I wake up to the sound of the wind
2 . Amsterdam is one of the most popular travel destinations in the world, famous for its beautiful canals, top art museums, cycling culture and so on. It is the capital city of the Netherlands and often referred to as the “Venice of the North” because of its expansive system of bridges and canals. Here are some of the key points to remember as you plan your trip to Amsterdam.
Must-See Attractions
Most visitors begin their Amsterdam adventure in the Old Centre, which is full of traditional architecture, shopping centers, and coffee shops. You’ll also want to check out Amsterdam’s Museum Quarter in the South District, which is great for shopping at the Albert Cuyp Market and having a picnic in the Vondelpark. The top museums to visit there are the Rijksmusuem, the Ann Frank House, and the Van Gogh Museum.
If You Have Time
There are several other unique districts in Amsterdam, and you should try to explore as many of them as time allows. The Canal Ring is a UNESCO World Heritage Site that was originally built to attract wealthy home owners and is a center for celebrity spotting and nightlife today. The Plantage area has most of the city’s museums and the botanical gardens.
Money Saving Tips
●Unless you really want to see the tulips(郁金香) blooming, avoid booking between mid-March and mid-May. This is when hotel and flight prices rise.
●Look for accommodations in Amsterdam’s South District, where rates are generally cheaper than in the city center.
●Buy train tickets at the machine instead of the counter to save a bit of money.
●Instead of hiring a tour guide, hop on a canal boat. They’re inexpensive and will give you a unique point of view of the city.
Check out our homepage to view price comparisons for flights, hotels, and rental cars before you book.
1. What can be learned about Amsterdam from this passage?| A．The Van Gogh Museum lies in the South District. |
| B．The Canal Ring is a place to attract garden lovers. |
| C．The Old Centre is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. |
| D．Amsterdam is called the “Venice of the North” because of its location. |
| A．arrange a guided tour | B．buy train tickets at the counter |
| C．reserve a hotel in the South District | D．book flights between mid-March and mid-May |
| A．A magazine. | B．An essay. | C．A report. | D．A website. |
1变化（交通transportation,环境environment,……）；
2.原因；
3.欢迎他再来平谷。
注意：1.词数100左右；
2.开头和结尾已给出，不计入总词数。
Dear Jim,
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Yours,
Li Hua
A new study reveals more answers about why Earth’s second largest ocean is expanding four centimetres.
That’s around the height of a golf tee. The width of a cracker. It’s also the amount that the Atlantic Ocean is expanding every year.
Now when you’re talking about an ocean that is 4,830 kilometres (3,000 miles) wide at its largest point, 4 centimetres (1.6 inches) is not much. But it is happening. So naturally, scientists want to know why.
Thanks to a new study, researchers think that they have the answer why. You could even call it a ‘hot take’. As in hot magma, or molten rock, deep under the ocean floor!
The study suggests that the expansion is being caused by magma(岩浆) bubbling up from under an underwater ‘mountain range’ called the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Let’s start with what that ridge is.
Basically, the Mid-Atlantic Ridge is the seam between some very large tectonic plates. The ridge is also known as a plate boundary. As we’ve discussed before here, tectonic plates are essentially the platforms that our continents rest on. They are large pieces of the crust that are always moving in slow motion.
This movement is what causes earthquakes, for example. And the areas where the plates meet are where we tend to find things like mountains and volcanos, as well.
In this case, as the magma bubbles up from the mantle(地幔) below the crust, it is pushing the edges of both plates out of the way. As a result, the ocean is slowly getting wider.
This is a new finding. Before the study, scientists thought that the plates were being pulled apart—they were being dragged away from the ridge by forces occurring on either side of the ocean, not from in the middle.
Scientists still believe that this ‘pulling’ motion is happening. It is just that now, they feel that the bubbling magma is an important force as well. There is push and pull.
The scientists behind this study have been quick to point out that their research is only looking at a small cross-section of the ridge. It’s like a slice across it. What is happening right along this slice, may not be happening the same way up and down the entire ridge. But it is still really useful information—and how they got it is pretty cool.
Back in 2016, a research ship traveled to a very quiet spot directly over the ridge. Over five weeks, the crew dropped 39 seismometers on to the ocean floor. These devices allow them to ‘listen’ to the activity of the tectonic plates and what was beneath it. It’s like what a stethoscope does with your heartbeat, but for the planet. A year later, they retrieved the devices and looked at the data.
Then it was back to the lab to try and piece together what they learned. In the end, they have added to our understanding of how and why the Earth’s surface constantly moves. Even if it is only by about a little bit each year!
1. What is causing the expansion of Earth’s second largest ocean?2. What does the underlined phrase “This movement” refer to?
3. Please decide which part of the following statement is false, then underline it and explain why.
Scientists find that it is the magma below the crust that is pushing the edges of both plates out of the way to cause the ocean to slowly get wider, but not the forces occurring on either side of the ocean pulling the plates apart.
4. What do you think of the process of how the finding was got? (about 40 words)
5 . Landscapes are not only the setting for history; they are also a major source of our sense of history and identity.Read them right, and historical landscapes can be more informative than any other kind of source.This is even more the case with sacred landscapes, which were reflection of our ancestors’ beliefs about their relation to the cosmos and can still today seem to hold a spiritual influence.
Over the years, I’ve had the good fortune to have spent time in many historical landscapes, hoping to picture something of the spirits of the people who shaped them over the centuries.I still remember years ago walking along the Inca sacred lines around Cusco, Peru. In this ancient landscape, old sites that once belonged to Incan royals had become torn Spanish mansions. Or many years ago, before the Gulf Wars, I took a journey through south Iraq, the heart land of civilization, where the desert is still crossed by dried-up riverbeds of the Euphrates and canals that once sustained the world’s first cities.
Britain also has its own magical ancient landscapes. From the Mesolithic to the Bronze and Iron Ages, rich layers of the past are still present in the landscape surrounding Stonehenge, even as traffic rushes down the A303. It is the A303 that is the problem. As the main road to the south west from the home counties, the road runs right past Stonehenge. One of humanity’s most famous monuments, Stonehenge is an archaeological landscape without parallel in Europe, and perhaps the world. The first circle at Stonehenge was made 5,000 years ago, and the great stone circle itself in a round 2,500 BC—the age of the pyramids! And the mysteries of this amazing monument and the complex prehistoric societies that produced it are by no means exhausted, as new discoveries continue to show.
All the more worrying to me then, this unique landscape is currently at the centre of a projected plan by Highways England, which aims to relieve congestion on the A303 by creating a four-lane road with a 1.8-mile tunnel, and an expressway interchange 1.5 miles to the west. While the National Trust and English Heritage have offered qualified support for the plan, UNESCO has expressed its opposition. Meanwhile, the Stonehenge Alliance, a group of archaeologists and environmental campaigners, says the plan is based on inadequate and obsolete information. In the end, the argument is about the totality of an ancient landscape, and that includes the ancient astronomical alignment that was purposefully chosen by our ancestors, and that will, in my view, be wrecked by the expressway interchange. Time perhaps for a rethink in the name of future generations?
1. What can historical landscapes offer us?| A．Details of ancient lifestyle. | B．Sacred writings. |
| C．Rich historical information. | D．Breathtaking sights. |
| A．Different architecture. | B．His sense of belonging. |
| C．The rise of ancient cities. | D．The spirits of ancestors. |
| A．The first stone circle has a longer history than the pyramids. |
| B．New discoveries have solved the mysteries of the monument. |
| C．The ancient monument must have been the heart land of civilization. |
| D．The landscape surrounding has rich layers of the present. |
| A．He is for it because it will benefit the future generations. |
| B．He keeps cool but believes a better solution could be adopted. |
| C．It should be stopped because it will destroy the totality of the monument. |
| D．It is rather practical especially with qualified support from the government. |
