1 . When John Todd was a child, he loved to explore the woods around his house, observing how nature solved problems. A dirty stream, for example, often became clear after flowing through plants and along rocks where tiny creatures lived. When he got older, John started to wonder if this process could be used to clean up the messes people were making.
After studying agriculture, medicine, and fisheries in college, John went back to observing nature and asking questions. Why can certain plants trap harmful bacteria (细菌)? Which kinds of fish can eat cancer-causing chemicals? With the right combination of animals and plants, he figured, maybe he could clean up waste the way nature did. He decided to build what he would later call an eco-machine.
The task John set for himself was to remove harmful substances from some sludge (污泥). First, he constructed a series of clear fiberglass tanks connected to each other. Then he went around to local ponds and streams and brought back some plants and animals. He placed them in the tanks and waited. Little by little, these different kinds of life got used to one another and formed their own ecosystem. After a few weeks, John added the sludge.
He was amazed at the results. The plants and animals in the eco-machine took the sludge as food and began to eat it! Within weeks, it had all been digested, and all that was left was pure water.
Over the years, John has taken on many big jobs. He developed a greenhouse — like facility that treated sewage (污水) from 1,600 homes in South Burlington. He also designed an eco-machine to clean canal water in Fuzhou, a city in southeast China.
“Ecological design” is the name John gives to what he does. “Life on Earth is kind of a box of spare parts for the inventor,” he says. “You put organisms in new relationships and observe what’s happening. Then you let these new systems develop their own ways to self-repair.”
1. What can we learn about John from the first two paragraphs?A.He was fond of traveling. | B.He enjoyed being alone. |
C.He had an inquiring mind. | D.He longed to be a doctor. |
A.To feed the animals. | B.To build an ecosystem. |
C.To protect the plants. | D.To test the eco-machine. |
A.To review John’s research plans. | B.To show an application of John’s idea. |
C.To compare John’s different jobs. | D.To erase doubts about John’s invention. |
A.Nature can repair itself. | B.Organisms need water to survive. |
C.Life on Earth is diverse. | D.Most tiny creatures live in groups. |
2 . Turning soil, pulling weeds, and harvesting cabbage sound like tough work for middle and high school kids. And at first it is, says Abby Jaramillo, who with another teacher started Urban Sprouts, a school garden program at four low-income schools. The program aims to help students develop science skills, environmental awareness, and healthy lifestyles.
Jaramillo’s students live in neighborhoods where fresh food and green space are not easy to find and fast food restaurants outnumber grocery stores. “The kids literally come to school with bags of snacks and large bottles of soft drinks,” she says. “They come to us thinking vegetables are awful, dirt is awful, insects are awful.” Though some are initially scared of the insects and turned off by the dirt, most are eager to try something new.
Urban Sprouts’ classes, at two middle schools and two high schools, include hands-on experiments such as soil testing, flower-and-seed dissection, tastings of fresh or dried produce, and work in the garden. Several times a year, students cook the vegetables they grow, and they occasionally make salads for their entire schools.
Program evaluations show that kids eat more vegetables as a result of the classes. “We have students who say they went home and talked to their parents and now they’re eating differently,” Jaramillo says.
She adds that the program’s benefits go beyond nutrition. Some students get so interested in gardening that they bring home seeds to start their own vegetable gardens. Besides, working in the garden seems to have a calming effect on Jaramillo’s special education students, many of whom have emotional control issues. “They get outside,” she says, “and they feel successful.”
1. What do we know about Abby Jaramillo?A.She used to be a health worker. | B.She grew up in a low-income family. |
C.She owns a fast food restaurant. | D.She is an initiator of Urban Sprouts. |
A.The kids’ parents distrusted her. | B.Students had little time for her classes. |
C.Some kids disliked garden work. | D.There was no space for school gardens. |
A.Far-reaching. | B.Predictable. |
C.Short-lived. | D.Unidentifiable. |
A.Rescuing School Gardens | B.Experiencing Country Life |
C.Growing Vegetable Lovers | D.Changing Local Landscape |
For thousands of years, people have told fables (寓言)
Carson uses a simple, direct style common to fable. In fact, her style and tone (口吻) are seemingly directed at children. “There was once a town in the heart of America,
The themes of traditional fables often deal with simple truths about everyday life. However, Carson’s theme is a more weighty
4 . An Australian professor is developing a robot to monitor the health of grazing cattle, a development that could bring big changes to a profession that's relied largely on a low-tech approach for decades but is facing a labor shortage.
Salah Sukkarieh, a professor at the University of Sydney, sees robots as necessary given how cattlemen are aging. He is building a four-wheeled robot that will run on solar and electric power. It will use cameras and sensors to monitor the animals. A computer system will analyze the video to determine whether a cow is sick. Radio tags (标签) on the animals will measure temperature changes. The quality of grassland will be tracked by monitoring the shape, color and texture (质地) of grass. That way, cattlemen will know whether they need to move their cattle to another field for nutrition purposes.
Machines have largely taken over planting, watering and harvesting crops such as com and wheat, but the monitoring of cattle has gone through fewer changes.
For Texas cattleman Pete Bonds, it's increasingly difficult to find workers interested in watching cattle. But Bonds doesn't believe a robot is right for the job. Years of experience in the industry - and failed attempts to use technology - have convinced him that the best way to check cattle is with a man on a horse. Bonds, who bought his first cattle almost 50 years ago, still has each of his cowboys inspect 300 or 400 cattle daily and look for signs that an animal is getting sick.
Other cattlemen see more promise in robots. Michael Kelsey Paris, vice president of the Oklahoma Cattlemen's Association, said a robot could be extremely useful given rising concerns about cattle theft. Cattle tend to be kept in remote places and their value has risen, making them appealing targets.
1. What is a problem with the cattle-raising industry?A.Soil pollution. | B.Lack of workers. |
C.Aging machines. | D.Low profitability. |
A.Monitor the quality of grass. | B.Cure the diseased cattle. |
C.Move cattle to another field. | D.Predict weather changes. |
A.He wants to help them earn a living. | B.He thinks men can do the job better. |
C.He is inexperienced in using robots. | D.He enjoys the traditional way of life. |
A.Increase the value of cattle. | B.Bring down the cost of labor. |
C.Make the job more appealing. | D.Keep cattle from being stolen. |
5 . We live in a town with three beaches. There are two parts less than 10 minutes’ walk from home where neighborhood children gather to play. However, what my children want to do after school is pick up a screen — any screen — and stare at it for hours. They are not alone. Today’s children spend an average of four and a half hours a day looking at screens, split between watching television and using the Internet.
In the past few years, an increasing number of people and organisations have begun coming up with plans to counter this trend. A couple of years ago film-maker David Bond realised that his children, then aged five and three, were attached to screens to the point where he was able to say “chocolate” into his three-year-old son’s ear without getting a response. He realised that something needed to change, and, being a London media type, appointed himself “marketing director from Nature”. He documented his journey as he set about treating nature as a brand to be marketed to young people. The result was Project Wild Thing, a film which charts the birth of the World Network, a group of organisations with the common goal of getting children out into nature.
“Just five more minutes outdoors can make a difference,” David Bond says. “There is a lot of really interesting evidence which seems to be suggesting that if children are inspired up to the age of seven, then being outdoors will be on habit for life.” His own children have got into the habit of playing outside now: “We just send them out into the garden and tell them not to come back in for a while.”
Summer is upon us. There is an amazing world out there, and it needs our children as much as they need it. Let us get them out and let them play.
1. What is the problem with the author’s children?A.They often annoy their neighbours. | B.They are tired of doing their homework. |
C.They have no friends to play with | D.They stay in front of screens for too long. |
A.By making a documentary film. | B.By organizing outdoor activities. |
C.By advertising in London media. | D.By creating a network of friends. |
A.records | B.predicts | C.delays | D.confirms |
A.Let Children Have Fun | B.Young Children Need More Free Time |
C.Market Nature to Children | D.David Bond: A Role Model for Children |
A music concert “Echoes of Ancient Tang Poems” jointly performed by iSING! Suzhou and the Philadelphia Orchestra was staged at Kimmel Performing Arts Center in Philadelphia on Jan. 6.
Another concert featuring Tang poetry was
The iSING! Suzhou International Young Artists Festival
The performances were also held to commemorate(纪念) the
Some time after 10,000 BC, people made the first real attempt to control the world they lived
Farming produced more food per person
By about 6000 BC,people
This style of farming lasted for quite a long time. Then,with
8 . OPENINGS AND PREVIEWS
Animals Out of PaperYolo!Productions and the Great Griffon present the play by Rajiv Joseph, in which an origami(折纸术) artist invites a teenage talent and his teacher into her studio. Merri Milwe directs. In previews. Opens Feb. 12. (West Park Presbyterian Church, 165 W. 86th St. 212-868-4444.)
The AudienceHelen Mirren stars in the play by Peter Morgan, about Queen Elizabeth II of the UK and her private meetings with twelve Prime Ministers in the course of sixty years. Stephen Daldry directs. Also starring Dylan Baker and Judith Ivey. Previews begin Feb. 14.(Schoenfeld, 236 W. 45th St. 212-239-6200.)
HamiltonLin-Manuel Miranda wrote this musical about Alexander Hamilton, in which the birth of America is presented as an immigrant story. Thomas Kail directs. In previews. Opens Feb. 17.(Public, 425 Lafayette St. 212-967-7555.)
On the Twentieth CenturyKristin Chenoweth and Peter Gallagher star in the musical comedy by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, about a Broadway producer who tries to win a movie star’s love during a cross-country train journey. Scott Ellis directs, for Roundabout Theatre Company. Previews begin Feb. 12.(American Airlines Theatre, 227 W. 42nd St. 212-719-1300.)
1. What is the play by Rajiv Joseph probably about?A.A type of art. | B.A teenager’s studio. |
C.A great teacher. | D.A group of animals. |
A.Helen Mirren. | B.Peter Morgan. |
C.Dylan Baker. | D.Stephen Daldry. |
A.Animals Out of Paper. | B.The Audience. |
C.Hamilton. | D.On the Twentieth Century. |
9 . We may think we're a culture that gets rid of our worn technology at the first sight of something shiny and new, but a new study shows that we keep using our old devices(装置) well after they go out of style. That’s bad news for the environment — and our wallets — as these outdated devices consume much more energy than the newer ones that do the same things.
To figure out how much power these devices are using, Callie Babbitt and her colleagues at the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York tracked the environmental costs for each product throughout its life — from when its minerals are mined to when we stop using the device. This method provided a readout for how home energy use has evolved since the early 1990s. Devices were grouped by generation — Desktop computers, basic mobile phones, and box-set TVs defined 1992. Digital cameras arrived on the scene in 1997. And MP3 players, smart phones, and LCD TVs entered homes in 2002, before tablets and e-readers showed up in 2007.
As we accumulated more devices, however, we didn't throw out our old ones. "The living-room television is replaced and gets planted in the kids' room, and suddenly one day, you have a TV in every room of the house," said one researcher. The average number of electronic devices rose from four per household in 1992 to 13 in 2007. We're not just keeping these old devices — we continue to use them. According to the analysis of Babbitt's team, old desktop monitors and box TVs with cathode ray tubes are the worst devices with their energy consumption and contribution to greenhouse gas emissions(排放)more than doubling during the 1992 to 2007 window.
So what's the solution(解决方案)? The team's data only went up to 2007, but the researchers also explored what would happen if consumers replaced old products with new electronics that serve more than one function, such as a tablet for word processing and TV viewing. They found that more on-demand entertainment viewing on tablets instead of TVs and desktop computers could cut energy consumption by 44%.
1. What does the author think of new devices?A.They are environment-friendly. | B.They are no better than the old. |
C.They cost more to use at home. | D.They go out of style quickly. |
A.To reduce the cost of minerals. |
B.To test the life cycle of a product. |
C.To update consumers on new technology. |
D.To find out electricity consumption of the devices. |
A.The box-set TV. | B.The tablet. |
C.The LCD TV. | D.The desktop computer. |
A.Stop using them. | B.Take them apart. |
C.Upgrade them. | D.Recycle them. |
10 . I’ve been farming sheep on a hillside for 54 years. I use a small tractor to get about. My dog Don always sits beside me in the passenger seat.
One morning I
Lamb and mother
My heart froze in my chest as I
Heart in mouth, I
The police
A.dropped | B.spotted | C.carried | D.returned |
A.kids | B.friends | C.owner | D.mother |
A.ask about | B.play with | C.tend to | D.run into |
A.freed | B.switched | C.reunited | D.examined |
A.unexpected | B.dangerous | C.embarrassing | D.difficult |
A.Fortunately | B.Generally | C.Immediately | D.Obviously |
A.lamb | B.vehicle | C.seat | D.fence |
A.saw | B.stopped | C.remembered | D.drove |
A.crowd | B.motorway | C.field | D.hill |
A.take off | B.catch up | C.hold back | D.get out |
A.real | B.best | C.basic | D.last |
A.fixed | B.noticed | C.reached | D.closed |
A.resting | B.running | C.parking | D.turning |
A.sleep | B.long | C.rough | D.busy |
A.abandoned | B.approached | C.recognized | D.repaired |
A.unclean | B.uncertain | C.unhurt | D.unhappy |
A.arrived | B.replied | C.survived | D.waited |
A.ability | B.dream | C.luck | D.idea |
A.common | B.confusing | C.desirable | D.awful |
A.meal | B.test | C.job | D.lesson |