on them. Customers usually connect red stickers with lower prices so the red stickers is
easy to be seen, even when there is no reduction! Interestingly, this trick appears to work more with men than with women.
There is a story behind the position of everything in the supermarket. The most expensive goods are usually at eye-level so you see these immediately. The exception is anything that children might like. These goods are on lower shelves so that kids see them.
Apart from what you see and smell in a supermarket, what about what you listen to? In most supermarkets they have soft, slow music. It’s so relaxing that you slow down and spend more time (and money) in the store. Experts suggest it’s better to shop when it’s quieter, on a Monday or a Tuesday for example. And be careful with queues at the checkouts（收银台）. These are sometimes on purpose, to make you buy something from the checkout shelves while you wait.
So, next time you go into your local supermarket, remember these tricks and see if you can come with just the things you went for.
1. There are no small baskets but trolleys in the supermarket because ______.| A．small baskets are not strong enough |
| B．people don’t like using baskets |
| C．it’s easy to go shopping with trolleys |
| D．trolleys are actually making people buy more goods |
| A．small jokes | B．clever methods |
| C．suggestions | D．advertisements |
| A．make them look more beautiful |
| B．show these goods are worth buying |
| C．let people know they are for men |
| D．draw the customers’ attention |
| A．It is better to be careful with the tricks and shop reasonably |
| B．there is no good listening to the soft music in supermarkets |
| C．supermarkets usually close earlier on Monday and Tuesday |
| D．we should be more careful when waiting at the checkout |
【推荐3】When a package from an e-commerce shopping platform arrives on the doorstep, how many of us think about where it comes from?
It is not merely the “last mile”—the delivery, which adds to our carbon footprints but every step: from when a product was made, all the way to when it makes it into our hands.
1. Package design
When we think about a single package, the amount of tape used to secure each one might seem insignificant.
2. Green warehousing (储仓)
Behind an efficient operation are large, highly-automated warehouses. In some of the automated areas, robots can operate in the dark, so there is no need for lighting systems.
| A．The answer is probably not too many. |
| B．It is impossible for one party to achieve this on their own. |
| C．Put simply, the supply chain is extremely carbon intensive (密集的). |
| D．Actions were taken to ensure a responsible and recycled process. |
| E．But what if we are talking about the billions of parcels used in this industry? |
| F．One solution is using packaging boxes that can be circulated throughout the ecosystem. |
| G．The rain collection system below the warehouses serves as a source of water supply. |
【推荐1】Insects rarely worry me. Mosquitoes annoy me, but only because I don’t like the unavoidable itching (痒) that follows. I don’t get spooked by spiders or terrified by white ants. Bedbugs (臭虫), though, are my big exception. I’ve never seen one, but I religiously check for them when I travel. And I’ve woken up from nightmares of them moving across my bed and up my legs.
While they aren’t disease carriers, a large number of bedbugs can eat away at your mental health as well as your pocketbook. Ultrasonic (超声波的) devices marketed to drive bedbugs away don’t have any effect. Bug bombs don’t work. Bedbugs are developing resistance to a common insecticide that once killed them. Even if the chemicals work, they can be dangerous for the humans exposed to them. High heat can be effective, but that’s not always a practical solution.
Some studies have indicated that cold might kill bedbugs after as little as one hour of exposure. But new research published in Journal of Economic Entomology finds that’s not the case. Cold can kill a bedbug, but only after days.
Joelle F. Olson and his colleagues froze bedbugs at various stages of life, fed and unfed, for varying lengths of time. The bad news was that the bugs didn’t die nearly as quickly as other studies had found. “In our study, bedbugs survived lower temperatures, with eggs surviving in short-term exposure to temperatures as low as -25℃,” the researchers write. But the bugs are not freeze-tolerant, the scientists found, and they can be killed—no matter what their stage of life or feeding status is. All it takes is 80 hours in temperatures of -16℃.
The finding confirms a standard practice for museum collections and food products: potentially infested (被寄生的) items are frozen to kill any hidden insect pests. And it provides a completely safe method of control for people, at least for items they can fit into the freezer.
1. What’s the meaning of the underlined word “spooked” ?| A．Frightened. | B．Interested. |
| C．Surprised. | D．Impressed. |
| A．Bedbug eggs are more tolerant of cold. |
| B．Low temperature is the key to killing bedbugs. |
| C．The level of cold bedbugs stand varies with age. |
| D．Bedbugs survive cold, but not for too many days. |
| A．Improve the efficiency of freezers. |
| B．Overcome psychological fears of bugs. |
| C．Help people protect food from insect pests. |
| D．Find a standard practice for museum collections. |
【推荐2】Scientists have discovered a tiny chameleon (变色龙) from Madagascar that may be the world’s smallest reptile (爬行动物). The chameleon is small enough to easily sit on a fingertip. The tiny animals are being called “nano-chameleons” (very small chameleons), and are officially known as Brookesia nana, or B. nana. Only two have ever been spotted—one male and one female.
Reptiles are egg-laying animals with backbones, and include animals like snakes, lizards, and crocodiles. Reptiles are cold-blooded, which means their bodies have the same temperature as the area around them.
The female example of B. nana was about 2.9 centimeters (1.14 inches) long. But the male B. nana that the scientists found was much tinier—2.2 centimeters (0.87 inches) from head to tail. This is unusual for chameleons. Usually the male is larger. But the scientists believe that B. nana is so small that the female may need to be larger in order to carry eggs.
Unlike some other chameleons, B. nana doesn’t have the ability to change its colors greatly. But the skin of the B. nana is a mixture of brown colors which blends (融合) in well with the leaves and grasses on the forest floor where they live. The chameleons have a long tongue which can stick out quickly to grab small insects for food. But B. nana needs to be wary. Since it’s so small, it could easily become food for a larger insect or spider.
The scientists are also worried that the tiny chameleons could face other threats. Luckily, since B. nana was first spotted in 2012, the mountain area where it was found has been protected by the government. In other efforts to protect B. nana, it may soon be listed as critically endangered with extinction. “It’s all good and well to say, ‘Oh, I really hope that people stop deforesting this forest, ” says Scherz, an evolutionary biologist. “But until the economic future of Madagascar changes, there’s no hope for any of its wildlife because the people have to eat.”
1. What is the reason for the female B. nana being larger than the male one according to scientists?| A．Taking care of her children. | B．Showing her strength. |
| C．Defending against enemies. | D．Carrying eggs. |
| A．Their blood is very cold. | B．Scientists have only found one. |
| C．They are not good at changing colors. | D．They are as small as a fingertip. |
| A．Careful. | B．Helpful. |
| C．Hopeful | D．Useful. |
| A．There is little hope that tiny chameleons survive. |
| B．To achieve it the economic change is vital. |
| C．Measures must be taken to prohibit deforestation. |
| D．It's unnecessary to talk about it. |
However, it wasn't all sweetness and light. There was a reported coldness between the cat and dog in 25% of the homes, while fighting were observed in 10% of the homes. One reason for this is probably that some of their body signals were just opposite. For example, when a cat turns its head away it signals attacking, while a dog doing the same signals giving in.
In homes with cats and dogs living peacefully, researchers observed a surprising behavior. They are learning how to talk each other's language. It is a surprise that cats can learn how to talk “dog”，and dogs can learn how to talk “cat”．
What's interesting is that both cats and dogs have appeared to develop their intelligence. They can learn to read each other's body signals, suggesting that the two may have more in common than we previously thought. Once familiar with each other's presence and body language, cats and dogs can play together, greet each other nose to nose, and enjoy sleeping together on the sofa. They can easily share the same water bowl and in some cases groom (梳理) each other.
The meaning of this research on cats and dogs may go beyond pets—to people who don't get along, including neighbors, colleagues at work, and even world superpowers. If cats and dogs can learn to get along, surely people have a good chance.
1. The underlined word “swimmingly” in Paragraph 1 is closest in meaning to ________.
| A．early | B．quickly | C．sweetly | D．violently |
| A．they are cold to each other |
| B．they look away from each other |
| C．they are introduced at an early age |
| D．they misunderstand each other's signals |
| A．have common interests |
| B．are less different than what we thought |
| C．have a common body language |
| D．are less intelligent than what we expected |
| A．We should learn to live in harmony. |
| B．We should know more about animals. |
| C．We should live in peace with animals. |
| D．We should learn more body languages. |
