1 . In January when wildfires came within a kilometer of her home, Jessica Miles found herself reflecting on the bravery of firefighters in the Port Macquarie area.
Jessica said the tires had been frightening. “There were helicopters (直升机) flying around our house and smoke everywhere,” she said. Over a family dinner, the 12-year-old girl raised the idea of building a sculpture to honor the men and women on the wildfire front line and was greeted with support.
With artwork from the Hello Koalas Sculpture Trail on their doorstep, Jessica’s mother suggested she contact the organizers of the trail with her idea. In a message to Hello Koalas through a Facebook post. Jessica wrote: “I’ve recently thought of an idea as Australia has been facing disaster lately... The firefighters have risked their life and time to protect us. In recognition of their bravery, I wanted so share an idea I had about making a koala (考拉) in honor of the firefighters and to spread hope to Australia.”
Hello Koalas director Margret Meagher said while she had thought about creating a sculpture to honor Australia’s selfless and heroic firefighters in the past, Jessica’s message made her more determined than ever to make it happen. Having been involved in the Rural Fire Service (RFS), Ms. Meacher was also personally touched by summer’s wildfires: “So I really wanted to celebrate the local men and women who fought bravely to protect our community and to recognize all firefighters in Australia.” Ms. Meagher said.
Jessica, who is passionate about the environment and animals said she had been excited to receive such a positive response to her idea including her suggestion “it could have the RFS badge (章) painted on the koala or it could have a fireman’s jacket.” The new sculpture, Frankie Firefighter, created by artist Kim Staples, was unveiled (揭幕) this week and features both Jessica’s ideas.
1. What did Jessica’s mother advise her to do?| A．Send greetings to firefighters. | B．Put her artwork on their doorstep. |
| C．Build a sculpture to honor firefighters. | D．Seek help from Hello Koalas to apply her idea. |
| A．Firefighters heroic stories. | B．Her involvement in RFS. |
| C．Jessica’s Facebook post. | D．Her own past thoughts. |
| A．It wears a badge donated by a fireman. | B．It draws inspiration from Kim Staples. |
| C．It is contrary to Jessica’s expectations. | D．It is a koala in a fireman’s jacket. |
2 . More than 30 year and S10 billion later, the James Webb Space Telescope finally left Earth. The observatory was lifted skyward by an Ariane rocket from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana. Is flight to orbit lasted just under half an hour, with a signal confirming a successful outcome picked p by a ground antenna(天线)at Malindi in Kenya.
Webb, named after one of the architects of the Apollo Moon landings, is the successor to the Hubble telescope. Engineers working with the US, European and Canadian space agencies have built the new observatory to be 100 times more powerful.
Webb’s launch is only the start of what will be a complex series of initial activities over the next six months. The telescope is being put on a path to an observing station some 1.5 million km beyond the Earth. In the course of travelling to this location, webb will have to unpack itself from the folded shape it adopted at launch.
This won’t be easy, said NASA administrator Bill Nelson: “We have to realize there are still countless things that have to work and they have to work perfectly. But we know that in great reward, there is great risk. And that’s what this business is all about. And that’s why we dare to explore.”
At the core of the new facility’s capabilities is its 6.5 m-wide golden mirror. This is almost three times wider than the primary reflector on Hubble. The enlarged optics(光学器件), combined with four super-sensitive instruments, should enable astronomers to look deeper into space—and thus further back in time—than ever before.
A key target of Webb will be the pioneer stars that ended the darkness theorized to have dominated the whole universe shortly after the Big Bang more than 13.5 billion years ago. It was the nuclear reactions in these objects that would have created the first heavy atoms(原子)essential for life. Another goal for Webb will be to explore the atmospheres of distant planets. This will help researchers work out whether these worlds are in any way habitable.
1. What can we learn about the new space telescope?| A．An antenna helped it go into orbit. |
| B．It was named after a landscape architect. |
| C．It is a project of international cooperation. |
| D．It has reached its observing station. |
| A．Disapproving. | B．Supportive |
| C．Fearful. | D．Uncertain. |
| A．It is fitted with a more powerful engine. |
| B．It is capable of changing shapes. |
| C．It has a primary reflector. |
| D．It has a much bigger mirror |
| A．Suggestions for astronomers. | B．Origins of the universe. |
| C．Webb’s limitations | D．Webb’s functions. |
3 . Imagine that on a Friday afternoon, before leaving work to start your weekend, you are asked to solve two problems that require creative thinking. Do you: 1). Spend the first half of your time attempting the first problem and the second half of your time attempting the second; 2). Alternate between the two problems at a regular, predetermined interval (e.g., switching every five minutes); 3). Switch between the problems at your own discretion (自行决定).
If you are like the hundreds of people to whom we posed this question, you would choose to switch between the two problems at your own discretion. After all, this approach offers maximum autonomy and flexibility, enabling you to change tracks from one problem to the other when you feel stuck.
But if coming up with creative answers is your goal, this approach may not be ideal. Instead, switching between the problems at a regular, predetermined interval will likely yield the best results, according to research we published in the March issue of Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.
In an experiment, we randomly assigned participants to one of the three approaches. Participants who were instructed to continually switch back and forth between two problems at a fixed interval were significantly more likely to find the correct answer to both problems than participants who switched at their own discretion or halfway through the allotted time. The issue with both other approaches seemed to be that people failed to recognize when rigid thinking crept in. Participants who didn’t step away from a task at regular intervals were more likely to write “new” ideas that were very similar to the last one they had written. While they might have felt that they were on a roll, the reality was that, without the breaks afforded by continual task switching, their actual progress was limited.
The findings suggest that the hustle and bustle of your daily work life may facilitate your creativity if it leads you to step away from a task and reset your thinking.
So when you’re working on tasks that would benefit from creative thinking, consciously insert breaks at regular intervals—use a timer if you have to. When it goes off, switch tasks: Organize your receipts, check your email, or clean your desk, and then return to the original task. If you’re hesitant to break away because you feel that you’re on a roll, be mindful that it might be a false impression. We tend to generate redundant ideas when we don’t take regular breaks; ask yourself whether your latest ideas are qualitatively different. Finally, don’t skip your lunch breaks, and don’t feel guilty about taking breaks, especially when you are feeling stuck. Doing so may actually be the best use of your time.
1. The third approach in Paragraph 1 is favored because people believe _______.| A．it allows much freedom |
| B．it improves concentration |
| C．it facilitates autonomous learning |
| D．it encourages independent thinking |
| A．critical | B．innovative | C．inflexible | D．serious |
| A．Doing daily chores is key to generating new ideas. |
| B．Regularly scheduled breaks can refresh people’s thinking. |
| C．People will automatically take breaks when they feel stuck. |
| D．People will make great progress when they work continually. |
| A．explain why people fail to produce creative ideas |
| B．compare three methods of creative thinking |
| C．introduce a new study on work efficiency |
| D．present a way to boost creative thinking |
It’s 5 p.m., and you’ve just realized that report you’ve been putting off is due tomorrow. It’s time to buckle down and open your computer. Actually, you should probably make dinner first. You usually like cooking, though it’s hard to enjoy with this work hanging over your head, and oh—it’s actually pretty late! Maybe you should just try again in the morning. This is the cycle of procrastination, and I promise you, we have all been there.
Procrastination is when we avoid a task we said we would do, for no good reason, despite expecting our behavior to bring negative consequences. Obviously, it’s irrational to do something you expect to harm you. But ironically, procrastination is the result of our bodies trying to protect us, specifically by avoiding a task we see as threatening.
We’re most likely to procrastinate tasks that evoke negative feelings, such as dread, incompetence, and insecurity. Because procrastination is motivated by our negative feelings, some individuals are more susceptible (易受影响的) to it than others. People who have difficulty regulating their emotions and those who struggle with low self-esteem are much more likely to procrastinate. However, it’s a common misconception that all procrastinators are lazy. When you’re feeling lazy, you’re more likely to sit around doing nothing than distract yourself with unimportant tasks. In fact, many people procrastinate because they care too much. Procrastinators often report a high fear of failure, putting things off because they’re afraid their work won’t live up to their high standards.
Whatever the reason for procrastination, the results are often the same. Procrastinators are likely to suffer from anxiety and depression, ongoing feelings of shame and physical ailments (轻病) associated with high stress.
So, how can we break the cycle of procrastination?
Traditionally, people thought procrastinators needed to cultivate discipline and practice strict time management. But today, many researchers feel the exact opposite. Being too hard on yourself can layer additional bad emotions onto a task. What we really need to do is to address and reduce these negative emotions.
1. What is procrastination?2. What kinds of people are more likely to procrastinate?
3. Please decide which part is false in the following statement, then underline it and explain why.
Ø Procrastinators are affected by negative emotions, are all lazy and are likely to suffer from physical ailments associated with high stress.
4. What strategies can you use to break the cycle of procrastination in your daily life? (In about 40 words)
5 . Art Builds Understanding
Despite the long history of scholarship on experiences of art, researchers have yet to capture and understand the most meaningful aspects of such experiences, including the thoughts and insights we gain when we visit a museum, the sense of encounter after seeing a meaningful work of art, or the changed thinking after experiences with art. These powerful encounters can be inspiring, uplifting, and contribute to well-being and flourishing.
According to the mirror model of art developed by Pablo P. L. Tinio, aesthetic reception corresponds to artistic creation in a mirror-reversed fashion. Artists aim to express ideas and messages about the human condition or the world at large.
In addition, art making and art viewing are connected by creative thinking. Research in a lab at Yale University shows that an educational program that uses art appreciation activities builds creative thinking skills. It showed that the more time visitors spent engaging with art and the more they reflected on it, the greater the correspondence with the artists’ intentions and ideas.
Correspondence in feeling and thinking suggests a transfer — between creator and viewer — of ideas, concepts, and emotions contained in the works of art. Art has the potential to communicate across space and time.
| A．The viewers gain a new perspective on the story. |
| B．The theory of aesthetic cognitivism describes the value of art. |
| C．This helps to create connections and insights that otherwise would not happen. |
| D．To do so, they explore key ideas and continually expand them as they develop their work. |
| E．After spending more time with the work, the viewer begins to access the ideas of the artist. |
| F．For example, in one activity, people are asked to view a work of art from different perspectives. |
| G．Participants were more original in their thinking when compared to those who did not take part in the program. |
6 . Amid rolling farms and green pasture 150 miles northwest of Sao Paulo, Brazil, two tropical forests bloom as one. The first consists of a single species, row after row of non-native eucalyptus (桉树), planted in perfect lines like carrots. The other is haphazard, an assortment of dozens of varieties of native saplings.
There’s no denying it: This forest looks ridiculous. The gangly (修长的) eucalyptuses shoot like witch fingers high above patches of stubby fig (矮壮的无花果树) and evergreen trees. Yet these jumbled 2.5-acre stands of native trees, ringed by fast-growing exotics, are among many promising efforts to resurrect the planet’s forests.
The eucalyptuses, says Pedro Brancalion, the University of Sao Paulo agronomist who designed this experiment, get big so quickly they can be cut after five years and sold to make paper or fence posts. That covers nearly half or more of the cost of planting the slow-growing native trees, which then naturally reseed ground that has been laid bare by the harvest. And this process doesn’t hamper natural regeneration.
You needn’t look far these days to find organizations trying to save the world by growing trees. Too often, tree-planting groups are so focused on getting credit for each seedling planted that they ignore what matters most: What kind of woodland is created? At what cost? And most importantly: How long will it last? Using the numbers of trees planted as a magic “proxy for everything,” Brancalion says, you “spend more money and get lower levels of benefits.” You can literally miss the forest for the trees.
Tree planting seems like a simple, natural way to counter the overwhelming crises of climate change and biodiversity loss. Trees provide wildlife habitats and slurp carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. No wonder trees are hailed as the ideal weapon. Yet for every high-profile planting operation, devastating failures have occurred. In Turkey, Sri Lanka, and Mexico, mass plantings have resulted in millions of dead seedlings or have driven farmers to clear more intact forest elsewhere. Trees that have been planted in the wrong places have reduced water yields for farmers, destroyed highly diverse carbon-sucking grassland soils, and allowed for invasive vegetation to spread. Simply reforesting the planet isn’t going to do much if we don’t also start cutting down on our emissions from the burning of coal, oil, and natural gas. Tree planting also can’t replace old-growth forests. Saving them is even more important than growing new forests.
So, what should we do?
To Brancalion, the answer is obvious: Restore native forests, mostly in the tropics, where trees grow fast and land is cheap. While that may require planting, it may also call for the clearing out of invasive grasses, the rejuvenation (使有活力) of soils, and crop yield improvements so that farmers will need less land for agriculture and more can be allowed to revert back to forests.
The combining of eucalyptus harvests with native plantings is just one more reminder that successful restoration must provide value to local communities. In many cases, if we let nature do the heavy lifting, Brancalion says, “the forest can regrow quite effectively.”
1. What can we learn from the first three paragraphs?| A．The non-native eucalyptuses bring profits that can pay for planting native saplings. |
| B．The non-native eucalyptuses compete with native saplings for water, nutrients, and light. |
| C．The variety of trees being planted determines whether or not the restoration will succeed. |
| D．Planting fast-growing exotics together with local trees does harm to the natural environment. |
| A．emphasize the significance of protecting existing forests |
| B．explain why tree planting is regarded as the ideal solution |
| C．illustrate the serious problems planting campaigns can cause |
| D．indicate the most important point tree-planting groups ignore |
| A．clear more forest to improve crop yields for farmers |
| B．combine harvests of fast-growing exotics with native plantings |
| C．restore native forests in the tropics and clear out invasive grasses |
| D．take into consideration the benefits of reforestation to local communities |
| A．Plant trees—and time will tell. | B．Plant trees—but don’t overdo it. |
| C．Plant trees—and save the world. | D．Plant trees—but mind the variety. |
7 . How can we use scientific design to change the world and take better care of our environment? In this course, you will learn about our natural resources and explore renewable energy through problem solving in a multi-science class.
________
Solving any problem begins with recognizing it! But where do you begin? In this multi-science class, you will investigate global issues facing the world today and how people make changes in their communities. You will both discuss and put into practice creative and persuasive ways to influence policymakers and community organizations. Furthermore, you will create your own political community at the Harkness table that will inspire you to learn by doing.
Energy and Innovation
In this multi-science class, you will investigate biological, physical, and chemical aspects of Earth’s working systems and how they relate to climate change. Its impacts are far reaching and thus will require forward thinking and planning. Your ideas and creativity will be needed to compare and contrast the benefits and costs of energy alternatives as we discuss and problem solve our planet’s path into the future.
Art: Transform the World
In this studio class we will develop our creative powers. Drawing on natural sciences, we will engage with perspectives of life on Earth. Our materials will be newspapers, recycled cardboard, and other things that are often thrown away. Working with our hands and tools, we will transform wastes into objects useful. In this class you will discover your artistic talent, learn about form, image and technique, and cooperate to create pieces for the final Student Art Exhibit.
1. Which of the following might be the name of the class?| A．Political Science | B．Green Organizations |
| C．Global Changes | D．Practical Policymaker |
| A．solve political problems | B．make a plan for their future |
| C．change the world through pictures | D．explore the Earth’s working system |
| A．They conduct scientific experiments. |
| B．They develop personal interests. |
| C．They need creative design. |
| D．They use renewable energy. |
8 . “Flying insects don’t fly directly to lights from far away because they’re attracted to them, but appear to change course toward a light if they happen to be passing by due to a strange inborn biological response,” writes Samuel Fabian, a bioengineer, in a research paper.
Until now, the leading scientific hypothesis has been that insects use the moon’s light to direct the way at night and mistake artificial lights for the moon. But this idea doesn’t explain why insects that only fly during the day also gather around lights.
To find out what really happens, Samuel’s team track the precise movements of insects in the wild around lights using a high-speed camera. This revealed two notable behaviours. First, when insects fly above lights, they often invert (转向) themselves and try to fly upside down, causing them to fall very fast. Just after insects pass under a light, they start doing a ring road. As their climb angle becomes too steep, they suddenly stop and start to fall. Second, when insects approach a light from the side, they may circle or “orbit” the light.
The videos show that the inversions sometimes result in insects falling on lights. It can appear to the naked eye as though they are flying at the lights. “Instead, insects turn their dorsum toward the light, generating flight perpendicular(垂直) to the source,” the team write. It is common to the two behaviours that the insects are keeping their backs to the light, known as the dorsal light response (DLR). This DLR is a shortcut for insects to work out which way is up and keep their bodies upright, as the moon or sun is usually more or less directly above them, and this direction allows them to maintain proper flight attitude and control. They also find that the insects fly at right angles to a light source, leading to orbiting and unstable flights as the light’s location relative to them changes as they move.
Samuel’s team suggest that a possible outcome of the research could help the construction industry to avoid the types of light that most attract insects.
1. What does the research focus on?| A．Why insects gather around lights. |
| B．Where artificial lights lead insects to. |
| C．What biological response insects are born with. |
| D．How to design environment friendly artificial lights. |
| A．They fly directly to lights. | B．They circle close to lights. |
| C．Their flying speed is steady. | D．Their inversions can be controlled. |
| A．balance their flying | B．keep their route straight |
| C．decide their body positon | D．shorten their flight distance |
9 . Braving the elements
On Dec.26, Gelinne, 60, was looking out the back windows of his home at the frozen lake. Then an airplane came into his sight. Gelinne looked up just in time to see that small air plane a few hundred yards away, losing control.
As the plane disappeared behind the trees, Gelinne, a former Navy officer, realized it was going to land in the lake. He flashed on a moment from more than 20 years earlier: Gelinne was at work in a bank. When a fire alarm rang, he escaped from the chaos but has always wondered if he could have stayed inside and helped.
On this day, Gelinne didn’t hesitate. He ran down to the waterfront. The plane had skidded (侧滑) to a stop on the broad, frozen lake, far from shore. It was now sinking. The pilot was standing on the wing. Gelinne knew from his Navy training that even a few minutes in the icy water could kill the pilot.
Gelinne tested the ice with his foot and decided not to take any chances walking on it. So he pulled a boat out from under his back deck.
Then he set off, pushing his boat across the ice. It was tough work. When Gelinne reached the plane, it had broken through the ice and sunk; only its tail was visible. The pilot was standing on a tail wing, submerged up to his chest, surrounded by open water. Gelinne pushed his boat off the ice and into the water, paddling (划) toward the pilot.
Gelinne focused on keeping the pilot calm, joking, “Just hang on to the boat as if you were hugging your wife.” The pilot grabbed the boat’s bow, but Gelinne knew he had to get the pilot out of the water and up onto the shelf of unbroken ice behind him before the man lost too much body heat.
By now a police officer had arrived and radioed for help. A lifeboat appeared, breaking through ice as it arrived. It picked up the pilot and rushed him to safety. Later the boat returned to help Gelinne, now extremely tired, to shore.
“I’m 60 years old,” Gelinne says. “There was no way I could get him to shore.” Still, he was satisfied he’d gone the right way that day.
1. Why did Gelinne run outside without hesitation?| A．He had rescucing experience. | B．He wanted to offer help in time. |
| C．He needed more time to prepare. | D．He was amazed at what had happened. |
| A．He made a call to the police. | B．He got the pilot out of the water. |
| C．He asked the pilot to grasp the bow. | D．He picked up the pilot onto the shore. |
| A．generous | B．brave | C．curious | D．strict |
| A．Think twice before action. |
| B．One good turn deserves another. |
| C．It’s never too late to make things right. |
| D．One should always be ready to seize chances. |
10 . All the feels
You can make your picture book memorable by concentrating on emotional connection. This works across every principle of writing, regardless of age range or genre (文体), because it is universally recognized.
The reason why emotional connection works is that emotion is a fundamental human experience.
For example, if it’s a funny picture book, your reader is clearly expecting to laugh. Make sure they laugh. If it’s an adventure story, your reader will be expecting to feel excitement, anticipation and probably a little mild fear. If it’s a heartwarming story, your reader expects to feel warm, comforted and overflowing with love.
Another reason for including emotion in your picture book is to really get your reader inside your character’s head. Firstly, it helps build on the young reader’s emotional development and understanding of self and others.
If you want your story to stand out amongst other stories, give your reader something to remember — a strong emotional connection.
| A．Secondly, it creates interest in the character. |
| B．It helps us make sense of the world around us. |
| C．An emotional ending in a picture book works well. |
| D．When we feel something, we will have sharp minds. |
| E．This is obviously not a complete list, but it is a starting point. |
| F．Here is why it works and how you can use it in your picture book writing. |
| G．Picture books have many different genres and your job is to know which genre your story sits in. |
