1 . Every year, young, talented, and ambitious nature conservationists from all over the world participate in the presentation of the Future For Nature (FFN) Award, an honorable international award.
The Future For Nature aims to:
• Reward and fund individuals for their outstanding efforts in the protection of species of wildlife.
• Encourage winners to sustain their dedicated work.
·• Help winners to raise their profiles, extend their professional network and strengthen their funding basis.
Benefits
• The winners each receive 50,000 euros and may make their own decision to spend the money in the service of nature conservation.
• FFN offers the winners a platform and brings their stories to the attention of conservationists, financiers and a wide audience, allowing them to increase their impact and gain more access to funds.
• FFN is building a growing family of winners, dedicated people who form a community of people with the same interest. FFN offers them the opportunity to meet each other and continue to learn with each other in order to continue their fight for nature as efficiently and effectively as possible.
Qualifications
The candidate (候选人):
• Must be born on or after the 31st May 1988 and before the 28th of August 2005.
• Is able to explain his/her conservation work in fluent English (written and spoken)
• Has achieved substantial and long-term benefits to the conservation status of one or more animal or plant species.
• Must be determined to continue his/her conservation work, as the Award aims to stimulate the winner’s future work. It is not an “end of career” prize.
Additional Remarks
For the 2024 Future For Future Awards, we are again searching for natural leaders, who have proven that they can make a difference in species’ survival.
From all applications, 6 to 10 nominees (被提名者) will be selected. These applicants will be asked to provide additional information, which will be used to select the final Awardees. Ultimately, three inspiring wildlife heroes are selected as the winners.
Application Process: Apply online through the Apply Now link.
Application Deadline: 28th August, 2023
1. Which is one of the aims of the Future For Nature?| A．To aid more green groups | B．To fund academic education. |
| C．To inspire conservation efforts. | D．To raise environmental awareness. |
| A．consult top specialists | B．meet those who are of the same ambition |
| C．benefit the local community | D．promote self-created platforms |
| A．meet the age requirement | B．apply via mail by the deadline |
| C．turn in the application in English | D．provide additional personal information |
2 . Many industries are facing a shortage of labour. Warehousing has grown rapidly. And robots are now indispensable, picking items off shelves and helping people pack an exponentially rising numbers of boxes. They are even beginning to walk slowly along some pavements, delivering goods or food right to people’s doors. Having more robots to boost productivity would be a good thing.
And yet many people fear that robots will destroy jobs. A paper in 2013 by economists at Oxford University was widely misinterpreted as meaning that 47% of American jobs were at risk of being automated.
In fact, concerns about mass unemployment because of robots are overblown. The evidence suggests robots will be ultimately beneficial for labour markets. A Yale University study found that an increase of one robot unit per 1, 000 workers boosted a company’s employment in Japan. Another study, by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and colleagues elsewhere, looked at Finnish firms and concluded that their use of advanced technologies led to increases in hiring.
For all that, the march of the robots will bring big changes to workplaces. The skills and firms that are rewarded will shift, too. But that need not be the disaster many fear. One supposed example of “bad automation” is self-service checkouts in supermarkets because they displace human workers. Checkout staff who retrain to help customers pick items from aisles may well find that dealing with people in need is more rewarding than spending all day scanning barcodes.
Certainly, some people will be on the losing end of change even as the robots make society as a whole better off. One lesson from the freewheeling globalization of the 1990s and 2000s is that the growth in trade that was overwhelmingly beneficial contributed to a political backlash (强烈抵制) because the losers felt left behind. That’s one more reason why firms and governments would do well to recognize the value of retraining and lifelong learning. As jobs change, workers should be helped to acquire new skills, including how to work with and manage the robots that will increasingly be their colleagues.
The potential gains from the robot revolution have just started. It won’t be the plot in some films where the robots fight against their human masters and cause mass unemployment.
1. What does the underlined word “indispensable” mean in Paragraph 1?| A．Essential. | B．Spare. | C．Detective. | D．Complicated. |
| A．To prove that robots will not be a disaster. |
| B．To remind us of the big changes at workplaces. |
| C．To illustrate checkout staff will scan barcodes slowly. |
| D．To tell firms the value of retraining and lifelong learning. |
| A．It will push losers to leave behind. |
| B．Robots may lead to mass unemployment. |
| C．People will help robots to gain new skills. |
| D．Robots and people may become co-workers. |
| A．Jobs will be at risk due to robots. |
| B．No evidence shows that robots will destroy jobs. |
| C．Lifelong learning will quickly boost mass employment. |
| D．People have benefited a lot from the robot revolution. |
3 . NASA’s spacecraft Dart hit an asteroid (小行星) 11.3 million kilometers away at a speed, changing the asteroid’s orbit and lowered its cycle period by 15 minutes, the space organization announced on Monday.
Some said the move shows the world might now be able to prevent asteroids—the kind that made the dinosaurs extinct—from hitting the Earth. The asteroid that was controlled belonged to a double-asteroid system. It had a 160-meter diameter while the other asteroid’s diameter is over 500 meters. The bigger asteroid can be compared to the one that ended the dinosaur era 67 million years ago. A hit from an asteroid that size can cause unimaginable destruction.
However, it is too early to assert that the world has gained the ability to prevent asteroids from hitting us. The asteroid that was controlled was only 160 meters in size. Its cycle period was changed, without changing its orbit significantly. It is still not clear if the orbit of a much larger asteroid headed toward the Earth can be changed successfully.
In brief, NASA’s success in changing the course of a harmful asteroid is definitely praiseworthy, but much more needs to be done before we can say the world’s security from some unpredictable asteroid is guaranteed.
It should be noted that changing the orbit of an asteroid involves more than just sending an object into space and commanding it to hit the asteroid. While it is hard enough to hit an asteroid, it is even more difficult to lock onto one in the first place. It means having the ability to observe approaching asteroids, measuring their respective speeds, and deciding which ones might pose a danger to the Earth.
Therefore, there’s more to Dart hitting the asteroid than meets the eye. And these are key areas where global scientists need to work harder in the future.
1. What was the latest news about NASA?| A．Its new program failed. |
| B．Its manned spaceship hit an asteroid. |
| C．Its spacecraft changed an asteroid’s orbit. |
| D．Its spacecraft saved the earth from being destroyed. |
| A．It was comparatively small in size. |
| B．Its orbit was changed significantly. |
| C．It travelled at a higher speed than before. |
| D．It was powerful enough to end dinosaur era. |
| A．Neutral. | B．Optimistic. | C．Pessimistic. | D．Not mentioned. |
4 . The Great Book Swap
Hi, sixth graders! My name is Tony Hill. I am president of the Windsor High School Student Council. Your teacher let me come to your class today to tell you about a reading project that we want to do, and we need your help.
If you’re like me, you love to read but sometimes have a hard time finding books you want to read. It seems as if the best books at the library are always checked out. To help get more books into people’s hands, we’re planning the Great Community (社区) Book Swap.
To make the project a success, we need everyone’s help. Ask your parents if there are any unused books taking up space. Ask your friends and neighbours to donate unwanted books. Maybe you have books you liked when you were younger but don’t read anymore. Bring them to school and make a young reader happy. We need all kinds of books for all kinds of readers!
There are many times I’d like to go buy new books, but I don’t have a lot of money to spend on them. Wouldn’t it be great to swap books right here in our community? Volunteers will organize the donated books. Then the books will be displayed at the community center. Everyone will be able to read and hopefully find the perfect book. Students will be allowed to choose up to two books during each day of the swap. Our plan is to have the book swap the first Saturday of every month.
If you like reading, just come and look through the collection of books. Each grade will have its own week to bring in books. Right now, eighth grade is bringing in books. When every grade has brought in books, we will have quite a selection. You will probably find at least one new book that you’d like to read. Who knows? Maybe you’ll find a book so good that you won’t be able to put it down.
What are you waiting for? Go home and clean out your bookshelves and closets!
1. Why did Tony Hill come to the class of sixth graders?| A．To explain a reading project. |
| B．To introduce a newly-built library. |
| C．To ask the students to help donate books. |
| D．To give the sixth graders advice on reading. |
| A．How the book swap will work. |
| B．When books will be brought in. |
| C．What kinds of books are needed. |
| D．Why the book swap is necessary. |
| A．More books are needed in the future. |
| B．Volunteers play an important role in the project. |
| C．Everyone is sure to be able to find the books he wants. |
| D．Students have already started helping with the book swap. |
| A．Realistic. | B．Convincing. | C．Independent. | D．Ambitious. |
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