The moment my son Joe knew I was going to have another baby, he tried his best to stay out of our lives. By the time our daughter Molly was due to be born, I had grown accustomed to his embarrassment and animosity (敌意). I had grown accustomed to a lot of things, not the least of which was having an unexpected child at the age of thirty-nine. My husband, to his eternal credit, was delighted. Throughout it all, Joe rarely spoke to me, except to say, “You don’t have to come to my school,” and — after a marathon baby naming conference—“Call her Molly, the name of my friend’s dog.”
When Molly finally arrived, tiny, quiet and perfect, four family arms were there to draw her close. But Joe’s remained tightly crossed over his chest, on the far side of the hospital room I signed to him to come closer but he shook his head slightly. I could see him standing there, arms still folded, staring straight ahead.
Joe stayed away at a friend’s cottage when Molly and I came home from the hospital. He was still gone ten days later when I took our daughter for her first check-up. He arrived home just as I was coming back, tears streaming down my face. “The doctor thinks she might have a hearing problem,” I sobbed. “She’s too quiet she’s not responding like she should. We have to have her tested.”
As my husband comforted me, downplaying my worry, I noticed that Joe had stopped beside the baby, sound asleep in her car seat. He reached out to her, shifting her slightly away from a bump (隆起) in the carpet. “She’s okay,” he said, looking down at her. “There’s nothing wrong with her. She’s just little.”
Three months later as I walked the floor at 4:00 A. M. with a crying and inconsolable (难以安抚的) (and otherwise perfectly healthy) baby in my arms, I dragged myself into Joe’s room and woke him up “Joe, could you take her? Just for a few minutes? I can’t settle her down, Dad’s on business, and I just really need a break.”
注意：
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Saying nothing, Joe took his little sister from me.
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Seeing Molly sleeping peacefully in Joe’s bed, I walked out, followed by Joe.
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2 . Virtual Career Fair for Teachers and K-12 Staff
Still looking for a great job? Attend the Virtual Career Fair on Thursday, June 6. You’ll find employers from across the country ready to meet you virtually and hire you right now. Jumpstart your search in an hour or less to find the perfect position for the 2024 — 25 school year. Sign-up is easy and free.
Since teachers and staff are in such high demand, there is a bonus for you to attend this event. Five attendees who visit at least 2 recruiters (招聘官) will be chosen at random to receive a $100 Amazon gift card.
Note: This event is NOT for those seeking visa sponsorship.
Here’s what you can expect:
·Chat directly with recruiters who are actively hiring using text or video.
·Hundreds of jobs for teachers, support staff and principals.
·Wide varieties of organizations — large urban districts, charter schools, virtual schools, and more.
·Fast progress on your job search. A small investment of your time will yield quick results.
Access from any device. Use your computer, phone, or tablet.
Review the participating school districts and companies, and sign up now to attend the Virtual Career Fair on June 6, between 2 p. m. and 6 p. m. ET (11 a. m.-3 p. m. PT).
It will only take you 4 minutes to register, so click the red REGISTER button and do it now.
1. Who might be interested in the Virtual Career Fair?| A．A graduate majoring in Education. | B．A woman seeking visa sponsorship. |
| C．A manager looking for investment. | D．A teacher in need of school supplies. |
| A．A guaranteed job offer. | B．A face-to-face interview. |
| C．Five $100 Amazon gift cards. | D．Direct communication with recruiters. |
| A．A website. | B．A newspaper. | C．A magazine. | D．A textbook. |
Dayushan Island is located in Fuding, Fujian province, known
Its coast is eroded (侵蚀) by seawater,
The best thing to do here is to hike up the hills and find a high spot
4 . Two new community initiatives offering the opportunity to borrow everything from sewing machines to party supplies are aiming to reduce waste and consumption.
Tools n Things Library in Leederville, Perth is a community library designed to allow community members to get access to the things they might need around the house instead of buying them in a hardware (五金店) store.
“That’s our philosophy — don’t buy, borrow. Many people buy things just for a small task at home, and then they won’t use them for a couple of years,” library volunteer Rex Breheny said.
The project is run by volunteers who founded it in 2019, and after an interruption in 2020 because of the pandemic (大流行病), it has now grown to several hundred members who can come and borrow things twice a week. In a way it is a return to an old tradition of neighbors borrowing each other’s tools and forming connections in the process.
Tools n Things Library is the first of its kind in Perth, and another called Share Shed has just started in Bassendean. Its co-founder Renee McLennan said they wanted to expand beyond tools to all sorts of things that people might use rarely, like camping equipment or entertaining needs.
“We’re doing the kind of equipment you’d use for a party. Instead of everybody buying disposable plates, and cups and things like that, we’ve got quality glasses and cutlery (餐具), as well as decorations that people can use for those events that they might have once a year,” she said.
The Share Shed is being considered as a way to tackle consumer culture. The world cannot continue to support our current level of resource consumption — at present overconsumption means that each year we consume 75 per cent more than the planet can regenerate.
“Borrowing items and shifting our thinking from an ownership to an access model helps to reduce the number of things that are produced and limits waste. At the same time, sharing the things that we use every now and then is a great way of connecting with people who live locally,” Bod Anderson, an officer in Perth said.
1. Why were the initiatives launched?| A．To introduce two new communities. |
| B．To advocate consuming fewer resources. |
| C．To call on people to fight against pandemic. |
| D．To encourage people to borrow daily necessities. |
| A．It is out of use. | B．It is well received. |
| C．It is out of fashion. | D．It is often interrupted. |
| A．Wider options. | B．Better quality. |
| C．Longer duration. | D．Newer equipment. |
| A．Doubtful. | B．Supportive. | C．Critical. | D．Objective. |
5 . Parrots consistently top the charts of the world’s smartest animals. A new discovery published by the Royal Society Open Science reveals to us what sets the intelligent individual monk parakeet (和尚鹦鹉) apart in a group.
Previously, it was thought that these birds introduced themselves to others with a sort of “catchphrase” that distinguished their identity. However, after running the vocalizations (发声) collected in this study through a machine learning program, a team led by Simeon Smeele, a doctoral student at Aarhus University in Denmark, found that the birds actually had “voiceprints” like humans that identify themselves in the group.
The researchers studied thousands of monk parakeet vocalizations from hundreds of birds in Barcelona across two years and ran these recordings through the program that identifies small differences in their calls.
“The voiceprint is the underlying quality of a voice that you can recognize in humans, and this is the first time that has been shown in another vocal learner,” Smeele said. For example, the voiceprint of your father is how you know it’s his voice, even if he isn’t present. “This is what I think could explain how they recognize each other, because it can be stable over very long periods of time.” he added.
“This shows that these birds also have that sort of information that they might be using in their complicated social interactions,” said Emily Du Val, Ph.D., a behavioral ecologist at Florida State University. “Research into animal communication has the potential to motivate the public into action to conserve animals. Recognizing who each other is and understanding how they interact with one another are important for human life,” she said.
This model can potentially be applied to other animals with vocal recognition like bottlenose dolphins, bat s and elephants. Future research will look into whether these voiceprints are recognized by all parakeets in the community or only a circle of close relatives.
1. What helps the monk parakeets recognize each other?| A．The catchphrase. | B．The intelligence. |
| C．The voiceprint. | D．The communication. |
| A．By combining “catchphrase” with “voiceprints”. |
| B．By keeping track of the monk parakeets’ relatives. |
| C．By collecting vocalizations and identifying their differences. |
| D．By comparing humans’ voiceprints with monk parakeets’. |
| A．The information that voiceprints can express. |
| B．The potential influence that voiceprints can bring. |
| C．The animals among which voiceprints are identified. |
| D．The range where parakeets’ voiceprints are recognized. |
| A．Mon k Parakeets Are Great Vocal Learners |
| B．Mon k Parakeets Resemble Humans in Communication |
| C．“Voiceprints” Are Found in Animals’ Social Interactions |
| D．“Voiceprints” Help Monk Parakeets Identify Themselves |
6 . It was time for Macy to move. She booked a few house viewings and after looking at three places, she fell in love with one house. But that night a feeling of doubt and uncertainty entered her head.
We’ve all found ourselves in such situations, whether we’re considering job offers or buying a new car. It’s a problem that involves mathematics and psychology. And it’s got a name: the optimal (最优的) stopping problem.
Mathematicians have given us an answer: 37%. The basic idea is that, if we need to make a decision from 100 different options, we should sample and give up the first 37.
Mathematics offers us the best answer to the “optimal stopping problem”. But there’s just one big issue: Humans are not rational probability-calculating machines. In fact, the opposite is usually true.
| A．What if the next house is better? |
| B．How much does it cost a month ? |
| C．The 37% rule is not some mindless, automatic thing. |
| D．And it ties in with how curious or risk-seeking we are. |
| E．It’s then necessary for us to improve our computing power. |
| F．So it falls on psychology to tell us about how we actually behave. |
| G．The mathematical question for Macy concerns maximizing probabilities. |
7 . Tim Holland is 18 years old and a senior at Lucy C. Laney Comprehensive High School in Augusta, Georgia. Ever since he was young, Holland has been loving animals, particularly the cold-blooded kind. He decided to try herping (野采), something most young men like him aren’t into, in 2020 and said the first time was “low-key and hard” because he didn’t know exactly where the animals were.
After a while, Holland gained hands-on experience and developed a sharp eye. Influenced by him, some of his friends tried out herping too. One of these friends, Ro Smith, encouraged him to start a TikTok page about herping. It took some convincing, but Holland eventually decided to try it and started his TikTok page Nukherping. The general format of his videos is pretty simple: Holland shows animals he has found, says a bit about them and then repeats, with the desire to make them known to the viewers. He has slowly become very popular, with his biggest video gaining over 2 million views in early April.
Though his videos are laid-back, Holland takes herping safety very seriously and hopes his audience could take it seriously, too. Holland keeps a distance from the dangerous animals he finds and adds warnings to videos with such creatures, telling his viewers “do not try this at home”. He also carries equipment such as hand sanitizer, gloves and snake sticks to ensure safety and cleanliness.
Holland hopes to travel after graduating from high school so he can check off some of the animals on his “must-see” list. He also plans to study zoology at North Greenville University in South Carolina and play on the soccer team there.
Some people around Holland think Holland is crazy for what he does, but his mother, Latasha, takes a different view. “I think that’s gonna be very interesting. He can inspire and educate other young boys and girls with his experience, and it’s also something that’s going to be good for the community,” she said.
1. What does Holland want to do with Nukherping?| A．Attract people to herping. |
| B．Spread knowledge about animals. |
| C．Support his friend Ro Smith. |
| D．Call on people to protect animals. |
| A．Traveling around the world. |
| B．Going into teaching young children. |
| C．Becoming a zoology major. |
| D．Playing for the national soccer team. |
| A．Ambitious and energetic. |
| B．Adventurous and inspiring. |
| C．Devoted and responsible. |
| D．Cautious and sharp-minded. |
| A．Concerned. | B．Critical. | C．Indifferent. | D．Favorable. |
8 . Dave Player is the founder and CEO of Team BRIT, a car racing team. He wants to
If the team gains
Dave set up the charity KartForce in 2010 as a way for
| A．assist | B．involve | C．encourage | D．land |
| A．fortunate | B．ready | C．anxious | D．willing |
| A．destination | B．result | C．reward | D．dream |
| A．admission | B．exposure | C．promotion | D．reference |
| A．revise | B．create | C．enter | D．keep |
| A．expectations | B．disabilities | C．ambition | D．concern |
| A．obviously | B．probably | C．rarely | D．merely |
| A．follow | B．evaluate | C．miss | D．ignore |
| A．special | B．level | C．formal | D．professional |
| A．survive | B．win | C．progress | D．belong |
| A．enthusiastic | B．energetic | C．injured | D．determined |
| A．applied | B．abandoned | C．addressed | D．adapted |
| A．shaped | B．guaranteed | C．transformed | D．saved |
| A．respect | B．love | C．motivation | D．pity |
| A．get at | B．go after | C．make for | D．turn against |
9 . Where will you go next? Our editors and explorers pick some most exciting destinations for the year ahead. Grab your bags and go!
Mostar, Bosnia
Partially destroyed during the Bosnian War (1992-1995) , history-rich Mostar still bears scars of the past. Wander around and you’ll pass newly renovated apartments next to buildings riddled with bullet holes. Local and intemational artists regularly decorate the abandoned structures with colorful murals. Mostar’s most tangible image of peace is the 16th-century Stari Most, rebuilt in 2004. It connects the city’s predominantly Christian Croat west side with the mainly Muslim Bosniak east.
Tohoku, Japan
Less than three hours by train from Tokyo, home of the 2020 Summer Olympic Games, Tohoku features pristine forests, gorges and crater lakes, thousand-year-old temples and shrines, and venerable local festivals— yet less than 2 percent of international travelers come here. For skiers, Tohoku regularly records some of the planet’s heaviest snowfalls, and resorts such as Appi Kogen are exhilaratingly uncrowded.
National Blue Trail, Hungary
Hungary is a dream hiking destination thanks to the country’s National Blue Trail. It’s part of the nearly 6, 500-mile European long-distance walking route E4, which begins in Spain and ends in Cyprus. So, while you could use the Blue Trail as a launchpad for an epic, cross-Europe trek, Hungary’s historic route is best experienced as a singular destination.
Zakouma National Park, Chad
Home to a rapidly growing African elephant population— some 559 in 2019 and a thousand expected by 2024-Zakouma National Park is an under-the-radar African safari destination. The park’s location, in southeastern Chad, one of the world’s least visited countries, makes Zakouma a best-kept secret— one worth sharing to help ensure its continued success.
1. Which destination fits you best if you are fond of hiking?| A．Mostar. | B．National Blue Trail. | C．Tohoku. | D．Zakouma National Park. |
| A．They are both far from the city’s capital. | B．They are very famous for local festivals. |
| C．They are less popular and attract fewer tourists. | D．They are the best choices for sports enthusiasts. |
| A．Environment. | B．Travel. | C．Culture. | D．Business. |
10 . Museums always have a lot of stories to tell. The following ones that display historical artifacts and highlight historical moments are top on the list of the most visited museums worldwide. Here is a list of four museums that may attract your attention.
The Egyptian Museum, Egypt
This museum is home to ancient Egyptian history. The museum exhibitions are displayed on two floors. The first floor houses exhibitions that are grouped into categories. Some of the exhibitions on this floor include the tomb of King Tutankhamen and several statues. The ground floor displays in chronological (按时间顺序的) order the journey of the Egyptian history of 5,000 years, with over 160,000 items.
Opening times: 9:00 a.m. — 4:00 p.m.
For more information, dial +20-2 2579 694
Asian Civilizations Museum, Singapore
This is the top museum in Singapore. It is also one of the most detailed museums of Asian history. The collections are a representation of Singapore’s diverse culture, which extends to the social and cultural history of some parts of China.
Opening times: 10:00 a.m. — 7:00 p.m. from Saturday to Thursday and lasting two more hours on Friday.
For more information, dial +65-6332 779
Anglo-Boer War Museum, South Africa
This museum houses artifacts that give visitors a chance to learn about the event of the Anglo-Boer War fought from 1899 to 1902 between Great Britain and the two Boer Republics — the South African Republic and the Orange Free State.
Opening times: 8:30 a.m. — 4:30 p.m.
For more information, dial +27-51 447 344
The Museum of Qin Terra-Cotta Warriors and Horses, China
This museum is home to one of the world’s unique finds in history. It features excavated terra-cotta warriors and horses, exhibitions giving information on the life of Emperor Qin, his military forces, battles and many more.
Opening times: 8:30 a.m. — 5:00 p.m.
For more information, dial +86-29 8139 912
1. Visitors should ________ to see King Tutankhamen’s tomb.| A．book the tickets one day early |
| B．inform the museum staff in advance |
| C．go to the first floor of the Egyptian Museum |
| D．review the chronological order of Egyptian history |
| A．+20-2 2579 694. | B．+65-6332 779. |
| C．+27-51 447 344. | D．+86-29 8139 912. |
| A．The Egyptian Museum. |
| B．Asian Civilizations Museum. |
| C．Anglo-Boer War Museum. |
| D．The Museum of Qin Terra-Cotta Warriors and Horses. |
