1 . Vancouver has had a crazy property (房地产) market since it hosted the winter Olympics in 2010. The downtown area is forested with new apartment blocks. Prices have risen by nearly 60% in the past three years. But until recently developers have largely avoided Chinatown. It is an underdeveloped area. Many Chinatown residents are old and poor.
Developers now have Chinatown in their sights. Two years ago one built a 17-storey apartment building on its edge. This alarmed many residents, who had formed a group to stop the high-rise advance, now called SaveChinatownYVR. Ms. Melody Ma is its leader. Recently it has been successful.
The main theatre of battle is a car park known as 105 Keefer, where Beedie Living plans to build a nine-storey brick-and-glass apartment block. The developer promises 111 luxury flats, with rooftop landscaping and shops below.
105 Keefer is in an area rich with cultural associations. Just to the south is a monument to Chinese-Canadian builders of the Canadian Pacific Railway and veterans of the Second Word War. Across the street is the Sun Yat-sen Classical Chinese Garden and the Chinese Cultural Centre Museum. “A lot of people were frightened” because of the building’s “closeness to sacred sites in the heart of Chinatown,” says Ms. Ma. Some residents also fear that it will push up rents.
Conservationists hope that the parking lot is where they can stop development, which they say has spoilt the charm of other Vancouver neighborhoods such as Mount Pleasant. The dispute (分歧) is part of a debate about the city’s identity, says Andy Yan, an urban planner. Vancouverites, he says, are asking themselves, “Who are we? And what are we building for?” The people who might want to buy the flats that do not yet exist are, of course, not being consulted.
What does the author intend to do in paragraph 4?| A．To state some reasons. |
| B．To offer some advice. |
| C．To make some comparisons. |
| D．To introduce a new topic. |
2 . Vancouver has had a crazy property (房地产) market since it hosted the winter Olympics in 2010. The downtown area is forested with new apartment blocks. Prices have risen by nearly 60% in the past three years. But until recently developers have largely avoided Chinatown. It is an underdeveloped area. Many Chinatown residents are old and poor.
Developers now have Chinatown in their sights. Two years ago one built a 17-storey apartment building on its edge. This alarmed many residents, who had formed a group to stop the high-rise advance, now called SaveChinatownYVR. Ms. Melody Ma is its leader. Recently it has been successful.
The main theatre of battle is a car park known as 105 Keefer, where Beedie Living plans to build a nine-storey brick-and-glass apartment block. The developer promises 111 luxury flats, with rooftop landscaping and shops below.
105 Keefer is in an area rich with cultural associations. Just to the south is a monument to Chinese-Canadian builders of the Canadian Pacific Railway and veterans of the Second Word War. Across the street is the Sun Yat-sen Classical Chinese Garden and the Chinese Cultural Centre Museum. “A lot of people were frightened” because of the building’s “closeness to sacred sites in the heart of Chinatown,” says Ms. Ma. Some residents also fear that it will push up rents.
Conservationists hope that the parking lot is where they can stop development, which they say has spoilt the charm of other Vancouver neighborhoods such as Mount Pleasant. The dispute (分歧) is part of a debate about the city’s identity, says Andy Yan, an urban planner. Vancouverites, he says, are asking themselves, “Who are we? And what are we building for?” The people who might want to buy the flats that do not yet exist are, of course, not being consulted.
What is the text mainly about?| A．The alarmed citizens of Vancouver. |
| B．The cultural associations of 105 Keefer. |
| C．The property battle in Vancouver’s Chinatown. |
| D．The identity of Vancouver. |
3 . Vancouver has had a crazy property (房地产) market since it hosted the winter Olympics in 2010. The downtown area is forested with new apartment blocks. Prices have risen by nearly 60% in the past three years. But until recently developers have largely avoided Chinatown. It is an underdeveloped area. Many Chinatown residents are old and poor.
Developers now have Chinatown in their sights. Two years ago one built a 17-storey apartment building on its edge. This alarmed many residents, who had formed a group to stop the high-rise advance, now called SaveChinatownYVR. Ms. Melody Ma is its leader. Recently it has been successful.
The main theatre of battle is a car park known as 105 Keefer, where Beedie Living plans to build a nine-storey brick-and-glass apartment block. The developer promises 111 luxury flats, with rooftop landscaping and shops below.
105 Keefer is in an area rich with cultural associations. Just to the south is a monument to Chinese-Canadian builders of the Canadian Pacific Railway and veterans of the Second Word War. Across the street is the Sun Yat-sen Classical Chinese Garden and the Chinese Cultural Centre Museum. “A lot of people were frightened” because of the building’s “closeness to sacred sites in the heart of Chinatown,” says Ms. Ma. Some residents also fear that it will push up rents.
Conservationists hope that the parking lot is where they can stop development, which they say has spoilt the charm of other Vancouver neighborhoods such as Mount Pleasant. The dispute (分歧) is part of a debate about the city’s identity, says Andy Yan, an urban planner. Vancouverites, he says, are asking themselves, “Who are we? And what are we building for?” The people who might want to buy the flats that do not yet exist are, of course, not being consulted.
What will Ms. Melody Ma agree?| A．To preserve Chinatown. |
| B．To rebuild Chinatown. |
| C．To build skyscrapers in Chinatown. |
| D．To promote the property market in Chinatown. |
4 . Martha Stewart was charged, tried and convicted of a crime in 2014. As she neared the end of her prison sentence, a well-known columnist wrote that she was “paying her dues,” and that “there is simply no reason for anyone to attempt to deny her right to start anew. ”
At least 65 million people in the United States have a criminal record. This can result in severe penalties (惩罚) that continue long after punishment is completed.
Many of these penalties are imposed regardless of the seriousness of the offense or the person’s individual circumstances.
In all, more than 45,000 laws and rules serve to exclude vast numbers of people from fully participating in American life. Some laws make senses. No one advocates letting someone convicted of pedophilia (恋童癖) work in a school.
These laws are also counterproductive (适得其反), since they make it harder for people with criminal records to find housing or a job, two key factors that reduce backsliding. A recent report makes several recommendations, including the abolition of most post-conviction penalties, except for those specifically needed to protect public safety.
The point isn’t to excuse or forget the crime. Rather, it is to recognize that in America’s vast criminal justice system, and second chances are crucial. It is in no one's interest to keep a large segment of the population on the margins of society.
| A．Criminals should pay the price of finding housing or a job and getting qualifications for benefits. |
| B．Surely, the American ideal of second chances shouldn’t be reserved only for the rich and powerful. |
| C．But too often collateral (附随的) consequences bear no relation to public safety. |
| D．Where the penalties are not a must, they should be imposed only if the facts of a case support it. |
| E．American’s vast criminal justice system provides criminals with necessary support for living. |
| F．Laws can restrict or ban voting, access to public housing, and professional and business licensing. |
5 . THE GLOBAL WASTE TRADE IS ESSENTIALLY BROKEN
Cut into hillside in northern Malaysia stands a large, open-air warehouse. This is a recycling factory, which opened last November. On a very hot afternoon in January, Shahid Ali was working his very first week on the job. He stood knee-deep in soggy, white bits of plastic. Around him, more bits floated of the conveyor belt and fell to the ground like snowflakes.
Hour after hour, Ali sorts through the plastic jumble moving down the belt, picking out pieces that look off-color or soiled-rejects (废品) in the recycling process. Though it looks like backbreaking work, Ali says it is a great improvement over his previous job, folding bed-sheets in a nearby textile factory, for much lower pay. Now, if he eats simply, he can save money from his wages of just over $l an hour and send $250 a month to his parents and six brothers and sisters in Peshawar, Pakistan, 2,700 miles away, “As soon as I heard about this work, I asked for a job,” says Ali, 24, a bearded man with glasses and an easy smile. Still, he’s working 12 hours a day, seven days a week. “If I take a day off, I lose a day’s wages,” he says.
In the warehouse, hundreds of bags are stacked more than 60 feet high-each stuffed with plastic wrappers and bags thrown away weeks earlier by their original users in California. The fact that the waste has traveled to this distant corner of the planet in the first place shows how badly the global recycling economy has failed to keep pace with humanity’s plastics addiction. This is an ecosystem that is deeply dysfunctional, if not on the point of collapse: About 90% of the millions of tons of plastic the world produces every year will eventually end up not recycled, but burned, buried, or dumped.
Plastic recycling enjoys ever-wider support among consumers: Putting yogurt containers and juice bottles in a blue bin is an eco-friendly act of faith in millions of households. But faith goes only so far. The tidal wave of plastic items that enters the recycling stream each year is increasingly likely to fall right back out again, casualties of a broken market. Many products that consumers believe (and industries claim) are “recyclable" are in reality not, because of hard economics. With oil and gas prices near 20-year lows, so-called virgin plastic, a product of petroleum feed-stocks, is now far cheaper and easier to obtain than recycled material. That unforeseen shift has yanked the financial rug out from under what was until recently a practical recycling industry. “The global waste trade is essentially broken,” says the head of the global plastics campaign at Greenpeace. “We are sitting on vast amounts of plastic with nowhere to send it and nothing to do with it.”
1. What is the author’s attitude towards Shahid Ali?| A．Critical. | B．Merciless. | C．Indifferent. | D．Sympathetic. |
| A．The prices of oil and gas have been increasing. |
| B．Tons of wastes travel so far before being recycled. |
| C．Recyclable products are not really recycled. |
| D．Governments don’t support the recycling industry. |
| A．Out of stock. | B．Far from pleased. | C．Full of energy. | D．Out of order. |
| A．To illustrate how plastic waste has been recycled in the world. |
| B．To warn people that the global waste trade is essentially broken. |
| C．To analyze the relationship between consumers and factories. |
| D．To solve the conflict between the recycling industry and governments. |
| A. engage B. assess C. combination D. intentions E. refresh F. understanding G. relaxed H. consciously I. return J. threatens K. regretfully |
“Dealing with money is a basic life skill”
Why financial transactions are about relationships and why the
quality of the relationship is more important than the transaction itself.
British psychologist, William Bloom, has long argued that society would benefit if money flowed more freely-if, for example, people regularly give part of their salaries or profits to charity.
When you say, “Money should flow more freely,” what do you mean?
“There are two metaphors that I like to use for money. One is the energy of the environment and human nature. Money represents a(n)
Money still isn’t flowing freely.
A lot of it is dammed up in banks and in the hands of a small percentage of extremely wealthy individuals. “We have to build a society in which we are not threatened by each other. The gap between the rich and the poor
How can we deal with money in a healthier way?
“When it comes to money, there is a lot of naiveté. Children need to be taught in school that dealing with money is a basic life skill. They need to be able to read a bank statement in a(n)
Another form of flow is giving. Can that be a kind of spiritual practice?
“Humans are paradoxical beings. It is possible to have pure
Bob’s problems began during his formative years. His parents got divorced when he was young, and neither of his parents wanted to raise him or his brother and sister, so he
Unfortunately, his foster father was a strict authoritarian and often beat him. Bob rebelled against this strict upbringing, and by the time he was eight years old, he
This has raised some interesting questions about the modern family system.
In fact, many people believe that we
8 . In much of the western United States, drought and access to fresh water is a critical issue. However, recently California came up with a novel solution. The state approved regulations that allow agencies to purify wastewater for drinking. This recycled wastewater may be consumed in homes, schools, and businesses.
As the population in California has exploded in recent decades, the state has struggled to meet demands for fresh water. Recycled wastewater will allow the state to increase access to the precious resource.
Recycled wastewater is not new to the state. It has previously been used in ice hockey rinks (冰球场), for crops, and to generate artificial snow. But now, water agencies will have the option to put recycled wastewater back into pipes for drinking. California is only the second state to allow purified wastewater to be consumed. The first was Colorado in 2022.
While the idea of drinking recycled wastewater may be off-putting, regulators spent more than a decade developing rules and regulations to ensure safety. Independent panels of scientists also reviewed the state’s rules around recycled wastewater consumption. All water will be treated for pathogens (病原体) and viruses before being available for consumption.
So far, the state’s plan has been met with approval from large water agencies. Many of them have plans to construct wastewater recycling plans over the next few years. In Southern California, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California has set a goal aiming to produce 150 million gallons of direct and indirect recycled water per day. This water will be in the pipes of the 19 million people throughout the six counties that the agency serves.
Officials are aware that a certain amount of public convincing may still be necessary. However, they remain optimistic about the future of the project, reminding consumers that the water is safe, and that recycled water is already in use in California.
1. Why does California pass new regulations about recycled wastewater?| A．To ease the pressure of drought. | B．To increase the supply of fresh water. |
| C．To recycle the wastewater for industry. | D．To reduce the pollution of the wastewater. |
| A．Surprising. | B．Necessary. | C．Funny. | D．Awful. |
| A．The goal of wastewater recycling is hard to achieve. |
| B．The state’s plan will be conducted by water agencies. |
| C．Southern California will reduce its water production. |
| D．People in California tend to prefer recycled water. |
| A．Many people still disapprove of the project. |
| B．The public are optimistic about the project. |
| C．It will never be suitable to use recycled water. |
| D．The project is the only solution to water shortage. |
9 . previous recessions (经济衰退), billionaires were hit along with the rest of us; it took almost three years for Forbes’s 400 richest people to recover from losses caused in 2008’s Great Recession. But in the coronavirus recession of 2020, most billionaires have gotten richer than ever before.
Billionaires increased their new billions just as millions of other Americans ran into terrible financial problems. More than 20 million people lost their jobs at the start of the pandemic. Food banks across the country are preparing for another great increase in demand. Why are American billionaires doing so well while so many other Americans suffer? People may find part of the reasons from the following fact. Stocks (股票) are overwhelmingly owned by the wealthy, and the stock market has recovered from its early-pandemic depths much more quickly than other parts of the economy.
......
What does the author mainly tell us in the passage?| A．Food banks are not enough in the United States. |
| B．The richest kept getting richer even in the pandemic. |
| C．The stock market recovered before the pandemic started. |
| D．400 richest people recovered from losses in the pandemic. |
10 . In addition to the problem of miscomprehension from both sides, there are victories accidentally or deliberately twisted, especially when only the victors know how to write. Those who are on the losing side often have only their things to tell their stories. The Caribbean Taino, the Australian Aboriginals, the African people of Benin and the Incas, all of whom appear in this book, can speak to us now of their past achievements most powerfully through the objects they made: a history told through things gives them back a voice. When we consider contact (联系) between literate and non-literate societies such as these, all our first-hand accounts are necessarily twisted, only one half of a dialogue. If we are to find the other half of that conversation, we have to read not just the texts, but the objects.
What does the underlined word “conversation” in paragraph 3 refer to?| A．Problem. | B．History. | C．Voice. | D．Society. |
