1 . Are fields full of solar panels (太阳能电池板) a bad thing for England’s green and pleasant land? Some figures at the top of the UK government certainly think so.

“I think one of the most ___________ sights when you’re driving through England is seeing fields that should be full of crops or livestock full of solar panels,” said Liz Truss, then UK prime minister, in August. “___________ lands … should be used for food production.”

This is an issue in many other countries too. China, ___________, is reportedly considering a ban (禁令) on ___________ on farmland and in forests. In England, existing rules already ___________ solar farms on the most productive agricultural land. Nevertheless, the UK government was reportedly planning to effectively ban them on most English farmland.

With Rishi Sunak, who has previously criticized solar farms on farmland, now having replaced Truss, it is unclear whether the UK government will ___________ the ban nationwide as planned, but ___________ of solar on farmland must know three things.

First, a lot of food is being turned into biofuels — even though food-based biofuels increase greenhouse emissions, harm biodiversity and ___________ food prices.

Second, plants aren’t great at  ___________ solar energy. Crops typically turn less than 1 per cent of the solar energy that hits them into useable biofuel, whereas solar panels ____________ about 20 per cent of light energy into electricity.

Third, farming is very polluting, ____________ a third of global greenhouse gas emissions as well as many other pollutants. In the UK in 2020, 121,000 hectares were used to grow crops for producing heat, electricity or biofuels ____________ food. That is five times as much as the 23,000 hectares covered by ground-mounted solar.

To see which is a better use of land, let’s ____________ what we get from solar panels and biofuels. Per year, a hectare of wheat can produce enough bioethanol (生物乙醚) for a car to drive around 23,000 kilometres, Simon Evans at the climate site Carbon Brief has calculated. A hectare of solar, by contrast, can produce enough electricity in a ____________ for an electric car to drive 2,570,000 kilometres. So a hectare of solar gets you 50 to 110 times further — and with much less pollution along the way. This is why it makes no sense ____________ or environmentally to ban solar on farms, while continuing to allow farms to grow foods and turn them into biofuels.

2 . Summer marks the middle of green tea season, which runs from late spring to fall. While it may seem _________ to drink hot liquids in the heat, many Asian cultures believe that doing so will increase sweating and help _________ yourself off.

“But preparing green tea is a _________ process that most people get wrong,” says Rona Tison, senior vice president of corporate relations for a Japanese tea company that sells bottled tea as well as loose leaf tea from its Manhattan store. Green tea, _________ black tea, has not been oxidized (氧化) and can easily turn bitter if not made _________.

“A good cup of green tea _________ with a fresh, high-quality leaf. Green tea is _________ to having a fresh vegetable. It goes bad easily and has a shelf life,” Ms. Tison says.

Tea leaves produce the best _________ when used within two months of purchasing. Six months is the maximum time to store green tea. The leaves _________ smells so they should be stored in an airtight, moisture-free metal or tin __________ that is away from light. Out-of-date tea leaves will be brittle (易碎的) and dry, __________ good taste and smell.

She uses mineral or spring water for brewing. One of the most common __________ people make when brewing tea is __________ boiling water, which burns the leaves and __________ them bitter.

She __________ about one teaspoon of leaves per teacup into a pot and __________ in the warm water, letting it steep for a minute, but no more than two. __________ loose in a teapot or placed in an infuser, leaves should never be excessive. “You want the leaves to unfurl to really __________ the flavor out of the tea,” she says.

She gently __________ the teapot around and around quickly while the tea is steeping to make sure she __________ all the tea with the water. If she is serving more than one cup, she pours a little at a time in each cup to balance out the flavor.

3 . Digital Technology Reveals Secrets of the UK’s Earliest Dinosaur

Britain’s earliest dinosaur was a nimble omnivore that ran around on two legs, unlike its later relatives brontosaurus and diplodocus, research suggests.

Standing at about the height of a 10-year-old child, and 1.5 metres in length with a long thin tail, Thecodontosaurus(槽齿龙)roamed the earth during the Triassic Period. As well as being one of the earliest _______, it was also among the first to be discovered. It was unearthed by Bristol quarrymen(采石工人)in 1834, earning it the _______ “the Bristol Dinosaur”.

Thecodontosaurus is considered an important species internationally because it provides an _______ link between the very first dinosaurs, which are thought to have been cat-sized, two-legged carnivores, and the huge plant-eating sauropods(蜥脚类动物), which walked on four thick, pillar-like _______.

“Its position within the dinosaur family tree is very important because it could help us to understand the evolution of those _______, and how they became that big,” said Antonio Ballell, a PhD student at the University of Bristol, who led the _______.

What Thecodontosaurus ate and how it moved have long been debated, but now a _______ of its brain suggests it may have eaten meat and walked upright on two legs, like its earlier ancestors whose fossilised remains were discovered in South America.

Ballell and his colleagues used CT scans to _______ extract its fossilised skull from the surrounding rock debris, and 3D modelling to build a replica of its brain. Doing so revealed anatomical details, which could be compared with the brains of modern creatures as well as reconstructions of other dinosaurs’ brains, to make inferences about Thecodontosaurus’ physical traits.

The dinosaur’s floccular lobes, for instance, which are located at the back of the brain and are _______ the control of balance and eye and neck movements, were large. This suggests Thecodontosaurus could have walked on two legs and maintained a stable gaze while moving fast. “It would have had the cerebral agility to track prey and capture it, ________ its tooth morphology suggests plants were the main component of its diet,” Ballell said. “We think the islands where it lived were very rich in reptiles, small mammals, insects and other arthropods, so these could have been a very good ________ to its diet.”

The shape of its inner ears suggests that its hearing frequency was ________ high, pointing towards some sort of social complexity-an ability to recognise varied squeaks and honks from different animals. The research was ________ in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society.

“It’s thrilling to see new technologies applied ________ some of the oldest dinosaur bones from the UK,” said Steve Brusatte, a professor at the University of Edinburgh. “Thecodontosaurus was probably a lot more agile(灵活的)than we used to think, and it seems like it had ________ balance, could run fast and could even move only on its hind limbs.”

4 . 3D Printing and AR Technology in Physical Stores

These days, shopping often involves an Internet connection and a laptop or smartphone. However, businesses are now trying to use new technology, such as 3D printing and augmented reality, to bring customers back into stores.

At the National Retail Federation show in New York City, many companies _________ these new technologies. The computer company Intel is experimenting with 3D printing. It is using the Mach 2XS commercial printer. _________ printing words on paper, the Mach 2XS prints clothes. _________, it uses thread to print out a sweater. It prints the sweater out row by row, until it is fully formed. Ryan Parker is the general manager of Responsive Retail at Intel. He says the 3D printers print out clothing, made just for the _________ in size and style, in about 45 minutes.

More and more consumers shop _________. But young people still seem to like going to physical stores. A recent study led by the IBM Institute for Business Value and the National Retail Federation shows that 67 percent of people between ages 13 to 21 shop in physical stores most of the time. A London-based company, Ads Reality, is trying to use augmented reality, or AR technology in stores. Augmented reality is a technology that creates computer-generated images and _________ them in a way that makes them look real. “When it’s used in the right way, it’s a very powerful tool to drive mobile engagement and store _________,” said Richard Corps, managing director. The company’s latest product is an “AR Window”. It superimposes (叠加) _________ augmented reality characters on big screens in store windows. “It looks like these characters are actually inside the store…it stops people outside the store because they’re amazed to see these characters…and then it _________ them inside the store because they want to have their photographs taken with these characters, ” Corps said.

Customer service robots might also become a __________ store experience. The New York Company Autonomous is experimenting with customer service robots. These wheeled __________ include a Wi-Fi connection to a real person who can be seen on the robots’ screen. Robots in a hardware store, for example, could be __________ from anywhere by experts in different fields, like plumbing or electrical wiring. Autonomous chief Duy Huynh says the robots can make the shopping experience personal. With our technology, when you walk into a store one of our robots will __________ you and behind the robot, it’s going to bring someone who knows your shopping __________, who has been helping you for the past six months, who knows what you need, to talk to you. So to us that’s really, really important and that’s the very first time you can actually do __________ offline.

5 . What can the average Briton do to create a home environment which is green and friendly? Well, _______ bear in mind that over half the average home’s energy bill is spent on heating rooms, but _______ a typical house loses nearly half its heat through the walls and roof. So _______ number one is to ensure that your house is adequately prevented loss of heat. Get advice about double glazing, and loft insulation(顶层隔热).

The next most important point to consider is that of _______ . Packaging and wrapping is an obvious _______ . Try to use economy size boxes, and reuse containers _______ glass jars and plastic boxes instead of wrapping food in foil or plastic. Take bottles to bottle-banks, and only shop in supermarkets which use _______ packaging. More and more people are simply _______ to buy goods packed in wasteful plastic. The garden too is an area where waste can be recycled. Start a compost heap(堆肥)using old food bits and garden weeds _______ putting them in the dustbin. And it is ________ what can be done with some other things we usually throw away. For example, try papering your bedroom with ________ from magazines.

The third problem area is the use of ________ . This is becoming a more and more ________ thing, so save as much as you can. Flushing(冲洗)the toilet accounts for a third of all household water use, so don’t flush ________ , if you are only getting rid of a tissue, for example. Take a shower instead of a bath, and don’t keep the water running while you wash, or clean your teeth. And don’t use a pipe to wash your car or water the garden. These are ________ in some areas in any case when there are water shortage. Try putting some in a bucket instead.

6 . Pablo Picasso, J. K. Rowling, Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Bob Dylan— whether they’re painters, singer-songwriters, philosophers or writers, people across nations and ________have tapped into their creativity working away at a table in a cafe.

Noise

A low-to-moderate level of ambient(周围的)noise in a place like a cafeteria can actually boost your creative output. The idea is that if you’re very slightly ________from the task at hand by ambient stimuli, it boosts your abstract thinking ability, which can lead to more creative idea ________.

While that “Goldilocks” level of noise is ________for everyone, audio stimuli in the background also help us improve decision making. Some have even dubbed(授予……的称号)“the coffee shop effect”. So, the jazz muzak, ________conversation and barista banging coffee grounds out of the grinder aren’t a nuisance; ________, they could help you come up with your next magnum opus(杰作).

________Crowds

A 2016study ________this idea when researchers asked participants sitting next to each other in front of a computer to do a task on the same screen. The study showed that “simply performing a task next to a person who exerts a lot of effort in a task will make you do the same”.

One of the biggest things about coffee shops is the ________facilitation effect: you go there, you see other people working and it puts you in a mood where you just ________start working as well. Just observing them can motivate you to work harder.

Visual Variety

Visual variety helps in “solving a problem that has an optimal ________, but requires you to think outside the box” ...Coffee shops, though, generally have visual stimuli in spades. And hitting up different coffee shops each time keeps things even more ________. People come and go. The daylight changes. The aromas of coffee and food vary.

While we tend not to take ________notice of these micro-stimuli, and likely don’t overtly choose to work in this location because of them, these activities around us prod our brains to work a bit differently than at home.

Air of Informality

Experts say these cafe settings can also benefit work groups who are brainstorming and building camaraderie…All those audio and ________stimuli help groups, too, compared to the dearth on Zoom or in a formal meeting room.

University campuses, like open-air offices, have blended ________of coffee shops into their design to prompt people to gather and collaborate, as part of a trend that’s been happening for more than a decade.

7 . Have you had enough(or enuf)trouble spelling English words to make you want to scream(or skreem)? You are not alone. Generations of scholars since the 17th century have protested against the________ in English spelling.

Part of the problem is caused by the_______ origins of English words. German, Latin, French and Greek are al common sources, and each follows a different set of________ for spelling. In fact, even within any one of these languages, it is________ to guarantee consistency(一致性). As these systems were________ over time, the English spelling system we see today came into being.

Some English learners know that memorizing the Latin roots of English words is a great way to________ their vocabulary, but most Latin-rooted words entered English from French after the Norman Conquest(诺曼征服)of the 11th century. The Normans used French as the language of the court, throwing Old English, a Germanic(日耳曼语的)language, out of________ usage for around 300 years.

By the time English was again_______ at the court, it was a French-influenced language(Middle English). There was actually no________ form of spelling. In Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales(《坎特伯雷故事集》), the same word was spelled differently. This was not his fault. He was simply following the spelling of the time.

Standardization did not come until the 15th century. The use of the printing press(印刷机)and, for the first time, the mass distribution(大量流通)of books________ the spelling of words. The spelling system we use today is based on the pronunciation of that time.

Now the story gets a bit________. Between 1450 and 1750, English pronunciation went through what experts call the Great Vowel Shift(主要元音转移). However, _______ the nature of how English words are pronounced has evolved, the spelling system has remained largely unchanged.

Supporters of English spelling reform argue that________ words with more phonetically accurate letter combinations will promote literacy(读写能力). Others don’t think so. They say that the spelling system we use today leaves plenty of________ to unlocking the history of the language, helping readers understand the origins of words. What do you think? Should English try to “________” the spelling of words?

8 . You have an important decision to make. You have done ________, made a list of the pros and cons, and asked friends and family for advice.

When should you just trust your gut (直觉)? Scientists, authors and plenty of mums have long spoken of the power of intuition — our mind’s ability to understand something without the need for conscious ________.

Think of all the ________ you have heard: Put the problem away and come back to it later! Intuition (直觉) doesn’t lie! Sleep on it! Many studies have shown that the decisions we make unconsciously — before our rational mind gets involved — are often ________.

But not always.

John Bargh is a psychology professor at Yale. He says we tend to trust our gut reactions more than our rational ones because they happen so ________ that we think they must be true. However, there is a problem with this belief: our ________ states have an influence on what our gut tells us. If you are angry, for example, your gut will give you a different answer than it normally would.

Dr Bargh says that our gut is better at helping us ________ some things, such as our preferences, or whether we are in immediate danger. And it is good at helping us make ________ decisions — say, what car to buy, where to move, or which job offer to accept — when the amount of information and choices can be overwhelming. Research shows that when people are given four choices of which car to buy — with slightly different characteristics to each — and then are ________ from conscious thinking, they make better choices.

But it is a bad idea to rely on our gut when the consequences of our decisions are highly likely to be dangerous. ________, if the outcome of our choice will affect someone else, it is best not to rely on our gut alone —   ________ time is tight.

Dr Bargh says it is often best to use both unconscious and conscious thought to make a decision. And conscious thought should ________. An excellent way to do this is to write down the benefits and drawbacks of each choice you could make. Sometimes, this ________ will be enough to show you a clear decision.

If it isn’t, however, put it away and do something that ________ your conscious mind. Go for a hike, play chess, or practise a musical instrument. Don’t watch television — it is too mind-numbing (令人头脑麻木的), experts say. Go into yourself without distractions from the outside, and your unconsciousness will keep working on the ________.

9 . It is quite a challenge to get close to an animal in the wild, so much of our ________of wildlife comes from pictures taken by________professionals that know how to go near to these animals. These professionals are wildlife photographers.

Wildlife photographers depend not only on their photographic skills but also on their knowledge of wildlife. To get good pictures, they sometimes have to ________long waits, awful weather, and even the________of animal attacks.

Once they have become________with a location, photographers can begin to get ________enough to animals to take pictures. Some photographers________in hut-like (茅舍样的) structures called blinds. This method works well with animals such as birds that depend mainly on their sight to________danger. Blinds,________, do not work well for taking pictures of animals with a sharp sense of________. Photographers may get close to these animals on foot, stay downwind and________sudden movements. Food or noises, such as bird calls, may also be used to attract wildlife into ________. For difficult animals, a photographer may even ________a camera in the wild with a trip line (绊脚线). Animals that touch the line start it to take pictures of them. Each or these________requires great patience and knowledge, but the reward can be a ________sight of nature.

10 . Thinner isn’t always better, a number of studies have_________ that normal-weight people are in fact at higher risk of some disease compared to those who are overweight. And there are health conditions for which being overweight is actually_________. For example, heavier women are less likely to develop calcium deficiency than thin women. Likewise, among the elderly, being somewhat overweight is often an_________ of good health.

Of even greater concern is the fact that obesity turns out to be very difficult to define. It is often defined_________ body mass index, or BMI. BMI_________ body mass divided by the square of height. An adult with a BMI of 18 to 25 is often considered to be normal weight. Between 25 and 30 is overweight. And over 30 is considered obese. Obesity, _________, can be divided into moderately obese(30-35), severely obese(35-40), and very severely obese(over 40).

While such numerical standards seem_________, they are not. Obesity is probably less a matter of weight than body fat. Some people with a high BMI are in fact extremely fit, while others with a low BMI may be in poor_________. For example, many collegiate and professional football players_________ as obese, though their percentage body fat is low. Conversely, someone with a small frame may have high body fat but a__________ BMI.

Today we have a(n)________ to label obesity as a disgrace. The overweight are sometimes__________ in the media with their faces covered. Stereotypes________ with obesity include laziness, lack of willpower, and lower prospects for success. Teachers, employers, and health professionals have been shown to harbour biases against the obese. Even very young children tend to look down on the overweight, and teasing about body build has long been a problem in schools.

Negative attitudes toward obesity, __________ in health concerns, have stimulated a number of anti-obesity__________. My own hospital system has banned sugary drinks from its facilities. Many employers have instituted weight loss and fitness initiatives. Michelle Obama launched a high-visibility campaign against childhood obesity, even claiming that it represents our greatest national security threat.