Are you still discussing and getting your head round Chat GPT,
Although Start of Autumn, the 13th traditional Chinese solar term, often indicates the
In my old school days, running
4 . In Thailand, human-elephant conflict is increasing. To local farmers, elephants threaten their safety and economic livelihood.
Bring the Elephant Home (BTEH) is a non-profit organisation whose mission is to increase chances of survival for elephants and work towards a world in which people and elephants can live in harmony, benefting from each other’s existence. BTEH’s projects root in local communities. Their work is characterised by three principles:local involvement, a healthy ecology, and benefits for people and elephants simultaneously (同时地). They lead to shared decision making, ownership of local communities, sustainability, and a peaceful coexistence of people and animals.
A group of BTEH researchers and local farmer volunteers are experimenting with how to make the plantations less appealing to elephants and prevent them from coming into the farms. And the Tom Yum Project comes into being.
The name of the Tom Yum Project comes from the Thai soup. The ingredients (原料) for the soup are chilli, garlic, lemongrass, and onion—none of which are attractive to elephants. This project gives hope to alternative crops as a solution to human-elephant conflict in Thailand. The project works in the following steps.
The Tom Yum Project is the first research and community-based alternative crop planting initiative to promote human-elephant coexistence. Now, some similar projects will be carried out in Sri Lanka.
1. According to the passage, BTEH’s mission is to| A．develop rural communities | B．create healthy environments |
| C．improve local economic livelihood | D．promote human-elephant coexistence |
| A．form some guarding teams | B．volunteer to collect ingredients |
| C．experiment with alternative crops | D．provide elephants with the Thai soup |
| A．Step 2. | B．Step 3. | C．Step 4. | D．Step 5. |
In order to fit in and make friends in a new school, Amanda observed how her classmates behaved and interacted with each other. Gradually, she perfectly adopted the mannerisms of the classmates around her, laughing at their jokes, nodding in agreement with their opinions, hiding herself into someone she thought others wanted her to be. We’ve all done these. This is social masking, the process of holding back or hiding our natural way of interacting with others so we can feel accepted.
In a world that often tells us to just be ourselves, you might wonder why many of us rely on social masking. “Social masking happens because we as a species want to be included,” says psychologist Dipti Tait. “It’s a tribal (群体的) thing of being together rather than being on our own. We all have certain masks to protect ourselves from exposure and difference.” While masking can help us deal with social situations, it can also come with negative consequences. Hiding our behaviours and interests constantly can lead to a strong feeling of separation, disconnection, and internal conflict. As a result, we may experience a heightened and increased possibility of developing depression as westruggle to understand social situations and signs that others take for granted.
Fortunately, a mask is not our own skin. We may feel extremely tired after social engagements and want to spend time alone in order to feel like ourselves. “The goal is to feel safe enough to remove the mask,” says Tait. “It’s crucial for individuals to receive acceptance and support for who they are, rather than feeling like they need to hide their true selves in order to fit in.”
1. What is social masking?2. Why do many of us rely on social masking?
3. Please decide which part is false in the following statement, then underline it and explain why.
When people struggle to understand social situations that others consider normal, they will feel less depressed.
4. In addition to masking, what else can you do to fit in when you are in a new environment? (In about 40 words)
6 . Time is one of humanity’s greatest blind spots. We experience it as days, months or years. But nature functions on much grander scales, measured in centuries, and even longer phases often grouped as “deep time.” Humanity’s shortsightedness around time creates major limits on modern conservation. As the climate and biodiversity crises accelerate, we are urgently working to protect and regenerate ecosystems without understanding how they functioned when they were truly doing well. A deep time perspective can help change that.
Take forest management. For decades, our practices called for all-out prevention of even the mildest forest fires, believing that fire was bad for both people and nonhuman nature. Until recently we ignored the forest management strategies indigenous (土著的) communities had successfully used for centuries, in particular the application of small-scale controlled burns. Fire, it turns out, has always been an integral ingredient in healthy forest ecosystems, promoting new growth by thinning the understory. Today, we’re beginning to see widespread application of indigenous knowledge to forest management, tapping into this ancient wisdom.
But how can we know what an ecosystem looked like centuries ago? One pathway is through modern mathematical modeling. We have married it with streams of long-term data and discovered a possible way to preserve the ecosystem of California’s kelp forest. By examining how North Pacific kelp forests existed long before the 19th century, we found that we’ve ignored the presence of a keystone species—the Steller’s sea cow, and its role in maintaining the harmony of this ecosystem.
Our model described the interactions between giant kelp and understory algae competing for light and space on the seafloor. Then we ran the model again, but this time with the Steller’s sea cow added in. These mammals fed on the leaves from the upper kelp layers. This allowed light to reach the sea bottom, which in turn stimulated the growth of not only the kelp but other kinds of organisms. In re-creating that vanished historical system that included the Steller’s sea cow, we could see a more diverse forestwhere the understory competed better with kelp
In short, what we assume we know about an ecosystem based on the recent past may impede our ability to fully understand and protect it. To ensure that our boldest conservation efforts are successful, we must begin looking at time as an essential tool.
1. According to the passage, what gets in the way of human’s conservation efforts?| A．Lack of insights into deep time | B．The worsening of biodiversity crises |
| C．The blindness to management strategies. | D．Resistance to taking a deep time perspective. |
| A．Ignoring the Steller’s sea cow led to ecological imbalance. |
| B．People now prioritize fire prevention over controlled burns. |
| C．Mathematical modeling matters more than indigenous knowledge |
| D．Harvesting upper kelp leaves encourages fresh growth in the understory. |
| A．Bring forth. | B．Boost up. | C．Shut down. | D．Hold back. |
7 . Two-Man Ironman
On Sept.17, 2022, Jeff and his son, Johnny, set out to begin the first of three legs of the Ironman competition,where competitors must complete a 140 miles of swimming, bicycling and running in under 17 hours. Not that long ago, Johnny could barely walk a few steps because he was born with cerebral palsy (脑瘫). But his dream of being a runner never stopped.
From the day Johnny was born, Jeff refused to let his son’s disability hold him back. Determined to show Johnny that he could pursue his dream of being an athlete, Jeff helped him engage in running. They began waking up at 4 a.m. so Jeff could run while pushing his son in a special wheelchair called a racing chair. Every morning, they drove themselves to run increasingly longer distances. Soon, they were entering 5K races, then on to Ironman competition. Jeff would act as Johnny’s arms and legs, carrying the weight of his son throughout the race.
The race began with a 2.4-mile swim. Settling Johnny into a kayak, Jeff eased himself into the water. Swimming while dragging another person was very tough. But worst of all, Jeff had to struggle with jellyfish. “I occupied my mind by counting the number of times I got stung (蛰),” he says.
After the two men completed the tough bike section in roughly nine hours, they set their sights on the final leg of the race — a 26.2-mile marathon. They’d been competing for 10.5 hours, leaving another 6.5 hours to make their time.But at Mile 19, Johnny saw the clock ticking down and worried they wouldn’t make the cutoff. Despite the tiredness, Jeff was convinced they were going all right and then picked up the pace.
With minutes left and 200 feet to the finish line, Jeff stopped to help Johnny out of his racing chair and handed him his rolling walker. After years of painstaking work, Johnny was determined to finish his races on his own. After 16 hours, 55 minutes and 35seconds,the father and son crossed the finish line together.
As the crowd cheered on an overwhelmed Johnny, a weary Jeff kept a low profle. “My father didn’t want his finish line moment,” says Johnny, tears in eyes. “He wanted it to be mine.”
1. Why did Jeff lead Johnny to running?| A．To get closer to Johnny. | B．To fulfill Johnny’s dream. |
| C．To discover Johnny’s interest. | D．To speed up Johnny’s recovery. |
| A．Lack of energy. | B．Pain from injuries. |
| C．Mental tiredness. | D．Body weight change. |
| A．Strong-willed and grateful. | B．Warm-hearted and sensitive. |
| C．Patient and generous. | D．Tough and humorous. |
| A．Actions speak louder than words. | B．Fathers are not born; they are made. |
| C．The value of a loving father has no price. | D．Success comes from failures along the journey. |
The dinner party is
Being able to understand local jokes is often seen as a great icebreaker for a foreign language learner
Chinese restaurants have played an important role in different
