1 . People who keep chickens as pets or barnyard animals tend to be quite passionate about them. Similar to those who keep cats and dogs as animal friends, chicken owners love to spoil their little ones. If that means building tiny amusement parks to keep them happy, then that’s exactly what they will do.
Chickens have more personality than many people give them credit for. Like humans, chickens love to have fun, explore, and just kind of check stuff out.
What happens if chickens get bored?
Bored chickens tend to engage in bad behaviors. These can include pecking at and fighting with one another and pulling out each other’s feathers.
Part of keeping and caring for chickens (or any animal for that matter) includes making sure they have everything they need to be happy. That includes entertainment and things to keep their days interesting.
One method is to hang up a piece of cabbage. Not only does this keep the chickens entertained, but it also gives them a healthy source of nourishment.
There is another fun toy you can build for your chickens, and all you need is some old bicycle tires. Chicken merry-go-rounds are about to become all the rage (风靡一时) in chicken society. To do this, all you need to do is remove the wheel from a bike. Then lay the wheel out over top something so the chickens are able to spin and ride on top. The chickens seem to know how to jump right on and go for a ride. They might not react like a human on a rollercoaster (过山车), but their behavior tends to show it is an enjoyable experience for them. The wheels can be spread out through your garden, backyard, or wherever your chickens like to roam. They help make their days more interesting, fun, and unique!
1. What’s the purpose of hanging up a piece of cabbage?| A．To feed chickens. | B．To train chickens. |
| C．To amuse chickens. | D．To punish chickens. |
| A．Hatch. | B．Rest. |
| C．Gather. | D．Wander. |
| A．A New Pet | B．Chickens’ Beautiful Life |
| C．People’s Friends | D．Harmonious Coexistence |
| A．A magazine. | B．A biography. |
| C．A diary. | D．A novel. |
2 . Gene-edited Foods: Yes or No?
Gene-edited foods could soon be hitting supermarket shelves in the UK as the government announced plans to allow gene-edited foods to be sold unlabeled in British supermarkets, promoting an outcry from some consumers who claim they “should be given a choice”.
GE foods are produced using the gene-editing tool CRISPR, which edits the existing DNA of a plant or animal. Unlike genetically modified food, gene-edited food contains no “foreign” DNA from other species. Scientists use a specialized protein to make tiny changes to the organism’s DNA that could occur naturally or through selective breeding.
Environment Secretary George Eustice insisted that GE products would not need to be advertised as such because they are “fundamentally natural”. However, Scotland and Wales both vowed to reject the move, and Britain’s biggest supermarkets have so far refused to confirm if they will stock the foods.
Now let’s take a closer look at some of the GE foods that could be on shelves in the UK as early as next year.
Vitamin D-boosted tomatoes
Tomatoes have been genetically engineered to produce more vitamin D. Researchers claim that the “super” fruits could help reduce the risk of developing diseases such as cancer, Parkinson’s disease and dementia (痴呆).
Mushrooms that don’t go brown
A variety of white button mushroom has been genetically edited so that it doesn’t go brown when sliced. The researchers used CRISPR to remove a small piece of one gene that causes mushroom browning. Thus it can stay on supermarket shelves for longer, reducing food waste.
Bread that reduces cancer risk from burnt toast
Acrylamide (丙烯酰胺), a substance that can cause cancer, is created when bread is baked or toasted. Researchers have edited the genome (基因组) of wheat to reduce its production of the cancer-causing chemical.
Chickens resistant to bird flu
Researchers have used gene-editing techniques to grow chicken cells that are unable to replicate the bird flu virus in a lab. They edited a section of chicken DNA to make it resistant to the virus.
1. What can be known about GE foods?| A．They edit their own existing DNA. |
| B．They have foreign DNA from other species. |
| C．They are completely as natural as ordinary foods. |
| D．They are exactly the same as genetically modified foods. |
| A．The UK government supports GE foods. | B．George Eustice is against GE foods. |
| C．Some consumers object to GE foods being sold. | D．Britain’s biggest supermarkets welcome GE foods. |
| A．vitamin D-boosted tomatoes’ | B．mushrooms that don’t go brown |
| C．bread that reduces cancer risk from burnt toast | D．chickens resistant to bird flu |
3 . Parts of East Asia could see “rivers in the sky” form due to climate change, bringing record-breaking levels of rainfall with them, a new study has revealed.
The team, from the University of Tsukuba, Japan, have already seen clear signs of global warming hitting parts of the country, so they wanted to see how bad things could get. “It’s been becoming more and more clear that global warming means more than just warmer temperatures,” they wrote.
One particularly-damaging extreme weather event is an increase in rainfall to unexpected and unprecedented (前所未有的) levels, which can result in flooding. To help predict rainfall events, researchers looked to one of the causes — the interaction of atmospheric rivers with mountain ranges.
“As the name suggests, atmospheric rivers are long, narrow bands of concentrated water vapour flowing through the atmosphere,” the team explained. “When one of these bands meets a barrier, such as a mountain range, it can produce extreme levels of rainfall or snowfall.”
Parts of East Asia have been subjected to (遭受) an increasing number of damaging, extreme weather events over the past decade.
To understand the impact, the team used high-resolution global atmospheric circulations model simulations (模拟) that virtually re-create the conditions in the atmosphere. They then looked at other regional climate models, comparing simulations based on real, meteorological data (气象数据) from 1951 to 2010 to predictions for 2090.
Authors used the climate scenario that would result in 4℃ of warming, compared to preindustrial levels — which is significantly more than 2℃ target set as part of Paris Climate Agreement.
First author, Professor Yoichi Kamae, said that their simulations predict strengthened water vapour transport, as well as increased rainfall at unprecedented levels. In simulations the greatest amounts of atmospheric river-related rainfall occurred on the southern and western slopes of mountains in East Asia, including in Japan, the Korean Peninsula, and northeastern China. They had to limit the study to East Asia due to computer time and processing limitations, but predict it would apply to other regions around the world.
1. What’s the possible consequence of the global warming?| A．It contributes to polluted air. |
| B．It leads to hot and rainy climate. |
| C．It only results in the rise of temperature. |
| D．It causes the destruction of more species. |
| A．describe the new study |
| B．introduce atmospheric rivers |
| C．analyze the cause of rainfall |
| D．warn people of global warming |
| A．By comparison. | B．By discussion. |
| C．By examples. | D．By explanation |
| A．They are risky. | B．They are valueless. |
| C．They are perfect. | D．They are convincing. |
4 . A schoolgirl has created a solar-powered backpack that filters out air pollution after being inspired by her asthmatic (患哮喘病的) mother.
Eleanor Woods, 12, from High Burton, Huddersfield, a town in West Yorkshire, northern England, entered the “Backpack to the Future” competition after her mother put the application form in her room. She went on to win the award for her innovative bag.
The “Backpack to the future” competition was launched to change perceptions (认知), encourage more diversity within engineering and to show children how they could combine an interest in fashion with a career in science, technology, engineering or math.
Powered by green energy from solar power and a dynamo — a machine that converts mechanical energy into electrical energy — the backpack filters polluted air before fanning out cleaner air nearby. “I have an air filter at home because my mum has mild asthma. My Breathe Better Backpack is all about keeping my friends, family and classmates safe using an air filter. It looks cool and will help get kids outside and fight off colds,” Eleanor said. “The first thing that came to mind is that blue is one of my favorite colors and blue feels clean and the bubbles on the outside have a clean theme for breathing.”
The pandemic spurred on Eleanor’s awareness of how pollution affects a person’s health and the spread of diseases. Spending a lot of time with her asthmatic mum over several lock downs gave the 12-year-old food for thought.
The schoolgirl added: “My generation is really aware of pollution, and we have lessons on it at school along with diseases spreading, and this is another reason I designed this, because it is getting much worse.”
The young designer said she is becoming increasingly aware of the pollution that surrounds her, as she lives on a main road. Eleanor said: “I walk to school, next to the road, and can taste the petrol when buses come through.”
Speaking after winning the competition, Eleanor said the impact of her backpack will be far-reaching. “If just a few people start using it, it could be really good for the planet,” she said.
1. What was the “Backpack to the future” competition aimed at?| A．Arousing curiosity in fashion. |
| B．Increasing interest in engineering. |
| C．Raising environmental awareness. |
| D．Bonding interest with scientific practice. |
| A．The backpack is easy to carry. |
| B．The backpack is blue with bubbles. |
| C．The backpack is safe for kids indoors. |
| D．The backpack is only powered by solar energy. |
| A．It is fashionable. | B．It does good to health. |
| C．It is energy-saving. | D．It does harm to environment. |
| A．Creative. | B．Generous. |
| C．Active | D．Adventurous. |
5 . German physicist Albert Einstein is one of the most famous scientists of all time, the personification of genius and the subject of a whole industry of scholarship. In The Einsteinian Revolution, two experts on Einstein’s life and his theory of relativity— Israeli physicist Hanoch Gutfreund and German historian of science Jürgen Renn— offer an original and penetrating (犀利的) analysis of Einstein’s revolutionary contributions to physics and our view of the physical world.
For the first time ever, by setting Einstein’s work in the long course of the evolution of scientific knowledge, Gutfr eund and Renn discover the popular misconception of Einstein as an unconventional scientific genius who single-handedly created modern physics—and by pure thought alone.
As a large part of the book explains, Einstein typically argued that science progresses through steady evolution, not through revolutionary breaks with the past. He saw his theory of relativity not as something from scratch, but a natural extension of the classical physics developed by pioneers such as Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei and English physicist Isaac Newton in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as well as nineteenth-century physicists.
The authors highlight how classical physics cannot be separated cleanly from modern Einsteinian physics. The book also includes substantial sections on Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus and Galileo whose methods inspired Einstein. When Einstein considered himself as standing on their shoulders, he meant that, without their contributions, he would not have formulated (阐述) the theory of relativity.
The Einsteinian Revolution is an important and thought-provoking contribution to the scholarly literature on Einstein and his surprising scientific creativity between 1905 and 1925. Gutfreund and Renn might not have given the final answer as to why Einstein, of all people, revolutionized physics in the way that he did. But they argue in fascinating detail that, to understand his genius, one must take into account not just the earlier history of physics but also the history of knowledge more broadly. Although not always an easy read, the book will interest physicists and historians alike.
1. What’s the attitude of Gutfreund and Renn to the popular viewpoint on Einstein?| A．Opposing. | B．Favorable. | C．Ambiguous. | D．Indifferent. |
| A．From nothing. | B．Up to a certain standard. |
| C．By learning from others. | D．With previous knowledge. |
| A．Their ideas were rejected by Einstein. |
| B．Their devotion to physics impressed Einstein. |
| C．Their research contributed to Einstein’s success. |
| D．Their hard work deserved the worldwide respect. |
| A．A guidebook to a course. | B．An introduction to a book. |
| C．An essay on Albert Einstein. | D．A review of physics development. |
6 . Green Line Performing Arts Center
329 E Garfield Blvd. Chicago, IL 60637
Upcoming Programs Include:
First Monday Jazz Series: CrosswindMonday Feb 4 | onwards 7—9 pm
First Monday Jazz is a free monthly event showcasing local Chicago jazz artists.
Green Light Series: South Side Story TimeSunday Feb 17 | 10—11 am
Bring your kids to listen, learn, sing, dance, and interact! South Side Story Time is a small gathering that centres on readings for its young attendees along with the chance for their parents to socialize. Open to families with children of all ages.
Sistergirls and Freedom Fighters: Stories in Celebration of Women’s Power and GraceWednesday Feb 20 | 7—8:30 pm
Join us for an evening of storytelling featuring the dynamic singing, In the Spirit by Emily Hooper Lansana. This performance will highlight a range of stories that demonstrate women’s creative and political genius from folk heroines to Nobel Peace Prize winners.
Family Saturdays: Art togetherEvery 1st Saturday of the Month | 3—5 pm
Explore your child’s artistic curiosity with hands-on art workshops designed to stimulate creativity and play. These interdisciplinary workshops are exciting for the entire family, offering activities from music to arts and crafts. Come to learn something new! Appropriate for families with children. Registration is encouraged.
Follow Arts + Public Life on Facebook for more event details and a full list of all upcoming performances.
1. When can people enjoy jazz?| A．At 8 pm every first Monday. | B．At 4 pm every Saturday. |
| C．At 7 pm on Wednesdays. | D．At 9 pm on Mondays. |
| A．It lasts two hours. | B．It is organized by Emily. |
| C．It is a prize-winning performance. | D．It celebrates women’s achievements. |
| A．The forms of arts. | B．Target participants. |
| C．The duration of activities. | D．Registration requirements. |
7 . I was the only kid in college with a reason to go to the mail box, because my mother never believed in email, in Facebook, in texting or cell phones. I was literally waiting by the mailbox to get a letter with a warmest comfort from her.
So when I moved to New York and got depressed, I did the only thing I could think of. I wrote those same kinds of letters like my mother for strangers, and tucked them all over the city: in cafes, in libraries, and even in the subway. I blogged about those letters and promised if asked for a hand-written letter, I would write one.
Overnight, my inbox became this harbor of heartbreak — a single mother in Sacramento, a girl being bullied in Kansas, a 22-year-old immigrant, all asking me to write them and give them a reason to wait by the mailbox. And this is how I initiated the act The World Needs More Love Letters.
Today I run a global organization fueled by those trips to the mailbox. It is a miracle. But the thing about these letters is that most of them have been written by people brought up in a paperless world where some best conversations happen on a screen. We have learned to diary our pain onto Facebook, and we speak swiftly in twitter.
Therefore, I’ve been carrying this mail crate (大木箱) with me these days, which is a magical icebreaker. So I get to tell total strangers about a woman whose husband was traumatized (受精神创伤) from war, and how she left love letters throughout the house saying, “Come back to me.” And a man, who had decided to take his life, slept safely with a stack of letters just beneath his pillow, handwritten by strangers who were there for him.
These stories convince me that letter-writing will never need to be about efficiency, because it is an art now, all of it: the signing, the scripting, the mailing.
1. Why did the author share her experience in college?| A．To show her care for her family. | B．To convey her love for writing letters. |
| C．To express her feelings attached to letters. | D．To prove her consistency in writing letters. |
| A．She advocated the paperless lifestyle. | B．She intended to provide professional aid. |
| C．She tried to improve her communication skills. | D．She aimed to give emotional support with letters. |
| A．It cures people of mental diseases. | B．It serves as a conversation starter. |
| C．It has magic power to melt ice. | D．It empowers people to be brave. |
| A．Family Letters Are Priceless | B．Love for Writing Never Declines |
| C．World Needs More Love Letters | D．Hand-written Letters Improve Efficiency |
8 . Nanako Hama gets a lot of mail, mostly from strangers who live in her home city of Tokyo. In light envelopes, they send locks of their hair, hoping to recycle it.
People generate a huge amount of hair waste. Nearly all of that waste ends up in landfill, where it can release harmful greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change.
But hair possesses useful qualities that it’s a shame to simply throw it away. That’s why people all around the world, like Hama, have been collecting hair and finding innovative ways to recycle it, including making mats (垫子)out of it for removing oil leaks.
Hama is part of the nonprofit Matter of Trust (MoT) members working at more than 60 centers dotted across 17 countries, using machines to make hair donated from local salons and individuals into square mats, which are then used to clean up the floating oil.
Hair is particularly well-suited for this, says MoT co-founder Lisa Gautier. “That’s because its rough sort of outer layer lets oil stick to it.” MoT’s mats have been used in major oil leaks. including the 2010 Deepwater Horizon and 2007 Cosco Busan incidents.
In a 2018 study, Murray, an environmental scientist at the University of Technology Sydney, in Australia found that mats made of recycled human hair could absorb 0.84 grams of oil onto its surface for every gram of hair—significantly more than polypropylene (聚丙烯), a type of plastic that’s typically used to clean up floating oil.
Besides, hair is also useful as fertilizer (化肥). Hair contains a relatively high nitrogen (氮), a chemical element crucial for plant growth, and each lock of hair is made of roughly 16 percent of this essential nutrient. Last year, more than 560 gallons of liquid fertilizer made from human hair was sold to farmers in northern Tanzania and the feedback from the farmers has been very encouraging.
“It’s just a great way to use hair in a productive way. Hair is an answer literally hanging in front of our eyes—for oil and soil,” Hama says.
1. How does the author introduce the topic in paragraph 1?| A．By detailing the background. | B．By presenting a scene. |
| C．By describing the feedback. | D．By supporting evidences. |
| A．Fertilize the soil. | B．Prevent oil leaks. |
| C．Clear the sea of oil. | D．Take in harmful gas. |
| A．Its color and strength. |
| B．Its length and amount. |
| C．Its weight and flexibility. |
| D．Its structure and component. |
| A．Debatable. | B．Applicable. |
| C．Irreplaceable. | D．Uncontrollable. |
9 . When we think about lives filled with meaning, we often focus on people whose grand contributions benefited humanity. Abraham Lincoln,Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela surely felt they had a worthwhile life. But how about us ordinary people,struggling in a typical existence?
There is an important element to consider. Think about the first butterfly you stop to admire after a long winter or imagine the scenery at the top of a hill after a fresh hike. Sometimes existence delivers us small moments of beauty. When people are open to appreciating such experiences, these moments may enhance how they view their life. This element is defined as EA (experiential appreciation) by Joshua Hicks, a psychological professor at Texas A &M University.
Recently, he and his research team set out to figure out whether EA was related to a person’s sense of meaning in a series of studies that involved more than 3,000 participants. At an initial test, researchers had participants rate their agreement of different coping strategies to relieve their stress. They found people who managed stress by focusing on their appreciation for life’s beauty also reported experiencing life as highly meaningful.
Researchers then conducted a series of experiments, in which they gave participants specific tasks and, once more, asked them to report how strongly they identified with statements linked to purpose, etc. In one case, participants who watched an awe-inspiring video reported having a greater sense of EA and meaning in life, compared with those who watched more neutral videos. After reflecting on the results collected from the participants, researchers confirmed their original theory.
But applying that insight can be difficult.Our modern, fast-paced, project-oriented lifestyles fill the day with targets and goals. We are on the go, and we attempt to maximize output both at work and at leisure.
This focus on future outcomes makes it all too easy to miss what is happening right now. Yet life happens in the present moment. We should slow down, let life surprise us and embrace the significance in the everyday life.
1. Why are the butterfly and the scenery on a hill mentioned in paragraph 2?| A．To introduce a concept. |
| B．To attract readers’ interest. |
| C．To demonstrate the beauty of nature. |
| D．To show the necessity of protecting nature. |
| A．By designing different strategies to reduce stress |
| B．By studying previous research data. |
| C．By shooting videos starring the participants. |
| D．By analyzing the response from the participants. |
| A．A person who always gets her life well-organized. |
| B．A person who often hears motivating speeches. |
| C．A person who leads a fast-paced life |
| D．A person who always expects future results. |
| A．No pains, no gains. |
| B．Those who believe in their ability can do anything. |
| C．Live your life one day at a time. |
| D．Being on sea, sail; being on land, settle. |
10 . German physicist Albert Einstein is one of the most famous scientists of all time, the personification of genius and the subject of a whole industry of scholarship. In The Einsteinian Revolution, two experts on Einstein’s life and his theory of relativity―Israeli physicst Hanoch Gutfreund and German historian of science Jurgen Renn—offer an original and penetrating(厚利的) analysis of Einstein’s revolutionary contributions to physics and our view of the physical world.
By setting Einstein’s work in the long course of the evolution of scientific knowledge, Gutfreund and Renn discover the popular misconception of Einstein as an unconventional scientific genius who single-handedly created modern physics—and by pure thought alone.
As a large part of the book explains, Einstein typically argued that science progresses through steady evolution, not through revolutionary breaks with the past. He saw his theory of relativity not as something from scratch, but a natural extension of the classical physics developed by pioneers such as Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei and English physicist Isaac Newton in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as well as nineteenth-century physicists.
The authors highlight how classical physics cannot be separated cleanly from modem Einsteinian physics. The book also includes substantial sections on Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus and Galileo whose methods inspired Einstein. When Einstein considered himself as standing on their shoulders, he meant that, without their contributions, he would not have formulated(阐述) the theory of relativity.
The Einsteinian Revolution is an important and thought-provoking contribution to the scholarly literature on Einstein and his surprising scientific creativity between 1905 and 1925. Gutfreund and Renn might not have given the final answer as to why Einstein, of all people, revolutionized physics in the way that he did. But they argue in fascinating detail that, to understand his genius, one must take into account not just the earlier history of physics but also the history of knowledge more broadly. Although not always an easy read, the book will interest physicists and historians alike.
1. Where is the text most probably taken from?| A．An essay on Albert Einstein. | B．An introduction to a book |
| C．A guidebook to a course. | D．A review of physics development |
| A．Unclear. | B．Favorable. | C．Dismissive | D．Opposing. |
| A．Up to standard | B．From nothing. |
| C．By learning from others. | D．With previous knowledge. |
| A．Their ideas were rejected by Einstein， |
| B．Their devotion to physics impressed Einstein |
| C．Their researches contributed to Einstein’s success. |
| D．Their hard work deserved the worldwide respect. |
