Hello. We are students from Thailand, and we want to save the elephants. The elephant is one of Thailand’s symbols. Our first flag had a white elephant on it. This is a symbol of good luck.
Elephants are smart animals. They can play soccer or music. They can also draw very well. People say that “an elephant never forgets”. Elephants can walk for a long time and never get lost. They can also remember places with food and water. This helps them to live.
But elephants are in great danger. People cut down many trees so elephants are losing their homes. People also kill elephants for their ivory. Today there are only about 3000 elephants (over 100,000 before). We must save the trees and not buy things made of ivory. Remember that March 13th is Thai Elephant Day.
1. Elephants are losing their homes because2. 任务二：简略回答问题；
What can we do to save elephants?
3. What can elephants do?
4. 任务三：将文中划线句子译成汉语；
5. 任务四：给文章选择最佳标题
| A．What is an elephant? | B．Let’s save the elephants. | C．Elephants are good pets. |
相似题推荐
Have you ever seen guides letting you get close to elephants and even offering you rides? Don’t do this, we’re here to explain why you should not ride an elephant.
Humans often think it’s OK to have elephants under their control (控制). Many people in Southeast Asia buy and sell elephants illegally (违法地). But elephants are wild animals. Humans shouldn’t do that.
Elephants are smart. They can feel sad and happy. Wild elephants won’t let humans ride on top of them. So in order to control them, humans catch baby elephants and train them in pretty bad ways. These all cause a lot of pain for their spirit and bodies.
Although elephants have large bodies, their spines (脊椎) are not strong enough to carry humans. And many of them die as a result of years of carrying humans on their backs.
Asian elephants are in danger. The United Nations says that only about 35,000 Asian elephants are left in the wild now. Riding elephants is one of the main causes (原因) to their death.
Why shouldn’t we ride elephants? | |
| Reason 1 Many Southeast Asians | Reason 2 Elephants are smart. They can feel Humans’ |
| Reason 3 Elephants have large bodies, but their spines are not very | Reason 4 Asian elephants are in danger. There are only about |
【推荐2】Many kinds of birds live in the United States, but the birds are fewer every year. One of the leading reasons is the growing number of pet cats. By keeping your pet cats in your home, you can help give birds a better possible chance to live.
Of the 90 million pet cats in this country, about two-thirds are allowed to go outside. It is said that these cats kill hundreds of millions of birds each year, as well as billions of small animals such as rabbits and field mice.
They can also bring illness to the animals that live in people’s yard(院子), further weakening the health of the natural populations.
Allowing pet cats to go outside is not just bad for birds and wildlife, it’s also bad for the cats themselves. Outdoor cats can get sick very easily. They are in danger from traffic and attacks(攻击) from other animals. In fact, outdoor cats usually don’t live past the age of five, while indoor cats often live to be 17 or older.
Keep your pet cat inside! It’s your duty.
| Problem | The number of birds is becoming |
| People allow the cats to go outside freely. | |
| What to do | People who |
【推荐3】Animal United is a 3D German cartoon. It is a story about animals that get together to find water. Along their journey, lots of funny things happen, and of course, they have a lot of adventures.
The animals in the grasslands in Africa are waiting for the coming flood. However, this years flood seems to come later than that in other years. The animals become worried. At the same time, some animals from other places come to the grasslands to look for peace. However, the situation seems worse because the water is becoming less and less. So they decide to look for the river.
Finally, they find the reason why they don’t have any water to drink. A dam (拦河坝) has been set up so that humans can have a better life. After a long fight with humans, they let the world know that animals are in danger.
This film is about environmental matters. The humans are bad and the animals are good. This film is to give humans a warning. Humans should know that animals also belong to the world.
1. Where is the 3D cartoon Animal United from?2. Why does the situation seem worse?
3. What do the animals find along their journey to look for the river?
4. Is the film produced to give humans a warning?
5. What is the film about?
We can see all kinds of trees in schools, communities and parks. As an important part of nature, trees have a close relationship with human beings.
Why are trees helpful?Humans depend on trees. First, trees provide wood for building houses, making sofas and producing paper. People also use the leaves and other parts of trees as medicine to treat illnesses.
Trees play a key role in ecosystems. Trees can take in carbon dioxide (CO2) and make oxygen (O2) to make the air clean. Trees can protect water and soil. Besides, they are home to some wild animals. The fruit and leaves of trees are food for cows and sheep.
Paper products made from trees are part of our daily lives. Let’s take the family of Li Hua, a 15-year-old middle school student, as an example.
| How much paper does Li’s family use every year? | |
| Printing paper | 800 pieces |
| Toilet paper | 150 rolls (卷) |
| Kitchen paper | 225 rolls |
| ※One tree can make 750 rolls of household (家用的) paper. | |
| ※One tree can make 4, 000 pieces of printing paper. | |
Chart I
How do trees make us feel?When we have a lot of stress, we can go into the forest to breathe and touch the trees’ lives. The growing process of trees makes us relaxed and hopeful. Trees are also part of human culture. Many works about history, fiction and poems have something to do with trees. These works express people’s praise for nature and carry humans’ feelings and memories.
As though a gust of spring wind swept it past overnight, bringing thousands upon thousands of pear trees into bloom (开花). Cen Shen |
▲
Governments make rules and set up some festivals to make people realize the importance of trees. We teenagers can also take action to protect trees. For example, we can make full use of paper, refuse to use disposable (一次性的) chopsticks when eating out, and take an active part in tree planting activities.
1. What can trees help us do in our daily lives? (One example is OK.)2. According to Chart I, how many trees are used to make paper products for Li’s family every year? What advice can you give them?
3. How can trees make us feel when we are stressed?
4. Please translate Cen Shen’s poem in ChartⅡinto Chinese.
5. Please add a subtitle (小标题) to the last part.
6. What do you think of trees? How will you help to protect them?
What do you say when you pick up the phone?
You say “hello”, of course.
What do you say when someone introduces a friend, a relative, anybody at all?
You say “hello”.
“Hello” has been for a long time considered to be the standard English language greeting since English people began greeting. But is that true?
It may be the most spoken word on the planet and the English word that most people learn first. The word is so familiar to us that it's surprising how new it is: “hello” has only been in use for about the last 200 years of the 1000-year history of English.
The Oxford English Dictionary says the first published use of “hello” goes back only to 1827. But it wasn't mainly a greeting back then. People in the 1830s said “hello” to attract attention (“Hello, what do you think you're doing?”), or to express surprise (“Hello, what do we have here?”).
But the true breakthrough for this now-common word was when it was used in the service of brand-new technology: the telephone. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it was Thomas Edison who put “hello” into common usage. He asked the people who used his phone to say “hello” when answering—which required people to address an unseen and unknown person. It was simpler and more efficient (高效的) than some other greetings used in the early days of the telephone, such as “Do I get you?” and “Are you there?” However, the actual inventor of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell, thought that the better word was “ahoy”, which turns out to be much longer—at least 100 years longer—than “hello”. It too, was a greeting from the Dutch (荷兰语) “hoi” meaning “hello.” For his entire life, Bell insisted on answering the phone with “Ahoy.”
“Hello” obviously caught on, and spread along with the telephone. Had it not been for Edison, our greetings might be very different today. It could be possible that we are still greeting people with “Ahoy” when picking up the phone.
1. How long has “hello” been used in the 1000-year history of the English language?_____________________________________________________________________
2. What was the purpose of people saying “hello” in the 1830s?
_____________________________________________________________________
3. Who put “hello” into common usage?
_____________________________________________________________________
4. What word did Bell prefer to use when answering the phone?
_____________________________________________________________________
5. What is the passage mainly about?
_____________________________________________________________________
【推荐3】Living without Wi-fi
Can you imagine life without phones and Wi-fi? Most of us think it is difficult. However, in Green Bank, a small town in the U.S.A., people are living such a life.
Green Bank is home to a large radio telescope (射电望远镜). It is used to study the universe. Radio waves from the ground can affect (影响) the work of the telescope. For this reason, people there can’t have smartphones or Wi-fi ,etc. They can only use a pay phone when they need to make phone calls.
Today, there are about 180 people in Green Bank. Many of them don’t find life inconvenient. A boy said he liked going to his friends’ houses to talk to them. They can quickly find each other somewhere in this small town.
Jenny said she likes to talk to people face-to-face. This gives her the chance to shake their hands. She really enjoys living without Wi-fi.
1. Where is Green Bank?2. Why can’t people in Green Bank use smartphones or Wi-fi?
3. What can people do when they need to make phone calls?
4. Do you like to live in Green Bank? Why or why not?
The best food for the brain (大脑) is sleep. If you don’t sleep well at night, you cannot do things well in the daytime. Adults need 7 to 9 hours of sleep and middle school students need to sleep between 8 and 10 hours every night. To get about 9 hours of sleep, students need to go to bed at about 10 p.m. from Monday to Friday. But many people play with their phones or iPads before sleep. This is one of the reasons for bad sleep. The lights keep their brains excited (兴奋的) for a long time.
Then how can you sleep well? Here is some advice for you.
⦾ Don’t drink tea or coffee in the evening.
⦾ Go to bed at the same time every night, even (甚至) at the weekend.
⦾ Before sleep, your room should be quiet and dark.
⦾ Have some milk before sleep.
⦾ Turn off your lights, computers or cell phones in your room.
A good sleep at night helps the brain work |
【推荐2】We all just have one life. What makes you happy? Is it something as simple as getting a new toy or doing well on an exam? Or is it something more meaningful than that?
A happy life means forgetting. 3. There are quite a few unhappy things that happen to us. They make us upset, worried, jealous(嫉妒的) and angry. Sometimes they trouble us a lot. What should we do? Just forget them! Throw the terrible things away and leave the happy ones in your heart.
A happy life means giving. Give up a seat to an old person on a crowded bus. It’s difficult to give up something of your own, but if you share things with those in need, you can feel happier. So, just learn to give. Give a hand to someone in trouble. Giving will bring happiness and pleasure.
A happy life also means doing. Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today. 4. If you have a plan, carry it out straight away! A sense of pride and happiness will make you happy.
A happy life isn’t just about playing. We all know that, “All work and no play makes Jack a silly boy”. But if we spend too much time playing then we become “dull(迟钝的) boys”, too.
These are just the seeds(种子) of happiness. You must water and care for them continually until they flower. Then your life will be happy.
Is your life happy? If it is not, you should take actions and make your life happy.
A.根据短文内容简要回答问题。
1. Why should we forget unhappy things?
2. What does a happy life mean according to this passage. List them all.
B.将短文中划线的句子译成汉语。
3.
4.
C. 请给短文拟一个适当的英文标题。
5.
【推荐3】What can you do when someone hurts you? Most people may be angry or even fight with the one who hurts him or her. But it's not a good idea. The best way is to forgive them.
Although it is not easy for us to forgive people who hurt us, it is possible, "forgiveness makes you hopeful. And it is good for our health," says Fredric, Ph. D. the writer of the book called Forgive for God.
But how can we forgive others?
First, think of something beautiful and try to get yourself happy.
Second, don't wait for others to say sorry to you. If the people hurt you, he or she won't say sorry to you. They may just want to hurt you or they just don't see things the same way.
Third, try to see things in others' shoes. You can write a letter to yourself from the offender's point. That can make you understand others better and make yourself happier.
At last, don't forget to forgive yourself. For some people, forgiving themselves is the biggest challenge. And it also makes you more confident.
1. When someone hurts you, what should you do?2. How many ideas does the writer give us to forgive others who hurt you?
3. Translate the underlined sentence "try to see things in others' shoes".
