假设你是红星中学高三学生李华。端午节将至，上周末你和父母去看望爷爷奶奶，并学习了...

假设你是红星中学高三学生李华。你的英国朋友Jim询问你高考之后对大学生活和学习会有哪些准备。请你给他回邮件，内容包括：

1.对大学生活和学习的准备；

2.进行这些准备的理由。

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,

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Yours,

Li Hua

    The world is full of distractions. Unfortunately, the world also requires us to work. Coping with the first while still doing enough of the second is … sorry, where am I?

Ah, yes, the world is full of distractions. If you work in an office, it might be emails, phone calls or colleagues with questions to ask. If you are at home, it might be the contents of the fridge or a sudden fixation on dust mites (尘螨) under the sofa. Sometimes it takes even less. If you are sitting and doing work and someone near you says something particularly interesting, that can pull your focus. 1.

So, how can we stay focused in our wandering minds? 2. And put your smartphone and other irrelevant screens away—they attract our attention even if they are off. If you tend to pop on headphones and use music to shut out distractions, avoid listening to anything familiar. Knowing the words or tune well will distract you even more.

3. If you are doing something repetitive like stuffing envelopes or laying bricks, being distracted by listening to music or a podcast or engaging in a conversation with a co-worker can ultimately boost productivity. 4. Jihae Shin, now at the university of Wisconsin-Madison, has found that when people played Minesweeper for five minutes before coming up with new business ideas, they were more creative than those who didn’t play.

5. In general, this is the enemy of productivity: it encourages mistakes, stops us from completing things, promotes forgetfulness and lowers the quality of writing. But when we are trying to come up with creative solutions, task-switching distractions can help prevent "cognitive fixation" on ineffective approaches. So if you are a creative type, try lining up two or more tasks and spend your day switching between them. Or if that doesn’t work, just go play with your phone.

A.Not all distractions are bad, however.

B.Switching between tasks can also help.

C.Creativity can benefit from distraction too.

D.Switching off email or messaging services helps.

E.But you are not good at dealing with distractions.

F.If you have trouble concentrating, I suggest you try the following ideas.

G.If you are not careful, you will end up your day with nothing accomplished.

Upskilling is the future—but it must work for everyone

Automation and job replacement will be one of the most significant challenges for the global economy of the coming decades. A 2017 Mckinsey report established that 375 million workers will need to switch occupational categories by 2030. The World Economic Forum suggests that by 2022, automation will replace 75 million jobs globally—but create 133 million new ones.

Research into the likelihood that a job will be impacted by digitization has largely focused on the “automatability” of the role and the following economic regional and political effects of this. What this research doesn’t take into account is something more important for the millions of taxi drivers and retail workers across the globe: their likelihood of being able to change to another job that isn’t automatable. Recent research suggests that the answer to this may be that the skills that enable workers to move up the ladder to more complex roles within their current areas might be less important than broader skills that will enable workers to change across divisions.

In July, Amazon announced that it would spend $700 million retraining around 30% of its 300,000 US workforce. While praiseworthy, it will be interesting to see the outcome. In the UK, the National Retraining Scheme has largely been led by employers, meaning that those on zero-hours contracts and part-time workers—often low-skilled—will miss out. Governance will be a crucial element of ensuring that such schemes focus on individuals and life-long learning, rather than upskilling workers into roles that will soon also face automation.

According to the Mckinsey report, “growing awareness of the scale of the task ahead has yet to translate into action. Public spending on labour-force training and support has fallen for years in most member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development,” which impacts more than just the low-skilled and poorly compensated.

The global impact of automation is also put into relief by research demonstrating that, between 1988 and 2015, income inequality increased throughout the world. Billions of people do not have the essentials of life as defined by the UN Sustainable Development goals.

Alongside climate change, automation is arguably tech’s biggest challenge. As with globalization, governments and employers—and us workers—ignore its potential consequences at risk to ourselves.

1.It can be known from Paragraph 2 that         .

A.recent research has found ways to face automation

B.broad skills are of great significance in changing jobs

C.regional economy can affect the automatability of a job

D.it is even harder for workers to move up the social ladder

2.What is the author’s attitude towards retraining programs?

A.Supportive. B.Critical.

C.Skeptical. D.Sympathetic.

3.According to the author, what is one consequence of automation?

A.Less spending on training. B.A slowdown of globalization.

C.Social unrest and instability. D.An increase in income inequality.

4.The passage is written to         .

A.argue the urgency of creating new jobs B.compare globalization with automation

C.analyze the automatability of certain jobs D.stress the importance of upskilling workers

    Chicken is America’s most popular meat. Many people assume chicken follows a simple rule-of-thumb: Pink chicken turned white means “done.” It’s similar to how we cook other meats. But is this true? To study how cooks at home follow safety recommendations, researchers filmed 75 households in five European countries. From a random but nonrepresentative sample, they also conducted an online survey of nearly 4,000 households in the same countries that say they cook chicken.

Worried that chicken would dry out, most home cooks determined doneness by color and texture (口感) inside the meat, they found. Few bothered with thermometers (温度计), claiming they took too much time, were too complicated to use, didn’t fit in the chicken or weren’t necessary (although easy-to-use thermometers are inexpensive and widely available).

In additional lab experiments, the scientists injected raw chicken breast with bacteria (细菌), which cause millions of sicknesses, thousands of hospitalizations and hundreds of deaths each year in the United States. They cooked the breasts until they reached core temperatures ranging from 122 to 158 Fahrenheit, and they discovered something surprising. At 158 degrees, but not lower, bacteria inside the chickens’ cores was reduced to safe levels, and when cut open its flesh appeared dull and fibrous, not shiny like raw chicken. But meat began changing from pink to white far below this, and most color change occurred below 131 degrees Fahrenheit. Sometimes, the chicken’s core would be safely cooked, but unsafe levels of bacteria still existed on surfaces that hadn’t touched the grill plate.

So what are you supposed to do?

Dr. Bruno Goussault, a scientist and chef, recommends buying and cooking breasts and legs separately. Bring the breast’s core to 165 degrees Fahrenheit, he said, and the leg to between 168.8 and 172.4 Fahrenheit. If you really want to safely measure temperature for a whole chicken, insert a pop-up thermometer into the thickest part of the leg before roasting it, Dr. Goussault suggests. By the time it pops, the breasts will have long cooked. They will likely be dry and far from his standards of culinary (烹饪的) perfection. But you’ll be sure to, as Dr. Goussault says in French, “dormir sur ses deux oreilles,” or, figuratively, “sleep peacefully.”

1.Why didn’t home cooks measure temperature with a thermometer?

A.They could not afford it. B.It affected the taste of the meat.

C.It was not available in supermarkets. D.They thought it was too much trouble.

2.In lab experiments, when the temperature reached 158 Fahrenheit, the meat         .

A.was free of bacteria B.still remained pink

C.appeared to dry out D.was reduced in size

3.What can be learned from the last paragraph?

A.The meat does not taste best when bacteria free.

B.The leg becomes fully cooked before the breast.

C.A whole chicken requires a higher temperature.

D.The thermometer should be placed inside the breast.

4.What is the passage mainly about?

A.Food safety. B.Simple lifestyle.

C.Cooking skills. D.Kitchen equipment.

    A struggling Waffle House employee who was trying to serve nearly 30 people by himself after midnight got a full serving of kindness when some customers jumped behind the counter to help him.

Ethan Crispo, 24, witnessed the inspiring scene in the early hours of Nov. 3 at a Waffle House in Birmingham, Alabama.

Crispo told TODAY’s Kerry Sanders that he had come to the 24-hour restaurant from a friend’s birthday party and saw the struggling employee, identified only as Ben, trying to cook the food, serve it, bus tables and wash dishes while more than 25 people were waiting to eat.

“The look on his face was just confusion,” Crispo told Sanders.

An unidentified male customer then decided to help him out, grabbing an apron and going behind the counter to wash dishes.

Another customer, Alison Stanley, went behind the counter to make some coffee—still dressed from a night out on the town.

“I don’t think it’s anything special,” Stanley told Sanders. “He needed help, so I got up and helped out.”

Crispo took some photos of the scene as multiple customers worked to bus tables and wash dishes while Ben focused on taking orders and preparing the food.

Waffle House told TODAY that Ben was left to support himself due to a scheduling issue.

“We had two associates scheduled to leave, however, due to a communication mix-up, their relief did not show up on time,” Waffle House director of PR Pat Warner said in a statement. “That left Ben, our cook, alone in the restaurant with hungry customers. He worked the grill (烤架) and got the orders out.”

The company was also thankful for the customers who joined in and helped Ben out.

“We are grateful that many of our customers feel like they are part of our Waffle House family,” Warner said. “There is a sense of community in each and every one of our restaurants, and we appreciate the fact that they consider our associates like family.”

“We are also very thankful for Ben, who kept the restaurant open. He is a representative of our Waffle House culture by always putting the customers first.”

Crispo had his usual order, double plain waffle, as he took in the scene of strangers helping out Ben on his shift.

“Humanity truly isn’t good, it’s great!” he said.

1.Ben was left to work alone during his midnight shift because ________.

A.his associates asked for a leave B.there was a scheduling mistake

C.few customers needed to be served D.the restaurant was scheduled to close

2.Some customers helped Ben out by ________.

A.washing dishes B.taking photos

C.taking orders D.cooking food

3.Why did the customers lend a helping hand according to Pat Warner?

A.They shared the same community spirit. B.They were family members of Ben.

C.They wanted to serve themselves. D.They were too hungry to wait.

4.How did Crispo feel as a witness of the scene?

A.Lucky and excited. B.Moved and inspired.

C.Relieved and hopeful. D.Content and unbelievable.