In the fall of 1968, I returned home from teaching Grades 1 through 3 in Newfoundland to teach Grades 1 and 2 in southern Manitoba. I felt the best way for my Prairie students to improve their ________ of life and culture on Newfoundland’s northern island was to become pen pals with the students there. One way for the children to ________ different cultures at the time was through writing, where asking questions could satisfy their ________. For students to have someone other than their teacher read their letters was a great ________ to write. The whole class in my Prairie school classroom had the ________ to have a pen pal from northern Newfoundland.
To set the stage, I introduced them to their pen pals using pictures and interesting ________, such as the boy who came to school ________ because their parents were in charge of the lighthouse, or the little girls playing a circle game chanting, “A Tisket, a Tasket, A Green and Yellow Basket.” There were ________ of lobsters cooking on the wood stove for the evening meals and baby seals crying on the ice floes in spring.________ most of my students were interested in the lives and ________ of these Newfoundland children,the writing lasted only a short while, ________ Eleanor, a Grade 2 student from the Prairies, and Lois, a Grade 3 student from northern Newfoundland. Eleanor and Loris wrote to each other from the ages of seven and eight ________, and kept in touch for almost two ________ before losing contact for a time. In 2003, I received an email from Lois, telling me that she had found Eleanor on Facebook and that they had ________. “Yes, it was ________ that I was to find Eleanor again,” wrote Lois.
Eleanor remembered that it had been exciting to find a ________in the mailbox with her name on it.Later on, in their communication, they both ________ what they had in common, including Christian faith,values and the love of writing. They ________ stories of family experiences, dreams, children and professions.They were determined to keep in touch ________ the 4,737 kilometers, different cuisine and traditions thatseparated them. Although they have not met ________, Eleanor and Lois are still in touch via e-mail. Lois now lives in St. John’s, while Eleanor lives in rural Manitoba.
1.A.admiration B.awareness C.desire D.influence
2.A.experience B.remember C.explain D.compare
3.A.demand B.needs C.curiosity D.expectation
4.A.encouragement B.qualification C.privilege D.reaction
5.A.honor B.record C.freedom D.opportunity
6.A.photos B.anecdotes C.movies D.conversations
7.A.by train B.by bike C.by plane D.by boat
8.A.tales B.blogs C.novels D.biographies
9.A.Although B.As C.When D.Since
10.A.districts B.habits C.surroundings D.hobbies
11.A.instead of B.except for C.in addition to D.as well as
12.A.rarely B.casually C.frequently D.temporarily
13.A.weeks B.months C.years D.decades
14.A.reconnected B.recovered C.retired D.resigned
15.A.amusing B.amazing C.awful D.abnormal
16.A.stamp B.gift C.newspaper D.letter
17.A.forgot B.missed C.tested D.recalled
18.A.appreciated B.shared C.read D.heard
19.A.beyond B.within C.despite D.beneath
20.A.in person B.on purpose C.at random D.in time
From time to time, even the most productive professionals procrastinate（拖延）. When your tendency to procrastinate is starting to make your overall quality of work and life suffer, 1.. Here’s what Forbes Coaches Council members recommend doing to stop racing the clock.
Take the tiniest step possible
When you don’t feel motivated, take the smallest step possible toward your goal. After taking that step,you’re more likely to continue taking more steps toward that goal. 2..
Give yourself a hard deadline, and then schedule it
The best way to overcome a natural tendency to procrastinate is to create a hard deadline for yourself and then put it on the calendar. 3.. Then honor it the same way you would if your boss were waiting for you to complete the task.
4.
Become a detective or a scientist about your pattern of procrastinating. Notice your thoughts, feelings,behaviors and the situation when you feel like procrastinating. Write these down. Often perfectionism, which we may experience as anxiety, underlies the tendency to postpone action. Once you understand your pattern, you can hold yourself accountable in a positive and self-compassionate way.
Give yourself a reward for each task you complete
5.. Then give yourself a little reward for doing it. (piece of candy, a few minutes on Social media, etc.). Then do something on your list that you want to do and continue alternating from there. This makes your tasks less daunting.
A．Identify a positive outcome from your action
B．Treat the deadline the same as if your boss created it
C．Understand the underlying reasons you’re procrastinating
D．find a way to make overcoming procrastination interesting
E．it’s time to do a reality check and break yourself of the habit
F．Make a list of things you need to do and do the one you don’t want to do first
G．Instead of telling yourself to work out for an hour, say you’ll go for 10 minutes
Any time we burn fossil fuels, we’re pumping fine particulate matter（细颗粒物）from oil, gas and
other toxins（毒素）into the air. “Some of these carbon particles can persist in the lungs for decades,” says Dr. Don Sin, a respirologist and director of the Centre for Heart Lung Innovation in Vancouver.
Over 7,000 Canadians died from complications due to poor air quality in 2015. A study in the European Heart Journal earlier this year found that air pollution now kills 8.8 million people worldwide per year —more than tobacco smoking.
Sin adds that women’s lungs seem particularly easy to get cancer from pollution. Currently, 10,000
Canadian women die of lung cancer every year, and 15 per cent of new cases are people who have never smoked. “In Canada, lung-cancer deaths in female non-smokers will very soon probably outnumber the deaths from breast cancer, because lung cancer is so deadly,” he says.
Contributing to air pollution are the 8,000 wildfires we experience every year in Canada, like those that destroyed large areas of Alberta this past spring. These are increasing in frequency and intensity with our hotter, drier spells. A study in the Canadian Journal of Emergency Medicine found that prescriptions for an asthma and COPD drug rose by 22 per cent in the Yellowknife region in the summer of 2014, when it was surrounded by wildfire smoke. The number of ER visits for breathing problems was 42 per cent higher; for children, it more than doubled.
Another threat to breathing is mould, which is a concern in areas with repeated flooding, such as around New Brunswick’s Saint John River, where floodwaters have been in homes for two years in a row and displaced more than 200 families. Moulds produce toxins and spores that can trigger allergic reactions or infections if taken in. Rising sea levels and increased urban development, combined with intense rainfalls, mean we will see a lot more of it.
To avoid breathing polluted air, wear a mask rated N95 — not a surgical mask, which is useless, says Sin. “Those are too thin and easily torn. They won’t protect you at all from air particles.” On bad-air days,get your exercise indoors, for instance by walking in an air-conditioned mall.
1.Which of the following is True according to the passage?
A.15 per cent of Canadian women have never smoked.
B.1,000 Canadian women die of lung cancer every year.
C.Air pollution has killed 8.8 million people in the world.
D.Over 7,000 Canadians died as a result of air pollution in 2015.
2.What may cause the wildfires in Canada according to the passage?
A.Hot weather. B.Cigarette end.
C.Dry plants. D.Poor management.
3.What of the following is NOT a factor to produce moulds?
A.Sea levels rising.
B.Development of countryside.
C.Lots of rainfalls.
D.Growth of city.
4.What should be suggested to prevent breathing polluted air?
A.Wearing a surgical mask.
B.Taking exercise.
C.Walking indoors.
D.Sleeping longer hours.
Jellyfish are unusual creatures. They’re neither fish nor jelly. Some are among the most colourful creatures in the world, but it’s best to look but not touch these invertebrates（无脊椎动物）. Not only are they very fragile creatures, but many give a painful sting, and some are even deadly. Whether you admire them in an aquarium or try to avoid them in the wild, you won’t be able to get these fascinating jellyfish facts out of your head.
Here’s a jellyfish fact that might come in handy: There are several names for a group of jellyfish. They include smack, bloom, and swarm. Choose the word you prefer depending on whether you think the jellyfish pack looks like a garden of blooming flowers or more like a frightening pack of stingers, and whether you’re admiring them at an aquarium or if you and your fellow snorkelers are surrounded.
Jellyfish have two main forms in their life cycle that look quite different from each other. Scientific American explains that an adult jellyfish, called a medusa, has a bell-shaped body with tentacles（触须）flowing down below it. Young jellyfish, called polyps, look more like sea anemones, with shorter tentacles that flow up above the main body. Medusas reproduce by releasing eggs.
Melanie Roberts, Senior Aquarist at SeaWorld Orlando, says that the largest jellyfish in the world is a lion’s mane jellyfish. The body of this beautiful orange jelly can grow up to three feet in diameter. With its 12,000 tentacles that can grow 120 feet long, Oceana.org adds that the lion’s mane jelly compares in size to the planet’s largest animal: the blue whale.
Regardless of their size, jellyfish are mostly made of water. In fact, they’re about 95 per cent water.These creatures don’t have brains, blood, or bones. And most jellyfish don’t have eyes. Jellyfish also use their mouths both for eating and for waste removal.
1.Why can’t we touch jellyfish?
A.Because they may be stung.
B.Because they may die easily.
C.Because they may feel painful.
D.Because they may hurt people.
2.What are jellyfish named after?
A.Its size. B.Its color.
C.Its appearance. D.Its lifestyle.
3.What can we learn from the passage?
A.Mouth is an important organ for jellyfish.
B.Polyps can clone themselves by laying eggs.
C.The largest jellyfish in the world is 120 feet long.
D.Medusas have tentacles flowing up above the body.
4.What can be the best title of the passage?
A.Several facts about jellyfish.
B.The two main forms of jellyfish.
C.Jellyfish are neither fish nor jelly.
D.Jellyfish have many different names.
In the summer of 2010, Deborah Barrett and her son, Anthony, walked out of a restaurant near the
Edmonton high school from which he’d graduated two years earlier. They had volunteered to wash dishes there to give Anthony something to do, but when they went out, the sun sliced through the clouds and Deborah had a realization: my kid is not spending his life in a dish pit.
Cleaning plates isn’t the only option for high-school graduates. But Anthony has autism（自闭症）and is mostly non-verbal, aside from short words in answer to yes-or-no questions and the Eeeee sounds he makes when he’s excited, happy or frustrated. Once a person with intellectual disabilities ages out of school, “There’s no life for them,” Deborah says. Programs end, and jobs are usually humble.
As her son entered his 20s, Deborah thought about what he could do and what he enjoyed. Among his likes: being driven around and carrying things, as well as seeing new places but not staying long. Maybe he could be a courier? The catch: Anthony doesn’t move fast, and courier jobs would require his support staff to be his driver and co-worker.
That wasn’t an issue for Mike Hamm. In 2012, he became Anthony’s new assistant and embraced the plan of spending part of their days delivering packages as a team. The pair called their venture Anthony at Your Service, signed a few customers and set out in Hamm’s lorry.
Seven years later, boxes awaiting distribution are piled on the porch of the home. Anthony, 30, shares with Deborah and her husband, David, a lawyer. The company now has two-dozen delivery teams — each comprising a contractor with an intellectual disability and their support-worker contractor — in Edmonton and Calgary.
Launching a company that employs 24 contractors with intellectual disabilities, and all the logistics that come along with that, wasn’t the original plan, Deborah says. But the realities of delivery work — the peaks and valleys in demand, the long hours — meant that Anthony and Hamm couldn’t shoulder the load alone.And the feedback she received from Alberta’s autistic and intellectually disabled communities suggested they wanted to work for a company that understood them.
Running Anthony at Your Service has become Deborah’s full-time, and she gave up her psychotherapy practice and the presidency of Autism Society Alberta a couple years ago. “What I’m doing for Anthony now has made more difference in his life than any of that other work,” she says. “We want to create jobs for people with all kinds of abilities and disabilities.”
1.What’s the future of the persons with intellectual disabilities according to Deborah?
A.They will lose their lives.
B.They will get well-paid jobs.
C.They will clean plates in restaurants.
D.They will find it hard to find a decent job.
2.What does the underlined word “courier” mean in the 3 rd paragraph?
A.Accountant. B.Barber.
C.Deliveryman. D.Engineer.
3.What can be inferred from the passage?
A.David launched the company for his son.
B.Anthony’s contractors are mainly disabled.
C.Deborah gave up her original job unwillingly.
D.Mike Hamm is an intellectually disabled person.
4.Which of the following words can best describe Deborah Barrett?
A.Accessible. B.Caring.
C.Humorous. D.Modest.
Four of the Oldest Buildings in the World
Knap of Howar
One of the oldest buildings in the world is the Knap of Howar, which dates back to 3700-3500 BCE.The farmhouse is one of the oldest, still-standing stone houses in Europe. It includes two stone homes linked through a hidden passage and joint walls. Archaeologists say Irish or Scottish monks could be the first builders and residents of the Knap of Howar. Although the house is still standing, these abandoned places around the world are better candidates for restoration.
Ġgantija Temples
The Megalithic Temples of Malta, or the Ġgantija Temples, date back to 3600 to 3200 BCE. The two temples on the island of Malta are UNESCO World Heritage sites. It’s one of the oldest free-standing monuments in the world. Archaeologists think the temple was used for ritual animal sacrifices.
Shunet el-Zebib
Shunet el-Zebib is partially standing, but mostly in ruins. It’s still, however, one of the oldest buildings in the world. The Egyptian temple built in 2750 BCE is of mud and brick. It has an underground tomb as well as an above-ground complex. Architecturally, it’s a nod to the Egyptian pyramids soon to come.
Tomb of Cyrus
Built in 530 BCE, the Tomb of Cyrus is one of Iran’s World Heritage Sites and one of the oldest buildings on the planet. It’s also believed to be one of the first earthquake-protected structures in the world, according to Atlas Obscura. The base isolating used on the tomb protects the main structure from moving apart from the foundation.
1.What do the four buildings have in common?
A.All of them are located in Europe.
B.All of them are made of stone and mud.
C.All of them are UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
D.All of them were built before the birth of Christ.
2.Which of the four buildings may be the strongest?
A.Knap of Howar. B.Ġgantija Temples.
C.Shunet el-Zebib. D.Tomb of Cyrus.
3.Which of the following is True according to the passage?
A.Shunet el-Zebib is earthquake protected.
B.Tomb of Cyrus has an underground tomb.
C.Ġgantija Temples are built by Irish monks.
D.Knap of Howar may be the oldest building among the four.
