Once upon a time there was a blackbird that lived in a cherry (樱桃) tree outside my window.
Every day, the blackbird would sing and sing. When I ate my breakfast, the blackbird ate his breakfast. When I ate my lunch, the blackbird ate his lunch. When I ate my dinner, the blackbird ate his dinner. The blackbird always ate the cherries off the cherry tree outside my window.
One day, Mother was going to make a cherry pie. We picked all the cherries off the cherry tree. When it was baked, she put the pie by the window to cool off. While I was eating my breakfast, I saw the blackbird fly around the tree. But there were no cherries on the tree. He flew in through the window to sit by me then over to the window by the pie. I smiled. The blackbird looked at me and smiled, too. He said, “I’ll have my pie without ice cream!” And with that, the blackbird took the pie under his wing and flew out of the window. I rushed out of the house and saw the blackbird eating the pie! Soon, the whole pie was gone. We looked at each other and smiled.
1. Where did the blackbird live? (No more than 8 words)_____________________________________________________________
2. What did the blackbird have for his meals? (No more than 2 words)
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3. What did the writer and his/her mother do before making a pie? (No more than 5 words)
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4. Why did the writer’s mother put the pie by the window? (No more than 4 words)
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5. Who ate the whole pie? (No more than 2 words)
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In the deserts of North Africa and Saudi Arabia lives the fennec fox, which is smaller than any other kind of foxes.
Fennec foxes have ears that are 5 to 6 inches long. That’s big for an animal that weighs less than four pounds. Their ears help shed (去除) body heat. And, as you may have guessed, they also provide great hearing.
It’s also interesting to think about the hair of fennec foxes. Why would a fox that lives in the desert need a thick, fur coat? Actually, the desert isn’t always warm. During the nighttime, a desert can be terribly cold! A fennec fox’s fur keeps them warm during those desert nights. They also have long bushy (浓密的) tails that they use as a blanket. And the hair on their feet protects them from the hot sand in the daytime.
Fennec foxes live in small communities of dens (兽穴). They spend most of the day sleeping in their dens, out of the hot sun. Then, when night comes, they come out looking for food. Besides their great hearing, fennecs also use their great sense of smell and big eyes to find dinner.
Like other foxes, fennecs are omnivores. This means they eat both meat and plants. They like eating birds, eggs, insects, snails, fruit and leaves best.
An | |
| Where they live | They live in the deserts of North Africa and Saudi Arabia |
What they look like | 1. They are the 2. Their big ears 3. Their thick fur helps them to survive in the cold desert night. 4. The hair on their feet protects them from the heat of the sand during the daytime. |
| How they live | 1. They live in small communities. 2. They 3. Their |
3 . A cicada is a large insect. It is about three centimeters long. Like many other insects, it has six legs. On the forehead are two big eyes, between which is a long beak. It uses its beak to drink juice from trees. The adult cicada has two sets of wings which can shake together to produce a high, continuous sound when the weather is hot.
In its whole life, it mainly goes through two stages. In the beginning, when a cicada is under the ground, it is called a baby cicada. It drinks juice from tree roots and it is covered in a hard shell. At this time, it has no wings - just legs. After coming out of the ground, it breaks out of its old shell. Under the old shell is a new shell and four wings. The cicada finds a place in the sun to dry its new shell and wings. Gradually, the baby cicada grows into an adult. After a cicada becomes an adult, it sings loudly in hot summer. That’s why it is called a born singer in nature.
At present, over two thousand kinds of cicadas are distributed (分布) around the world. All of them spend most of their life underground. You can find about four hundred and fifty kinds in Africa. Besides, there are about one hundred and twenty kinds in China. There are also about seven special kinds in the US that stay under the ground for many years.
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4 . Bees are insects. Bees are special insects because they can fly! They can move through the air like an airplane! Bees can fly because they have wings. They use their wings to fly. Bees can fly fast. Bees can also fly slow. They can fly up and they can fly down. They need to fly to get to the flowers!
Bees can have three colors. They can be yellow, red and orange. All bees are black in some places.
Bees have three main parts. They have a head. They have a body. And, they have a stinger. The stinger is used to defend against enemies. They also have six legs. They use their legs to stand and climb. They also use their legs to eat and collect pollen.
Bees live in many places. They live in Africa, Australia, Asia, Europe, North America and South America. The only continent that bees do not live on is Antarctica! I understand why they don’t live in Antarctica. It’s too cold!
Most of the time, bees are nice to humans. If you do not bother them, they will not bother you. Have fun watching the bees this summer!
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5 . Which animals are smart? Your answer may be dogs, monkeys or elephants. Now we can put one more animal into the list: sheep.
Scientists from Cambridge University said that they can teach sheep to tell familiar (熟悉的)human faces from other unfamiliar ones.
Before testing, scientists let the sheep take a look at pictures of four famous people, such as Barack Obama and British actress Emma Watson. Then the sheep went into a room with two computer screens. Each screen showed a human face. One screen showed a famous person and the other screen showed a common person。The sheep would always walk to the screen with the face of famous persons.
Then, the scientists wanted to know the sheep's ability to recognize(认出) them from a photo. They put their own photos on screens along with some pictures of unfamiliar(不熟悉的) faces. Not surprisingly, the sheep could tell the scientists from others.
After noticing the animals' ability to recognize people, scientists gave them a new job. They wanted to see the farm animals' ability to recognize the same person if the picture only showed half of the person's face or just one side of a person. The animals were still able to recognize them, though they were a little slower to recognize the pictures than before.
The results show that the animals' face-recognition( 面部识别) abilities are similar to those of monkeys and humans. Face recognition is a difficult job. But sheep have big brains(大脑). When they see other sheep, they can also recognize one another.
The scientists said it might be interesting in the future 10 find out whether sheep can recognize different human facial expressions(表情)
| Unusual smart animal-the sheep | |
| Scientific | ★Sheep's face-recognition abilities were similar to those of monkeys and humans. |
| ★Sheep's big brain | |
| A set of tests that | ★To tell famous persons from common persons The sheep were asked to choose between photos of famous and common persons. And they always walked to the photos of famous persons. |
| ★To recognize the persons around them Scientists put their own pictures into the tests. And the sheep could tell them from others as | |
| ★To recognize the same person from different sides The sheep were shown only half or one side of a person's face. And they spent a | |
| ★To recognize human facial expressions The interesting test would be done in the future. | |
Bees are insects. Bees are special insects because they can fly! They can move through the air like an airplane! Bees can fly because they have wings. They use their wings to fly. Bees can fly fast. Bees can also fly slow. They can fly up and they can fly down. They need to fly to get to the flowers!
Bees can have three colors. They can be yellow, red and orange. All bees are black in some places.
Bees have three main parts. They have a head. They have a body. And, they have a stinger. The stinger is used to defend against enemies. They also have six legs. They use their legs to stand and climb. They also use their legs to eat and collect pollen.
Bees live in many places. They live in Africa, Australia, Asia, Europe, North America and South America. The only continent that bees do not live on is Antarctica! I understand why they don’t live in Antarctica. It’s too cold!
Most of the time, bees are nice to humans. If you do not bother them, they will not bother you. Have fun watching the bees this summer!
| Bee —Special features ,Insects Bee —All bees are black in some places, yellow, red and orange Bee —A stinger ,a body ,a head Bee —In Africa, Australia, Asia and so on Bee —The exception |
If you ever feel a little bit under the weather, the Internet will surely help with a large number of cute cat videos. Of course, cute little kitties might not be everyone's cup of tea, but not to worry, since there are so many other kinds of cute animals you could possibly want to brighten up your day. And sometimes all you need is just a little something behind that cute photo or video, therefore this time we are here to warm up your hearts with the cutest exciting facts the animal kingdom has to offer!
Cats don’t think of us as humans. Instead, they see us as other cats By nudging（蹭）you with their heads, they’re actually greeting you as they are greeting another cat in their family. This means that we’ re probably the ugliest, biggest, and clumsiest（笨拙的）cats they’ve ever seen to them but they accept you into their family and love you anyway.
When a baby elephant is born, other mothers in the social group will shout to celebrate it. Elephants stay in close "family" groups for their whole lives. The main members in AL groups are female elephants（ the males often leave the group）。 So other female elephants often come out for new babies.
Your dog actually loves you, not just because you give them food and walks. Studies showed that levels of hormone（荷尔蒙）rose and heart rates fell in both humans and their dogs after interacting with each other. In other words, when you pet your dog, both of you produce more of the same hormone in your brain that makes you fall in love with people, and both of you feel pleased.
Hundreds of tree seedlings（幼苗）grow every year because squirrels easily forget where due University, gray squirrels bury their food, such as nuts, acorns（松子）all over place but often forget to dig them back up. Due to the poor memories of squirrels, those buried seeds grow into full-grown trees.
Are these facts interesting? As we all know, our world is colorful because of different creatures. There are many kinds of animals in the world, but not only the humans. We live in the same world, we should be friends. If there are no animals, human beings will be very lonely. By studying animals, we can know more about human and nature.
The | ♦ Cheer you up when you feel upset. ♦ Humans won't be lonely with animals. ♦ Have a better understanding of human and nature. |
| Kinds of Animals | Facts of animals |
| Cat | ●Cats greet you by nudging you with their heads. ●Cats treat humans as their |
| Elephant | ●Elephants stay in groups that are mainly made up of female elephants. ●All female elephants will come out to celebrate |
| Dog | ●Dogs and their owners can get the same ●The real reason is both dogs and their owners can produce hormone that can make them fall in love with others. |
| Squirrel | ●Those buried seeds that squirrels forget to dig back up have |
8 . The Seed Vault(种子地窖)
A lot of countries need different kinds of seeds so that they can plant them again. There is an important reason for this. Sometimes plants can’t grow in a country because of bad weather or disease, so farmers need new seeds.
You can keep seeds in a “seed vault”. It’s a place at a special temperature. The seeds don’t grow, but they can live for a long time. Norway has the biggest seed vault in the world—the Svalbard Global Seed Vault —and it has seeds from a lot of different countries.
The vault is on the island of Spitsbergen. The island is about one thousand kilometers from the North Pole. It’s a very cold place so it’s good for seeds. Above the ground, the doorway is small, but inside, the building is huge. You walk down a long corridor(走廊), which is one hundred and thirty meters inside a mountain. At the end of it, there are three large areas with seeds.
There are about half a million kinds of seeds inside the vault. For example, there are kinds of seeds for nice from Asia and Africa, 32 kinds of seeds for potatoes from Ireland and seeds for different tomatoes from the USA.
The seed vault has space for a lot more seeds. You can put about 2.2 billion(十亿)seeds inside. The seeds can live here for thousands of years because of the cold temperature of -180C. So, in the future, humans can grow any seed they want. In other words, the seed vault is the difference between life and death.
1. Why can’t plants grow in a country?(within 6 words)2. Where is the biggest seed vault in the world?(within 2 word)
3. How far is the Svalbard Global Seed Vault from the North Pole?(within 4 words)
4. How many seeds can be put in the seed vault?
5. What place is seed vault? (within 12 words)
Flowers have habits or ways of doing things, just as people have. Would you like to hear about some of these?
There is one habit that almost all flowers have. They turn to the light. If plants are kept in a room, the flowers turn to the window.Some flowers shut up at night. It seems that they go to sleep. They open again in the morning. Tulips（郁金香）do this.
One morning Lingling was looking at some tulips. When one of them opened, a bee flew out. He stayed too late last night, and so was shut up in the flower.He might be hard at work all day getting honey.He stopped to rest in the tulip, and was shut in when it closed. He had a fine bed that night. Lingling wondered if he slept any better than he would have slept in the hive（蜂巢）!
1. If plants are kept in a room, what happens? (no more than 6 words)
2. Some flowers shut up at night, don’t they? (no more than 3 words)
3. When did a bee fly out? (no more than 5 words)
4. Why did the bee sleep in the tulip? (no more than 16 words)
5. What did Lingling wonder? (no more than 15 words)
Most elephants are grey. Only a few are white. It’s difficult to see a white elephant. When people find a white elephant, they feel excited.
Long ago, a white elephant was taken to the king. Only the king could have a white elephant. And the white elephant must be a very good one. People wanted to take a look at the animal. On its way to the king, the white elephant attracted(吸引) many people. They ran into the street and shouted, “A white elephant is coming!”
All the people liked the cute elephant. Some gave it water to drink. Others sang songs to the elephant. A boy put a red hat on the elephant’s head.
Then the elephant came to the king. At last the king saw the white elephant. The king gave it a name himself. The elephant ate from gold dishes and it began a new life.
1. What colour are most elephants? (no more than 4 words)
