Walls blanketed in moss(苔鲜)are popping up in major cities, along with promises that they can reduce air pollution—but can a few square metres of plant matter really deal with the smog?
A Berlin-based firm, Green City Solutions, believes so. Its moss walls, called the CityTree, are roughly 4 square metres in size. Armed with Wi-Fi sensors to monitor the health of moss, a City Tree functions autonomously and requires very little maintenance(维护). The wall collects rainwater, which is pumped through a built-in irrigation system to the plants, powered by solar energy. As a result, the firm says each CityTree is able to “eat” around 250 grams of particulate(颗粒) matter a day (nearly 90 kgs a year) and removes about 240 metric tons of CO2 annually. It also cools the surrounding air.
Aware that getting the surrounding air in contact with the moss wall is crucial for the CityTree to be effective, the inventors ensure that the location of each installation (安装) is chosen carefully. Spots where pollution is heavy due to traffic and where air flow is limited are picked. The importance of this step is explained by the fact that the waste gas from a car generally goes vertically a few kilometres into the air.
But this doesn’t mean moss walls will necessarily protect people from pollution. In the Netherlands, researchers found that eight walls installed in Amsterdam failed to reduce the concentration of particulate matter (PM) and nitrogen dioxide (N02). Their report concluded that even doubling the number of moss walls would do little to improve their effectiveness.
The CityTree is not meant for parks or to substitute for street trees, but to add greenery to concrete-heavy spaces where planting is not an option. It’s important to remember that street trees provide a whole host of other benefits, including shelter and habitat for urban wildlife, shade and cooling for people on the street, and reduction of urban heat islands.
1.What do we know about the CityTree?
A.It can absorb some air pollutants. B.It can irrigate other street plants.
C.It produces electricity to cool water. D.It is aimed at saving water in cities.
2.What is Paragraph 3 mainly about?
A.The importance of CityTree.
B.The function of CityTree.
C.How to operate CityTree.
D.Where to place CityTree.
3.Why is the example of Amsterdam mentioned in Paragraph 4?
A.To show that CityTree can’t always work well.
B.To prove that CityTree can reduce air pollutants.
C.To emphasize the necessity of building moss walls.
D.To analyze the reasons for the failure of the program.
4.What is the author’s attitude towards replacing street trees with moss walls?
A.Ambiguous. B.Disapproving.
C.Supportive. D.Cautious.
From the cold Arctic to the African plains, every society seems to have some form of music as part of their culture. Music is so common and widespread that most people don’t even question it anymore. But until recently, there were researchers who doubted it: How could we know that music was really a part of all known societies?
Now, Harvard researchers, Samuer Mehr and Manvir Singh, have found further evidence to support the argument. They gathered music from different countries, media and time periods, and collected descriptions of many different pieces of music. Rather than focusing on music first and then looking at where it could be found, they started by studying a record of detailed descriptions of more than three hundred known global societies, and found that all of them have music as part of their culture.
To see if people could recognize the functions of songs from around the world, the researchers also created a listening experiment in which people tried to guess the behavioral context of a song. This went surprisingly well. Particularly music that was intended for dancing or to calm a baby were easy to recognize as either dance music or lullabies. Love songs were a bit more difficult to qualify, because they tend to be very diverse even within cultures.
This systematic study of connections sounds like the way that researchers in other fields would study biological patterns. “There’s a field known as cultural phylogenetics,” says Singh. Whereas biological characteristics are only received from parent to child, cultural characteristics (like music) are also shared between people of the same generation. That makes it much more difficult to figure out where the characteristic has come from.
“Finally,” Singh says, “We still don’t know why music developed gradually. Our study shows that humans everywhere share cognitive mechanisms (认知机制) that make certain sounds seem appropriate in particular contexts.”
1.What does the underlined word “it” in paragraph 1 refer to?
A.The fact that music is part of every culture.
B.The question whether music is widely spread.
C.The doubt whether further research has been done.
D.The idea that Africa and the Arctic have cool music.
2.What did Mehr and Singh do first?
A.They found out further evidence. B.They studied various societies.
C.They sought the origins of music. D.They focused mainly on music.
3.What’s the purpose of the listening experiment?
A.To comfort a baby. B.To pick out love songs.
C.To create a context. D.To tell functions of songs.
4.What is the main idea of the text?
A.Music shapes societies in different cultures.
B.Global music shares common characteristics.
C.Musical systems display cultural differences.
D.Multi-culture is based on biological patterns.
Sharon Okpoe has lived her entire 17 years in Makoko, known as the world’s largest “floating slum (贫民窟)”, built on a lake in Lagos, Nigeria. Okpoe’s father is a fisherman, and her mother sells smoked fish.
As many as two-thirds of the city’s 21 million residents live in slums. “Most girls are trapped in a terrible cycle of poverty. Many of them are not thinking of education, a plan for the future,” Abisoye Ajayi-Akinfolarin, a computer programmer in Lagos, recalls. But several times a week, girls like Okpoe get a glimpse of another world when they attend GirlsCoding, a free program run by the Pearls Africa Foundation that seeks to educate and excite girls about computer programming. Since 2012, the group has helped more than 400 disadvantaged girls gain the technical skills and confidence they need to transform their lives.
It’s the vision of Ajayi-Akinfolarin, who left a successful career to devote herself to this work. She'd noticed how few women worked in this growing field-a 2013 government survey found that less than 8% of Nigerian women were employed in technology jobs. She wanted to fix the gender gap. “Technology is a space that’s dominated by men. Why should we leave that to guys?” she said. “I believe girls need opportunities.”
Now, dozens of girls aged 10 to 17 get trained in computer programming technology. “I believe you can still find diamonds in these places,” Ajayi-Akinfolarin said. “They need to be shown another life.” One way her program does this is by taking the students to visit tech companies — not only showing them what technology can do, but also helping them visualize themselves joining the industry.
Okpoe, for one, has taken this to heart. She helped create an app called Makoko Fresh that went live this summer, enabling fishermen like her father to sell seafood directly to customers. She even wants to become a software engineer and hopes to study computer science at Harvard. “One thing I want my girls to hold onto is, regardless of where they are coming from, that they can make it,” Ajayi said. “They are coders. They are thinkers. Their future is bright.”
1.What can we learn about GirlsCoding?
A.It encourages girls to land a job in education.
B.It offers Nigerian girls in need part-time jobs.
C.It helps girls working in Lagos to fight poverty.
D.It teaches girls in Makoko computer programming.
2.What did Ajayi-Akinfolarin say about the growing field in Paragraph 3?
A.Men could do far better in technology jobs.
B.Girls should get equal work opportunities.
C.Men normally got paid more than women.
D.Girls tended to devote themselves to work.
3.What does the underlined word “this” in Paragraph 4 refer to?
A.Rebuilding the girls’ confidence.
B.Training the girls to find diamonds.
C.Presenting a different life to the girls.
D.Taking the girls to technology companies.
4.What can we infer about Okpoe from the last paragraph?
A.She got fishermen to benefit from her app.
B.She was admitted to Harvard University.
C.She took her father’s suggestion to heart.
D.She made some changes to computer science.
International Students House
International Students House （ISH）, a unique club and accommodation center founded in 1965, offers a range of services to aid students while they are studying in London. It is located in the heart of London's West End and is close to all public transport facilities.
Accommodation
♦Comfortable accommodation for up to 450 people in single, twin, 3/4 bedded and multi-bedded rooms
♦44 self-contained flats for married students and families
♦ Long and short stays welcomed
Membership
Club membership is open to all full-time students. Membership costs are kept to an absolute minimum to enable the widest possible access. You can join for as short as one month and for up to one year at a time. Membership entitles you to use the various facilities of the House. It has:
• Restaurants
• Clubs and societies
• Study rooms
• Dance, music and films
• Fitness training
• Student bars and coffee shops
• Travel and much more!
The best way to check out all we have on offer is to drop in any Tuesday evening between 7.15 pm and 8:30 pm for Open House in the Club Room. This is an opportunity for you to meet the staff and other club members, enjoy a free cup of coffee and find out all about what's going on. You can take advantage of special membership offers. (Useful tip: Bring along 3 passport-size photographs if you wish to take out membership.)
The Students Adviser
Thanks to the support of STA Travel and in association with the London Conference on Overseas Students (LCOS), ISH now provides the service of the Students Adviser. This new welfare service is open to all students at London's academic institutions. It aims to provide welfare support to help students overcome any personal or practical difficulties they may be experiencing while studying in Britain. One of the key features of the service is that the Students Adviser can be seen during the evenings until about 8:00 pm, Monday to Thursday.
1.What can be learned about ISH?
A.It has a history of almost 50 years. B.It is designed for married students.
C.It offers flexible accommodation options. D.It is far away from public transport facilities.
2.What are you expected to do to be a member?
A.Make acquaintance with the staff B.Obtain special membership offers.
C.Study or work in London. D.Come with the required photos.
3.What do we know about the Students Adviser?
A.Its service is free for students in Britain. B.It is accessible on weekdays.
C.Its purpose is to raise academic standards. D.It gets aid from STA Travel.
假定你是李华，看到英语校报上正招聘在暑假期间帮助引领外国游客的中学生导游。你对此十分感兴趣，请写一封申请邮件。要点如下：
1.写信目的；2.自我简介；3.你的竞聘优势；4.你对这份工作的认识。
Dear sir or madam,
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Yours,
Li Hua
假定英语课上老师要求同桌之间交换修改作文，请你修改你同桌写的以下作文。文中共有10处语言错误，每句中最多有两处。每处错误仅涉及一个单词的增加、删除或修改
注意：1.每处错误及其修改均仅限一词;
2.只允许修改10处，多者(从第11处起)不计分
Dear Joes,
I am more than delighted to sincere invite you to be a judge for a speech contest. I hope you can agree to come. For your reference, I will share with you the details as follow. First of all, this contest focuses on Man and Nature, that is scheduled to start at 2 p.m., and ends at 4 p.m. next week at Classroom 301. Ten players will attend the contest, give their prepared speeches. In my opinion, not only can you provide us with our professional judgment, but also you can enjoy the scenery around our school. You will surely have good time on this beautiful spring day.
I'll be very much grateful if you can accept my invitations. I am looking forward to your arrival.
Yours,
Jenny
