1 . Who works only one day in a year but never gets fired?
2 . You know that classics like Little Women and To Kill a Mockingbird started as novels. But you probably didn’t know that these other famous movies also came from books.
Hidden Figures
This film told the story of real-life Katherine Johnson and other female African-American mathematicians who helped drive the United States into space in the 1960s. It was actually based on a 2016 non-fiction book and the movie did boost sales of the book.
Forrest Gump
The 1994 movie which was based on the book by Winston Groom won six Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actor for the star Tom Hanks. Although the movie’s critical and box-office success gave the book a huge boost, it’s the film that made its mark on pop culture history.
The Girl on the Train
Paula Hawkin’s psychological thriller, about a woman on a train who thinks she sees something strange out of the window, was a huge success. But unlike the fast—paced, can’t-be-put-down quality of the novel, the movie was boring.
Field of Dreams
It’s hard to describe the plot of this movie: Ray Kinsella hears a voice telling him to build a baseball field in his Iowa cornfield, and what happens next explores the themes of lost dreams, childhood heroes, and healing the pain of the past. The 1989 movie is based on W. P. Kinsella’s 1982 original, Shoeless Joe, but cuts out some extra characters.
1. Which is the best choice for a person who loves math?A.Hidden Figures. | B.Forrest Gump. |
C.The Girl on the Train. | D.Field of Dreams. |
A.Tom Hanks. | B.Winston Groom. |
C.Paula Hawkin. | D.W. P. Kinsella. |
A.It is a romantic comedy. | B.It presents several themes. |
C.It shows all the figures in Shoeless Joe. | D.It was released in 1982 for the first time. |
3 . The Covid-19 pandemic has forced millions of us to participate in one of the biggest social experiments of our time: what would happen if office workers largely abandoned their workplaces and began working from home?
One thing seems clear: more people working remotely has brought some benefits for the environment. Wildlife has be enable to reclaim urban spaces while people have been tapping away at their home keyboards, with less commuter (通勤者) traffic.
Many people have also been able to get more done while working remotely.
As vaccines help to control Covid-19, many organizations are hoping to reap the best of both worlds by letting employees work from home on some days and travel to the office on others.
A.But what about the benefits to people? |
B.More than 2 years in, it is time to reflect. |
C.After a severe period, there is no turning back. |
D.However, the experiment hasn’t been all positive. |
E.It is time to reset and rethink how we actually work. |
F.Many managers have also reported declines in innovation. |
G.The productivity level is found to rise as they work from home. |
4 . Did you know roughly one third of food for human consumption goes to waste? Most of it is fresh fruits and vegetables that go bad. The produce dries out or goes bad, which has led scientists to develop ways of coating or sealing the food to keep it fresher for longer. Now research at Rice University reveals there might be a better way.
Scientists discovered that dipping produce like strawberries and bananas into an egg-based was his remarkably good for preserving it. The coating is extremely thick, and made from a mixture of powdered egg whites and yolks(70%), and some wood-sourced cellulose(纤维素) to act as a barrier preventing water loss.
What the scientists found was that the egg-based wash made a significant difference in helping produce stay fresh over a two-week observation period. The appearance of the coated fruits and vegetables didn’t change much, while the uncoated produce ripened and even rotted within the same timeframe. The egg-based coating, as it turned out, reduced each fruit’s chance to get exposed to oxygen.
The non-poisonous coating was found to be flexible and tests showed that it was just as tough as other products, including synthetic films(合成膜), used in produce packaging. For anyone with an egg allergy, the coating can be removed by thorough washing in water and is tasteless.
The scientists hope this could be a breakthrough in the fight against food waste. “Reducing food shortages in ways that are not related to genetic modification, uneatable coatings or chemical additives is important for better sustainable living,” said materials scientist and study author Pulickel Ajayan.
What’s great about this discovery is that it fights food waste in more than one way: even the coating was made from eggs that would otherwise have been thrown away because they weren’t fit for consumption. The researchers said roughly 200 million of US produced eggs go to waste annually. So if this were scaled up, it could be a win-win situation all around.
1. How does the egg-based wash help keep food fresh?A.By making its coating less thick. | B.By limiting its oxygen exposure. |
C.By removing its cellulose slowly. | D.By improving its absorbent ability. |
A.To stress the seriousness of food shortage. | B.To show the significance of the discovery. |
C.To offer the method of cutting food waste. | D.To give brief description of the research. |
A.Optimistic. | B.Doubtful. | C.Cautious. | D.In different. |
A.How to use eggs creatively. | B.A breakthrough in technology. |
C.How to recycle food waste. | D.A new way to preserve food. |
5 . Kwane Stewart stepped outside a convenience store and spotted a homeless man with a small dog sitting in the lap. Stewart, a vet at an animal shelter, noticed its scratched-off furs—signs of an allergic reaction to fleas(跳蚤). He approached the man and offered to bring flea medications for the dog’s skin, a gift the man readily accepted. “I remember returning a week later, and the hair was coming back, the red spots on its skin were gone,” Stewart told the Modesto Bee. The man said his dog was no longer staying up scratching and was sleeping well. “‘And you know,’ he said, ‘I’m sleeping at night.’ He started to cry, and that got me choked up too,” Stewart said. Stewart was hooked. “When you give back, there is something you get in return that feels much larger. I knew I wanted to keep doing it,” he told medium.com.
Today, Stewart, 50, has his own practice in town, yet he still finds time for street pets. He’s helped roughly 400 animals since 2011, mostly dogs but also a few cats.
There’s a strong need for his kind of help. About 25 percent of Modesto’s homeless population own a pet, but there are few health-care options available to them. To fill that void, Stewart, using his free time, wanders dark alleyways and underpasses, anywhere he thinks the homeless might be camped out. He carries his medical bag, which contains treatments—vaccines, antibiotics, flea medications, and more. Stewart pays for almost all of it out of his own pocket.
For those expensive procedures, he setup a Go Fund Me account to provide enough money for treatment. “I don’t ever want to have to turn anybody away,” he explains.
He knows there are some people who question whether the homeless should even have pets. How can they care for them on the street? Stewart told the Bee, “I think that more than anybody, they need a pet. They love their pets probably more than the average person.”
1. What did Stewart do for the homeless man’s dog?A.He brought some medicine to it. | B.He sent a unique gift to it. |
C.He cured its allergy to dust. | D.He scratched it to help it sleep well. |
A.Time. | B.Gap. | C.Desire | D.Choice. |
A.To give free medical treatment. | B.To offer a comfortable shelter. |
C.To pay the cost of healthcare. | D.To provide care and adoption. |
A.The Homeless Dogs | B.Go Fund Me |
C.Animal Shelters | D.A Street Vet |
Blood: Water Mission is founded by the Grammy Award-winning band, Jars of Clay.
The results of our efforts paint a new picture in these communities. There has been a remarkable improvement in the water situation and community health.
It’s a beautiful story. We invite you to be a small part of a larger, beautiful story.
A.Clean water wells have been built. |
B.Most children get the opportunity to go to school. |
C.There is a vital link between HIV/AIDS and clean water. |
D.Meanwhile, the 1,000 Wells Project has expanded along the way. |
E.Blood: Water Mission has also created social effects in the United States. |
F.Blood: Water Mission has developed a close friendship with these communities. |
G.There are many projects providing much-needed assistance to African communities. |
7 . Chinese speakers have got a new thing to be proud of. The language they are speaking is more difficult than English.
Understanding Chinese requires both sides of the brain, but English speakers listen with only half their minds on the job, UK scientists say.
UK psychologist Sophie Scott and researchers from hospitals in Oxford and London performed brain scans on volunteers as they listened to their native languages. When English speakers heard the sound of their language, the left parts of their brains lit up on screen. When Chinese speakers heard their native tongue, there was an action in both the right and left sides.
“We were very surprised to discover that people who speak different sorts of languages use their brains to decode speech in different ways.” said Scott.
The left side is normally connected with putting sounds together into words; the right with processing melody (音调) in music and speech, so this part “lights up” when English speakers hear music. The researchers do not yet know whether the right side is active in English speakers when they hear Chinese.
In Chinese, a different intonation (语调) delivers a different meaning, the syllable (音节) “ma”, for instance, can mean mother, hemp (麻), horse or scold according to its musical sound.
“Speech really is a complex sound,” said Scott. “As well as understanding words, the brain uses the way in which words are spoken, such as intonation and melody, to turn spoken language into meaning.”
“We think Chinese speakers interpret intonation and melody in the right sides of their brains to give correct meaning to the spoken words.”
The study suggests that language itself might affect the way the brain develops in a young child. It could explain why native speakers of English find it so extraordinary hard to learn Chinese.
1. What does the underlined “volunteers” in paragraph 3 refer to?A.Chinese speakers. | B.English speakers. |
C.People who speak different languages. | D.Researchers and Chinese and English speakers. |
A.Music. | B.Meanings. |
C.Intonation and melody. | D.The way the brain develops. |
A.The left sides of their brains are not used for language. |
B.They can hardly understand words when there is music. |
C.The right sides of their brains are never used in childhood. |
D.They can hardly understand words in the right side of the brain. |
A.How the Brain Responds to Music |
B.How the Brain Responds to Chinese |
C.The Brain Responds to Languages Differently |
D.The Two Sides of the Brain Work Differently |
8 . When drawing scientists. U. S. children now depict (描画) female scientists more often than ever, according to new Northwestern University research, which has analyzed five decades of “Draw-A-Scientist” studies conducted since the 1960s.
This change suggests that children’s stereotypes (刻板印象) linking science with men have weakened over time, said the researchers, consistent with more women becoming scientists and children’s media depicting more female scientists on television shows and other media.
In the first study, conducted between 1968 and 1979, less than one percent of 5,000 children drew an image resembling a woman when asked to draw a scientist. Almost all their artwork depicted men working with laboratory equipment, often with lab coats, glasses and facial hair.
But in later studies (1988 to 2019), 28 percent of children drew a female scientist, on average. In addition, both girls and boys drew female scientists more often over time, though girls overall drew female scientists much more often than boys.
“Our results suggest that children’s stereotypes change as women’s and men’s roles change in society.” said study lead author David Miller. “Children still draw more male than female scientists, but that is expected because women remain a minority in several science fields.”
The researchers also studied how children form stereotypes about scientists across child development. The results suggested children did not associate science with men until grade school; around age 5, they drew roughly equal percentages of male and female scientists. During elementary and middle school, the tendency to draw male scientists increased strongly with age. Older children were also more likely to draw scientists with lab coats and glasses, suggesting that children learn other stereotypes as they mature.
“These changes across children’s age likely reflect that children’s exposure to male scientists accumulates during development, even in recent years.” said Miller.
“To build on cultural changes, teachers and parents should present children with multiple examples of female scientists across many contexts such as science courses, television shows and informal conversations,” Miller said.
1. What is the change in children drawing scientists?A.Children draw more male scientists. |
B.Children draw more female scientists. |
C.Girls draw more scientists than boys. |
D.Children draw more female than male scientists. |
A.It’s not surprising. | B.It’s not reasonable. |
C.It’s unexpected. | D.It’s not acceptable. |
A.How children develop their drawings. |
B.How children’s stereotypes change with age. |
C.Why children draw more male scientists. |
D.What scientists look like in children’s drawings. |
A.By encouraging children to attend science courses. |
B.By encouraging children to become scientists in the future. |
C.By giving children an example of drawing female scientists. |
D.By making female scientists known to children in various situations. |
9 . Lunch hour is crazy at SAME Café, the restaurant my husband, Brad, and I run in Denver.
One day a woman dressed in a business outfit (套装) stepped in. “Hi, Libby.” she said. I recognized her. The first time she came two years ago, she had no money to pay for a meal. No problem. Like many customers, she volunteered to work. After her meal, she washed dishes. Look at her now. I stole a glance at Brad, in the kitchen. Wasn’t this what we’d hoped for?
In 2015, on a flight home from Texas, we’d hatched this crazy dream. We’d both done a lot of volunteering at soup kitchens. It was something we felt called to do, feeding the poor.
“I wish we could start our own place,” I said. “No cash register (收银机). Just a donation box on the counter.”
“Why don’t we?” Brad said.
It would be a charity, but we didn’t want our diners to think of it as a charity. “If they can’t pay.” Brad said, “they can help wash dishes or sweep the floor. We must treat people with dignity.”
Our first customer was a woman in her forties. She told me she was recently divorced and she and her two kids had no place of their own. “Could I have a salad?” she asked. I brought her a plate of greens with fresh fruit and nuts. Her eyes grew wide. “These are the first fresh vegetables I’ve had in four months,” she exclaimed. That alone made our struggles to open the café worth it.
SAME is short for our belief: So All May Eat. Customers came for Brad’s cooking. But they also liked what our café stood for.
“What do I owe you?” one customer asked. “Whatever you think the meal’s worth,” I said, “and whatever you can afford.” Most customers gave what they could, even if it was just a dollar.
Something was different about the woman that day. Something besides her outfit. She stopped at the counter and ordered greens with sun-dried tomatoes, and a ham and pineapple pizza
“I have something to tell you.” she said. “The last time I was here, I started talking to a woman I’d met here before. She said. ‘There’s an opening in my office. Why don’t you come in and apply?” I did—I got the job!” I knew what was different about her—confidence.
She opened her purse. “I can pay now. How can I ever thank you?”
“You just did,” I said.
1. What did the author and her husband do at soup kitchens in Texas?A.They learned how to cook. | B.They helped feed the hungry. |
C.They trained the volunteers. | D.They made a living there. |
A.With respect. | B.With pity. | C.With care. | D.With effort |
A.Customers can pay as they like. | B.Customers needn’t pay for a meal. |
C.Customers help with charity work. | D.Customers get paid for what they do. |
A.The woman paid for her meal. |
B.The woman expressed her thanks. |
C.The woman helped to wash dishes. |
D.The woman gave her what she had hoped for. |
10 . One Earth Award
About this award
Sponsored by the One Earth Fund, the One Earth Award offers $1,000 scholarships for four students whose works address the pressing issue of human-caused climate change.
Why should I create art or writing about climate change?
Some consequences of climate change include: sea-level rise, increase in air pollution, hurricane, droughts, extreme weather, and rising temperatures, among others. Your work can advance our thoughts about climate change and our understanding of solutions. It can also improve awareness of actions that we can take, in order to reduce the harm that human action has on our environment.
How do I apply?
Enter your work to any category in the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. When selecting the category of your work, choose the One Earth Award. You will be required to include a personal statement on your work.
What should I write for the personal statement?
Your personal statement should be 50 words or more and answer the following questions:
What specific aspect of climate change does your work address?
What is your personal connection to this aspect of climate change, and why do you think talking about climate change is important?
Getting started on your work
These resources can help you learn about climate change and create your own art and writing about it.
Consider how poets talk about climate change with the Poetry Foundation.
Explore visual art activities and writing activities from the Teacher’s Climate Guide.
Try writing exercises developed by English Teachers Concerned about Climate Crisis.
1. What is the first thing to do to get the One Earth Award?A.Choosing the One Earth Award. |
B.Contacting the One Earth Fund. |
C.Presenting the personal statement. |
D.Visiting the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. |
A.What action you will take. | B.What you are concerned about. |
C.Why your work is important. | D.What suggestion you will make. |
A.How do I apply? |
B.About this award |
C.Getting started on your work |
D.What should I write for the personal statement? |