1 . During the first weeks of his retirement from the fire service, Max had felt lost. And that’s when Polly, a library manager, helped him sign up as a
Max hadn’t volunteered before and he didn’t know anything about
Glancing around the library at the many parents and carers accompanying the robot builders, Max knew he had to face this
“Okay, team,” he started
The children nodded, their hands busy with screws and plastic limbs. Max wandered from table to table,
An hour passed, and the room was filled with the sound of chatter and clinking parts. As the final minutes of Robot Club ticked away, Max stood back and
As they began to leave, many children stopped to thank Max. Each “thank you” and “see you next week” chipped away at the sense of
| A．volunteer | B．writer | C．builder | D．fireman |
| A．books | B．programs | C．children | D．robots |
| A．searching | B．waiting | C．reading | D．arguing |
| A．competition | B．consequence | C．challenge | D．conflict |
| A．calmly | B．coldly | C．casually | D．weakly |
| A．processing | B．offering | C．exchanging | D．understanding |
| A．surveyed | B．cleaned | C．decorated | D．left |
| A．bringing up | B．calling on | C．showing off | D．giving away |
| A．freedom | B．relief | C．loss | D．guilt |
| A．version | B．belief | C．approach | D．purpose |
2 . Abeid was born in a village of Tanzania and dreamt of flying a plane, soaring (翱翔) through the sky. Due to financial difficulties, he became a wildlife guide instead.
Abeid didn’t give up. He became a chief pilot of hot air ballooning at the age of 20. His passion for flying was matched by his skill both as a pilot and as a guide. Then, he came up with the idea of flying across the Serengeti from east to west, which would take four flights on successive days, taking off and landing where no one had ever seen a balloon before.
As a journalist, I was so lucky to make a journey with Abeid. We were up at 3 am. Abeid walked into the basket and checked the lines and the fastenings. Moments later, he was instructing me to get into it. With barely time to catch my breath, he gave a long blast (猛吹) on the burners and the basket tipped upright.
Over the following days, we gasped at the joy and wonder of the sky; at the beauty and complexity of the land beneath us. There was no fear, just a sense of being part of something fantastic as we floated in the silence of the African sky.
But not everything went entirely to Abeid’s carefully worked-out plan. The rains that had started to fall every afternoon slowed the air. On the final day, we landed 20km short of the destination. Luckily, we finally made the crossing the next morning.
When we were returning to the land, crowds of people shouted and waved. Many children looked up as we flew over them, and started to run. As Abeid brought the balloon down, people gathered around the balloon, pressing against the basket. Those children were also there, flushed and breathless, eyes wide with amazement. Abeid and I both looked at each other in silent agreement. Suddenly we were helping some children into the basket. Abeid lifted off and we flew just a few hundred metres with the excited crowd running alongside.
I realized that Abeid’s journey was more than just about flying. It was about hope, inspiration, and the joy of sharing one’s passion. And as I penned down the last words of this extraordinary experience, I knew that Abeid’s story would resonate (回荡) far beyond the Serengeti.
1. What did Abeid dream of?| A．Being a wildlife guide. | B．Being a journalist. |
| C．Flying a hot air balloon. | D．Flying a plane. |
| A．Smooth. | B．Pioneering. | C．Painful. | D．Eco-friendly. |
| A．Showing their technical skills. | B．Teaching the children to be a pilot. |
| C．Taking the children for a ride. | D．Attracting people to their show. |
| A．A Beautiful View: from East to West |
| B．A Balloon Adventure: the Dream Soaring High |
| C．Different Job Experiences: from a Guide to a Pilot |
| D．A Wildlife Exploration: the Unforgettable Experience |
3 . At the end of the day, most of us find ourselves on the couch, eyes glued to the television or to our smartphones, doing everything we can to conserve energy.
According to Michael Inzlicht, a social psychologist at the University of Toronto, we’re lazy and also, we’re not.
All humans, given equal options, will take the easy way out. Does it mean we’re lazy? Maybe.
But there are the times when humans are the opposite of lazy and do very difficult things for no apparent reason. Some rewards only come from extensive effort.
So, in that sense, effort is worth the effort. While humans are economically aware of effort most of the time, “in some cases, the effort itself is rewarding,” says Inzlicht.
| A．Think about things like running a marathon. |
| B．It’s not completely clear why humans behave this way. |
| C．It seems that we humans are gifted in the way of laziness. |
| D．We similarly love to space out, our brain tired of focusing. |
| E．But it certainly means that we’re economic with our effort. |
| F．Some people who appear to be lazy are suffering from much more serious problems. |
| G．Likewise, we might get a sense of pleasure or mastery from doing a crossword puzzle. |
4 . Around the world, coral reefs (珊瑚礁) are in danger. Now, let’s check out a few ways conservationists are protecting these habitats.
Seaweed Smackdown
Hot ocean temperatures can supercharge seaweed growth — and that’s not good for a reef. So, in Hawaii, scientists have used an underwater vacuum (真空吸器) to suck up lots of seaweed into the device’s long tube. In Australia, scientists are studying a low-tech solution: pulling seaweed by hand.
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Some polyps (珊瑚虫) are harmed by heat waves and pollution. Scientists cut parts of coral from a healthy reef. Then these polyps are taken to a nursery, which could be in shallow protected areas underwater. After about a year, the healthy coral parts are attached to damaged reefs. The nursery-grown corals can bring new life to a struggling habitat.
Sound Saver
Healthy reefs are noisy. Fish make different sounds, and thousands of shrimp create and pop bubbles with their claws to create a sound. The biologists play sounds of healthy reefs through underwater speakers. They found that six weeks of broadcasting healthy reef sounds doubled the amount of fish in the area.
Bleaching Killer
One of the biggest threats to coral reefs is bleaching. Here’s how it works.
| Thriving coral Most coral species survive by partnering with tiny algae (藻类), which make food for the coral by changing sunlight into sugar. |
| Under stress But when the ocean water gets too hot, the algae produce too much oxygen, which can hurt the coral. |
| Bleaching So corals kick out the algae. As the algae leave, the color disappears and the coral appears to turn white. This process is called bleaching. |
Biologists have discovered that many corals in the Red Sea have a species of algae in their tissue that’s found nowhere else, so they can survive heat waves. Biologists hope their work will inspire governments and environmental groups to protect these corals.
1. Which of the following might be the subtitle of Paragraph 3?| A．Underwater Nurseries. | B．Fishing Guides. |
| C．Seaweed Cleaners. | D．Colour Designers. |
| A．Breathing in more oxygen. | B．Changing the appearance. |
| C．Absorbing more sound. | D．Partnering with algae. |
| A．To present the serious damages to corals. | B．To explain the reasons for coral habitat loss. |
| C．To introduce the methods of coral protection. | D．To compare the effects of different solutions. |
5 . A shopkeeper’s son breaks a window, causing a crowd to gather. They tell the shopkeeper not to be angry: actually, the broken window is a reason to celebrate, since it will create work for the glazier (装玻璃的工人). In the story, written by a 19th-century economist, the crowd envisions the work involved in repairing the window, but not that involved in everything else on which the shopkeeper could have spent his money — unseen possibilities that would have brought him greater happiness.
If that window were to be broken these days, people might have a different reaction, especially if they were NIMBYs (Not In My Back Yard) who oppose any local construction that affects their quality of life. Their concern might be with the “embodied carbon”. The production of a piece of glass would carry a sizeable carbon cost. Similarly, the bricks and concrete in a building are relics of past emissions. They are, the logic goes, embodied carbon.
Conserving what already exists, rather than adding to the building stock, will avoid increasing these embodied emissions — or so NIMBYs often suggest. At its worst, this idea is based on a warped logic. Greenhouse gases released by the construction of an existing building will heat the planet whether the building is repaired or knocked down. The emissions have been taken out of the world’s “carbon budget”, so treating them as anew debit means double counting. The right question to ask is whether it is worth using the remaining carbon budget to repair a building or it is better to knock it down.
Choosing between these possibilities requires thinking about the unseen. It used to be said that construction emitted two types of emissions. Besides the embodied sort, there were operational ones from cooling, heating and providing electricity to residents. Around the world, buildings account for 39% of annual emissions, according to the World Green Building Council, of which 28% come from operational carbon.
These two types of emissions might be enough for the architects designing an individual building. But when it comes to broader questions, economists ought also to consider how the placement of buildings affects the manner in which people work, shop and travel. Density (密度) lowers the per-person cost of public transport, and this reduces car use. Research by Green Alliance, a pressure group, suggests that in Britain a policy of “demolish (拆除) and densify” — replacing semi-detached housing near public transport with blocks of flats — would save substantial emissions. Without such demolition, potential residents would typically have to move to the suburbs instead, saving money on rent but consuming more energy.
Targeted subsidies (补贴), especially for research and development into construction materials, could speed up the pace at which the built environment decarbonises. What will never work, however, is allowing the loudest voices to decide how to use land and ignoring the carbon emissions of their would-be neighbours once they are out of sight.
1. The first two paragraphs are written to ________.| A．exemplify an outlook on energy conservation |
| B．present a new way of relieving energy crisis |
| C．explain people’s reaction to a broken window |
| D．introduce an argument on carbon emission |
| A．Unsound. | B．Complicated. | C．Distinctive. | D．Underlying. |
| A．Operational carbon accounts for a larger share of carbon emission. |
| B．Repairing old buildings outweighs demolition in energy conservation. |
| C．Higher residential density near public transport may help reduce emission. |
| D．Stopping residents from living in new buildings is sensible to energy saving. |
| A．Interests of NIMBYs are worthy of consideration. |
| B．A comprehensive insight into emission is essential. |
| C．Upgrading construction materials should be prioritized. |
| D．Every resident should do their bit in reducing carbon emission. |
6 . In the United Arab Emirates (UAE), water is more valuable than oil. To support its citizens, the nation relies on expensive campaigns of cloud seeding from aircraft, which spray particles(喷洒微粒) into passing clouds to make rainfall.
But according to Oliver Branch, a climate scientist, there may be another method to stir up a rainmaker: with city-size solar farms that create their own weather. The heat from dark solar panels can cause updrafts that sometimes lead to rainstorms, providing water for local people. “Maybe it’s not science fiction that we can produce this effect,” says Branch, who led the work.
Few studies have examined how renewable energy might shift weather patterns. In 2020, Branch found that incredibly large solar farms, taking up more than 1 million square kilometers in the Sahara desert, could boost local rainfall. But the reward would come with a cost, the researchers found: By altering wind patterns, the solar farms would push tropical rain bands north. That’s not good news for the Amazon areas.
To find more, researchers turned to a weather model that can account for land surface changes. They modeled the solar farms as nearly black fields that absorbed 95%of the sunlight, surrounded by relatively reflective sand. When the solar farms reached 15 square kilometers, they found, the increased heat they absorbed appreciably increased the updrafts, or convection, that drive cloud formation.
Hacking convection wasn’t enough, however: damp air was also needed. When conditions were ripe, the model also found, a 20-square-kilometer solar field would increase a storm’s total rainfall by nearly 600,000 cubic meters. If such rainstorms occurred 10 times in one summer, they would provide enough water to support more than 30,000 people for a year.
Solar farms in China and elsewhere are nearly big enough, Branch says. If they were built in the right spots, it wouldn’t take much to darken the panels and to plant dark crops between panel rows. Still they’re trying to improve the realism of their solar panel simulations by cross-checking them with field measurements at existing solar farms.
The UAE “is committed to studying the potentially dynamic strategies, such as optimizing convection,” says Alya Al, director of the UAE’s Research Program. For now, she adds, the UAE is deeply committed to its cloud seeding program, carrying out some 300 missions each year.
1. In his study, Branch attempts to produce rainfall ________.| A．by way of updrafts formed on solar farms | B．by spraying particles into passing clouds |
| C．by means of relatively reflective sand | D．by planting dark crops |
| A．the ripe conditions for building a solar farm |
| B．the realistic size of a solar farm for rainfall increase |
| C．the annual amount of water consumption in the UAE |
| D．the heat absorption rate of the solar panels in the black fields |
| A．It is not supported by the director. | B．It needs great investment if applied. |
| C．It remains to be further tested in practice. | D．It has promoted cloud seeding in the UAE. |
Family values are a set of principles and beliefs that a family agrees upon, such as emphasizing the importance of honest behaviors or valuing effort and persistence in achieving goals. They are fundamental and determine how members of a home interact with each other and with the world.
Family values determine what you think is important and what is good. These values can help you stay consistent when making decisions in everyday life, especially in moments of uncertainty. This is particularly true when you’re going to make quick decisions based on an emotional reaction. For example, if honesty and communication are your important family values, you’re more likely to approach conflicts with an open mind and a willing heart to talk through issues. When finding your family member has lied to you, instead of acting thoughtlessly, you know what to do—have a talk sincerely.
Family values serve as a guiding force within the home, but their impact extends far beyond, shaping societal norms and behaviors. For example, if several families plant generosity in their values, the next generation will grow up to be more generous. As a result, adults in this generation are more likely to take other people’s needs into consideration when making difficult choices. They become positive contributors to the society, developing an atmosphere of care and consideration that enhances communal well-being.
Great influence as it has, family values are not taught consciously. Often, they get passed down without being noticed. Those values don’t ever get questioned. Whether you’ve outlined them or not, they’re present. And once you take ownership of those values, you can shape them to be in line with what you expect your family to be.
1. What are family values?2. How can family values help to make decisions in everyday life?
3. Please decide which part is false in the following statement, then underline it and explain why.
Family values have great influence within the home, but they have nothing to do with shaping common behaviors and rules in a society.
4. Please share one of your family values and explain how it influences you. (In about 40 words)
When a severe car crash occurs on a deserted road, the injured may not rely on nearby witnesses to call the emergency services. Now many modern smartphones
The Port of Shanghai has been the busiest in the world for 14 years running after
Before some of the greatest explorers in history were born, Vikings had already navigated (航海) their way around the world. But with no
