1 . Bike Rental & Guided Tours
Welcome to Amsterdam, welcome to MacBike. You see much more from the seat of a bike! Cycling is the most economical, sustainable and fun way to explore the city, with its beautiful canals, parks, squares and countless lights. You can also bike along lovely landscapes outside of Amsterdam.
Why MacBike
MacBike has been around for almost 30 years and is the biggest bicycle rental company in Amsterdam. With over 2,500 bikes stored in our five rental shops at strategic locations, we make sure there is always a bike available for you. We offer the newest bicycles in a wide variety, including basic bikes with foot brake (刹车), bikes with hand brake and gears (排挡), bikes with child seats, and children’s bikes.
Prices
Hand Brake, Three Gears | Foot Brake, No Gears | |
1 hour | €7.50 | €5.00 |
3 hours | €11.00 | €7.50 |
1 day (24 hours) | €14.75 | €9.75 |
Each additional day | €8.00 | €6.00 |
Guided City Tours
The 2.5-hour tour covers the Gooyer Windmill, the Skinny Bridge, the Rijksmuseum, Heineken Brewery and much more. The tour departs from Dam Square every hour on the hour, starting at 1:00 pm every day. You can buy your ticket in a MacBike shop or book online.
1. What is an advantage of MacBike?| A．It gives children a discount. | B．It offers many types of bikes. |
| C．It organizes free cycle tours. | D．It has over 2,500 rental shops. |
| A．€15.75. | B．€19.50. | C．€22.75. | D．€29.50. |
| A．The Gooyer, Windmill. | B．The Skinny Bridge. |
| C．Heineken Brewery. | D．Dam Square. |
2 . According to the Solar Energy Industry Association, the number of solar panels installed(安装)has grown rapidly in the past decade, and it has to grow even faster to meet climate goals. But all of that growth will take up a lot of space, and though more and more people accept the concept of solar energy, few like large solar panels to be installed near them.
Solar developers want to put up panels as quickly and cheaply as possible, so they haven’t given much thought to what they put under them. Often, they’ll end up filling the area with small stones and using chemicals to control weeds. The result is that many communities, especially in farming regions, see solar farms as destroyers of the soil.
“Solar projects need to be good neighbors,” says Jordan Macknick, the head of the Innovative Site Preparation and Impact Reductions on the Environment(InSPIRE)project. “They need to be protectors of the land and contribute to the agricultural economy.” InSPIRE is investigating practical approaches to “low-impact” solar development, which focuses on establishing and operating solar farms in a way that is kinder to the land. One of the easiest low-impact solar strategies is providing habitat for pollinators(传粉昆虫).
Habitat loss, pesticide use, and climate change have caused dramatic declines in pollinator populations over the past couple of decades, which has damaged the U.S. agricultural economy. Over 28 states have passed laws related to pollinator habitat protection and pesticide use. Conservation organizations put out pollinator-friendliness guidelines for home gardens, businesses, schools, cities—and now there are guidelines for solar farms.
Over the past few years, many solar farm developers have transformed the space under their solar panels into a shelter for various kinds of pollinators, resulting in soil improvement and carbon reduction. “These pollinator-friendly solar farms can have a valuable impact on everything that’s going on in the landscape,” says Macknick.
1. What do solar developers often ignore?| A．The decline in the demand for solar energy. |
| B．The negative impact of installing solar panels. |
| C．The rising labor cost of building solar farms. |
| D．The most recent advances in solar technology. |
| A．Improve the productivity of local farms. |
| B．Invent new methods for controlling weeds. |
| C．Make solar projects environmentally friendly. |
| D．Promote the use of solar energy in rural areas. |
| A．To conserve pollinators. | B．To restrict solar development. |
| C．To diversify the economy. | D．To ensure the supply of energy. |
| A．Pollinators: To Leave or to Stay | B．Solar Energy: Hope for the Future |
| C．InSPIRE: A Leader in Agriculture | D．Solar Farms: A New Development |
3 . The elderly residents (居民) in care homes in London are being given hens to look after to stop them feeling lonely.
The project was dreamed up by a local charity (慈善组织) to reduce loneliness and improve elderly people’s wellbeing. It is also being used to help patients suffering dementia, a serious illness of the mind. Staff in care homes have reported a reduction in the use of medicine where hens are in use.
Among those taking part in the project is 80-year-old Ruth Xavier. She said: “I used to keep hens when I was younger and had to prepare their breakfast each morning before I went to school. ”
“I like the project a lot. I am down there in my wheelchair in the morning letting the hens out and down there again at night to see they’ve gone to bed.”
“It’s good to have a different focus. People have been bringing their children in to see the hens and residents come and sit outside to watch them. I’m enjoying the creative activities, and it feels great to have done something useful.”
There are now 700 elderly people looking after hens in 20 care homes in the North East, and the charity has been given financial support to roll it out countrywide.
Wendy Wilson, extra care manager at 60 Penfold Street, one of the first to embark on the project, said: “Residents really welcome the idea of the project and the creative sessions. We are looking forward to the benefits and fun the project can bring to people here.”
Lynn Lewis, director of Notting Hill Pathways, said: “We are happy to be taking part in the project. It will really help connect our residents through a shared interest and creative activities.”
1. What is the purpose of the project?| A．To ensure harmony in care homes. | B．To provide part-time jobs for the aged. |
| C．To raise money for medical research. | D．To promote the elderly people’s welfare. |
| A．She has learned new life skills. | B．She has gained a sense of achievement. |
| C．She has recovered her memory. | D．She has developed a strong personality. |
| A．Improve. | B．Oppose. | C．Begin. | D．Evaluate. |
| A．It is well received. | B．It needs to be more creative. |
| C．It is highly profitable. | D．It takes ages to see the results. |
4 . When I was 9, we packed up our home in Los Angeles and arrived at Heathrow, London on a gray January morning. Everyone in the family settled quickly into the city except me. Without my beloved beaches and endless blue—sky days, I felt at a loss and out of place. Until I made a discovery.
Southbank, at an eastern bend in the Thames, is the center of British skateboarding, where the continuous crashing of skateboards left your head ringing .I loved it. I soon made friends with the local skaters. We spoke our own language. And my favorite: Safe. Safe meant cool. It meant hello. It meant don’t worry about it. Once, when trying a certain trick on the beam(横杆), I fell onto the stones, damaging a nerve in my hand, and Toby came over, helping me up: Safe, man. Safe. A few minutes later, when I landed the trick, my friends beat their boards loud, shouting: “ Safe! Safe! Safe!” And that’s what mattered—landing tricks, being a good skater.
When I was 15, my family moved to Washington. I tried skateboarding there, but the locals were far less welcoming. Within a couple of years, I’d given it up.
When I returned to London in 2004, I found myself wandering down to Southbank, spending hours there. I’ve traveled back several times since, most recently this past spring. The day was cold but clear: tourists and Londoners stopped to watch the skaters. Weaving(穿梭)among the kids who rushed by on their boards, I found my way to the beam. Then a rail—thin teenager, in a baggy white T—shirt, skidded(滑)up to the beam. He sat next to me. He seemed not to notice the man next to him. But soon I caught a few of his glances. “I was a local here 20 years ago,” I told him. Then, slowly, he began to nod his head. “Safe, man. Safe.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Safe.”
1. What can we learn about the author soon after he moved to London?| A．He felt disappointed. | B．He gave up his hobby. |
| C．He liked the weather there. | D．He had disagreements with his family. |
| A．Be careful! | B．Well done! | C．No way! | D．Don’t worry! |
| A．To join the skateboarding. | B．To make new friends. |
| C．To learn more tricks. | D．To relive his childhood days |
| A．Children should learn a second language. |
| B．Sport is necessary for children’s health. |
| C．Children need a sense of belonging |
| D．Seeing the world is a must for children. |
5 . A Few Tips for Self-Acceptance
We all want it… to accept and love ourselves. But at times it seems too difficult and too far out of reach.
●
●Forgive yourself for mistakes that you have made. We are often ashamed of our shortcomings, our mistakes and our failures.
●Recognize all of your strengths. Write them down in a journal. Begin to train your brain to look at strength before weakness. List all of your accomplishments and achievements. You have a job, earned your degree, and you got out of bed today.
●Now that you’ve listed your strengths, list your imperfections. Turn the page in your journal. Put into words why you feel unworthy, why you don’t feel good enough. Now, read these words back to yourself.
| A．Feeling upset again? |
| B．Where do you start? |
| C．Nothing is too small to celebrate. |
| D．Remember, you are only human. |
| E．Set an intention for self-acceptance. |
| F．Stop comparing yourself with others. |
| G．When does the comparison game start? |
6 . A housewarming party is a special party to be held when someone buys or moves into a new apartment or house. The person who bought the house or moved is the one who throws the party. The party is a chance for friends and family to congratulate the person on the new home.
Housewarming parties get their name from the fact that a long time ago people would actually bring firewood to a new home as a gift.
| A．This isn’t usual though. |
| B．It is traditional to bring a gift to a housewarming party. |
| C．You can also bring food or drinks to share with the other guests. |
| D．If you’re lucky enough to receive gifts, keep them in a safe place. |
| E．It also gives people a chance to see what the new home looks like. |
| F．The best housewarming parties encourage old friends to get together. |
| G．This was so that the person could keep their home warm for the winter. |
7 . Quantum ( 量子 ) computers have been on my mind a lot lately. A friend has been sending me articles on how quantum computers might help solve some of the biggest challenges we face as humans. I’ve also had exchanges with two quantum-computing experts. One is computer scientist Chris Johnson who I see as someone who helps keep the field honest. The other is physicist Philip Taylor.
For decades, quantum computing has been little more than a laboratory curiosity. Now, big tech companies have invested in quantum computing, as have many smaller ones. According to Business Weekly, quantum machines could help us “cure cancer, and even take steps to turn climate change in the opposite direction.” This is the sort of hype ( 炒作 ) that annoys Johnson. He worries that researchers are making promises they can’t keep. “What’s new,” Johnson wrote, “is that millions of dollars are now potentially available to quantum computing researchers.”
As quantum computing attracts more attention and funding, researchers may mislead investors, journalists, the public and, worst of all, themselves about their work’s potential. If researchers can’t keep their promises, excitement might give way to doubt, disappointment and anger, Johnson warns. Lots of other technologies have gone through stages of excitement. But something about quantum computing makes it especially prone to hype, Johnson suggests, perhaps because “‘quantum’ stands for something cool you shouldn’t be able to understand.” And that brings me back to Taylor, who suggested that I read his book Q for Quantum.
After I read the book, Taylor patiently answered my questions about it. He also answered my questions about PyQuantum, the firm he co-founded in 2016. Taylor shares Johnson’s concerns about hype, but he says those concerns do not apply to PyQuantum.
The company, he says, is closer than any other firm “by a very large margin ( 幅度 )” to building a “useful” quantum computer, one that “solves an impactful problem that we would not have been able to solve otherwise.” He adds, “People will naturally discount my opinions, but I have spent a lot of time quantitatively comparing what we are doing with others.”
Could PyQuantum really be leading all the competition “by a wide margin”, as Taylor claims? I don’t know. I’m certainly not going to advise my friend or anyone else to invest in quantum computers. But I trust Taylor, just as I trust Johnson.
1. Regarding Johnson’s concerns, the author feels ________.| A．sympathetic | B．unconcerned | C．doubtful | D．excited |
| A．His dominance in physics. | B．The competition in the field. |
| C．His confidence in PyQuantum. | D．The investment of tech companies. |
| A．Open. | B．Cool. | C．Useful. | D．Resistant. |
| A．Is Johnson More Competent Than Taylor? |
| B．Is Quantum Computing Redefining Technology? |
| C．Will Quantum Computers Ever Come into Being? |
| D．Will Quantum Computing Ever Live Up to Its Hype? |
8 . Jenifer Mauer has needed more willpower than the typical college student to pursue her goal of earning a nursing degree. That willpower bore fruit when Jennifer graduated from University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and became the first in her large family to earn a bachelor's degree.
Mauer, of Edgar, Wisconsin, grew up on a farm in a family of 10 children. Her dad worked at a job away from the farm, and her mother ran the farm with the kids. After high school, Jennifer attended a local technical college, working to pay her tuition(学费), because there was no extra money set aside for a college education. After graduation, she worked to help her sisters and brothers pay for their schooling.
Jennifer now is married and has three children of her own. She decided to go back to college to advance her career and to be able to better support her family while doing something she loves: nursing. She chose the UW-Eau Claire program at Ministry Saint Joseph's Hospital in Marshfield because she was able to pursue her four-year degree close to home. She could drive to class and be home in the evening to help with her kids. Jenifer received great support from her family as she worked to earn her degree: Her husband worked two jobs to cover the bills, and her 68-year-old mother helped take care of the children at times.
Through it all, she remained in good academic standing and graduated with honors. Jennifer sacrificed(牺牲)to achieve her goal, giving up many nights with her kids and missing important events to study. ''Some nights my heart was breaking to have to pick between my kids and studying for exams or papers,'' she says. However, her children have learned an important lesson witnessing their mother earn her degree. Jennifer is a first-generation graduate and an inspiration to her family-and that's pretty powerful.
1. What did Jennifer do after high school?| A．She helped her dad with his work. |
| B．She ran the family farm on her own. |
| C．She supported herself through college. |
| D．She taught her sisters and brothers at home. |
| A．To take care of her kids easily. | B．To learn from the best nurses. |
| C．To save money for her parents. | D．To find a well-paid job there. |
| A．Her health. | B．Her time with family. |
| C．Her reputation. | D．Her chance of promotion. |
| A．Time is money. | B．Love breaks down barriers. |
| C．Hard work pays off. | D．Education is the key to success. |
9 . Health and fitness help a person live a good and healthy life. Often due to various pressures, we tend to ignore our health.
It is important for everyone to devote some time to health and fitness.
Additionally, it is important to relax our body. We should have at least six to eight hours of sleep every day. It helps in improving our immune (免疫) system and protects us against diseases.
| A．Fitness levels decide the quality of life. |
| B．Health and fitness are interrelated to each other. |
| C．It also helps in keeping us calm and relaxes our mind. |
| D．For instance, we may have a tendency to catch a cold easily. |
| E．If we keep our body fit, we can enjoy life in a better manner. |
| F．There are some activities which everyone should do in our life. |
| G．This makes our body suffer and we will catch other diseases. |
10 . “What would the world be if there were no hunger?” It’s a question that Professor Crystal would ask her students. They found it hard to answer, she wrote later, because imagining something that isn’t part of real life—and learning how to make it real—is a rare skill. It is taught to artists and engineers, but much less often to scientists. Crystal set out to change that, and helped to create a global movement. The result—an approach known as systems thinking—is now seen as essential in meeting global challenges.
Systems thinking is crucial to achieving targets such as zero hunger and better nutrition because it requires considering the way in which food is produced, processed, delivered and consumed, and looking at how those things intersect (交叉 ) with human health, the environment, economics and society. According to systems thinking, changing the food system—or any other network—requires three things to happen. First, researchers need to identify all the players in that system; second, they must work out how they relate to each other; and third, they need to understand and quantify the impact of those relationships on each other and on those outside the system.
Take nutrition. In the latest UN report on global food security, the number of undernourished (营养不良 )people in the world has been rising, despite great advances in nutrition science. Tracking of 150 biochemicals in food has been important in revealing the relationships between calories, sugar, fat and the occurrence of common diseases. But using machine learning and artificial intelligence, some scientists propose that human diets consist of at least 26,000 biochemicals—and that the vast majority are not known. This shows that we have some way to travel before achieving the first objective of systems thinking - which,in this example, is to identify more constituent parts of the nutrition system.
A systems approach to creating change is also built on the assumption that everyone in the system has equal power. But as some researchers find, the food system is not an equal one. A good way to redress (修正 ) such power imbalance is for more universities to do what Crystal did and teach students how to think using a systems approach.
More researchers, policymakers and representatives from the food industry must learn to look beyond their direct lines of responsibility and adopt a systems approach. Crystal knew that visions alone don’t produce results, but concluded that “we’ll never produce results that we can’t envision”.
1. The author uses the question underlined in Paragraph 1 to ________.| A．illustrate an argument | B．highlight an opinion |
| C．introduce the topic | D．predict the ending |
| A．The first objective of systems thinking hasn’t been achieved. |
| B．The relationships among players have been clarified. |
| C．Machine learning can solve the nutrition problem. |
| D．The impact of nutrition cannot be quantified. |
| A．It may be used to justify power imbalance. |
| B．It can be applied to tackle challenges. |
| C．It helps to prove why hunger exists. |
| D．It goes beyond human imagination. |
