When my grandmother, who had Alzheimer’s disease, went to live in the nurses station 5 years ago, I tried many things to keep her occupied. But it was only her word search book that kept her ______. Gradually, she began to think of it as her job and it kept her from ______.
Last night, when I came to her and said hello, she just looked at me ______. I introduced myself and told her I was her granddaughter. She seemed ______ about who I was. Obviously, she tried to find this word in her ______. So I helped her find it with fingers and ______ it for her with a pencil.
Later, I suggested we go outside, and she agreed. Then she was just staring at me as if trying to figure me out. I told her ______ I was her granddaughter. “Oh, okay” she said ______ but still didn’t really know. She just wanted to be kind.
And after we went ______ and I got her ready for and into bed, she told me to come ______ and we kissed and hugged real tight ______ we did for the first time. It wasn’t the first time though and sooner or later there would be a ______ time.
For now, I feel the blessing of the ______ although I have a sinking feeling that our days are numbered. It doesn’t ______ if the word “granddaughter” holds no ______ anymore — we are bound by love not labels.
1.A.time B.interest C.talent D.knowledge
2.A.trembling B.moving C.whispering D.wandering
3.A.curiously B.angrily C.naturally D.proudly
4.A.shocked B.amazed C.puzzled D.worried
5.A.dictionary B.mind C.room D.book
6.A.decorated B.marked C.associated D.tracked
7.A.patiently B.bravely C.regularly D.casually
8.A.joking B.laughing C.smiling D.crying
9.A.along B.ahead C.outside D.inside
10.A.slower B.closer C.straighter D.later
11.A.as if B.so that C.even if D.in case
12.A.perfect B.free C.final D.normal
13.A.event B.break C.gift D.moment
14.A.help B.matter C.work D.exist
15.A.meaning B.change C.design D.advantage
How to Form a Positive Reading Habit
Books are a source of joy, learning, insight and imagination. How we choose what to read says a lot about our preferences and passions. 1.
Give old favorites a re-read
There is a particular kind of pleasure that comes with easing open a well-worn book, flipping through pages you have thumbed before, maybe multiple times. 2. It can bring you back to the time in your life when you last met those characters. You’re left with a rich reflection on who you were, who you are and where you turn for meaning and inspiration.
Learn something new
If you are a lover of novels, think about what your favorites have in common.3. That can send you down a glorious rabbit hole of non-fiction books that will brighten your understanding of times, places and people who already live in your imagination.
4.
Book clubs are positive on so many levels, not least of which is that they open your mind to books you might not otherwise have considered. If you don’t belong to one — and even if you do — try to think about your reading choices in a public way. Ask friends what they are reading and go with any recommendations that interest you.
Give yourself permission to move on
Sometimes you just can’t get through a book — and that’s okay. Just like living positively means acknowledging when it’s time to let go of something that isn’t serving you well, reading positively means giving yourself permission to close a book that isn’t keeping you interested or inspired. 5.. The positive pleasure of reading is indeed unending.
A.Get social
B.Set up a book club
C.There are unlimited choices to turn to instead, after all
D.Here are some tips for making reading a positive habit in your life
E.Reading books that you enjoy helps maintain your habit and become a life-long reader
F.Re-reading favorite books can do more than bring you back into beloved worlds and stories
G.A particular time in history, region of the world or type of character may become a new theme
One day, gardeners might not just hear the buzz of bees among their flowers, but the whirr of robots, too. Scientists have managed to turn an unassuming drone (无人机) into a remote-controlled pollinator (授粉媒介) by attaching horsehairs coated with a special, sticky gel to its underbelly.
Animal pollinators are needed for the reproduction of 90% of flowering plants and one third of human food crops. Chief among those are bees — but many bee populations in the United States have been in steep decline in recent decades. Thus, the decline of bees isn't just worrisome because it could disrupt ecosystems, but also because it could disrupt agriculture and economy. People have been trying to come up with replacement techniques, but none of them are especially effective yet.
Scientists have thought about using drones, but they haven't figured out how to make free-flying robot insects that can rely on their own power source without being attached to a wire. “It’s very tough work,” said senior author Eijiro Miyako, a chemist at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology. His particular contribution to the field involves a gel, one he’d considered a mistake 10 years before and stuck in a storage cabinet. When it was rediscovered a decade later, it hadn’t dried up or degraded at all. “I was so surprised because it still had high viscosity,” Miyako said.
The chemist noticed that when dropped, the gel absorbed an impressive amount of dust from the floor. Miyako realized this material could be very useful for picking up pollen (花粉). He and his colleagues chose a drone and attached horsehairs to its smooth surface to mimic a bee’s fuzzy body. They coated those horsehairs in the gel, and then controlled the drones over lilies, where they would pick up the pollen from one flower and then deposit the pollen at another one, thus fertilizing it.
The scientists looked at the hairs under a scanning electron microscope and counted up the pollen grains attached to the surface and found that the drones whose horsehairs had been coated with the gel had about 10 times more pollen than those that had not been coated with the gel.
Miyako does not think such drones would replace bees altogether, but could simply help bees with their pollinating duties. There’s a lot of work to be done before that's a reality, however. Small drones will need to become more controllable and energy efficient, as well as smarter, with better GPS and artificial intelligence.
1.What does the underlined word “viscosity” in Para.3 probably mean?
A.Hardness. B.Stickiness.
C.Flexibility. D.Purity.
2.We can learn from the passage that ______.
A.bees disrupt both agriculture and economy
B.scientists have invented self-powered robot insects
C.bees in the United States are on the edge of extinction
D.Miyako found the special feature of the gel by chance
3.A drone works best in picking up pollen when ______.
A.its body is made like a bee’s
B.its GPS works more efficiently
C.some flowers are coated with the gel
D.horsehairs with the gel are attached to it
4.According to Eijiro Miyako, the drones ______.
A.are not yet ready for practical use
B.may eventually replace bees in the future
C.are much more efficient than bee pollinators
D.can provide a solution to economic depression
Internet firms should help deal with the threat of terrorism or face terror tax , the security minister has said. Ben Wallace said such profiteers as Facebook and Google were failing to play their part, forcing the government to spend hundreds of millions to police internet extremism. The minister added, “If they continue to be less than co-operative, we should look at things like tax as a way compensating for their inaction. Because content is not taken down as quickly as they could do, we have to spend millions. WhatsApp, owned by Facebook, was turning the internet into a violent space.”
Mr Wallace did not give more details about a possible terror tax, but it would probably take the form of a windfall tax. The minister also accused internet companies of putting profit before public safety.
Simon Milner, Facebook’s UK policy director, said: “Mr Wallace is wrong to say that we put profit before safety, especially in the fight against terrorism. We’ve invested millions of pounds in people and technology to identify and remove terrorist content.” YouTube, which is owned by Alphabet, Google’s parent company, said: “Violent extremism is a complex problem and addressing it is a critical challenge for us all. We are committed to being part of the solution and we are doing more every day to deal with these issues. “Over the course of 2017 we have made significant progress through investing in machine learning technology, recruiting more reviewers, building partnerships with experts and collaboration with other companies”.
Anthony Glees, an intelligence expert at Buckingham University, told The Times: “What the government is proposing makes excellent theoretical sense when it comes to making us more secure from the appalling things that are broadcast by the service providers.” He added: “But in practice it may not be enough, because we are dealing with Goliaths here and the United Kingdom is increasingly becoming a lone David.”
1.What do we know from Ben Wallace’s words?
A.The internet firms have been put on a terror tax.
B.The internet companies only concentrate on profit.
C.The profit of the Internet firms should be cut down.
D.The internet companies are not cooperative enough.
2.What did “they” in the first paragraph refer to?
A.internet firms B.internet extremism
C.violent spaces D.terror taxes
3.Anthony Glees thought the government’s behavior was ______.
A.unpractical B.positive
C.unexpected D.disapproving
4.What’s the best title of the passage?
A.Profit or Safety?
B.Policing Internet Extremism.
C.Internet Giants Threatened with Tax.
D.Demonstrating the Government’ Determination.
Maybe it's because it was our first purchase as homeowners. The salesman must have spotted just how green we were, so he began persuading. And soon he led us to a classic leather chair. All these years later, I remember he used words like rich and handsome, the thing every living room needed.
We believed him. So we bought that chair — just less than $100, a great deal in the 1970s for a young couple!
How we loved that chair! It always occupied a place of honor in our various living rooms, moving with us from our first tiny house to our beloved new house.
Somehow, conversations were better on that chair, and life was more fun around it. Three daughters spilled their secrets on it. Old friends seemed to be attracted by it on those wonderful occasions. Crazy as it sounds, that leather chair seemed to have — well, powers. All for good.
At first, we didn't really care that the leather was showing signs of wear or that it had lost its sheen (光泽). But in our most recent move, when the chair was moved in our new living room, it suddenly looked terribly lonely sitting close to newly painted walls and a couple of shiny new tables.
My husband and I tried but still we couldn't ignore the rough spots. Our chair had a skin disease. Even our adult kids raised eyebrows, urging us to at least remove the chair to some dark comer of the room. Neither of us could imagine such a retirement for it.
So we had an inspired idea. We'd call in an upholsterer (修理工) to give our old chair a whole new life. Our friend Joe studied the chair and then took out a simple leather conditioner. He explained that although it wouldn't work miracles, it would definitely get our weary chair looking younger again. It certainly doesn't look new, but its seat and back are shining, and some of its deeper wrinkles have lightened.
Best of all, it's back in the living room, looking like a wise old friend to the furniture around it. And, yes, there it will stay.
Because some things, like some people, just deserve a happy old age.
1.How did the salesman persuade the author into buying the chair?
A.By thinking highly of the author.
B.By saying that the author was green.
C.By describing how great the chair was.
D.By comparing the chair with others.
2.What is the fourth paragraph mainly about?
A.Sweet memories with the chair.
B.Various functions of the chair.
C.People's comments on the chair.
D.Family activities and parties of friends.
3.Why did the author finally decide to repair the chair?
A.Because he was persuaded by Joe.
B.Because he didn't have enough money.
C.Because it showed signs of hardness.
D.Because it couldn't match his new house.
4.What can we learn from the text?
A.East or west, home is best. B.From saving comes having.
C.It is never too late to mend. D.Old friends and wine are best.
Learning English Video Project |
1. Encounters in the UK (17 minutes) Watch Comments
Encounters in the UK is the first film in this documentary mini-series. It tells the story of four girls from different countries who travel to Cambridge in England to study English and stay with local families in what is called a “homestay” arrangement. For the four girls the homestay arrangement is a positive experience. As one of the homestay hosts explains: “It’s going to be a great experience, not only in terms of learning English, but in learning about life.” Watch with Subtitles Watch without Subtitles Comments |
2. Insights from China (18 minutes) Watch Comments
Never say die Based in the busy, cosmopolitan city of Shanghai, Daniel Emmerson’s latest film Insights from China takes us inside the worlds of English language learning and teaching and the airline industry in China. “Insights from China” focuses largely on the staff and management of a Chinese airline company that has recently committed to learning English. Spring Airlines is the first low-cost airline in China. Watch with Subtitles Watch without Subtitles Comments |
3. Stories from Morocco (16 minutes) Watch Comments
Set in Casablanca, Morocco, this film features footage and interviews focusing on key questions such as “Why are people learning English?” and “What tips and advice can learners offer?” Staff and learners discuss the advantages and challenges of English language learning in Morocco. Interviewees touch on a variety of topics including British vs. American accents, multi-level classrooms, and the similarities of English to French and Spanish. Watch with Subtitles Watch without Subtitles Comments |
4. Thoughts from Brazil (17 minutes) Watch Comments
Like Insights from China, Thoughts from Brazil also looks at modern trends in learning English, especially for children and teens. It will be of particular interest to all those who long for a learning experience that is more interactive and communicative. Teens and young adults will find new ideas for combining personal interests such as music, gaming and social media with self-study. As Daniel Emmerson talks to learners and teachers of English in Sao Paulo, Brazil, he discovers that many of them have found for themselves the principle of learning by doing and have readily adapted it to the Internet era. Watch with Subtitles Watch without Subtitles Comments |
1.From the passage we can conclude that “Learning English Video Project” is most probably______.
A.an online course focusing on language and culture
B.audio documents on language learning
C.a series of English learning video programs
D.a set of films on English-speaking countries
2.If someone is interested in the comparison between English and other languages, he might be interested to watch __________.
A.Encounters in the UK B.Stories from Morocco
C.Thoughts from Brazil D.Insights from China
3.What can we know about English learning in Sao Paulo, Brazil?
A.Classroom teaching is more interactive and communicative.
B.Homestay arrangement provides positive experience for learners.
C.The Internet and games plays a major role in language learning.
D.The principle of learning by doing is widely accepted by learners.
