1 . When was the last time you told someone they inspire you to go to work each morning?
Teachers at Oak Park High School in Kansas City, Missouri, did just that this September, when they pulled individual students out of class to tell them just how much they appreciated them. The students’ reactions, which were captured on video and shared on YouTube, ranged from shy thanks to hugs and tears.
“I have been challenged to find a student who makes me want to come to school every day,” says one teacher in the video, “and that’s you.”
Jamie McSparin, a teacher in charge of the school’s academy program for at- risk sophomores (二年级学生) and juniors, posed the challenge, writes ABC News. “Initially when we pulled the kids out, they all thought they were in trouble,” McSparin told ABC News. “Any teacher-student interaction always seems to be negative, and that was something that bothered me, too. No matter if they’re good kids or troublemakers, they always thought they were in trouble,” she says.
McSparin says she got the idea for the project after attending a professional development workshop this summer called the power of positivity. “I like the idea of letting students know they are appreciated, because we do appreciate them, I just don’t think we say it enough,” she told local news outlet WDAF-TV.
It’s safe to say the challenge was effective.
“I feel special,” said one of the boys in the video. “You should,” said his teacher. “You are special.”
1. What does the underlined word “ posed” in Paragraph4 mean?| A．Presented | B．Rejected | C．Ignored | D．Evaluated |
| A．Nervous | B．Thrilled | C．Curious | D．Encouraged |
| A．The trouble caused by students. | B．The need of shooting the video. |
| C．A seminar named the power of positivity. | D．A program related to students’ interactions. |
| A．Challenge is unavoidable in life. | B．Everyone needs to be appreciated. |
| C．Positivity outweighs negativity. | D．News media contribute to students’ progress. |
2 . Cycling Tours in Europe & Asia
Cycling the Balkans
Duration: 15 days
The Balkans offers a mix of beautiful countryside, fast-developing cities and historic towns. Our first ride ends at the UNESCO town of Ohrid on the vast lake of the same name. There are a few stops along the way to visit or see places of interest.
Cycling the Italian and Swiss Lakes
Duration: 8 days
The Italian lakes of Como and Maggiore are famed for both their wonderful scenery and their wealthy residents. This is a fascinating area to discover on two wheels with excellent roads that closely follow the winding shores. The Villa del Balbianello with its beautiful Italian gardens may look familiar, having been seen in international movies such as Bond's Casino Royale.
Self-Guided Cycling in the Douro Valley
Duration: 7 days
This cycling holiday in the Douro Valley will make you familiar with magical surroundings, delicious cuisine and some of the world's finest wines. The ride begins in Castelo Rodrigo, a village close to where Portugal borders Spain, and home to an ancient caste. You'll cycle through vineyards and visit the famous Port wine estates (庄园).
Exploring Sri Lanka by Bike
Duration: 8 days
Being an island, Sri Lanka is incredibly diverse. Exploring on two wheels is the best way to see this rural country and to experience the way of life of its friendly people. We travel from ancient cities to the hill county towns of Kandy and Nuwara Eliya before ending the trip on the beaches of the beautiful south coast.
1. What's special about the Balkans tour?| A．It has fantastic island scenery. | B．It is hosted by the Ohrid government. |
| C．It's a continuous ride with no stops. | D．It combines history and the present. |
| A．Visit Spanish gardens. | B．Enjoy the beaches of the south coast. |
| C．Pick grapes in the vineyards. | D．Acquire knowledge of wines. |
| A．Self-Guided Cycling in the Douro Valley. | B．Cycling the Italian and Swiss Lakes. |
| C．Exploring Sri Lanka by Bike. | D．Cycling the Balkans. |
3 . After-hours events in 2020
Join us after hours for a special programme of unique events throughout 2020 at Shakespeare’s Birthplace. When the crowds have left and our beautiful buildings are quiet, we invite you to try something different.
The Art of Design with Lee Lapthorne – 9 March
Join artist Lee Lapthorne for a private evening when he will show two pieces of furniture inspired by our collections and discuss his process of reinventing pieces of furniture to create something new.
Venue (举办地点): The Shakespeare Centre
Poetry with Punch – 8 June
Come and meet Matt Windle, the “Poet with Punch” and Birmingham’s Poet Laureate 2016 – 2018 for a unique workshop, full of tips and advice to help you get your poetry moving. Suitable for beginners, this workshop will get you thinking about taking the next steps to create writing!
Tickets: £10 per adult
Venue: The Shakespeare Centre
Over Throne – 9 November
The frequent changing of rulers is nothing new. Join us for an evening of performance and discussion as we take a look at the bad rulers that were overthrown in Shakespeare’s plays. This is hosted by our Senior Lecturer in Shakespeare Studies, Dr. Anjna Chouhan.
Tickets: £10 per adult
Venue: The Shakespeare Centre
Herbs for Health – 12 October
Growing in the Hall’s Croft garden are the secret recipes to natural good health. Find out more about the medicine used by the Tudors that still influences our well-being ( 康 乐 ) today. Using herbs and sharing recipes, you will learn the theories behind natural medicine. Reserve your spot before availability.
Tickets: £10 per adult Venue: Hall’s Croft
1. When can you see the reinvented furniture?| A．On 12 October. | B．On 8 June |
| C．On 9 November. | D．On 9 March. |
| A．Enjoy a performance. | B．Learn to be a lecturer. |
| C．Visit the Hall’s Croft garden. | D．Perform in Shakespeare’s plays. |
| A．Poetry with Punch. | B．Herbs for Health. |
| C．Over Throne. | D．The Art of Design with Lee Lapthorne. |
As many as two-thirds of the city’s 21 million residents live in slums. “Most girls are trapped in a terrible cycle of poverty. Many of them are not thinking of education, a plan for the future,” Abisoye Ajayi-Akinfolarin, a computer programmer in Lagos, recalls. But several times a week, girls like Okpoe get a glimpse of another world when they attend GirlsCoding, a free program run by the Pearls Africa Foundation that seeks to educate and excite girls about computer programming. Since 2012, the group has helped more than 400 disadvantaged girls gain the technical skills and confidence they need to transform their lives.
It’s the vision of Ajayi-Akinfolarin, who left a successful career to devote herself to this work. She'd noticed how few women worked in this growing field-a 2013 government survey found that less than 8% of Nigerian women were employed in technology jobs. She wanted to fix the gender gap. “Technology is a space that’s dominated by men. Why should we leave that to guys?” she said. “I believe girls need opportunities.”
Now, dozens of girls aged 10 to 17 get trained in computer programming technology. “I believe you can still find diamonds in these places,” Ajayi-Akinfolarin said. “They need to be shown another life.” One way her program does this is by taking the students to visit tech companies — not only showing them what technology can do, but also helping them visualize themselves joining the industry.
Okpoe, for one, has taken this to heart. She helped create an app called Makoko Fresh that went live this summer, enabling fishermen like her father to sell seafood directly to customers. She even wants to become a software engineer and hopes to study computer science at Harvard. “One thing I want my girls to hold onto is, regardless of where they are coming from, that they can make it,” Ajayi said. “They are coders. They are thinkers. Their future is bright.”
1. What can we learn about GirlsCoding?| A．It encourages girls to land a job in education. |
| B．It offers Nigerian girls in need part-time jobs. |
| C．It helps girls working in Lagos to fight poverty. |
| D．It teaches girls in Makoko computer programming. |
| A．Men could do far better in technology jobs. |
| B．Girls should get equal work opportunities. |
| C．Men normally got paid more than women. |
| D．Girls tended to devote themselves to work. |
| A．Rebuilding the girls’ confidence. |
| B．Training the girls to find diamonds. |
| C．Presenting a different life to the girls. |
| D．Taking the girls to technology companies. |
| A．She got fishermen to benefit from her app. |
| B．She was admitted to Harvard University. |
| C．She took her father’s suggestion to heart. |
| D．She made some changes to computer science. |
5 . Two years ago, my friend and I were at college. With his birthday quickly approaching, he came to me with an unusual
I was
Our university employed some security guards to
We decided to make a large pot of hot
| A．order | B．request | C．problem | D．story |
| A．stuck | B．blessed | C．burdened | D．bored |
| A．traditional | B．complex | C．familiar | D．novel |
| A．plan out | B．take over | C．watch for | D．hold back |
| A．judge | B．help | C．monitor | D．protect |
| A．step by step | B．around the clock | C．more or less | D．now and then |
| A．addicted | B．devoted | C．attached | D．accustomed |
| A．presence | B．hunger | C．poverty | D．thirsty |
| A．tea | B．milk | C．porridge | D．chocolate |
| A．workers | B．students | C．guards | D．drivers |
| A．finally | B．initially | C．occasionally | D．frequently |
| A．remind | B．track | C．spot | D．recognize |
| A．spread | B．moved | C．happened | D．returned |
| A．friends | B．difficulties | C．greetings | D．smiles |
| A．similar | B．small | C．daily | D．modest |
6 . I arrived in this beautiful Spanish island at the start of September, full of enthusiasm and eager to start work as an English teacher. I sorted all the necessary paperwork out and moved into a flat of my own within the first couple of days. Great! Or so I thought. At 4 am and at several intervals after that, I was rudely awoken by the cock that lives opposite me. Fantastic! I now have 5 extra alarms every morning.
In the following weeks, I also started to notice a trend. Things in my flat started to break at the rate of one object per day, like the hot water, bowls, cups, shower, doors or glass shelves. Yes, I am clumsy but things just fell apart. If it wasn’t broken, it would either be dirty or missing. Using my washing basket for the first time was pretty disgusting. When I took out my clothes, they were swiftly followed by a hundred or so bugs that were living in the bottom.
As for the general lack of equipment in the house, there was no oven, tin opener, sharp knives or potato peeler. It turns out making a burger from scratch wasn’t the best idea. I have a small microwave and a grill. I thought the general understanding was never to put metal in a microwave but I went with it. Smoke soon started to appear. I was not quite sure if it was the burger or the grill but as soon as I opened the door, the electricity cut out. I spent the following 10 minutes in a dark, smoky room hunting for the power switch using the light from my mobile phone, which broke the week after and left me without a connection to the outer world.
Luckily, I’m now borrowing a phone and my luck has returned. No more things have broken (probably because there is nothing left to break). I’ve also realized that even if a flat looks pretty, it doesn’t mean its contents work. I am also learning how to adapt to life with limited, broken utensils (厨房用具).
1. What problem did the author have in the morning?| A．She got some noisy neighbors. | B．Her sleep was disturbed by a rooster. |
| C．She often slept late. | D．Her alarm failed to work. |
| A．Her household articles were in poor condition. |
| B．Her flat was pretty old but comfortable. |
| C．She was quite satisfied with her flat. |
| D．She was a very careful woman. |
| A．She broke her phone accidentally. | B．She suffered a sudden power failure. |
| C．She was seriously injured. | D．She made a terrible mistake. |
| A．Learning to live in a new flat. | B．Why living abroad is not easy. |
| C．Remaining optimistic. | D．How to choose a nice flat. |
7 . Following the outbreak of the novel coronavirus pneumonia (NCP), also named COVID-19 by WHO, there is a general fear of the unknown virus as its full effects remain to be seen. Fever, coughing, sore throat, difficulty breathing —the NCP’s symptoms are similar to the common cold or the flu, but it’s potentially more dangerous.
Viruses could be deadly, like HIV and Ebola. But what are viruses? How can they cause so much trouble?
Viruses are non-living organisms (有机体) approximately one-millionth of an inch long. Unlike human cells or bacteria, they can’t reproduce on their own. Instead, they invade the cells of living organisms to reproduce, spread and take over.
Viruses can infect every living thing – from plants and animals down to the smallest bacteria. For this reason, they always have the potential to be dangerous to human life. Sometimes a virus can cause a disease so serious that it is fatal. Other viral infections trigger no noticeable reaction.
Viruses lie around our environment all of the time, waiting for a host cell to come along. They can enter our bodies by the nose, mouth, eyes or breaks in the skin. Once inside, they try to find a host cell to infect. For example, HIV, which causes AIDS, attacks the T-cells of the immune system.
But the basic question is, where did viruses first come from? Until now, no clear explanation for their origin exists. “Tracing the origins of viruses is difficult”, Ed Rybicki, a virologist (病毒学家) at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, told Scientific American, “because viruses don’t leave fossils and because of the tricks they use to make copies of themselves within the cells they’ve invaded”.
However, there are three main hypotheses (假说) to explain the origin of viruses. First, viruses started as independent organisms, then became parasites (寄生者). Second, viruses evolved from pieces of DNA or RNA that “escaped” from larger organisms. Third, viruses co-evolved with their host cells, which means they existed alongside these cells.
For the time being, these are only theories. The technology and evidence we have today cannot be used to test these theories and identify the most plausible explanation. Continuing studies may provide us with clearer answers. Or future studies may reveal that the answer is even murkier (含糊不清的) than it now appears.
1. What can we learn about viruses from the text?| A．Viruses have nothing to do with the common cold. |
| B．Viruses are really small living organisms. |
| C．Viruses can’t reproduce unless they find a host cell. |
| D．Viruses enter our bodies mainly through the mouth, nose and hair. |
| A．They evolved from the fossils of large organisms. |
| B．They evolved from parasites into independent organisms. |
| C．They evolved from the T-cells in animals. |
| D．They evolved along with their host cells. |
| A．reasonable | B．common |
| C．creative | D．unbelievable |
| A．Viruses live longer in human host cells than in animals’. |
| B．Viruses will become more like bacteria as they evolve. |
| C．It may take a long time to understand the origin of viruses. |
| D．The author is optimistic about future virus research. |
8 . East Africa is experiencing the worst desert locust outbreak in decades. Climate events have accelerated breeding of the pest across the region, and with a sudden rise in the locust population expected in coming weeks, urgent actions and funds are needed to prevent a human crisis.
Twenty million people in six of the eight East African countries are most affected by an ongoing desert locust outbreak at risk of serious food insecurity. Considered among the most destructive of moving pests, an adult locust can consume 2g of plants per day, affecting crops and grasslands. A group typically holds 20 to 150 million locusts per square kilometer and can move hundreds of kilometers per day, invading areas covering millions of square kilometers. An active group, therefore, can destroy crops and grasslands within a very short period of time.
That global warming could increase the risk of desert locust crisis was proposed over ten years ago, and in February, the UN Secretary-General António Guterres stated that the current outbreak is linked to the effects of climate change: “warmer seas mean more perfect breeding ground for locusts”. The outbreak has its origins in 2018, when a series of windstorms in the Arabian Peninsula (阿拉伯半岛) enabled the warm and wet conditions the desert locust requires to breed and band undetected in remote regions. Though our focus here is migration west, dreadful outbreaks of the desert locust have been experienced to the east.
The situation is going out of control. A rescue operation and financial support admit no delay.
The Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) can take out only US$138 million for rapid response and immediate action — controlling the spread of the desert locust and safeguarding livelihoods. They say the maths is clear: about half the funding (资助) is needed for supervision, ground and sky control, and uniting efforts; the other half is needed for livelihoods and food security of farmers. As for the huge gap, they have called on the international community to act now through funding. However, by the end of February, just US$69 million had been promised.
This most alarming crisis has developed and is worsening in East Africa. The funds needed to control the situation become very difficult to achieve and the gap is a big concern.
1. Why does the crisis happen in East Africa?| A．There is a big population there. |
| B．There are large deserts and grasslands. |
| C．Africa lies west of Arabian Peninsula. |
| D．Good climate for breeding plays a role. |
| A．To warn of the terrible damage by locusts. |
| B．To help us understand how locusts live. |
| C．To show how many locusts there are now. |
| D．To draw a picture of the present Africa. |
| A．The crisis is not noticed until recently. |
| B．More fund is needed to prevent the crisis. |
| C．The crisis has been the focus of the world. |
| D．Locusts are all from the Arabian Peninsula. |
| A．Killing locusts before too late |
| B．Global warming, a world problem |
| C．Funding Gap for Locust Crisis |
| D．Africa, a crisis-stricken place |
9 . Foods of the Future
We asked young scientists to write an advertisement that answers this question: How will food options, food availability, and individuals’ food choices change in the future? A selection of their suggested marketing campaigns is below. Read previous NextGen Voices survey results at http://science.sciencemag.org/collection/nextgen-voices. — Jennifer Sills
Personalized Meal PlansSend us your DNA, and we will predict your food preferences! Receive your personalized food basket, with a day-by-day diet program. We will send you full meals and personalized smoothies (水果奶昔) based on your genetic taste tendency.
Ada Gabriela Blidner
Twitter:@adagbb
Fresh FruitIf you miss sweet temperate fruits, welcome to our Moon Farm. Our fruit trees are planted in hybrid-soil and artificial air that reproduce Earth’s environment from 5000 years ago. Pick fruits with your family or ship to your doorstep with MoonEx. Freshness guaranteed.
Yongsheng Ji
Email: jiyongshengkey@hotmail.com
MeatOur steaks are sourced from natural grasslands, where cattle now fill the ecological roles. With FoodFootprint feeding system, we enhance natural grazing (放牧) to improve animal growth effectively while minimizing methane production and water consumption. At only $219.00/kg (including carbon taxes and ecological taxes), our steaks are affordable for the whole family.
Falko Buschke
Email: falko. buschke@gmail. com
1. Which of the following needs you to provide the information of your genes?| A．Meat. | B．Fresh Fruit. |
| C．NextGen Voices. | D．Personalized Meal Plans. |
| A．Jennifer Sills. | B．Yongsheng Ji. |
| C．Falko Buschke. | D．Ada Gabriela Blidner. |
| A．Fresh. | B．Green. |
| C．Expensive. | D．Personalized. |
10 . JAYCE began noticing when he was 5 in kindergarten that others had two hands but he had one.
When one boy
"He
Lewis
It seemed that watching Trashaun would simply be a(n)
The boys met on a Saturday afternoon two months later, in April 2017.
The day was not spent being buried in self-pity—it was devoted to
Trashaun
Since that meeting, Lewis has seen a pronounced
| A．hit | B．teased | C．praised | D．attacked |
| A．questions | B．anxiety | C．requirements | D．surprise |
| A．hardly | B．casually | C．gradually | D．actually |
| A．head | B．hand | C．heart | D．back |
| A．admits | B．agrees | C．notices | D．accuses |
| A．got to | B．came to | C．looked at | D．turned on |
| A．purchasing | B．posting | C．attracting | D．donating |
| A．considering | B．using | C．missing | D．observing |
| A．hopefully | B．thankfully | C．carefully | D．excitedly |
| A．interesting | B．boring | C．thrilling | D．inspiring |
| A．disability | B．height | C．strength | D．idea |
| A．tired | B．worried | C．happy | D．hopeful |
| A．ordered | B．entered | C．asked | D．left |
| A．ambition | B．confidence | C．business | D．house |
| A．fun | B．talk | C．work | D．study |
| A．shot | B．grasp | C．caught | D．took |
| A．put up | B．waved down | C．lay down | D．talked about |
| A．increase | B．shake | C．build | D．lose |
| A．but | B．so | C．because | D．or |
| A．achievement | B．difficulty | C．difference | D．help |
