1 . In the age of online shopping and e-readers, devoted staff and customers keep the doors of Auntie's Bookstore open for 40 years. “When you're in Portland, you go to Powell's Books. When you're in Seattle, you go to Elliott Bay. When you're in Spokane, you go to Auntie's,” said John Waite, the owner of the bookstore. “I can't imagine Spokane without Auntie's,” he said. “A lot of people can't imagine Spokane without Auntie's, either,” Waite said.
Turning visitors into regular customers is important to the store's success. Auntie's markets itself as a destination. A half-dozen book clubs meet there. Most weeks, the store hosts two to four author readings or literary events. “We want people to come down, hang out and experience the feel of having a book in their hands,” Waite said.
Eager readers not only want to read books, but want to discuss them, said Kerry Halls, the store manager. Auntie's offers them that chance, she said.
“You can't go to Amazon and talk to someone about your favorite novel, or discuss what you think of the latest Stephen King's book compared with Pet Sematary,” she said.
To compete with the convenience of shopping online, Auntie's tries to predict what books will become a trend. They store these books in advance. But Waite doesn't sugarcoat the realities of selling books in the era of Amazon and other online retailers (零售店). “Even the big guys can’t make it,” he said, noting physical retailers are striving nationally. As the United States' oldest national bookstore chain, Barnes&Noble has to constantly reorganize to stop the declining sales.
At Auntie's, regular customers are very important to its survival and development. Sales of children's and young adults' books are increasing in recent years. Waite said. “For a long time, older customers have kept bookstores alive, "he said. "Now, it's starting to attract younger people.” Another reason of Auntie's longevity (长寿) is Northwest culture, which Waite said encourages new ways of thinking and the diversity of ideas. "I think it's a great book town, “Waite said. "People are enthusiastic about reading.”
1. What can we learn about Auntie's from Paragraph 1?| A．It is very popular in the local area. |
| B．It is a highly profitable physical bookstore. |
| C．It takes full advantage of the e-business platform. |
| D．It has a longer history than Powell's Books and Elliott Bay. |
| A．To set up a literary environment. |
| B．To have more regular customers. |
| C．To awaken people's interest in reading. |
| D．To encourage readers to learn about more authors. |
| A．Celebrating. | B．Progressing. | C．Struggling. | D．Compromising. |
| A．The future of Auntie's. |
| B．The major customers of Auntie's. |
| C．The influence of Auntie's. |
| D．The reasons for Auntie's longevity. |
2 . Christmas is on the way: 4 gift ideas from Stanford's bookshop.
Shipping Areas Tea Towel, £9. 99 (enjoying a 10% discount)
We are a nation of sailors who rely on weather forecasts to keep safe. This book will help you understand the shipping forecast, with the 30 shipping areas mentioned in the National Weather Service. So, the next time you turn on the radio and hear about high winds in Cromarty, Forth and Tyne, you'll know that they mean strong winds in these areas. You'll be wiser to make some preparations.
The Writer's Map, £30 (enjoying a 5% discount)
The Writer's Map combines maps and literature. Many writers use maps to plan out their stories. This book collects maps that appear in fiction and non-fiction. JRR Tolkien, a fantasy novel writer, said, “The fact that many books choose to contain one map is evidence to the importance of maps. I wisely started with a map, and made the story fit.”
Brutalist London Map, £8 (enjoying a 5% discount)
You either love it or you hate it. Said to have been coined (创造) in the late 1950s from the French raw concrete, brutalism (野兽派艺术) was a big influence on the 1960s London’s finest examples of brutalism. Brutalism maps of other cities, including Paris, Washington and Sydney, are also available.
The Ordnance Survey Puzzle Book, £14. 99 (enjoying a 10% & discount)
The national mapping agency, Ordnance Survey, has been mapping the Great Britain for many years. The Ordnance Survey Puzzle Book includes word puzzles and various mathematical challenges. It includes maps containing rare geographical characteristics or places of special cultural interest. It will make you look more closely at every map and test your map-reading knowledge.
1. Shipping Areas Tea Towel can help sailors ________.| A．know world-famous shipping areas |
| B．prepare for bad weather in advance |
| C．have the ability to predict weather |
| D．judge the quality of various ships |
| A．They are both brought out by the same publisher. |
| B．They both aim to test readers' map-reading skill. |
| C．They can both reflect the history of Britain. |
| D．They both include challenging puzzles. |
| A．To advertise four books. |
| B．To compare four books. |
| C．To appeal to people to read. |
| D．To show different maps. |
3 . Disease-carrying mosquitoes can spread diseases without affecting themselves. Nearly 700 million people get a mosquito-borne illness each year, which results in over one million deaths. Humans experience continuous pressures from disease-carrying mosquitoes in many parts of the world, so we have to find ways to fight against those insects because they keep getting scarier.
Even though DEET remains the most commonly used, and most powerful, mosquito repellent (防护剂) ever developed, scientists are actively pursuing effective products based entirely on plant oils. While DEET is an effective contact repellent, many people dislike the oily feel and smell on their skin, and sometimes some people are sensitive to it. Consumers are always interested in alternatives to DEET and other synthetic (合成的) repellents, so there are numerous natural repellents on the market.
In my lab at Iowa State University, my team and I have been conducting research on natural products as possible insect repellents for the past 20 years. In the past few years, three of my Ph. D. students have contributed greatly to our research by designing, synthesizing, purifying, characterizing and testing more than 300 closely related chemicals coming from the best of natural repellents like citronellol, menthol and thymol.
These students have successfully tested these repellents against three species of dangerous mosquitoes. The first group of the new repellents act through the air. These chemicals have a vapor action that provides protection. These are potentially most useful in backyards, parks, houses, barracks and horse barns. The other group of the new repellents are the classic ones that stop insects from standing on a treated surface, such as human skin, clothing or tents; some researchers have conducted testing on some humans to confirm the effectiveness and identify the very best ones.
The new repellents were designed and made from the natural materials in plant essential oils. They maintain many of the advantages of the natural repellents: They are fully biodegradable (可生物降解的), with no ecological concerns or environmental wastes, and generally considered safe like the thousands of types of plant essential oils used in the flavor and perfume industries. However, thorough testing will be conducted to determine if they are truly non-poisonous because there is still no enough evidence.
1. What does the author mainly want to show in Paragraph 1?| A．The way mosquitoes spread disease. |
| B．The high death rate of mosquito-borne illness. |
| C．The difficulty of fighting disease-carrying mosquitoes. |
| D．The urgency of finding tools to fight against mosquitoes |
| A．It causes discomfort to the users. |
| B．It greatly harms people's health. |
| C．It can't be applied universally. |
| D．It won't be effective for long. |
| A．They can kill mosquitoes indirectly. |
| B．They are mainly used in the open air. |
| C．They are more effective on human skin. |
| D．They can prevent mosquitoes from contacting users. |
| A．Disapproving | B．Negative | C．Objective | D．Subjective |
4 . Are your kids interested in science and technology? Help them sign up for any of the following programs, and your kids will thank you more than enough.
Science is Beautiful Arts Contest
Location: Canada
Project Type: Arts
Grade Level: 11-12
The “Science is Beautiful” arts contest is open to Canadian students in grades 11-12. Both individual and group entries are accepted. But there is a limit of one submission per individual or group. There is no restriction on the type of submission — your artwork can consist of photographs, sculptures, poems, songs or any other medium that allows you to share the beauty of science!
Tomatosphere Action Project
Location: Across Canada
Project Type: Data Collection
Grade Level: 10-12
Tomatosphere is a program that uses the excitement of space exploration to teach the skills and processes of scientific experimentation and inquiry. Participating classrooms compare the germination rate (发芽率) of tomato seeds which have been exposed to a space-like environment with that of a control set of seeds.
DNA Barcoding (条形编码) at the Toronto Zoo
Location: Toronto, Ontario
Project Type: Student Science Club
Grade Level: 7-12
DNA technology is in use right now to preserve and catalogue life’s biodiversity through a Canadian invention: the DNA barcode of life. This colourful barcode is already being used to fight the greatest crime of our lifetime — the loss of biodiversity. By adding information to a few exhibits at the zoo, high school students can witness the power of biotechnology in solving global issues.
Dandelion (蒲公英) Project
Location: Ontario
Project Type: Data Collection
Grade Level: 11
This dynamic and hands-on program focuses on studying evolution of a species available all around us: the dandelion. Students will actively make observations, generate predictions, design experiments, collect and analyze the data and communicate their findings.
1. The "Science is Beautiful" arts contest mainly sets a limit on _____.| A．the type of the artwork submitted |
| B．the number of the artwork submission |
| C．the ability to express the beauty of science |
| D．the number of the participating group members |
| A．Science is Beautiful Arts Contest. |
| B．Tomatosphere Action Project. |
| C．DNA Barcoding at the Toronto Zoo. |
| D．Dandelion Project. |
| A．By doing some practical activities in person. |
| B．By learning about the history of dandelions. |
| C．By asking experts about dandelions’ details. |
| D．By referring to previous studies on dandelions. |
5 . A Portland, Oregon man has become the first person to travel across Antarctica by himself without receiving any assistance.
Colin O’Brady has completed the 1,500-kilometer trip. He crossed the continent in 54 days. Friends, family and other people followed his progress through messages and pictures he left on social media.
O’Brady spoke with his wife Jenna Besaw by telephone soon after he completed the journey. “It was an emotional call,” she said. “He seemed overwhelmed by love and appreciation, and he really wanted to say ‘thank you’ to all of us.”
The 33-year-old O’Brady documented the trip on the social networking services Instagram. He called his journey “The Impossible First”. He wrote that he traveled the last 129 kilometers in one big, final push to the finish line. The distance took over one day to complete. O’Brady wrote, “While the last 32 hours were some of the most challenging hours of my life, they have quite honestly been some of the best moments I have ever experienced.”
The day before, he wrote that he was “in the zone” and thought he could make it to the end without stopping. “I was listening to my body and taking care of the details to keep myself safe,” he wrote. “I called home and talked to my mom, sister and wife. I promised them I would stop when I need to.”
Other people have traveled across Antarctica, but they all had some form of assistance. They either had better, more plentiful supplies or devices that helped move them forward.
In 2016, British explorer Henry Worsley died in his attempt to travel alone across Antarctica unassisted. Worsley’s friend Louis Rudd, also from Britain, is attempting an unaided solo journey in Worsley’s honor. He was competing against O’Brady to be the first to do it. Besaw told the Associated Press that her husband plans to stay in Antarctica until Rudd finishes his trip.
1. What did O’Brady think of his journey in Antarctica?| A．It was pleasant. | B．It was discouraging. |
| C．It was impossible to complete. | D．It was hard to complete. |
| A．Making sure of his safety. | B．Trying to achieve the goal. |
| C．Keeping in touch with them. | D．Stopping the travel halfway. |
| A．To wait for another explorer. | B．To compete with others. |
| C．To help other explorers. | D．To make his victory recognized. |
| A．The Antarctic Continent | B．The Impossible First |
| C．Traveling in Antarctica | D．An Incomplete Journey |
6 . Non-Credit Courses
The Pre-College Program offers non-credit courses. Students will experience college-level courses given by some of our college’s leading experts and will receive written feedback (反馈) on their work at the end of the course. Pre-College students will also receive a grade of Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory and a certificate of completion at the conclusion of the program.
All non-credit courses meet from 9:00 a. m.-11:30 a. m. daily and may have additional requirements in the afternoons or evenings.
COURSE: Case Studies in Neuroscience
·June 11— July 2
·Leah Roesch
Using student-centered, active-learning methods and real-world examples, this course is designed to provide a fuller understanding of how the human brain works.
COURSE: Psychology of Creativity
·June 15—June 28
·Marshall Duke
Why are certain people so creative? Is it genetic (遗传的), or a result of childhood experience? Are they different from everyone else? This popular psychology course highlights the different theories of creativity.
COURSE: Creative Storytelling
·June 21 — July 3
·Edith Freni
This college-level course in creative storytelling functions as an introduction to a variety of storytelling techniques that appear in different forms of creative writing, such as short fiction and playwriting.
COURSE: Sports Economics
·July 19 — August 1
·Christina DePasquale
In this course we will analyze many interesting aspects of the sports industry: sports leagues, ticket pricing, salary negotiations, discrimination, and NCAA policies to name a few.
1. Who is the text intended for?| A．The general public. | B．College freshmen. |
| C．Educational experts. | D．High school students. |
| A．Sports Economics. | B．Creative Storytelling. |
| C．Psychology of Creativity. | D．Case Studies in Neuroscience. |
| A．Leah Roesch’s. | B．Edith Freni’s. |
| C．Marshall Duke’s. | D．Christina DePasquale’s. |
7 . Social distancing is not a new concept in the natural world, where infectious diseases are commonplace. Through specialized senses animals can detect certain diseases and change their behavior to avoid getting ill.
In 1966, while studying chimps (猩猩) in a Tanzanian national park, zoologist Jane Goodall observed a chimp named McGregor who had caught a highly infectious virus. His fellow chimps attacked him and threw him out of the troop. In one instance, McGregor approached chimps in a tree. He reached out a hand in greeting, but the others moved away without a backward glance.
“For a full two minutes, old McGregor sat motionless, staring after them,” Goodall notes in her 1971 book In the Shadow of Man. “It’s really not that different to how some societies react today to such a tragedy.”
Not all animals are so aggressive toward their ailing neighbors. Sometimes it’s as simple as avoiding those who may infect you.
When Kiesecker, a lead scientist in America, studied American bullfrog in the late 1990s, he found that bullfrogs could not only detect a deadly smell of infection in other bullfrogs, but healthy members actively avoided those that were sick. Bullfrogs rely on chemicals signals to determine who is sick or not.
Caribbean lobsters also shun diseased members of their community, well before they become infectious. It takes about eight weeks for lobsters infected with the deadly virus Panulirus argus mininuceovirus to become dangerous to others. Normally social animals, lobsters begin keeping away from the diseased as early as four weeks after infection – once the lobsters can smell certain chemicals released by sick individuals.
Overall, it’s important to note that, unlike us, animals don’t realize if they stay home, they might actually reduce the infection rate,” Kiesecker explains. “As humans, we have that ability. It’s a big difference.”
1. What can we learn about the chimps from Goodall’s observation?| A．They kept a distance from one another. |
| B．They became aggressive when infected. |
| C．The infected avoided contact with others. |
| D．The infected were forced to leave the group. |
| A．Avoid. | B．Cure. | C．Get rid of. | D．Get along with. |
| A．Humans are more sensitive to virus. |
| B．Humans are less likely to get infected. |
| C．Humans treat infectious diseases in a wiser way. |
| D．Humans can detect chemical signals more quickly. |
| A．Help Me Out |
| B．Leave Me Alone |
| C．Stay Away From Us |
| D．Stay Home Stay Healthy |
8 . Since I graduated from high school, I’ve worked in the factories surrounding my hometown every summer. However, making the transition (转变) between school and full-time blue-collar work during the break never gets any easier. For a student like me who considers any class before noon to be uncivilized, getting to a factory by 6 o'clock each morning is a torture.
There’re few people as self-confident as a college student who has never been out in the real world. People of my age always seem to overestimate the value of their time and knowledge. In fact, all the classes did not prepare me for my battles with the machine I ran in the plant, which would jam whenever I absent-mindedly put in a part backward or upside down.
The most stressful thing about blue-collar life is knowing your job could disappear overnight. Issues like downsizing (裁员) and overseas relocation always seemed distant to me until my co-worker told me that the unit I was working in would shut down within six months and move to Mexico, where people would work for 60 cents an hour.
After working 12-hour shifts in a factory, the other options have become only too clear. When I’m back at the university, skipping classes and turning in lazy rewrites seem too irresponsible after seeing what I would be doing without school. All the advice and public-service announcements about the value of an education that used to sound stale (out of date) now ring true.
These lessons I’m learning, however valuable, are always tinged (带有) with a sense of guilt. Many people pass their lives in the places I briefly work, spending 30 years where I spend only two months at a time. “The job pays well, but it is very hard,” said one co-worker. “Study hard and keep reading,” she added.
My experiences in the factories have inspired me to make the most of my college years before I enter the real world for good.
1. The underlined word “torture” in Paragraph 1 most probably means__________.| A．Misery | B．Fortune | C．Anxiety | D．Acceptance |
| A．They expect too much from the real world. |
| B．They think too highly of themselves. |
| C．They have little interest in blue-collar life. |
| D．They are confident of their future. |
| A．They do not get good pay. |
| B．They have to work 12-hour shifts. |
| C．They do not have job security. |
| D．They have to move from place to place. |
| A．He learned to be more practical. |
| B．He came to respect blue-collar workers. |
| C．He acquired a sense of urgency. |
| D．He came to appreciate his college education. |
9 . When I was first married to my wife, I lived and worked in Ontario, moving from small town to big city as I pursued my career as a radio broadcaster. We have two sons, both of whom were born in Toronto, but they moved, with us, to Ottawa when they were quite young. They grew up there, and then, chasing their own careers, they also moved. One went to Canada’s east coast near a city called Halifax and the other headed to the west coast to Vancouver. We had a dilemma; we were left in the middle.
At the time I was still working and my job was in Ottawa. However, as we began to consider retirement we wondered where we should spend our final years. We couldn’t be close to both of our children and there was no telling when they might again relocate. For several reasons we settled on a small town on Vancouver Island. At least we were close to one of them. However, he had his sights set on Hollywood and, when an opportunity presented itself, he left Canada and headed south. I helped him move.
So, there we were, and still are, in our little west coast town. We love our little corner of paradise but we have paid a price. We have not been there for some important events such as the births of two of our grandchildren. We have missed watching each of them grow up; we have missed the normal, noisy households that have young people in them. Our home, while very comfortable, is also very quiet.
Every fall we travel to see the children. We usually fly, first to California to see our son Scott and spend a week or more with him trying to catch up on everything we’ve missed. Then, usually in November, we make the even longer trip east across Canada to see Travis and our grandchildren, who are now teenagers, actually into their twenties. They seldom come to visit us. The distances are just too great and it is costly.
Fortunately, both our boys are doing well and our grandchildren are growing up straight and tall. We love all of them and we are secure in the knowledge that they love us but the reality is that they don’t need us. We have done our jobs and, at least in theory, we can sit back, relax and enjoy the time remaining to us. They have also missed having a set of parents and grandparents around.
Life has been good for our family but we have all paid a price.
1. What does the author mean by saying “We had a dilemma.”?| A．They were not happy about their sons’ absence. |
| B．They were unwilling to separate from their sons. |
| C．They were not yet prepared for retirement at that time. |
| D．They couldn’t decide which son to live close to. |
| A．They have lost lots of money because of his retirement. |
| B．They have to give a large sum of money to their sons. |
| C．They have been absent from their children’s life. |
| D．They have to afford very expensive fare to visit their sons. |
| A．They are quite occupied with their homework. |
| B．It’s not easy for the kids to visit their grandparents. |
| C．They don’t need their grandparents any more. |
| D．The weather of winter in Canada is very awful. |
| A．Grandparents’ Love | B．Suffering Separation |
| C．A Price to Pay | D．Hidden Emotions |
10 . Gold, oil and diomand are obviously worth a lot. But some valuable products are less obvious -- and much more off-putting. New research has shown that the waste produced by seabirds could be worth nearly half a billion dollars annually.
That's because seabird feces(排泄物), also known as guano, can be used as commercial fertilizer and is vital for contributing nutrients to marine ecosystems. In an effort to raise awareness about the importance of seabirds and protecting their habitats, scientists set out to quantify(量化) the contributions of seabirds and show the cost of declining seabird populations by valuing their waste.
Its value is estimated at more than $473 million each year and possibly much more, according to a new paper published today in the journal Trends in Ecology & Evolution.
"Guano production is an ecosystem service made by seabirds at no cost to us -- I can go to an island, collect the guano, and sell it at market price as fertilizer," study coauthor Marcus V. Cianciaruso, an ecology professor at the Federal University of Goiás in Brazil, said in a press release. "Because there is this scientific and biological importance, it's possible to quantify seabird ecosystem services in a language that the general public and policymakers can begin to understand."
Although only a few seabird species produce guano that is currently commercialized in Peru, Chile and other countries, the waste of other birds contributes vital nutrients to marine ecosystems and is also important for coastal economies.
In coral reef ecosystems, the nutrients from guano can increase the number of reef fish by up to 48%. That's important for fisheries and tourism in places like the Caribbean, Southeast Asia and the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. "We made a very conservative estimate that 10% of coral reef fish stocks depend on seabird nutrients," said Plazas-Jiménez. "According to the United Nations and the Australian government, the annual economic returns of commercial fisheries on coral reefs is over $6 billion. So 10% of this value is around $600 million per year."
1. Which of the following word can best replace the word “off-putting” ?| A．exciting | B．discouraging | C．flexible | D．disgusting |
| A．Policymakers have understood the value of protecting seabirds very well. |
| B．The waste of seabirds can bring severe pollution to the ecosystem. |
| C．Seabirds can assist us in cleaning the environment. |
| D．Valuing seabirds’ waste can help people realize the importance of seabirds. |
| A．Giving examples | B．Providing figures |
| C．Making comparison | D．Analyzing cause and effect |
| A．Environmental Protection Counts |
| B．Waste can be Worth Millions |
| C．Fisheries Catch a Break |
| D．A New Business |
