1 . J. K. Rowling frequently shows there is magic every day. Her Harry Potter series has helped people through times of stress and depression and she is always there to deliver wise words of encouragement.
She is one celebrity who is very active on Twitter. So when a single dad named Matt Burke sent her a message thanking her for the series, she noticed. Her series had helped strengthen his relationship with his 9yearold daughter Bailey.
He included a link to his article titled Being a Broke Parent. He explained how he hadn’t found a level of financial stability that allowed him to pay bills on time and take his daughter on more activities and events. The family also doesn’t have the Internet or TV, which means there’s no “digital babysitter” and he has to rely on his own creative ways to bond with his daughter. Since he received the series, the main thing that has occupied them these days is reading books together.
Burke admits that he thought he was “too cool” for the books when they first came out and he was in his twenties, but he’s loving reading them now. “We switch off chapter by chapter reading them out loud，“Burke explains.” This not only allows her to get more used to reading aloud in front of someone, but it gets me directly involved in something she loves, and it gives me the chance to be very dramatic when I read my chapters and bring myself into the characters in the book, which has proven to be a ton of fun.”
After hearing Burke’s story, Rowling said how honored she was when Harry Potter was a part of his family’s life and offered Burke more books. Besides, people are also offering to send Burke more books as gifts. For Burke, this experience, far more than gifts, will be what he treasures.
1. Why did Burke thank J. K. Rowling according to the text?| A．She guided him how to write a good story. |
| B．She encouraged him when he was in trouble. |
| C．Her books helped him through times of confusion. |
| D．Her books helped him improve his bond with his daughter. |
| A．He has found it interesting to read the series. | B．He was too old to understand the series better. |
| C．He has chosen a better way of reading the series. | D．He hopes to play a role in the drama in the future. |
| A．Useless. | B．Normal. | C．Valuable. | D．Boring. |
| A．J. K. Rowling chooses to help improve kids’ health. |
| B．J. K. Rowling gives a magical gift to a single father. |
| C．J. K. Rowling has a deep influence on others’ growth. |
| D．Burke comes to know J. K. Rowling through her series. |
2 . A tree planting initiative in Kenya has seen over 30,000 trees being planted. The Green Generation Initiative is a Kenyan charity that has been planting trees to counter climate change and the reduction in forest in the East African nation since 2016.
Founded by climate activist Elizabeth Wathuti, the initiative's primary focus is on developing young climate activists through environmental education in schools and addressing food insecurity in the region through planting fruit trees. Since its foundation, over 30,000 trees have been planted in Kenya, while thousands of school children have not just planted trees but adopted them to ensure that young people learn the importance of acting as a guardian of the health of the environment. The trees have recorded a survival rate of over 98 percent, as they continue growing from young trees to maturity.
Speaking to world leaders at the recent UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow (COP26)，Elizabeth issued a serious warning about the threat of climate change: “Over two million of Kenyans are facing climaterelated starvation. In 2025, half of the world's population will be facing water shortage. By the time I'm 50, the climate crisis will displace over 80 million people in subSaharan Africa alone.”
Elizabeth said, “I have been doing what I can.Inspired by the great Wangari Maathai, I founded a tree growing initiative that enhances food security for young Kenyans. So far, we have grown 30，000 fruit trees, providing desperately needed nutrition for thousands of children.” “Every day we see that when we look after the trees, they look after us. We are the adults on this Earth right now, and it is our responsibility to ensure that the children have food and water, ”she added.
1. What is the initiative intended for?| A．Making policies. |
| B．Raising money. |
| C．Educating adults. |
| D．Fighting climate change. |
| A．Hunger. | B．Sickness. |
| C．Water shortage. | D．Economic risks. |
| A．Over 3,000 trees have been planted. |
| B．Green awareness has been raised. |
| C．Over 80 million people have been saved. |
| D．School education has been guaranteed. |
| A．Friendly and talented. |
| B．Caring and responsible. |
| C．Honest and determined. |
| D．Ambitious and humorous. |
3 . I began to grow up that winter night when my parents and I were returning from my aunt’s house, and my mother said that we might soon be leaving for America. We were on the bus then. I was crying, and some people on the bus were turning around to look at me. I remember that I could not bear the thought of never hearing again the radio program for school children to which I listened every morning.
I do not remember myself crying for this reason again. In fact, I think I cried very little when I was saying goodbye to my friends and relatives. When we were leaving I thought about all the places I was going to see — the strange and magical places I had known only from books and pictures. The country I was leaving never to come back was hardly in my head then.
The four years that followed taught me the importance of optimism, but the idea did not come to me at once. For the first two years in New York I was really lost — having to study in three schools as a result of family moves. I did not quite know what I was or what I should be. Mother remarried, and things became even more complex for me. Some time passed before my stepfather and I got used to each other. I was often sad, and saw no end to “the hard times.”
My responsibilities in the family increased a lot since I knew English better than everyone else at home. I wrote letters, filled out forms, translated at interviews with Immigration officers, took my grandparents to the doctor and translated there, and even discussed telephone bills with company representatives.
From my experiences I have learned one important rule: almost all common troubles eventually go away! Something good is certain to happen in the end when you do not give up, and just wait a little! I believe that my life will turn out all right, even though it will not be that easy.
1. How did the author get to know America?| A．From her relatives. | B．From her mother. |
| C．From books and pictures. | D．From radio. |
| A．confused | B．excited | C．worried | D．amazed |
| A．She worked as a translator | B．She attended a lot of job interviews |
| C．She paid telephone bills for her family | D．She helped her family with her English |
| A．her future will be free from troubles | B．it is difficult to learn to become patient |
| C．there are more good things than bad things | D．good things will happen if one keeps trying. |
4 . A huge section of the Milne Ice Shelf, located on Ellesmere Island in the northern Canada, collapsed into the Arctic Ocean, according to the Canadian Ice Service. This created an “ice island” which is about 30 square miles in size. As a comparison, Manhattan Island is about 23 square miles.
“Entire cities are that size. These are big pieces of ice,” Luke Copland, a glaciologist at the University of Ottawa who was part of the research team studying the ice shelf, told Reuters. “This was the largest remaining intact (完整的) ice shelf, and it’s collapsed, basically. ”
The Canadian Ice Service said on Twitter that “above-normal air temperatures, offshore winds and open water in front of the ice shelf are all part of the recipe for the ice shelf to break up.” A huge section of the Milne Ice Shelf has collapsed into the Arctic Ocean, producing a 30-square-mile ice island.
The ice shelf has now been reduced in area by about 43%. An ice shelf is a thick slab of ice, attached to a coastline and extending out over the ocean, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. “Some shelves have existed for thousands of years,” the center said.
So what’s going on up there? Though the planet is warming worldwide due to climate change, the Arctic has been warming at a rate twice that of the rest of the world. This summer has been particularly warm: Arctic sea ice melted to its lowest July level on record and in June, a town in Siberia soared (急升) to 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit, believed to be a record high for the Arctic.
“When I first visited those ice caps, they seemed like such a permanent fixture of the landscape,” Mark Serreze, director of the NSIDC and geographer at the University of Colorado, Boulder, said in a statement. “To watch them die in less than 40 years just blows me away.”
1. Why does the author mention Manhattan Island in Paragraph 1?| A．To stress that Manhattan Island is vital for Canada. |
| B．To introduce where Manhattan Island locates. |
| C．To say the great collapse is terrible. |
| D．To compare two different places. |
| A．Its location. |
| B．Its huge body. |
| C．Special intact form. |
| D．Higher air temperatures. |
| A．Arctic sea ice melted to its lowest in June. |
| B．Climate change brings about great changes. |
| C．The earth is warming because of the loss of ice shelf. |
| D．The Arctic warms more slowly than the rest of the world. |
| A．Shocked. | B．Humorous. |
| C．Scientific. | D．Neutral. |
5 . To improve road safety and raise awareness among Russia’s notoriously (臭名昭著地) careless drivers, Russian police have tried to get drivers to slow down at zebra (斑马) crossings by having painted horses as zebras walk across on the busiest streets in some of the big cities.
The light grey horses, painted with black stripes (条纹), carried signs on their backs reading: “Careful, children are on their way to school.” The police sent the “zebras” to several different locations in the Russian capital, where officials in orange vests walked them over zebra crossings and handed out leaflets (传单) to passing drivers.
Some held up rainbow-coloured umbrellas over the painted animals to protect them from the rain. Russian roads are notoriously dangerous and drivers still rarely take steps to avoid pedestrians (行人). Nearly half of all traffic accidents in the country’s big cities are caused by cars hitting pedestrians, and a third of those occur on crossings, according to traffic police figures published last month.
In the first six months of this year, 378 people were killed and more than 6, 600 injured on pedestrian crossings in Russia, according to police. In Moscow alone, 43 people were killed, including two children.
Though police officials said that only safe paint would be used on the animals, animal rights activists still disagreed with the idea, accusing the police of “treating animals like garbage”.
“Children understand that paints are bad for animals,” the Interfax news agency quoted (引用) president of Vita animal rights group Irina Novozhilova as saying.
Let’s hope this part of the campaign is over and animals are left out of future attempts to raise pedestrians’ awareness.
1. Why do Moscow police have “zebras” walk across on the busiest streets?| A．To make a call on protecting animals. |
| B．To raise drivers’ awareness of road safety. |
| C．To tell people it is dangerous to cross streets. |
| D．To remind people zebras are in danger of extinction. |
| A．the driving skills of Russian drivers are bad. |
| B．Russian drivers often ignore traffic lights. |
| C．Russian drivers seldom give way to pedestrians |
| D．most Russian drivers have realized the seriousness of the problem. |
| A．Drivers must slow down at pedestrian crossings. |
| B．Road safety should be improved. |
| C．The paints used on the horses are safe. |
| D．These animals are ill-treated by the police. |
| A．Critical. | B．Confident. | C．Doubtful. | D．Positive. |
6 . Plenty of audiences have warned: don’t see the new French movie The Taste of Things on an empty stomach. Juliette Binoche plays a longtime personal cook to a man who’s a gourmand (美食家). They share a passion for food. Filled with delicious meals, the film celebrates food, and all the work and love that go into making it.
When you see a delicious meal in a movie or an ad, chances are that it’s not fit to eat. Food stylists have been known to substitute glue for milk, and coat meat with motor oil. All this was a big “No” for Vietnamese French director Tran Anh Hung.
Tran says he wanted everything in The Taste of Things “to be real,” from the raw ingredients (食材) to the menu to the way the cooks move in the kitchen. Real food can’t always handle multiple takes. Plus, Tran needed to show dishes at different stages of preparation. So he needed a lot of everything. For a classic French dish, “we needed 40 kilos of meat for the shooting.” He also had to find vegetables that looked like they were harvested in the 19th century. “They’re not as beautiful as today,” he says, “They’re not straight, and they have many spots on the skin.”
After doing extensive research into the history of French cuisine and working with a historian, Tran enlisted three-star chef Pierre Gagnaire to make sure the menu he’d come up with worked in real life.
Gagnaire also cooked for Tran for five days, so the director could study his movements in preparation for filming. Tran says watching Gagnaire move around the kitchen taught him that “simplicity is important and you don’t need to have the perfect gesture for this or that. You need only to be very free.” Gagnaire says the movie feels like a gift. “For my creativity, it’s an honor,” he says. The famous chef agreed to take a small part in the film.
“When you leave this film, you feel calm because instead of violence, there’s tenderness,” Gagnaire says.
1. What can we say about The Taste of Things?| A．It shows that food represents love. |
| B．It gives audience a good appetite. |
| C．Its characters only focus on cooking. |
| D．Its story is based on a food stylist. |
| A．Romantic. | B．Caring. |
| C．Demanding. | D．Humorous. |
| A．To get a role in Tran’s movie. |
| B．To give Tran some inspiration. |
| C．To test Tran’s menu for the film. |
| D．To show Tran his food creativity. |
| A．To show a film shooting style. | B．To recommend a film. |
| C．To call on people to save food. | D．To promote food culture. |
7 . Every year, young, talented, and ambitious nature conservationists from all over the world participate in the presentation of the Future For Nature (FFN) Award, an honorable international award.
The Future For Nature aims to:
• Reward and fund individuals for their outstanding efforts in the protection of species of wildlife.
• Encourage winners to sustain their dedicated work.
·• Help winners to raise their profiles, extend their professional network and strengthen their funding basis.
Benefits
• The winners each receive 50,000 euros and may make their own decision to spend the money in the service of nature conservation.
• FFN offers the winners a platform and brings their stories to the attention of conservationists, financiers and a wide audience, allowing them to increase their impact and gain more access to funds.
• FFN is building a growing family of winners, dedicated people who form a community of people with the same interest. FFN offers them the opportunity to meet each other and continue to learn with each other in order to continue their fight for nature as efficiently and effectively as possible.
Qualifications
The candidate (候选人):
• Must be born on or after the 31st May 1988 and before the 28th of August 2005.
• Is able to explain his/her conservation work in fluent English (written and spoken)
• Has achieved substantial and long-term benefits to the conservation status of one or more animal or plant species.
• Must be determined to continue his/her conservation work, as the Award aims to stimulate the winner’s future work. It is not an “end of career” prize.
Additional Remarks
For the 2024 Future For Future Awards, we are again searching for natural leaders, who have proven that they can make a difference in species’ survival.
From all applications, 6 to 10 nominees (被提名者) will be selected. These applicants will be asked to provide additional information, which will be used to select the final Awardees. Ultimately, three inspiring wildlife heroes are selected as the winners.
Application Process: Apply online through the Apply Now link.
Application Deadline: 28th August, 2023
1. Which is one of the aims of the Future For Nature?| A．To aid more green groups | B．To fund academic education. |
| C．To inspire conservation efforts. | D．To raise environmental awareness. |
| A．consult top specialists | B．meet those who are of the same ambition |
| C．benefit the local community | D．promote self-created platforms |
| A．meet the age requirement | B．apply via mail by the deadline |
| C．turn in the application in English | D．provide additional personal information |
8 . Brisbane is an exciting city, voted as one of the most livable cities in Australia. Its fine food will make you hate to leave. Here are four famous restaurants.
Kingsleys Steak & Crab House
Located on the waterfront of the Brisbane River with views of the Story Bridge, Kingsleys Steak & Crab House supplies an incomparable ideal setting for lunch or dinner. With impressive views and a combination of both indoor and outdoor seating, it attracts a lot of tourists to have a unique dining experience here. It also offers fresh seafood, including Alaska king crabs, high-grade wine and friendly staff.
Rates per person: $35 — $45
Moo Moo The Wine Bar
Moo Moo The Wine Bar is an award-winning chain of lakeside dining sites. Originally, it was founded in 2005 by Steven Adams, a well-known chef. Moo Moo has since claimed many awards, including Queensland’s Best Steak Restaurant 2008, Gold Riverside Restaurant of the Year 2007, and Gold Coast’s Best Steak Restaurant.
Rates per person: $40－$45
Jellyfish Restaurant
The beautiful views over the Brisbane River are just a starter to come from Jellyfish Restaurant. Its aim is to source and serve fishes of 8 species daily, to learn and understand the texture and qualities of each species and recommend the best way to cook to its customers and serve for the fine experience.
Rates per person: $30－$45
Tibetian Kitchen
For a fine dining experience in Brisbane, it is hard to go past Tibetian Kitchen founded by the award-winning well-known chef Matt Moran. With a beautiful setting on the bank of the Brisbane River, Tibetian Kitchen is all about beautifully presented dishes which look like pieces of perfect artwork. This is what Tibetian Kitchen differs from other restaurants above.
Rates per person: $35－$45
1. What makes Kingsleys Steak & Crab House attractive to tourists?| A．Its great seafood. | B．Its friendly service. |
| C．Its high-grade wine. | D．Its beautiful dining surroundings. |
| A．Kingsleys Steak & Crab House. | B．Moo Moo The Wine Bar. |
| C．Jellyfish Restaurant. | D．Tibetian Kitchen. |
| A．Its environment is elegant. | B．Its food rates are much lower. |
| C．Its chefs have won many awards. | D．Its food presentation is rather pleasing. |
9 . Malin Pinsky had the first of two lightbulb moments in 2003 while crossing Drake Passage. He was then standing on the bridge of a research ship and was scanning the sky for seabirds, which was one of his duties as a research technician on the cruise (海上航游). Just five months earlier he had finished college, where he studied biology and environmental science.
As the ship entered nutrient-rich Antarctic waters, whales suddenly showed up all around the ship. That moment on the bridge helped him realize that the ocean looks featureless from the top, but there’s so much going on underneath.
The second lightbulb moment hit him several months later. Pinsky was then an intern (实习生) in Washington, D.C. His job was making photocopies. It was around the time when two big reports had come out. Both focused on what policies might best preserve U.S. ocean resources. “I realized we have all these laws and policies that determine how we as a society interact with the ocean. But they’re far out of date. We don’t yet have the science to know what the new policy should be,” Pinsky said.
Today he runs a lab with about 20 workers. His team wants to seek how our changing climate, as well as overfishing and habitat destruction, might be driving changes in fish and other animals in the sea. To find out, team members travel each year to coral reefs near the Philippines. There, they carefully catalog populations of different fish. They collect data on the growth and mating of these fish, their diversity and other factors.
“Pinsky’s broad approach to the problem — looking at species, where they live and how fisheries are managed — is setting the pace for other scientists,” says Kimberly Oremus, a fishery economist at the University of Delaware in Newark. “Pinsky is pushing the whole field to respond to his growing body of research.”
1. What made Pinsky have the first lightbulb moment?| A．The vastness of the ocean. |
| B．The sight of seabirds in the sky. |
| C．The view of Drake Passage. |
| D．The appearance of whales around the ship. |
| A．He needed to take more photos of oceans. |
| B．He should do something to update ocean policies. |
| C．The U.S. ocean resources need to be better preserved. |
| D．There have already been perfect policies to preserve the ocean. |
| A．The harm of overfishing. |
| B．Features of different fish. |
| C．Factors affecting ocean ecosystems. |
| D．The reasons for global warming. |
| A．Positive. | B．Doubtful. | C．Disapproving. | D．Uninterested. |
10 . As we close out the final days of this year, treat yourself to a deliciously distracting new book —a book that you can dip into and out of throughout the holidays. Read up, rest up, and enjoy yourself.
Yoga for Pregnancy, Birth and beyond
A must-have guide for yoga-loving mamas, Yoga for Pregnancy, Birth and Beyond offers helpful relaxation techniques and breathing exercises that are tailored to each pregnant woman. The book also lays out valuable techniques for labor and staying in touch with your body as it continuously changes.
Mindfulness Activities for Kids
We could all use a little more peace in our lives. Uniquely suited for children and parents to do together, the 40 mindfulness exercises recommended here —from pausing to fully enjoy a tasty sandwich to taking chalk walk together—will not only teach children calm and gratitude, but also bring grown-ups and their littles closer together.
Before She Disappeared
Frankie Elkin is a recovering alcoholic who devotes her time to solving cold cases, especially those involving people of color. A new investigation brings her to Boston, searching for a Haitian teenager who disappeared months ago. But as Frankie starts asking questions, someone else will stop at nothing to keep the answers hidden.
Oak Flat
Lauren Redniss’ Oak Flat tells the story of the land near the San Carlos Apache Reservation through an Apache family fighting to protect the land which the U. S. government and two world-power mining enterprises are attempting to seize and destroy for its copper resources. Visually striking and deeply reported, Oak Flat tells a larger story of endless westward expansion and native resistance.
1. Which book can help to improve family relations?| A．Oak Flat. |
| B．Before She Disappeared. |
| C．Mindfulness Activities for Kids. |
| D．Yoga for Pregnancy, Birth and Beyond. |
| A．It’s a brief account of mining enterprises. |
| B．It centers on an Apache family’s struggle. |
| C．It sings high praise of the US government. |
| D．It supports westward expansion and native resistance. |
| A．Teenagers. | B．Men. | C．Kids. | D．Grown-ups. |
