1 . In the spring and summer months, thunderstorms are common.     1     In thunderstorms, lightning can strike people and buildings and is very dangerous.

It was reported that a man was struck by lightning when he was making a phone call under a tree. He died at once. You may not know it, but nearly 1,800 thunderstorms are happening at any moment around the world.     2     So what should you do during a lightning storm? Scientists say that a person’s chances of   being struck by lightning are 1 in 600,000.     3    

If you are indoors during a thunderstorm:

*Stay away from anything that is metal because lightning can come into the house through it.

*Don’t stand near the windows.

*Don’t take a shower or bath. Lightning can travel through water.

* Never use the phone.       4    

If you are caught in a thunderstorm outdoors:

*     5     If there’s no building around, try to find a low place to stay in.

*Do not go under a tree because the lightning could hit the tree and travel through the tree to hit you.

* Never use a cell phone.

3 . There are times when people are so tired that they fall asleep almost anywhere. We can see there is a lot of sleeping on the bus or train on the ______ home from work in the evenings. A man will be reading the newspaper, and seconds later it ______ as if he is trying to ______ it. Or he will fall asleep on the shoulder of the stranger ______ next to him. Another place where unplanned short sleep ______ is in the lecture hall where a student will start snoring(打鼾) so ______ that the professor has to ask another student to ______ the sleeper awake. A more embarrassing situation occurs when a student starts falling into sleep and the weight of the head pushes the arm off the ______, and the movement carries the ______ of the body along. The student wakes up on the floor with no memory of getting there. The worst time to fall asleep is when ______. Police reports are full of ______ that occur when people fall into sleep and go off the road. If the drivers are ______, they will not be seriously hurt.One woman’s car,______, went into the river. She woke up in four feet of ______ and thought it was raining. When people are really ______, nothing will stop them from falling asleep—no matter where they are.

5 . It’s 2035. You have a job, a family and you’re about 40 years old! Welcome to your future life.

Getting ready for work, you pause in front of the   mirror. “Turn red,” you say. Your shirt changes from   sky blue to deep red.Tiny preprogrammed electronics   (智能电子元件) are rearranged in your shirt to change its color. Looking into the mirror, you find it hard to believe you’re 40. You look much younger. With amazing advances in medicine, people in your generation may live   to be 150 years old. You’re not even middle­aged!

As you go into the kitchen and prepare to pour your breakfast cereal into a bowl, you hear, “To lose weight, you shouldn’t eat that!” from your shoes. They read the tiny electronic code(电子源码) on the cereal box to find out the nutrition details. You decide to listen to your shoes. “Kitchen, what can I have for breakfast?”A list of possible foods appears on the counter as the kitchen checks its food supplies.

“Ready for your trip to space?” you ask your son and daughter. In 2015 only specially trained astronauts went into space—and very few of them. Today anyone can go to space for day trips or longer vacations. Your best friend even works in space. Handing your children three strawberries each, you add, “The doctor says you need   these   for   space   travel.” Thanks to medical advances, vaccination shots (防疫针) are a thing of the past. Ordinary foods contain special vaccines. With the strawberries in their mouths, the kids head for the front door.

It’s time for you to go to work. Your car checks your fingerprints and unlocks the doors. “My office. Autopilot,”you command. Your car drives itself down the road and moves smoothly into traffic on the highway. You sit back and unroll your e­newspaper. The latest news downloads and fills the viewer. Looking through the pages, you watch the news as video film rather than read it.

6 . Taking good notes is a time-saving skill that will help you to become a better student in several ways.     1    . Second, your notes are excellent materials to refer to when you are studying for a test. Third, note-taking offers variety to your study time and helps you to hold your interest.

You will want to take notes during classroom discussions and while reading a textbook or doing research for a report.     2    . Whenever or however you take notes, keep in mind that note-taking is a selective process.     3    . The following methods may work best for you.

● Read the text quickly to find the main facts and ideas in it.

●Carefully read the text and watch for words that can show main points and supporting facts.

● Write your notes in your own words.

●    4    .

● Note any questions or ideas you may have about what was said or written.

As you take notes, you may want to use your own shorthand (速记). When you do, be sure that you understand your symbols and that you use them all the time.     5    

Since China’s TV series Nirvana in Fire was on show in Argentina, the viewers there have been excited about the story.

    1    (base) on a historical novel of the same name, it tells the tale of a young man who sets out to fight for     2    (he) family’s honor in sixth-century China.

It is the first time that Argentina     3    (show) a program that is “so different” from the common content of the network, and it has been so well-received by     4     public. Nirvana in Fire has got hundreds     5     comments (评论) on social networks, not only from members of the Chinese community,     6     from many Argentineans. The series offers a window into Chinese customs, lifestyles and ways of thinking.

Angie Behrmann, an Argentine painter     7     specializes (专门从事) in Chinese calligraphy (书法), said she watched the series     8    (practice) her Chinese, but was attracted by the story and the way it was told. “The story is    9    (real) well-written. Everything that takes place is so exciting,” she said. The painter added she has learned more about Chinese culture and got to know different    10    (place) in China thanks to the series.

9 . Learning to say “yes, and”

When I first heard about the improvisation (即兴交流) class, I was hesitating. As a quiet and shy girl, I feared improvising in front of strangers. However, I knew I wanted to work as a science communicator after finishing my Ph.D., so it seemed like a perfect chance to learn how to speak and communicate with others effectively. I signed up, knowing the experience would give me help.

During our first class, we learned an important concept of improvisation: “yes, and.” It means that, as improvisers, we’d better accept what fellow performers say. If someone says that rhinos (犀牛) are librarians, for example, then rhinos are librarians. We do not question the logic; we say “yes” and then continue with the scene as if nothing is wrong.

The first few scenes were hard, but as weeks turned into months, I became more comfortable and even started to enjoy our classes. I became better at listening, relating to my conversation partners, and communicating clearly in the moment. Once when I was giving a presentation about my science, an audience member surprised me with a question that didn’t grow out of the information I’d presented. Instead of getting confused and nervous, I took the “yes, and” approach—accepting the question and letting my mind focus on why it was asked. That helped me find an appropriate answer. I got pretty excited about it.

The benefits of improvisation go beyond communication. Before attending the class, I would get stuck when my experiments produced unexpected data, thinking that I had made a mistake. But now, instead of getting discouraged, I will stay open to the possibility that the results are real, keep exploring the data and end up identifying a new type of cell—one that isn’t behaving as expected.

I think all scientists can benefit from this lesson. If the data say rhinos are librarians, then it’s worth finding out whether rhinos are, in fact, librarians. As scientists, our job isn’t to challenge data that support, a preconceived story, but to say “yes, and.”

10 . A crew（全体成员）of six teenage girls completed a nine-day sailing trip in the US recently, after having seasickness and strong winds.

For the past three years, the Sea Cadet teenagers who set sail were all male. Roger Noakes, who captained（担任队长）the boat, said this was the first time he’d taken out an all-female crew.

The girls asked for an all-girls trip in August this year. The crew set sail along with three adults, Noakes and two Sea Cadet representatives. The original plan was for the girls to sail 24 hours a day in rotating shifts（轮流换班）along the coast and then return. Things turned out differently, however. “The first night was difficult because the wind was really hard. The waves were going up and down,” said Abby Fairchild,16. “Everybody got seasick.” Noakes gave the girls the choice of just sailing in the bay and not going into open water. “But they decided they were going.”

The teenagers then sailed a long way overnight and slept in shifts. “We’ve learned everything from controlling the boat to putting up the sails while we have rough seas,” said 15-year-old Olivia Wilcox.

The teenagers stopped on land in Massachusetts. They didn’t make it to their original destination（目的地） in Maine, where they were supposed to have a celebratory dinner, due to the weather and winds. They said they weren’t disappointed, however, as they’d learned a lot. “They learned about boating, and above all, they built confidence and character,” said Noakes.