1 . The Let’s Activity Campaign
The Let’s Activity campaign aimed at preserving rivers is coming. You will board at Castle Wharf, Nottingham, England. Offer to join us now.
BookingArrive 15 minutes before the schedule time to ensure we can get started in a timely manner. The sessions are designed for adults and children of all ages to enjoy a new experience. Parents or guardians should book tickets in advance to participate in the campaign.
CostThis campaign is free for all participants who are also not paid. However, if you fail to cancel and simply don’t show up on the day, you must pay the standard £20 administration fee, chargeable for each ticket booked.
Therefore, if your circumstances do suddenly change and you are no longer able to attend, you must cancel using one of these three mechanisms:
1. The preferred method is via the ticket booking system. You can find the link on your ticket.
2. You can also click here to send an email to us, and know more about details of the date, time, venue and participants in your email message. Don’t email if within less than 48 hours of the campaign. Instead, you’d better use option 1 above or option 3 below.
3. In case of an unforeseen emergency within 48 hours of the campaign, telephone the staff member, which we hope won’t happen.
Donate to Let’s ActivityAs part of our work, the Let’s Activity campaign is a waterway charity to help everyone get out, get active and make their lives better by learning to boat. You can now support the work our teams do with families, and make a donation on our website for the environmental protection.
1. What do we know about the campaign?| A．It requires reservation. | B．It is chargeable to adults. |
| C．It is a 15-minute parent-child experience. | D．It requires individual administrative capability. |
| A．Sending cell phone messages. | B．Telephoning the staff member. |
| C．Emailing within 48 hours of the campaign. | D．Using the booking system linked on the ticket. |
| A．To call for a visit to rivers. | B．To call for volunteering work. |
| C．To encourage a donation on the spot. | D．To encourage children to learn to boat. |
2 . Are you longing for a travel experience full of iconic attractions, which is not only immersive but also intimate? Offering attentive guides, unique experiences, and the perfect combination of exploration and friendship, small group travel is redefining the holiday experience.
●Explore uncharted but safe territories. Take a journey to breathtaking destinations that might otherwise be frightening to explore independently.
●Be guided by the local guides.
●
●Start your adventure with peace of mind. Small group tour operators take care of everything. With convenience at the forefront, you can explore outside your comfort zone, knowing that every detail has been thoughtfully arranged.
| A．Bond with like-minded travelers |
| B．It is a unique experience to visit a packed place |
| C．Take a look below to find what you can do on the trip |
| D．Travel alone to find more opportunity to enjoy yourself |
| E．A small group tour offers access to off-the-beaten-path places |
| F．You can experience the true essence of a destination with their guidance |
| G．Besides, reputable small group travel companies ensure your protection and security |
3 . In a video shared online, a young photographer, Lily, is seen confidently directing a well-known action movie star for a photograph. Even though the actor is very tall, she is not nervous. She tells him what to do like a real professional, even though she’s still quite young.
“Given his size, I asked him to make more pronounced movements,” said Lily, reflecting on the shoot in a recent interview. The young shutterbug (摄影爱好者) has already taken photos of several personalities and has earned a significant following online, with her work receiving millions of likes.
Lily’s journey into photography began when she was just four years old, with a simple point-and-shoot camera. Her father, recognizing her natural ability to connect with people, encouraged her to explore street photography. At the age of five, she captured a portrait of a renowned musician-turned-actress during a chance encounter in a store, which quickly went viral on the social media.
Since then, Lily has been receiving numerous requests to photograph top talents. “The more I photograph in public places, the more recognition I get, which in turn leads to more chances to work with well-known figures,” she explained.
Because of her young age, some have questioned how she manages to secure such high-profile shoots. Her father, who assists with minor post-production edits, explained that her unique perspective was what attracted the attention of talent agencies. “Through Lily’s lens (镜头), subjects show a different side,” he said. “Her photos capture a softer, gentler aspect of people, celebrity or not.”
Addressing concerns about the use of filters and heavy editing, Lily insists that her images are minimally processed. Her ultimate goal is to evoke (唤起) emotions through her photography and, eventually, to become a full-time portrait photographer. For now, she continues to hone (磨炼) her craft and enjoys the present moment.
1. What phenomenon is described in the first paragraph?| A．A girl is directing a film. | B．How a girl is photographing. |
| C．Children need social activities. | D．How a short video is produced. |
| A．She photographed many action movies. | B．A famous actress offered to help her. |
| C．Her father made her skills known. | D．Social media played a significant role. |
| A．She is good at adjusting lens. | B．She constantly learns from others. |
| C．She photographs from a special angle. | D．She gains recognition from celebrities. |
| A．Hesitant. | B．Determined. | C．Pessimistic. | D．Negative. |
4 . Southern Africa is home to most of the world’s black and white rhinos. Because of global warming, the weather in this area is changing quickly. People have worked hard to protect rhinos from being hunted, but until now, no one has really looked at how the changing weather might hurt these animals.
A research team from the University of Massachusetts Amherst has recently reported that the area will be affected by both higher temperatures and changing precipitation (降水) and the rhinos are more sensitive to rising temperatures, which will quickly increase above the animals’ acceptable maximum threshold.
Over the last 100 years, Africa’s average monthly temperatures have gone up by 0.5℃ to 2℃. Scientists think that in the next 100 years, it might get even warmer, up to 2 more degrees. This change in weather might also change how much rain we get. But here’s the thing：For animals like white and black rhinos, which people have been trying to protect for a long time, will the heat or the rain changes hurt them more? This is a big question because rhinos don’t have sweat to cool down. They stay cool by taking baths and staying in cool shady spots.
To understand how changing climate will affect rhino populations, lead author Hlelowenkhosi S. Mamba and his colleague, focused their efforts on five large national parks representing diverse landscapes in southern Africa that are home to most of the rhinos. They have found that temperature conditions in all study parks will become increasingly unsuitable for both species, but it is predicted that white rhinos will be affected earlier than black rhinos.
“This research highlights the importance of using climate predictions for both park and rhino management,” says Randhir. “We propose that park managers now think about increasing water supplies, tree cover, watching for stress and planning to allow rhino migration as the world warms.”
1. How are rhinos traditionally protected?| A．By building their living habitats. |
| B．By saving them from illegal hunt. |
| C．By monitoring their physical health. |
| D．By removing their breeding surroundings. |
| A．range | B．register | C．average | D．content |
| A．Cooling heat off by sweating. | B．Drinking much water. |
| C．Migrating to other places. | D．Bathing in the water. |
| A．Predicting the weather. | B．Buying new species. |
| C．Boosting habitats. | D．Restricting visitors. |
5 . REGISTRATION OPENS FOR STUDENT ROBOTICS 2024
We’re excited to announce that registration for the 2024 season of Student Robotics is now open! Based in the UK, Student Robotics challenges teams of 16 to 19 year-olds to design, build and program fully autonomous robots to compete in our annual competition. Teams will have just three months to engineer their creations. As well as supplying teams with a kit, which they can use as a framework for their robot, we mentor (指导) the teams over this period. Thanks to the generosity of our sponsors, we provide all of this to our teams at no cost.
The competition cycle will start with a live streamed Kickstart event on our YouTube Channel. During the event, the game and the structure of the competition will be announced and kits handed out to teams.
The competition year will culminate (达到高潮) in an in-person competition from September 30 to October 1, 2024, which will see the robots compete through a league stage and a seeded knockout. As usual the prizes will recognise not only the teams which come top in the knockouts, but also those who are excellent in other ways.
Details of the game and prizes will be revealed at Kickstart. Details of the Kickstart and competition events will be published when they are available. We expect to confirm places towards the end of August, 2024.
If you would like a chance to compete in Student Robotics 2024, please fill in the entry form with the required information. The deadline of the registration is May 30, 2024. Places are limited, so please click here and sign up soon to avoid disappointment.
We look forward to seeing your teams!
1. What should participants do in Student Robotics?| A．Prepare a kit themselves. | B．Design a robot on the spot. |
| C．Work as a team. | D．Pay for the framework. |
| A．Two days. | B．Two weeks. | C．One month. | D．Three days. |
| A．A brochure. | B．A magazine. | C．A newspaper. | D．A website. |
6 . HOW TO DO HARD THINGS
It’s an inconvenient truth that the road to success isn’t a secret. Most of us know exactly what we need to do to improve our lives.
First, you need to make sure you know what the hard, but effective thing is in the skill or job that you want to improve.
Figure out your why. Make sure you know why you want to do this hard thing.
Leave the doubts behind. When you’re doing something hard, your brain will try to find ways to stop doing it. You’ll want to look things up or find easy ways of doing the hard thing. Don’t give in to these tempting arguments during your hard work sessions.
If you keep improving yourself by doing hard things, you’ll be getting better at your targeted skill. So don’t spend too much time working around the hard task. Just do the hard thing instead.
| A．This should be easy to figure out. |
| B．Change your thinking so the hard thing looks good. |
| C．But we don’t do those things because they are hard. |
| D．Make a commitment and turn the hard thing into a habit. |
| E．If you are not clear about it, you’ll lose motivation quickly. |
| F．Do whatever you want after or before, but stay focused during. |
| G．Life is hard sometimes, and you will have to do hard things at some point. |
7 . In Stressful Times, Make Stress Work for You
These are stressful times. Fortunately, we can actually use that stress to improve our health and well-being. Over a decade of research suggests that it’s not the type or amount of stress that determines its impact.
Step 1: Acknowledge Your Stress
Labeling your stress consciously and deliberately moves neural activity from the amygdala — the center of emotion and fear — to the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for executive control and planning. In other words, when we take a moment to acknowledge our stress, it moves us from operating from a fearful, reactive place to a position where we can be thoughtful and deliberate.
Step 2: Own Your Stress
The next step is to welcome, or “own” your stress. We only stress about things that we care about.
Step 3: Use Your Stress
Connecting to the core values behind your stress sets you up for the third and most essential step: using or leveraging stress to achieve your goals and connect more deeply with the things that matter most.
Ask yourself: Are your typical responses in alignment with the values behind your stress?
There’s so much happening right now that we can’t control.
| A．Think about how you might change your response to this stress to better facilitate your goals and your purpose. |
| B．You can release stress from the past and more with emotional focus techniques. |
| C．By owning our stress, we connect to the positive motivation or personal value behind our stress. |
| D．But — as many people are noticing — there are also unprecedented opportunities amid the fear. |
| E．Instead, it’s our mind-set about stress that matters most. |
| F．But later, we will be able to ask ourselves how we each responded to this crisis. |
| G．This step is also an opportunity to understand what’s at the heart of your personal stress or anxiety. |
8 . Ed Viesturs grew up in Rockford, Illinois, where the tallest thing on the horizon was the water tower. But on Thursday, Viesturs became the only American to climb to the top of the world’s 14 highest mountains.
His last hike was up Mount Annapurna, in Asia’s snowcapped Himalayas. At 26,545feet, its peak is the 10th highest in the world. It is the mountain that inspired him to start climbing.
“It tends to be the trickiest, the most dangerous,” said Viesturs. “There’s no simple way to climb it. There are threatening avalanches (雪崩) and ice falls that protect the mountain.”
In high school, Viesturs read French climber Maurice Herzog’s tale of climbing the icy Annapurna. Herzog’s story was of frostbite (冻伤) and difficulty and near-death experiences. Viesturs was hooked right away.
Viesturs got his start on Washington’s Mount Rainier in 1977, guiding hikes in the summer. Fifteen years ago, he set out to walk up to the world’s highest peaks. Finally, he’s done.
The pioneering climber talks about mountains as if they were living creatures that should be treated with respect. “You have to use all of your senses, all of your abilities to see if the mountain will let you climb it,” said Viesturs. “If we have the patience and the respect, and if we’re here at the right time, under the right circumstances, they allow us to go up, and allow us to come down.”
What’s next for a man who can’t stop climbing? “I’m going to hug my wife and kids and kind of kick back and enjoy the summer,” says Viesturs. But for a man who’s climbed the world’s 14 tallest mountains, he will probably soon set off on yet another adventure.
1. What makes Viesturs interested in mountaineering?| A．Maurice Herzog’s advice. | B．A French climber’s story. |
| C．His parents’ encouragement. | D．His near-death experiences. |
| A．In 1977. | B．Last Thursday. |
| C．Fifteen years ago. | D．When he was in middle school. |
| A．Mount Annapurna is the most dangerous in Asia. |
| B．Correct time and circumstances are vital for climbing. |
| C．Viesturs was the only man to climb to the top of the 14 highest mountains. |
| D．The pioneering climber talks about mountains as if they were living trees. |
| A．Patient and caring. | B．Helpful and respectable. |
| C．Talkative and lucky. | D．Courageous and determined. |
9 . How to Build Patience Abilities
What’s the purpose of building patience abilities? In a word, happiness. Better relationships, more success. But indeed it takes efforts to build them successfully.
Upgrade our attitude towards discomfort and pain.
Pay attention when the impatience or pain starts. Most of us don’t really realize it when we are feeling even the smallest—but very present—painful feelings. We ignore the fact that we’re in pain and focus completely on fixing the problem.
Practise positive self-talk. When you find yourself impatient, or angry with yourself, you can remind yourself that you are growing. You can say to yourself, “It’s true. I don’t like this.
| A．This is uncomfortable, but I can tolerate it. |
| B．Patience is good for you in every aspect. |
| C．Don’t blame yourself for being angry sometimes. |
| D．Pain has its purposes and pushes us to find solutions. |
| E．Understand the addictive nature of anger and impatience. |
| F．Effective ways are recommended to train ourselves to work with little pain and annoyance. |
| G．But to care for ourselves, get curious’ about what’s happening in the moment inside you. |
10 . In June 2014, Huf fington Post and Mail Online reported that three-year-old Victoria Wilcher, who had suffered facial scarring (结疤), had been kicked out of a KFC because she was frightening customers. Later, KFC announced that no evidence had been found to support the story. This phenomenon is largely a product of the increasing pressure in newsrooms that care more about traffic figures.
Brooke Binkowski, an editor, says that, during her career, she has seen a shift towards less editorial oversight in newsrooms. “Clickbait is king, so newsrooms will uncritically print something unreal. Not all newsrooms are like this, but a lot of them are.”
Asked what the driving factor was, a journalist said, “There is undoubtedly pressure to churn out (粗制滥造) stories in order to get clicks, because they equal money. At my former employer in particular, the pressure was on due to the limited resources. That made the environment quite horrible to work in.”
In a February 2023 report for Digital Journalism, Craig Silverman wrote, “Today the bar for what is worth giving attention to seems to be much lower. Within minutes or hours, a badly sourced report can be changed into a story that is repeated by dozens of news websites, resulting in tens of thousands of shares. Once a certain critical mass is reached, repetition has a powerful effect on belief. Thus, the rumor (谣言) simply becomes true for readers.”
And, in spite of the direction that some newsrooms seem to be heading in, a critical eye is becoming more, not less important, according to the New York Times’ public editor, Margaret Sullivan. “Reporters and editor s have to be more careful than ever before. It’s extremely important to question and to use every verification (验证) method available before publication.” Yet those working in newsrooms talk of doubtful stories being tolerated because, in the words of some senior editors, “a click is a click, regardless of the advantage of a story”. And, “if the story does turn out to be false, it’s simply a chance for another bite at the cherry.”
Verification and fact-checking are regularly falling victim to the pressure to bring in the numbers, and if the only result of being caught out is another chance to bring in the clicks, that looks unlikely to change.
1. What is the purpose of mentioning Victoria Wilcher in Paragraph 1?| A．To share an unusual story. | B．To lead in the topic of the text. |
| C．To ask KFC to improve the service. | D．To express the concern for disabled kids. |
| A．Good stories are needed. | B．They want to earn clicks. |
| C．They’re lack of resources. | D．Reporters seemed not experienced. |
| A．It is immoral to tell lies. |
| B．We can hear rumors, but we can’t detect them. |
| C．Lies, repeated often enough, will end up as truth. |
| D．Rumors made the work of the news department difficult. |
| A．Errors of Reporters | B．Results of Mistaken Stories |
| C．Causes of Online False News | D．Popularity of Getting Clicks |
