1 . Thursday October 4
BIRD FEEDING BASICS 10:00 am-11:30 am
Join an environmental educator to learn about winter bird identification, types of bird feeders and the different birdseed available at Kettle Creek.
Stroudsburg-8050 Running Valley Road
(570) 629-3061
$ 6 Outdoors Registration required
Saturday October 6
CREATING NATURE BOOKS 10:00 am-Noon
Join local children’s artist and author Barrett George for a hands-on bookmaking workshop. No previous drawing experience necessary. Then enjoy a meet and greet book signing with the author. Gather at the Pocono Environmental Education Center.
Dingmans Ferry-538 Emery Road
(570) 828-2319
$ 5 Registration required
Saturday October 13
FALL FOLIAGE HIKE 10:00 am-Noon
All ages are welcome to enjoy the fall foliage (树叶) and learn a little about why fall is such a special time of the year. Wear comfortable footwear.
Lake Ariel-94 Sanctuary Road
(570) 689-9494
Free Registration required
Sunday October 14
INTRO TO ORIENTEERING 10:00 am-Noon
Orienteering (越野识途比赛) is easy to learn but difficult to master. It’s always challenging. It is often called the “thinking sport” because it involves map reading and decision-making in addition to a great workout. Learn the basics of how to use a map and compass on an orienteering course and see if you can locate all the markers.
Lake Ariel-1475 Ledgedale Road
(570) 698-6154
$ 7 Outdoors Registration required
1. Who will most probably come to the event on October 4?| A．Gardeners. | B．Businessmen. | C．Bird lovers. | D．Art collectors. |
| A．Social manners. | B．Bookmaking skills. |
| C．Drawing lessons. | D．Environmental protection. |
| A．It’s free of charge. | B．It lasts the longest time. |
| C．It takes place in the open air. | D．It’s intended for local children. |
| A．(570) 629-3061. | B．(570) 828-2319. |
| C．(570) 689-9494. | D．(570) 698-6154. |
2 . Kamikatsu, a small town in Japan, has shown the world that our garbage has far-reaching effects, and not just on our environment.
The experiment in going zero waste started when the town built a new incinerator 20 years ago. But almost immediately, the incinerator was determined to be a health risk due to the poisonous gases when garbage was burned in it. It was too expensive to send waste to other towns, so locals had to come up with a new plan. Then the Zero Waste Academy was born, which helped perform this plan.
Now Kamikatsu people separate their waste into 45 different categories. But in the beginning, it wasn't easy to convince local people to do all this work, and there was some pushback. Only after that initial education period did most residents come on board.
This is all great news for waste reduction of course, but it has also had some unexpected social benefits as well. Like much of Japan, Kamikatsu's population is aging, and about 50 percent of the locals are elderly. The fact that the whole community takes their trash in to be recycled has created a local action and interaction between generations.
That idea has been purposefully expanded to include a circular shop where household goods are dropped off and others can take them, and a tableware "library" where people can borrow extra cups, glasses, silverware and plates for celebrations.
"The elderly see this not as a waste-collection service, but an opportunity to socialize with the younger generation and to chat. When we visit them, they prepare lots of food and we stay with them for a while, we ask how they are," Sakano, the founder of the Zero Waste Academy, said.
Sakano's ideas are truly revolutionary if you think about it. She's proving that community can be found through handling the stuff we no longer want and need.
1. What is mainly talked about in paragraph 2?| A．What harmful effects garbage burning has. |
| B．Why garbage sorting is necessary in Japan. |
| C．How the idea of zero waste was put forward. |
| D．What the Zero Waste Academy functions as. |
| A．Inactive response. | B．Generous reward. |
| C．Bitter suffering. | D．Beneficial guidance. |
| A．Reducing waste. | B．Creating community. |
| C．Increasing people's income. | D．Developing a new technology. |
| A．Technology. | B．Health. | C．Workplace. | D．Lifestyle. |
3 . A robot called Bina48 has successfully taken a course in the philosophy of love at Notre Dame de Namur University (NDNU), in California.
According to course instructor William Barry associate professor at NDNU, Bina48 is the world's first socially advanced robot to complete a college course, an achievement he described as “remarkable." The robot took part in class discussions, gave a presentation with a student partner and participated in a debate with students from another institution.
Before becoming a student, Bina48 speared as a guest speaks in Barry's classes for several years. One day when addressing Barry's class, Bina48 expressed a desire to go to college, a desire that Barry and his students enthusiastically supported. Rather than enroll Bina48 in his Robot Ethics: Philosophy of Emerging Technologies course^ Barry suggested that Bina48 should take his course Philosophy of Love instead. Love is a concept Bina48 doesn't understand, said Barry Therefore the challenge would be for Barry and his students to teach Bina48 what love is.
"Some interesting things happened in the class," said Barry. He said that his students thought it would be straightforward to teach Bina48 about love, which, after all, is "fairly simple — it's a feeling," said Barry. But the reality was different. Bina48 ended up learning "31 different versions of love," said Barry, highlighting some of the challenges humans may face when working with artificial intelligence in future.
Bina48 participated in class discussions via Skype and also took part in a class debate about love and conflict with, students from West Point. Bina48's contribution to the debate was filmed and posted on YouTube. It was judged that Bma48 and NDNU classmates were the winners of this debate.
In the next decade, Barry hopes Bina48 might become complex enough to teach a class, though he says he foresees robots being used to better the teaching and learning experience, rather than replacing instructors completely。
1. What was Bina48's performance like in class?| A．Unattractive. | B．Impractical. |
| C．Unbelievable. | D．Extraordinary. |
| A．Giving a speech to. | B．Consulting with. |
| C．Dealing with. | D．Sending a letter to. |
| A．It was impossible for Bina48 to learn about love. |
| B．It was quite difficult for Bina48 to learn about love, |
| C．Humans can launch, a challenge to artificial intelligence. |
| D．Artificial intelligence may somehow be superior to man. |
| A．It will surely be able to serve as a teacher. |
| B．It will completely take the place of instructors. |
| C．It will be able to promote learning and teaching. |
| D．It will be smart enough to control human beings. |
4 . When Carson Palmer, a professional American football player, hurt his arm a few years ago, he took a week off from throwing the football. But in his head, Palme practiced every day. The following weekend, Palmer had the best game of his life.
For more than a century, scientists have been trying to understand how this mental training works. In the 1930s, researchers proved by experiment that when you’re imagining an action, your brain sends signals to your muscles which are too weak to tighten the muscles but might help train the body to perform. In other words, mental practice might create a pattern in your head, like an inner how-to guide for a particular skill.
Sports psychologists have conducted hundreds of studies comparing imagined and physical practice for actions. On the whole, the research shows that mental training works. A 2012 study, for example, compared 32 amateur golfers who practiced hitting the balls to another 32 who merely held a golf club in their hands and visualized (想象) their swings.
Under the same training rules, both groups improved their skills by getting the ball about 4 inches closer to the hole.
Visualization has advantages over the real thing: You can do it anywhere, even when injured. It is safe — a major plus for high-risk performers such as gymnasts and surgeons. And you can practice for longer periods of time because you’re not restricted by physical tiredness. That’s not to say it’s easy. “We’ve had Olympic-level athletes sitting in our lab, visualizing the movements for two hours,” says Tadhg Macintyre, a sports psychologist at the University of Limerick in Ireland. “When we’re done, they’re absolutely tired.”
It doesn’t work for everyone, though. “If you’re a novice, the effect can be harmful,” warns Macintyre. “If you’re trying to visualize a free throw, and you don’t even know the proper movement, then you’re probably going to mentally practice the wrong skill.”
1. The author introduces the topic of the text by_ .| A．giving an example | B．presenting an argument |
| C．explaining a phenomenon | D．making an assumption |
| A．A special skill is quickly acquired. |
| B．A certain model is formed in the head |
| C．The muscles grow increasingly tense. |
| D．The brain sends strong messages to the body. |
| A．Athletes are likely to win games through imagined practice. |
| B．Practicing a skill properly in mind can produce intended effect. |
| C．Practice whether mental or physical has its own characteristics. |
| D．Scientists have found a sale way for athletes to practice their skills. |
5 . Sudoku (数独) puzzles give your brain a hard time: Every number from 1 to 9 must appear in each of the nine horizontal (横向的) rows, in each of the nine vertical columns and in each of the nine boxes.
For many of us, this can be a reason for a headache, but in the very rare case of a German man, a Sudoku puzzle even caused seizures (痉挛).
In a new case study from the University of Munich, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Dr. Berend Feddersen introduces a student who was 25 years old when he was buried by a snow slide during a ski tour. For 15 minutes, he didn’t get enough oxygen, which severely damaged certain parts of his brain. “He had to receive treatment on the scene. Luckily he survived,” says Feddersen, the author of the study.
Weeks after the accident, when the young man was ready for recovery treatment, something bizarre happened: When the patient solved Sudoku puzzles, he suddenly had seizures of his left arm — something the medical world hadn’t seen before.
Feddersen explains: “In order to solve a Sudoku, the patient used parts of his brain which are responsible for vision-space tasks. But exactly those brain parts had been damaged in the accident and then caused the seizures once they were used.”
This particular case is an example of what doctors call reflex epilepsy (反射性癫痫), according to Dr. Jacqueline French, professor from NYU Langone School of Medicine.
“You have to have an injury of your brain first, and then seizures like that can happen,” she says.
In the meantime, the patient from the case study stopped solving Sudoku puzzles forever and has been seizure-free for more than five years. “Fortunately, he can do crossword puzzles. He never had problems with those,” Feddersen says.
1. In the accident, the student ______.| A．began to experience seizures in his left arm |
| B．got the vision-space part of his brain damaged |
| C．had to be sent to hospital as soon as possible |
| D．found his Sudoku ability seriously weakened |
| A．the man cannot complete crossword puzzles now |
| B．it is Sudoku playing that brings about his seizures |
| C．the man’s symptoms are common and widely observed |
| D．the seizures cause much trouble to the man’s daily life |
| A．a medical test | B．a warning to skiers |
| C．a news report | D．a research paper |
6 . My parents owned a neighborhood bar called the M Ninety-Seven, named for a nearby highway, on the comer of State Fair and Hoover Avenues in Detroit. Built in the '30s, it had a long wooden bar that was on the right as you walked in. I grew up in the bar. When most kids my age were at the park playing ball or riding bikes, I was watching old men shoot pool and play shuffleboard （沙狐球）.
My father spent his entire life serving drinks and bringing cheer to customers. There were the white-collars who would stop in to unwind from the day's stress. They would bend elbows with the blue-collars and day laborers on either side of them. It always surprised me that they were able to mingle（交往）.I would sit at the last table by the kitchen, sipping Cokes and eating a bag of Better Made potato chips with my twin sister, watching it all.
It was the 1960s version of a reality show. There was Big Bill, the tough talking policeman who stood six and a half feet tall and weighed just shy of the beer truck he drank daily. His views on society could be hard to listen to at times. But one night, he showed that he was all talk. While Bill was on patrol （巡逻）,a call came over the radio about an apartment fire. He raced scout car to the scene, beating even the fire crew. The building was ablaze. He ran up three flights of stairs through smoke and flames to rescue two frightened children. Bill carried them out in his arms like each was a carton of eggs. The man with an explosive mouth but a keg-sized heart had saved the day.
Years passed, my father died, and the bar was sold. Like secondhand smoke, the words and the scenes from that bar stayed with me.
1. What did the author want to tell us by the underlined sentence in paragraph 1?| A．His family built a wooden bar. |
| B．He didn't play with kids at the park. |
| C．He liked making friends with old men. |
| D．He was familiar with everything in the bar. |
| A．To drink beer. | B．To watch others. |
| C．To communicate. | D．To relax themselves. |
| A．Rude and careless. | B．lough but a little bit shy. |
| C．Complaining but responsible. | D．Talkative and narrow-hearted. |
| A．The bar impressed the writer a lot. |
| B．The father didn't manage the bar well. |
| C．Secondhand smoke is similar to the bar. |
| D．The writer has nothing to do with the bar. |
7 . Poets, songwriters and left-wing politicians hate the idea, but for decades, opinion-poll evidence has been clear: money buys happiness and the richer you are, the more likely you are to express satisfaction with your life. Until now, a survey of 43 countries published on October 30th by the Pew Research Centre shows that people in emerging markets are within a whisker of(一步之遥) expressing the same level of satisfaction as people in rich countries. It is in line with the standard view of happiness and income seen so far.
According to the survey, in 2007, 57%of respondents in rich countries regarded themselves as happy; in emerging markets the share was 33% ;in poor countries only 16%-a classic expression of the standard view. But in 2017,54% of rich-country respondents counted themselves as happy, whereas in emerging markets the percentage jumped to 51%.
The sharp increase happened thanks to huge improvements in countries such as Indonesia(+35) and Pakistan(+22).In 12 of the 24 emerging markets, half or more people rate their life satisfaction in the top of the ladder.
This is not to say the link between income and satisfaction has been snapped. Poor countries still lag behind: only a quarter of the people there count themselves as happy-half the level of the other two groups. There is also a clear link between happiness and income growth. China’s GDP rose at an annual average rate of 10% in 2007-2017 and its happiness level rose 26 points.
Within countries, richer people express more satisfaction than their poorer neighbors. The study divided respondents into categories with higher and lower incomes and fewer and more household goods. In every country in every group, richer folk with more goods expressed higher levels of happiness. So at a personal level, money does buy happiness. And if you ask people about different aspects of their lives-health, family life, religion, standard of living-it turns out that satisfaction with living standards still has the biggest influence on happiness.
1. What led to the increase of happiness in emerging markets?| A．Economic downturn. |
| B．Investment in emerging markets. |
| C．Their rapid development. |
| D．More cooperation with rich countries. |
| A．To show that there is a link between happiness and income growth. |
| B．To remind readers of the great progress that China has made. |
| C．To express the author's concern about the development of emerging markets. |
| D．To prove that China's GDP growth contributed to the happiness of people in Asia. |
| A．Income is not closely related to happiness. |
| B．Happiness does not depend on how much money you earn. |
| C．The higher your income is, the more likely you will feel satisfied. |
| D．The more you are satisfied, the more you can earn every month. |
| A．Disappointed. | B．Doubtful. | C．Indifferent. | D．Supportive. |
8 . The first graffiti was probably drawings on walls appearing in caves thousands of years ago. Later the Ancient Romans and Greeks wrote their names and poems on buildings. Modern graffiti seems to have appeared in Philadelphia in the early 1960s, and by the late sixties it had reached New York. The new art form rally took off in the 1970s, when people began writing their names, or "tags", on buildings all over the city. In the mid-seventies it was sometimes hard to see out of a subway car window, because the trains were completely covered in spray paintings known as "masterpieces".
The term "graffiti" was first used by The New York Times and the novelist Norman Mailer. Art galleries in New York began buying graffiti in the early seventies. But at the same time that it began to be regarded as an art form, John Lindsay, the then mayor of New York, declared the first war on graffiti. By the 1980s it became much harder to write on subway trains without being caught, and instead many of the more established graffiti artists began using roofs of buildings or canvases (油画布).
The debate over whether graffiti is art or vandalism (破坏公物) is still going on. Peter Vallone, on the New York City Committee, thinks that graffiti done with permission can be art, but if it is on someone else's property it becomes a crime. On the other hand, Felix, a member of the Berlin based group Reclaim Your City, says that artists are trying to get it back from advertisers, and that graffiti represents freedom and makes cities more lively.
The Frenchman Blek le Rat and the British artist Banksy have become world-famous by producing graffiti works. Works by Banksy have been sold for over f 10000. Graffiti is now sometimes big business.
1. What might have happened to the subway car window?| A．It was dirty with paint. |
| B．It was covered by graffiti. |
| C．It was broken by some children. |
| D．It was marked with people's names, |
| A．Modern graffiti probably started in New York. |
| B．Art galleries in New York first used the term "graffiti". |
| C．The mayor of New York considered graffiti as an art form. |
| D．Graffiti artists were not allowed to paint on subway trains in the 1980s. |
| A．Approving. | B．Critical. | C．Neutral. | D．Indifferent. |
| A．Graffiti is developing very fast. |
| B．All graffiti artists can make a big fortune. |
| C．Graffiti has earned international fame for some artists. |
| D．Some graffiti artists produce works to earn much money. |
9 . Former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill once said, "The British are the only people who like to be told how bad things are." This is definitely true of British comedy. Most people think humor is about happy things, but for the British, the opposite is true. We love to use our cruel sense of humor to complain and be negative.
British comedy, for example, draws a fine line between comedy and tragedy（悲剧）. BBC's The Office is a TV show, famous for its dry humor. The main character, David Brent, is a foolish man, and the show's comedy comes from his delusions. For example, he often tells himself that he is loved by everyone but the viewer can see that everyone hates him.
Stupid characters for the audience to laugh at are an old tradition in Britain. In Shakespeare's play Twelfth Night, the character Malvolio is an old man whom people play tricks on. The audience will laugh away, although the reality is that this man is a truly tragic individual.
This side of British humor is reflected in friendships as well. At university, my friends and I would always laugh at one another. I had an American friend who actually found this sarcasm（挖苦）quite upsetting. She didn't realize that in Britain, the better friends you are with someone, the more you laugh at them.
This approach—laughing at everything—may sound rather depressing（让人郁闷的）, but our strange humor played a big part in British history. In World War II, along with a stiff upper lip（坚定沉着）, the British got through it by laughing. What else was there to do?
There is a saying in English: "Laugh and the world laughs with you; cry and you cry alone." If you are ever on the receiving end of British sarcasm, you may feel like crying, but it's best to just laugh it off!
1. How is British humor special?| A．It is often surprising and boring. |
| B．It is often about negative things. |
| C．It often laughs at happy people. |
| D．It often makes happy things depressing. |
| A．British people will not laugh at their good friends |
| B．there is a great difference between comedy and tragedy |
| C．stupid people are often treated well in Shakespeare's plays |
| D．British humor used to give people courage in face of sufferings |
| A．Keep silent. |
| B．Cry as you like. |
| C．Don't take it seriously. |
| D．Try to hold back your laughter. |
10 . I was standing in a class of wild 14-year-old girls as they threw paper and howl with laughter. They wouldn’t listen to me. І was 22 and І never wanted to teach. І wanted to be a writer. When the bell finally rang, I rushed out of the classroom, red with anger. The other teachers weren't surprised. “That's 4B, the worst class in school,” one said.
But I couldn't give up. I needed the job. So, I abandoned formal lessons. Instead, I brought topics for class discussion. One of the liveliest talks was about the arguments they had with their parents. They paid attention and shared about their lives. Then I encouraged them to write down their stories. Most wrote about families with little money and big problems. As time went on, their stories became a bridge between us. I admired their humor, toughness and insight, and I think they appreciated my interest in their lives.
The musical My Fair Lady was playing in the West End, but they had never seen a live stage performance. I suggested taking them to see it. They thought I was joking. No teacher had ever done that. A few weeks later, 4B and I were sitting in the theater. They loved the music, the costumes and the characters. It was the highlight of their year, and they talked about it for days.
Near the end of the semester, someone knocked on the door of the staff room. The two most rebellious(叛逆的) girls in 4B were there—with flowers.
Several years later, for the first time in my life, I stopped dreaming and started writing. My first story was titled "My Fair Ladies". Teaching wasn't the end of my writing career; it was the beginning.
1. How was the author's class in 4B at the beginning?| A．It was impressive. | B．It was rather boring. |
| C．It was a total mess. | D．It was lively and interesting. |
| A．They came to like the author. | B．They made great progress in writing. |
| C．They became more humorous. | D．They stopped arguing with their parents. |
| A．Confused. | B．Excited. | C．Proud. | D．Encouraged. |
| A．Only two girls liked the author. |
| B．The author became a famous writer several years later. |
| C．The author didn't dream any more. |
| D．The author's teaching experiences inspired her writing. |
