1 . Salad plants have already been grown in old shelters and tunnels. Urban farming is a regular topic of interest at places like the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, where leaders consider whether the world’s food system, blamed for causing both obesity and malnutrition, can be fixed. There are already plenty of urban farming projects around the world, particularly in the US, Japan and the Netherlands, from urban fish and plant farms to vertical farming.
“It’s becoming an expanding industry,” said Richard Ballard, one of the founders of the farm Growing Underground. “There are several other businesses starting up in London in containers, and there are other vertical farms around the country now.”
Growing Underground is not a standard farm. The rows of crops could be in almost any tunnel, but these plants are 100 feet below Clapham High Street and show that urban agriculture is, in some cases at least, not a fad. The underground farm has occupied a part of the Second World War air-raid shelters for nearly five years, and Ballard is planning to expand into the rest of the space later this year.
Growing Underground supplies herb and salad mixes to grocery shops, supermarkets and restaurants. Being in London creates an advantage, Ballard says, as they can harvest and deliver in an hour.
He adds other advantages. Being underground means temperatures never go below 15 ----surface greenhouses need to be heated. They can do more harvests: 60 crops a year, compared with about seven in a traditional farm. Electricity to power the lights is a major cost, but the company believes renewable energy will become cheaper.
Similar British companies include the Jones Food Company in Lincolnshire, while in the US AeroFarms has several projects in New Jersey, and Edenworks in Brooklyn.
1. What can we learn about urban farming?| A．Different farming methods are used. |
| B．Local governments pay efforts to develop it. |
| C．It leads to a healthier lifestyle. |
| D．It is rarely discussed at the WEF. |
| A．A plan that has great potential. |
| B．A tradition that appeals to a lot of people. |
| C．An approach that can solve a serious problem. |
| D．A fashion that’s popular for a short time. |
| A．Its major products are herbs and salads. |
| B．It produces more kinds of foods than a traditional farm. |
| C．It is more productive than a traditional farm. |
| D．It uses less energy than a greenhouse. |
| A．Traditional farming will be replaced soon. |
| B．Growing Underground attracts more people. |
| C．Current food system causes health problems. |
| D．Urban farming is still thought costly and time-consuming. |
2 . Brecon Beacons YAC has an amazing opportunity for budding (崭露头角的)archaeologists (考古学家) of all ages, in Sunderland in Tyne and Wear. Thanks to funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund, professional archaeologists from Wardell Armstrong will be investigating an archaeological mystery and they need your help.
Romans?
“The site is a bit of a mystery”, Frank Giecco from Wardell Armstrong said. “There is a very nice cropmark recorded on the site that has got lots of people very excited. Geophysicists (地质物理学家) failed to find anything related to the cropmark. There is anecdotal (趣闻的)evidence of Roman material being found, but nothing is officially recorded. We hope to finally answer the question of what is in this field, during the two weeks on site. Is there evidence of any Roman occupation on the site? Can you help us find out?
Get involved
This is an opportunity for both adults and children to take part in field walking and trial trenching (small hand-dug test pits for children). No experience is necessary, training will be provided by the professional archaeologists from Wardell Armstrong, and all equipment will be provided. Volunteers can attend for as few or as many days as they wish, but they do need to book a place. For more information, and to book your place, please contact Norman Kirtlan at sunderlandforgottenstones@gmail.com.
1. What’s the main purpose of the activity?| A．To seek funding for archaeological research. |
| B．To find volunteers to help solve an archaeological mystery. |
| C．To appeal for help in proving findings based on anecdotal evidence. |
| D．To organize volunteers to help sort out data on the Roman occupation. |
| A．You will be coached by experts in the field. |
| B．You should have worked with archaeologists before. |
| C．You should spare two weeks to stay at the site. |
| D．You will be charged for using equipment. |
| A．Romans. | B．Experts. | C．Officials. | D．Families |
3 . Now a company is launching a new robot on personal service machines. Rather than keeping you company at home, GITA (pronounced Jee-Tah) helps you go hands-free while you walk down the street, to the grocery store or to visit your neighbors. Like the name, which means “outing” in Italian, the robotic servant is for short trips out and about.
Designed by the Piaggio Group, the smart device uses five cameras to see you, follow you around and carry up to 40 pounds of your belongings for four hours. It’s similar to those robotic suitcases that trail behind you at the airport, but with an entirely different outside. Picture a large container but on wheels. That’s what GITA looks like in the flagship orange color. Imagine having a hi-tech that can follow you around with your shopping inside. It’s round and strong yet relatively smart and convenient. The robotic helper is a joy to engage with, sort of like a dog.
Operating GITA is simple. You just press one button to turn it on, one button for the cameras to scan your legs, and you’re off. It actually does pretty good job of following you and recognizing when you change directions. Its movement is oddly natural. When you speed up it falls behind a bit before trying to catch up, and when you stop, it stops — usually. GITA operates best on hard surfaces. However, it can’t go upstairs. It can roll on slight inclines (斜坡) and keep up with a walking person at speeds up to 6 miles per hour.
A system of sounds and lights will let you know whether it is unpaired or needs a charge. And an app lets you share your robot with your “crew”, so it can follow them, too. With a speaker, your GITA can carry candy and play theme music as you take the kids trick-or-treating.
A USA TODAY tech reporter gave GITA a test run in 2019. He said, “GITA certainly made quite an impression on passers-by as it rolled down New York’s busy Madison Avenue.” Yet having tech trail behind you takes some getting used to. You can’t help but look behind you to make sure it’s keeping up, somewhat like monitoring a pet.
1. For what purpose is the new robot designed?| A．To instruct you where to go. | B．To serve you as you walk around. |
| C．To accompany you at home. | D．To protect you when you’re traveling. |
| A．It looks like a royal dog. | B．It has flags and smart panels. |
| C．It is round, orange and can roll of itself. | D．It resembles cameras in appearance. |
| A．It can roll up a sharp slope at a high speed. |
| B．It can only recognize and follow its owner. |
| C．It can adjust its pace automatically. |
| D．It can play tricks for children. |
| A．People are heavily dependent on it. |
| B．It is far from being put into use. |
| C．It is easy to get lost and needs to be improved. |
| D．Users have difficulty accustoming themselves to it at first. |
1. 时间 (农历8月15日)；
2. 习俗活动；
3. 意义。
注意：
1. 写作词数应为80左右；
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答；
3. 可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。
Dear Tom,
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Yours,
Li Hua
A self-driving taxi
Meanwhile, the
Currently, Wuhan
Zhang added that ensuring the safety and stability of robotaxis remains a top
When people sit together and enjoy the glorious moon
However, should we get bogged (妨碍) down in the suffering which we can’t change? Su Shi gives his answer, a very
To this day, people still use this poem
I met Gunter on a cold, wet and unforgettable evening in September. I had planned to fly to Vienna and take a bus to Prague for a conference. Due to a big storm, my flight had been delayed by an hour and a half. I touched down in Vienna just 30 minutes before the departure of the last bus to Prague. The moment I got off the plane, I ran like crazy through the airport building and jumped into the first taxi on the rank without a second thought.
That was when I met Gunter. I told him where I was going, but he said he hadn't heard of the bus station. I thought my pronunciation was the problem, so I explained again more slowly, but he still looked confused. When I was about to give up, Gunter fished out his little phone and rang up a friend. After a heated discussion that lasted for what seemed like a century, Gunter put his phone down and started the car.
Finally, with just two minutes to spare we rolled into the bus station. Thankfully, there was a long queue (队列) still waiting to board the bus. Gunter parked the taxi behind the bus, turned around, and looked at me with a big smile on his face. "We made it," he said.
Just then I realised that I had zero cash in my wallet. I flashed him an apologetic smile as I pulled out my Portuguese bankcard. He tried it several times, but the card machine just did not play along. A feeling of helplessness washed over me as I saw the bus queue thinning out.
At this moment, Gunter pointed towards the waiting hall of the bus station. There, at the entrance, was a cash machine. I jumped out of the car, made a mad run for the machine, and popped my card in, only to read the message: "Out of order. Sorry."
注意：（1）续写词数应为150个左右；
（2）请按如下格式在答题纸的相应位置作答。
I ran back to Gunter and told him the bad news.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Four days later, when I was back in Vienna, I called Gunter as promised.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________（1）你完成的作品；
（2）你的感想。
注意：
（1）写作词数应为80个左右；
（2）请按如下格式在答题纸的相应位置作答。
Dear Chris,
I’m writing to share with you an art class I had in a park last Friday.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Yours,
Li Hua
9 . Who can imagine life today without an Automated Teller Machine (ATM)? They are available in considerable numbers throughout the world.
The first ATM was the brainchild of an enterprising Turkish-American inventor Luther George Simjian. When the idea of an automated banking machine struck him, he registered 20 patents before any bank agreed to give it a trial run. It is easy to assume that the inventor of such a popular machine was laughing all the way to the bank.
It was not until 1967, nearly 30 years later, that Barclays Bank, in a careful launch, rolled out a self-service machine in London, England, which proved successful.
Experts quickly determined that public acceptance of ATMs counted on convenience, simplicity, speed, security and trust.
Public acceptance of deposits (存款) by machine was significantly slower than customers’ usage of ATMs for withdrawals. In general, it seems that customers sometimes still prefer and trust an over-the-counter transaction (交易) for deposits.
| A．Location, in particular, was a key factor. |
| B．His cash machine, however, didn’t prove durable. |
| C．The device was relatively primitive, at least by today’s standards. |
| D．However, cash machines posed some interesting, unanswered questions. |
| E．An interesting factor was the issue of bio-statistics for customer identification. |
| F．Devices originally dismissed by the public are now recognized as essential institutions. |
| G．Soon afterwards, many other banks became admittedly champions of the cash machine. |
Jack is in the fourth grade and he joined the noisy children of his class as usual. “Children! Silence!” Ms. Benette suddenly entered the class. She announced next week would be maths week. “I’d like each of you to work on a project. You could do it individually or in a group,” she instructed. “The topic for the project needs approving tomorrow and it has to be showed at the maths week exhibition. The best project will be awarded and there is also a surprise gift from my side,” she added.
Jack, who is extremely good at maths, sat in the corner seat of the first bench with Cathy, an average. Cathy asked Jack if they could work on the maths project together. Jack replied in a prideful tone, “Ha-ha you want to join me. I think I will do the project on my own.” Jack wanted to get awarded and the surprise gift all for himself from Ms. Benette.
After deep consideration, Jack decided to work on a maths magic quiz on the circuit board (电路板). The next day in school, Ms. Benette arrived in the classroom and all the children submitted their topics for maths exhibition. They all chose to work in a group except Jack. In the following days, Jack gathered all the materials for the project such as wires, bulbs(灯泡), a switch and a thin plywood board(胶合板). He worked out a few mathematical basic operations to be fixed on the board so that when the wire of the circuit touched the right answer, the bulb glowed(发光). Jack completed the project and was happy with the result.
The evening before the exhibition, while packing his school bags, Jack again checked the project to see if it was working fine. Alas! All the lights that were to glow did not seem to light at all. Without finding the reason, Jack was anxious. However, he decided to take the same project to the school as he couldn’t change the topic at the last minute. Then came the next day, and everybody was fascinated in the exhibition.
注意：1. 所续写短文的词数应为150左右；
2. 续写部分分为两段，每段的开头语已为你写好。
Paragraph 1:
It was Jack’s turn to show his project.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Paragraph 2:
Finally, the teacher announced Cathy’s team was the winner.
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