1 . Have you ever been in a bathroom, dressing room or another private area with a mirror and had that feeling that someone is watching you? You can check to see if a mirror is transparent by observing how it is installed and using a few simple techniques to determine if there’s a wall behind it.
Check out the lighting. For a two-way mirror to be effective, the light on the mirrored side needs to be 10 times brighter than the light on the other side. If the lighting is dimmer, it’s possible to see through the glass to the observation area. Look around and determine whether the lighting seems extraordinarily bright.
Sound it out. The sound of tapping a two-way mirror has also been described as bright or sharp as opposed to a thud (砰的一声) from an everyday mirror. Tap on the surface of the mirror with your knuckle (指节).
| A．Turn off the lights. |
| B．Try to look through the glass. |
| C．Observe how the mirror is installed. |
| D．If so, you might be looking at a two-way mirror. |
| E．There are some accurate ways to tell if a mirror is two-way or not. |
| F．A normal mirror will produce a dull, flat sound, since it’s placed in front of a wall. |
| G．People standing on the other side of the wall can observe someone looking in the mirror. |
With the International Conference on Food Loss and Waste closed on Saturday in Jinan, Shandong Province, the country has sent a signal to
The current world grain production is about 2.8 billion tons a year. Therefore, the loss of only one percentage
In recent years, China
We cannot end hunger
3 . The Best National Parks to Visit in Winter
While most parks tend to draw families in the summer and fall, there are also ideal spots for adventurous winter trips.
Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
The country’s oldest and best-known national park takes on an almost otherworldly atmosphere in winter: the air filled with rolling steam, the strong colors of hot springs, the surrounding white landscapes, let alone the impressive wildlife during this time, like bison, wolves, and playful red foxes. Just book a guided hiking tour to get a ranger’s perspective on the park and local people.
Joshua Tree National Park, California
With its giant red rocks and unique trees, you’ll feel like stepping onto a foreign planet as you spend hours hiking the Panorama Loop or Maze Loop. The park is recognized as an International Dark Sky Park, featuring virtually zero light pollution and the country’s best views of a starry sky.
Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona
A significantly lower number of visitors in winter means you can take in unblocked views of the South Rim, and get to see the rare beauty of the Grand Canyon dusted with snow. For those adventurous and daring, it is recommended to hike the Bright Angel Trail and take the chance to see the canyon’s wintertime wildlife, including mule deer, elk, and bald eagles.
Virgin Islands National Park, St. John
Surprise! Not all wintertime national park trips need to involve snow. Virgin Islands National Park is most famous for its white-sand beaches. You can also hike inland to visit old sugar plantations, or venture out to the water to swim along with sea turtles and manta rays. You will definitely enjoy a different winter here.
1. Which park will one choose if he/she is interested in stars?| A．Yellowstone National Park. | B．Joshua Tree National Park. |
| C．Grand Canyon National Park. | D．Virgin Islands National Park. |
| A．We can have a poor view of the South Rim there. | B．It lies in an area with rolling steam and hot springs. |
| C．There is a slight decline in visitor numbers in winter. | D．The Bright Angel Trail is challenging in cold weather. |
| A．Hiking. | B．Skiing. | C．Swimming. | D．Hunting. |
4 . When I was in primary school, I was actually a little shy. One thing that really frightened me was speaking in front of many people, whether strangers or acquaintances (熟人). It was my sixth-grade teacher, Mr. Bamick, who helped me get past that. That year we had to make four oral (口头的) book reports in front of the class. Some of the kids were even glad to do it, but I was scared to death. Mr. Bamick recognized my fear, so be told me to do a report on a book that was about something that really interested me. So I did the first report on baseball.
When it came time for me to present it to the class, Mr. Bamick cut me some slack and let me read the report rather than give it from memory. Some of my classmates laughed at me, but Mr. Bamick defended (为……辩解) me. By the end of the year I had completed all four of the oral book reports. It wasn’t easy or comfortable for me, but I did it.
Years later I realized that Mr. Bamick did me a great favor in sixth grade. One of the chances I got when I won a tennis tournament (锦标赛) was to make comments to the fans who attended the match. Some of those were carried live on television and all of them were before thousands of people. It was still not one of my favorite things to do, but, with Mr. Bamick’s help, I got through it from time to time. Before long, I was asked to bring my favorite childhood teacher to a national event in Dallas. 1 was excited when Mr. Bamick joined me for the event. It meant a lot to me that he was there.
Mr. Bamick believed in me and helped me to believe in myself. It was he who helped me build the person I became.
1. In what aspect (方面) did Mr. Bamick help the writer?| A．Improving her learning skills. |
| B．Encouraging her to read more books. |
| C．Winning her classmates’ recognition. |
| D．Overcoming her fear of public speaking. |
| A．Played a funny joke on the writer. |
| B．Gave the writer a feeling of pride. |
| C．Made the task a little easier for the writer. |
| D．Asked the writer to take part in a competition. |
| A．She was a tennis player. |
| B．She wanted to be a teacher. |
| C．She liked public speaking best. |
| D．She enjoyed commenting on books. |
| A．Strict. | B．Curious. |
| C．Encouraging. | D．Frightening. |
5 . Five years ago, French navy officer Jérôme Chardon was listening to a radio program about the journey of the bar-tailed godwit, a bird that migrates 14,000 kilometers between New Zealand and Alaska. Chardon understood how treacherous the journey would be, as heavy storms frequently hit Pacific island communities. Yet, somehow, bar-tailed godwits routinely pass through the area uninjured. Chardon wondered whether learning how birds traveled could help coastal communities avoid natural disasters.
This past January, a team from France’s National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) began experiments designed to test Chardon’s idea. Researchers with a project led by Frédéric Jiguet from NMNH equipped 56 birds of five species with cutting edge animal tracking technology. The team members were ferried to remote islands in French Polynesia, where they attached tags (标签) using tracking technology. These tags sent the birds’ locations to the International Space Station, which bounced the data back to scientists on Earth who could then follow the birds—waiting to see how the birds responded to natural disasters.
The project is focusing on birds’ ability to hear infrasound, the low-frequency sound humans cannot hear but that the researchers believe is the most likely signal birds would use to sense storms and tsunamis (海啸). In a 2014 study, scientists tracking a kind of golden-winged birds in the central and southeastern America found that the birds flew up to 1,500 kilometers to escape from an outbreak of tornadoes (龙卷风) that killed 35 people. The birds fled at least 24 hours before any extreme weather hit, leaving the scientists to believe that they had heard the storm system from more than 400 kilometers away.
The team plans on tagging hundreds more birds across the Pacific to prepare for a potential tsunami. “I think if there’s one wave that spreads across islands, we can get data from different species at different locations,” says Jiguet. “That will say it s worth continuing to tag and to develop local systems to better analyze this. There are chances that we will develop a bird-based tsunami early warning system.”
1. Which of the following best explains the word “treacherous” underlined in paragraph 1?| A．Strange. | B．Boring. |
| C．Frequent. | D．Dangerous. |
| A．Tracking natural disasters. | B．Distinguishing bird species. |
| C．Guiding researchers to islands. | D．Reporting the birds’ locations. |
| A．To prove an assumption. | B．To clarify a concept. |
| C．To present a new topic. | D．To make comparisons. |
| A．How Can Birds Avoid Natural Disasters? |
| B．Can Birds Warn Us of Natural Disasters? |
| C．How Does a Warning System Function? |
| D．Can Birds Play a Role in Human Research? |
6 . Oxygen. Clean air. Shade. Trees provide people with all sorts of benefits. A major one: removing carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air and storing it. That makes trees an important part of the fight against climate change. But they only hold onto carbon as long as they’re alive. Once they die, trees release that CO2 back into the atmosphere. This movement of carbon between forests and the atmosphere is called a carbon flux, notes Roel Brienen, a forest ecologist at the University of Leeds.
“These fluxes affect the amount of carbon a forest can store,” he explains. It’s like the way a bank account works. Forests store carbon the way a bank account stores money. If you spend more than you make, your bank account will shrink. And it will grow if you put more money into the account than you take out. Which direction a forest’s “carbon account ” goes has a huge influence on climate.
Recent studies have found that trees around the world are growing faster than ever. Rising atmospheric CO2 is probably driving that rapid growth, Brienen says. High levels of this gas are boosting temperatures, which speed tree growth. Brienen also found that fast-growing tree species, in general, live shorter lives. That quickens their release of carbon back into the air which is disappointing news for global warming. Brienen then examined what factors might influence tree growth, including rainfall, soil type and how crowded a forest was. None was linked to early tree death.
Levels of carbon in our forests could return to those from before the increases in growth, Brienen says. That does not mean planting trees won’t help fight climate change, but which trees are used could have a big impact. A forest of mostly fast-growing trees would store less carbon over the long term. It would therefore have less value for carbon storage projects.
“We must understand, however, that the only way to bring down CO2 levels is to stop emitting (排放)it into the atmosphere,” says Brienen.
1. How does the author explain “a carbon flux”?| A．By giving examples. | B．By making a comparison. |
| C．By describing the process. | D．By analyzing cause and effect. |
| A．An increase in CO2 levels. | B．Crowdedness of a forest. |
| C．Rich carbon in the soil. | D．The long rainy season. |
| A．Plant as many trees as possible. |
| B．Remove dead trees from forests. |
| C．Plant trees with a long growth cycle. |
| D．Ban the emission of gases into the atmosphere. |
| A．Fast-growing trees may add to climate crisis |
| B．Climate change is cutting the number of trees |
| C．Is planting trees the answer to climate change? |
| D．What are the best carbon-trapping trees to plant? |
