2 . A group of frogs were traveling through the woods, but unluckily two of them fell into a deep pit(坑). All the other frogs _________ the pit. When they saw how _________ the pit was, they told the two frogs that they might as well be dead.

The two frogs _________ what the others were saying and tried to jump up out of the pit with all of their physical _________. The other frogs kept telling them to _________. Finally, one of the frogs paid attention to the comments, _________ considered them, and gave up. He _________ down and died.

The other frog continued to jump as _________ as he could. Once again, the crowd of frogs _________ him to stop the pain and just die. He jumped even harder and finally __________ it out. When he got out, the other frogs said, “Did you not hear us?” The frog __________ to them that he was a little __________. He thought they were encouraging him the __________ time.

This story teaches two lessons: First, there is power of life and death in the __________. An encouraging word to someone who is __________ can lift him up and help him make it through the day. Second, a destructive word to someone who is down can be __________ it takes to kill him. Be __________ of what you say. Speak life to those who cross your path.

The __________ of words is great. It is sometimes hard to understand that an encouraging word can go such a long way. Anyone can speak words that __________ to rob another of the spirit to continue in __________ times.

3 . Maggie, a girl of thirteen years old, lived on the west coast of the United States. She had never experienced an earthquake before; she only prepared for it. As long as she could remember, preparing for an earthquake was common at her school. Her family had made plans as well in case of a natural disaster.

One day, Maggie arrived home from school at the usual time. However, it was not the same as usual. She was home alone. Her mom would be driving home on the busy freeway and her dad was to arrive at the airport. He was coming home from a two-week business trip.

After finishing her homework, Maggie felt a little hungry, so she went to the kitchen to find something to eat: Just then she felt a shake, then the violent shaking. Maggie quickly ran under the large table in the dining room. The sounds of breaking glass and the crashing of many things were deafening, and Maggie hugged herself in fear.

After what seemed like a very long time, the earthquake appeared to be over. Maggie could hear the sound of water rushing below her in the basement. And there was the smell of natural gas in the air. Maggie knew where the main water valve(阀门) was and how to turn it off. Dad had ever shown her before.

Slowly and carefully she came out from under the table. The once tidy home was then almost unrecognizable. Walls had fallen down and many things in the room were in a mess. As Maggie approached the open basement door, she could see the steps. Carefully she made her way down into the dark basement.

While placing her feet firmly on the floor, Maggie felt a sudden pain as a large wood hit her head and shoulder. She fell unconscious onto a pile of boxes. An hour later, she woke up and found her parents beside her. She was happy that she was still alive!

4 . For centuries, historians and archaeologists have defined periods of human history by the technologies or materials that made the greatest impact on society — like the Stone Age, Bronze Age, or Iron Age. But what age are we in now? For some researchers, according to Atlas Obscura’s Cara Giamo, that question can be answered with one word: plastics.

“Plastic has redefined our material culture and the artifacts we leave behind. It will be found in stratified (分层) layers in our trash deposits (沉积层)” That’s according to archaeologist John Marston.

The wide variety of synthetic polymers (合成聚合物) would not exist if it weren’t for human action. Since the first plastic polymers were invented, about six billion tons of plastics have been made and spread around the planet, from forests to oceans ever since the first plastics polymers were invented.

Plastics are one of the most significant changes that humans have made to the Earth’s makeup. Most plastics don’t easily degrade. This only adds to the problem. Recycling isn’t an adequate solution. Not all types of plastic are easily recyclable. And there are only a few recycling plants that can process all varieties of plastic.

According to Debra Winter, writer for The Atlantic, this means that many of the materials thrown into recycling bins can cross the planet several times before they are processed. They are made into produce rugs, sweaters, or other bottles. Although millions of tons of plastic are recycled every year, millions more end up in landfills or the ocean. The problem has reached the point where it’s possible that in just a few decades there might be more plastic in the world’s oceans than fishes.

“Plastics have a supposed life span of over 500 years, it’s safe to say that every plastic bottle you have used exists somewhere on this planet, in some form or another,” Winter writes. 

The damage may already be done. It may be too late for human populations worldwide to change their plastic-using ways. So the Plastic Age might soon take its place next to the Bronze Age and the Iron Age in the history of human civilization.

5 . In habitats across the planet, animals periodically drop everything to walk, fly or swim to a new place. Some animals such as whales and geese learn migration paths by following their parents. Others, including small songbirds, gain the distance and direction of their migration within their genetic code. And some animals use a combination of genetics and culture to guide their migration.

Another group of migrators does not quite fit either model, and researchers have only recently started to figure out how they find their way. The Cory’s shearwater is an oceangoing seabird that migrates over the Atlantic every year. The young do not migrate with their parents, so culture cannot explain their journeys. And the exact paths vary wildly from individual to individual, making genetics equally unlikely.

Cory’s shearwaters are long-lived, rarely producing young successfully before age nine. This leaves an opening for learning and practice to develop their migration patterns. Researchers call this the “exploration-refinement”, and until now it has been hypothetical (假设的) because of difficulties in tracking migratory animals’ movements.

But a team of researchers has done that by attaching small geolocators to more than 150 of the birds aged four to nine. They found that younger birds traveled longer distances, for longer periods, and had more diverse paths than older birds. “We finally have evidence of the ‘exploration-refinement’ for migratory birds,” says Letizia Campioni, who led the study. Younger Cory’s shearwaters are able to fly just as fast as the adults——but they do not, suggesting that the young do more exploring, which gradually fades as they mature and settle into a preferred course.

“Although it may seem less efficient than other strategies, exploration refinement could be beneficial to birds and other organisms in a rapidly changing world due to unpredictable man-made changes,” says Barbara Frei. “It might be safer to repeat a behavior that was recently successful than to rely on patterns that were perfected long ago but might no longer be safe.”

6 . Afroz Shah, a lawyer in Mumbai, hasn’t had a weekend off in four years. But he hasn’t spent this time preparing for _________.

His mission? Saving the world’s oceans from _________ pollution.

It’s a calling he found in 2015 after moving to a community in Mumbai called Versova Beach. He had played there as a child and was_________to see how much it had _________. The sand was no longer _________ because it was covered by a layer of garbage more than five feet thick — most of it plastic waste.

“The whole beach was like a_________of plastic,” he said. “It hurt me. The _________ mess.” What Shah had seen is part of a global environmental crisis. More than 8 million tons of plastic _________in the world’s oceans each year. It’s predicted that by 2050, there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish. “Plastic in the ocean is a _________. And the sea species have no choice at all, ” Shah said. “We are ______________ their habitats.”

In October 2015, Shah began ________________ up plastic waste from the beach every Sunday morning. At first, it was just him and a neighbor, and then he began calling on others to join in. Word ________________ and with the help from social media, more volunteers got ________________.

For Shah, the work has always been a ________________ journey, but it has earned global attention. After he was ________________ as a Champion of the Earth by the United Nations in 2016, Shah now devotes nearly all of his free time to this ________________.

He’s now spent 209 weekends on this mission, ________________ more than 200,000 volunteers, some of whom are young students, to join him in what’s been called the world’s biggest beach cleanup. By October 2018, Versova Beach was ________________ clean and Shah’s cleanups expanded to another beach as well as a stretch of the Mithi River and other regions of India.

“This world talks too much. I think we must talk ________________ and do action more, ” he said when interviewed by CNN in October 2019.“We are a smart species. Well adapt. We’ll learn. And with these youngsters rising up, I see ________________.”

7 . An earthquake can strike without warning. But many injuries and deaths from this kind of natural disaster can be prevented if people follow these safety tips.

If you’re inside a building, stay there! One of the most dangerous things to do in an earthquake is to try to leave a building.     1     Drop down onto the ground. Get under an object that is not easily damaged. Hold on to it until the shaking stops. You can also get to a corner formed by two walls with your arms over your head. If you’re in bed when the quake hits, stay there and protect your head with a pillow.

    2     Don’t take shelter under trees, streetlights, telegraph poles or tall buildings. If you are driving stop as quickly as possible and stay away from overpasses, buildings, bridges or anything else that might fall or collapse over you.     3    

If you are trapped in the ruins, cover your mouth with a handkerchief or a piece of clothing. Use your cellphone to call for help if possible. Don’t shout.     4     Tap on a pipe or the wall so rescuers can find you.

Be prepared for aftershocks    5     However, sometimes they even happen months later. Therefore, if you are not in a safe position after the first shock, you should move quickly but carefully to a safer place.

8 . More than half of the food produced in Canada goes to waste. A shocking new study has shown that the level of food waste is far worse than previously thought, at 58%. Of that, about 85% of food waste is due to food processors. This differs from earlier studies, which criticized families for driving food waste and said they were responsible for 51% of food waste.

The study was carried out by Martin Hooch, the leading expert on food waste and the author of several previous studies on the subject. Reflecting on the study’s findings, Hooch said, “It means stopping criticizing consumers. Sure, consumers are part of the problem, but they’re not the problem.”

In the past, Hooch didn’t master good data, particularly from the private factories, but relied on numbers collected by the food industry for purposes other than tracking waste. This time, however, Hooch worked directly with companies at all stages along the food production chain and interviewed over 700 experts in the industry. Clearly he found it hard to believe what he was seeing.

This is what they found: Food processing causes 34% of food waste. This is followed by production, which causes 24%. Next is manufacturing at 13%, then hotels and restaurants at 9%. Families cause only 14%, and market sales 6%. This should be a scrious wake-up call for Canadians who would do well to examine their own food supply chains. Food waste is costly, not only in terms of dollars wasted, but also in resources like land, water, and so on. To be using these resources and wasting the product is totally irresponsible and unnecessary.

To make matters worse, when food is thrown into rubbish cans, it produces methane, a greenhouse gas 30 times more powerful than carbon dioxide (CO2). At Canada’s rate of food waste, that’s like adding 12 million cars to the road. It seems that the food industry needs redesigning. Therefore, let’s hope the government takes action.

9 . After years of heated debate, gray wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park. Fourteen wolves were caught in Canada and transported to the park. By last year, the Yellowstone wolf population had grown to more than 170 wolves.

Gray wolves once were seen here and there in the Yellowstone area and much of the continental United States, but they were gradually displaced by human development. By the 1920s, wolves had practically disappeared from the Yellowstone area. They went farther north into the deep forests of Canada, where there were fewer humans around.

The disappearance of the wolves had many unexpected results. Deer and elk populations — major food sources (来源) for the wolf — grew rapidly. These animals consumed large amounts of vegetation (植被), which reduced plant diversity in the park. In the absence of wolves, coyote populations also grew quickly. The coyotes killed a large percentage of the park’s red foxes, and completely drove away the park’s beavers.

As early as 1966, biologists asked the government to consider reintroducing wolves to Yellowstone Park. They hoped that wolves would be able to control the elk and coyote problems. Many farmers opposed the plan because they feared that wolves would kill their farm animals or pets.

The government spent nearly 30 years coming up with a plan to reintroduce the wolvers. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service carefully monitors and manages the wolf packs in Yellowstone. Today, the debate continues over how well the gray wolf is fitting in at Yellowstone. Elk, deer, and coyote populations are down, while beavers and red foxes have made a comeback. The Yellowstone wolf project has been a valuable experiment to help biologists decide whether to reintroduce wolves to other parts of the country as well.

10 . On Saturday 24 August 1918, it was raining cats and dogs and thundering over a city called Sunderland on the northeast coast of England. The storm lasted for only about ten minutes. People were surprised to see that it was not just rainwater falling from the sky. There were fish falling down, too! People came out to find out what was happening. They could not believe their own eyes. There were thousands of fish—sand eels (沙鳗)—lying on the ground. They were about seven centimeters long, and all were frozen solid (冻成硬块).

Sand eels swim together in large groups, often in sandy water, and are often found in large numbers in the North Sea, which reaches out to the east of Sunderland. How was it possible for these sand eels to fall from the sky and land on Sunderland?

Scientists believed the heavy thunderstorm that afternoon may have caused a waterspout (水龙卷). Waterspouts can be formed when strong winds move quickly in a circle over water. They are so powerful that anything less than one meter in length can be taken into them and forced into the clouds. The clouds carry whatever has been taken into them for long distances —sometimes over 150 kilometers. It’s very cold up there and everything soon freezes solid.

For hundreds of years there have been reports of small animals being taken into the sky through waterspouts. In 2009, dead tadpoles rained down on the city of Nanao in Japan. In 2012, fifty kilos of prawns fell from the sky over Sri Lanka. In 2017, fish fell on the coastal city of Tampico in Mexico.

It must be a very strange experience to see fish raining down on you. It would probably hurt if one fell on your head! With climate (气候) change and many reports of terrible storms, will the time ever come when it may really begin to rain cats and dogs?