When we walked into the cafe, we were greeted by a waitress who smiled, held out a menu, and pointed to a table. It's only when we asked for a table for six that we realized something was a bit different. The waitress glanced at our group and held up six fingers. That's because all the staff are deaf.
Last month, the Huffington Post visited Smiles Cafe in Granada. The business only employs people who are deaf, from the waiters to the cooks. “My goal is for this cafe to be a mirror for other businesses to lose their fear of hiring people with disabilities," the founder Antonio Bunuel, who is from Spain, told HufPost. “It's also for the people who work here to lose their own fear of getting into the work force," he added, “So they can fly.”
In the city, about 1 person in 15 has a disability. But around 99 percent of people with a disability are unemployed. While the law requires companies to employ two people with disabilities for every 50 employees, many businesses don't. “Smiles Cafe was born out of a provocation. 99 percent of people with disabilities here are jobless. That was wrong!" Bunuel said. “So I decided to open a cafe where all of the employees were deaf to show that it works.
At the cafe, customers order by pointing to items on the menu, which have special symbols to indicate substitutions. For instance, if you're ordering fruit parfait, and you don't want yogurt on it, you just point to the illustration (图示) of the parfait, and then to the image of yogurt with a big red “X" over it. To help customers communicate with staff and learn while they eat, the walls are covered with letters? words and phrases, from “Thank you" to “Welcome" with illustrations that show the corresponding translation. The cafe, now five years old, is a project of the non-profit Centro Social Tio Antonio. “We've opened a small window," the founder said, “If it serves to create awareness, then that's a start.
1.Why did the waitress hold up her fingers when the author ordered?
A.All workers were deaf. B.She didn't want to say anything.
C.She was suffering a throat ache. D.It was a special greeting.
2.What did the founder of the cafe expect his employees to do?
A.Make a big fortune. B.Become well-known in the city.
C.Recover from their illnesses. D.Overcome their fears to work.
3.What does the underlined sentence mean about Smiles Cafe in Para 3?
A.People expected to keep a good volunteering tradition.
B.It was founded to take a challenge of employing the disabled.
C.Founders reached an agreement after discussions.
D.The disabled were worried about their work at first.
4.What is helpful to the customers in the cafe?
A.The deafness of the employees. B.Special symbols on the menu.
C.The non-profit model of the cafe. D.The awareness of the employer.
Wisconsin's Great Lakes are home to great lighthouses. Here are some lighthouses worth visiting along Lake Michigan, from south to north.
Wind Point, Racine
This 108-foot lighthouse on a point north of Racine was built in 1880. It's open for tours and climbs up the tower from 9 a. m. to 3 p. m. the first Sunday of the month, June through October, and from 10 a. m. to 1:30 p. m. the Saturday before that Sunday, July through September. Admission is $ 10 for adults and $ 5 for kids aged between 6 and 11. The park and beach around the lighthouse are open daily from 6 a. m. to 10 p. m.
North Point , Milwaukee
This 74-foot lighthouse alongside a Queen Anne style keeper's quarters is a landmark in the city's Lake Park. After the coast guard decommissioned (停用) it in 1997, it stood vacant until a friendly group restored the structure and opened it as a museum in 2007. Tours are now offered from 1 p. m. to 4 p. m. Saturday and Sunday year round, plus from 10 a. m. to 2 p. m. Thursday and Friday in the summer. Tours cost $ 8 for adults, $ 5 for seniors (65+) and $ 5 for students and kids (5—11).
Port Washington Breakwater
This Art Deco-style lighthouse replaced an older wooden structure in 1935 as part of a Works Progress Administration project. Tours aren't available of the small structure, but visitors can walk along the 2, 500-foot breakwater to get a closer look.
Rawley Point , Two Rivers
This lighthouse is worth a visit not only for its steel tower rising 113 feet above the beach, but also for its location in Point Beach State Forest. Tours are not available of the working lighthouse, but it's viewable and photographable from the beach. In addition to six miles of Lake Michigan shoreline, the state forest has 17 miles of hiking trails to explore.
1.Which lighthouse is used as a museum?
A.Wind Point, Racine. B.North Point, Milwaukee.
C.Rawley Point, Two Rivers. D.Port Washington Breakwater.
2.Where can people appreciate Port Washington Breakwater?
A.Under a wooden structure. B.Along the long breakwater.
C.In Point Beach State Forest. D.On a point north of Racine.
3.Why is Rawley Point NOT available for a visit?
A.It is far off the coast. B.It is located in the center of forest.
C.It is working as a lighthouse. D.It is made of steel.
假如你是红星中学高三学生李华。请根据以下四幅图的先后顺序，以“A Meaningful Activity”为题，给校刊“英语角”写一篇英文稿件。 介绍今年国庆期间，你们班在大兴机场参加志愿活动的全过程。
注意：词数不少于60。
提示词：值机柜台the check-in counter，行李车luggage cart
A Meaningful Activity
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假如你是红星中学高三学生李华，得知下周来自美国的交换生要来你校学习，现征集接待家庭。请你给交换生负责人Jim写一封信，申请成为接付家庭。 内容包括：
1. 表达意愿；
2. 申请理由；
3. 恳请获准。
注意：1. 词数不少于50；
2. 开头和结尾已给出，不计入总词数。
Dear Jim,
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Yours，
Li Hua
Things to Keep Your Brain Sharp and Healthy Later in Life
These behaviors and activities are proven to help keep your brain young.
Keep learning new things.
Learning new information and skills throughout your entire life helps to keep your brain strong even in the later years of life. Activities that have the highest value for brain health are novel and complex to each particular person. What is easy for one person may be challenging for another. 1.
Exercise regularly.
Exercise can improve our energy levels, sense of well-being, sleep, and brain health. 2.Identifying why we do not exercise permits us to systematically break down our barriers, and to slowly change our behaviors towards a healthy lifestyle.
Socialize and have fun!
Friends provide opportunities to enable the sharing of experiences, new learning, challenge, emotions, trust, and understanding. Friendship also provides the necessary motivation towards activity and involvement. Engaging in new pursuits with friends often helps develop new life roles, which provide us with an opportunity to feel appreciated, enjoy life, laugh, and have fun. 3.
Be health conscious.
It is important for us to take control of our health and understand that we are in charge of managing of our bodies. 4. Once we establish our own role in the management of our health, the importance of a close and trusting relationship with our physician becomes apparent.
Slow down and appreciate the silence.
5.Our brains require time to process information more deeply, in order to gain more benefit from our daily experiences. A fast-paced lifestyle can cause chronic stress and have other negative effects on our health and well-being. Reducing demands we place on ourselves is an important step towards stress reduction, and a more fulfilling life.
Studies have shown a relationship between spirituality and the immune system. As we continually learn more about the potential of positive thoughts to influence health, people are beginning to integrate these practices more frequently into their daily lives, and experiencing life-changing results.
A. Engaging in it regularly also reduces the risk of depression and anxiety.
B. Reading gives you a unique pause button for comprehension and insight.
C. The things that challenge you the most have the most value for your brain.
D. Physicians work for us, and when it comes to our bodies, we are the boss.
E. Parent-teacher organizations are great places to develop relationships with other people.
F. Open communication can help the physician make sound decisions regarding our health.
G. Our society is developing quickly, leaving us with little time to relax and process our environment.
The argument that human-caused carbon emissions(排放) are merely a drop in the bucket compared to greenhouse gases generated by volcanoes has been making its way around the rumor mill for years. And while it seems to be reasonable, the science just doesn't back it up.
According to the US Geological Survey (USGS), the world's volcanoes, both on land and undersea, generate about 200 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) annually, while our automotive and industrial activities cause some 24 billion tons of CO2 emissions every year worldwide. Despite the arguments to the contrary, the facts speak for themselves: Greenhouse gas emissions from volcanoes compose less than one percent of those generated by today's human activities.
Another indication that human emissions surpass those of volcanoes is the fact that atmospheric CO2 levels, as measured by sampling stations around the world, have gone up consistently year after year regardless of whether or not there have been major volcanic eruptions in specific years. “If it were true that individual volcanic eruptions dominated human emissions and were causing the rise in carbon dioxide concentrations, then these carbon dioxide records would be full of spikes —one for each eruption,” says Coby Beck, a journalist writing for online environmental news. “Instead, such records show a smooth and regular trend.”
Furthermore, some scientists believe that volcanic eruptions, like that of Mt.St. Helens in 1980 and Mt. Pinatubo in 1991, actually lead to short-term global cooling, not warming, as sulfur dioxide (SO2), ash and other particles in the air and stratosphere(平流层) reflect some solar energy instead of letting it into Earth's atmosphere. SO2, which converts to sulfuric acid aerosol, when it hits the stratosphere, can linger there for as long as seven years and can exercise a cooling effect long after a volcanic eruption has taken place.
Scientists tracking the effects of the major 1991 eruption of the Philippines’ Mt. Pinatubo found that the overall effect of the blast was to cool the surface of the Earth globally by some 0.5 degrees Celsius a year later, even though rising human greenhouse gas emissions and an El Nino event caused some surface warming during the 1991-1993 study period.
In an interesting twist on the issue, British researchers last year published an article in the peer reviewed scientific journal Nature showing how volcanic activity may be contributing to the melting of ice caps in Antarctica but not because of any emissions, natural or man-made. Instead, scientists Hugh Corr and David Vaughan of the British Antarctic Survey believe that volcanoes underneath Antarctica may be melting the continents ice sheets from below, just as warming air temperatures from human-induced emissions erode them from above.
1.According to Paragraph 1, some people argue that .
A.their opinion is supported by science.
B.volcanoes generate most of the greenhouse gases.
C.human activities are to blame for greenhouse gases.
D.carbon emissions produced by volcanoes are increasing.
2.What does the underlined word “spikes" in Paragraph 3 probably mean?
A.Sudden increases. B.Smooth trends.
C.Stable regularities. D.Sharp declines.
3.What do the scientists mentioned in this passage believe about volcanic eruptions?
A.They brought about global warming.
B.They actually partly cooled the surface of the Earth.
C.They melted the ice sheets in Antarctic from above.
D.They dominated human emissions in greenhouse effect.
4.The purpose of the passage is to .
A.compare the results of the studies.
B.contradict a view held by some people.
C.present new findings for greenhouse phenomenon.
D.report the effects of CO2, in greenhouse phenomenon.
