HE is one of the most charming young heroes since Harry Potter. Like Potter, he is chosen by fate to carry out a mission, but unlike the boy wizard, he doesn’t get any chances to have fun or hang out with friends because he’s a little too busy preparing to lead during an upcoming war to save the Earth.
Meet Ender Wiggin, 15, the main character of the hit US sci-fi movie Ender’s Game (《安德的游戏》), which will come out on Jan 7 in China.
The story opens in 2086, 50 years after an insect-like alien race, called the Formics, attacked the Earth and killed tens of millions of people before being driven back to their home planet. Since then, human beings have been in a state of fear, awaiting a second attack.
Earth’s military leaders seek young warriors to risk going into space for battle, and children are taught to compete for these positions. As the film explains, youths can make leaps of logic and intuition, devising effective attack strategies more quickly than adults.
So here comes Ender, the savior (救世主) of all mankind. Though Ender is a skinny kid, smaller than most, he is also smarter than average. He tends to analyze situations and easily find ways to achieve the most positive outcomes. This rare gift makes him stand out in the program and get promoted to the Battle School, where he is directed to plan and carry out a series of virtual attacks on the Formics.
Can he use his military talents to wipe out Earth’s enemies?
Despite the obvious “be all you can be” subtext (潜台词), the movie “explores complex issues, including the consequences of violence and maintaining humanity and morality during wartime with intelligence and insight,” commented Yahoo.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the film best presents the power of empathy (感情移入), which is what makes Ender a good leader. “The reason Ender succeeds is because he understands what makes his opponents tick (有某种行为) on the battlefield,” explained the entertainment news site.
1.The underlined words “a mission” in the first paragraph probably refer to “______”.
A. having fun and hanging out with friends
B. being a boy wizard to save the Earth
C. working to save all of mankind
D. acting as a leader of the Formics
2.Earth’s military leaders want to choose youths to be warriors because they think ______.
A. youths are smarter and more fearless than adults
B. youths are more willing to take risks in space
C. youths have sharper intuition and quicker reactions than adults
D. youths adapt to new battle environments more quickly than adults
3.Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the text?
A. The movie intends to encourage people to try to be what they want to be and never give up.
B. Ender is able to defeat Earth’s enemies because he possesses a super power that enables him to read his enemies’ minds.
C. Ender’s success proves that a good leader should have intelligence and insight and make full use of his or her teammates’ talents.
D. The movie discusses a variety of issues such as the effects of violence and the importance of morality and humanity during wartime.
IT’S never a real problem for us when the weather gets cold. We can put on more clothes, stay next to a fireplace, turn on the air conditioner or simply travel to a warmer city to spend the winter – people have many different ways of coping with the cold.
But things are not as easy for plants. Unlike humans, plants can’t move to escape the cold or generate heat to keep themselves warm. So how do they manage to survive the freezing winter?
It turns out that plants have their own strategies too, said a study published on Dec 22 in the journal Nature.
According to researcher Amy Zanne of George Washington University, US, the cold is a big challenge for plants. Their living tissues can be damaged when they freeze. “It’s like a plant’s equivalent to frostbite (冻疮),” Zanne told Science Daily. Also, the process of freezing and thawing (解冻) can cause air bubbles to form in the plant’s water transport system. “If enough of these air bubbles come together as water thaws they can block the flow of water from the roots to the leaves and kill the plant,” she explained.
To live through cold weather, plants have developed three traits, according to the study. Some plants, such as oak trees, avoid freezing damage by dropping their leaves before the winter chill sets in – effectively shutting off the flow of water between roots and leaves – and growing new leaves and water transport cells when the warm spring returns.
Other plants, pine trees for example, protect themselves by narrowing their water transport cells, which makes it easier for cells to travel among air bubbles.
The third strategy is also the most extreme – some plants die on the ground in winter and start growing as new plants from seeds when conditions get warmer.
However, the study also found that these smart strategies were developed very slowly – over millions of years of evolution. This leads scientists to worry that plants may not be able to deal with human-caused climate change, which has only started occurring over the past few decades.
Scientists are hoping that this study can help people find possible ways to save plants from the threat of climate change.
1.What is the article mainly about?
A. Why plants are not afraid of the winter chill.
B. The ways that plants survive cold weather.
C. Changes in plants’ water transport system in winter.
D. How plants evolve to keep up with climate change.
2.According to the article, if a plant freezes in the winter, ______.
A. it produces more living tissues to stay alive
B. its leaves quickly fall out and its roots begin to die
C. lots of air bubbles form in its water transport system
D. its water transport system could be blocked in the spring
3.How do oak trees usually survive the cold winters?
A. By dropping their leaves before winter.
B. By narrowing their water transport cells.
C. By widening their water transport cells.
D. By leaving only the seeds alive and growing from the seeds in the spring.
4.What are scientists worried about when it comes to plants according to the article?
A. Plants may not be able to adapt to the increasingly cold climate.
B. Human activities might have a great impact on the pace of plants’ evolution.
C. Plants may not be able to evolve fast enough to adapt to human-caused climate change.
D. The strategies plants develop are not good enough to protect them against cold.
The mental aspect of athletics is underrated. The common expression, “athletics are 90 percent ____ and 10 percent physical,” is often used by coaches, and stresses that mindsets make a huge ____ in competitions.
“The physical aspect of the sport can only take you ____ ,” said Olympic gold medal-winning gymnast Shannon Miller during an interview with the Dana Foundation. “The mental aspect has to ____ , especially when you’re talking about the best of the best. In the Olympic games, everyone is talented. Everyone ____ hard. Everyone does the work. What ____ the gold medalists from the silver medalists is simply the mental game.”
Many athletes have used the technique of mental imagery, or ____ , to perform at their best. Research on the brain patterns of ____ found that the patterns activated when a weightlifter lifted heavy weights were activated ____ when they simply imagined lifting and some studies have suggested that mental ____ can be almost as effective as physical training. One study, published in the Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology in 1996, found that ____ weight lifting caused ____ changes in muscle activity.
“Mental imagery ____ many cognitive (认知的) processes in the brain: motor control, attention, perception, planning, and memory,” researcher Angie LeVan wrote in Psychology Today. “So the ____ is getting trained for actual performance during visualization. It’s been found that mental practices can enhance motivation, increase confidence, improve motor performance and ____ your brain for success.”
____ visualizing is more than just thinking about an upcoming event. ____ athletes use visualization, they truly feel the event taking place in their mind’s eye.
“During visualization, she incorporates (整合) all of her ____ into the experience,” sports psychologist Dr JoAnn Dahlkoetter wrote in a blog post on The Huffington Post ____ a speed skater she works with. “She feels her forefoot pushing off the track, she hears her skating splits, and she sees herself racing ahead of the competitors. She experiences all of the elements of her race ____ before executing (完成) her performance.”
1.A. lucky B. intelligent C. mental D. strategic
2.A. difference B. importance C. improvement D. challenge
3.A. so long B. so far C. so much D. so high
4.A. turn on B. show off C. take up D. set off
5.A. thinksB. moves C. runs D. trains
6.A. breaksB. pushes C. decidesD. distinguishes
7.A. activation B. visualization C. motivation D. perception
8.A. athletes B. gymnasts C. weightlifters D. skaters
9.A. regularly B. normally C. finally D. similarly
10.A. connection B. practice C. performances D. directions
11.A. imagining B. considering C. reviewing D. dreaming
12.A. few B. usual C. actual D. strange
13.A. impacts B. increases C. slows D. follows
14.A. brain B. body C. attention D. memory
15.A. help B. apply C. useD. prepare
16.A. Though B. But C. Thus D. Otherwise
17.A. Unless B. After C. When D. Until
18.A. observations B. spirit C. determination D. senses
19.A. to B. for C. about D. with
20.A. in surprise B. in detail C. on time D. for example
—Do you think Real Madrid will win the UEFA Champions League?
—________.Barcelona is much stronger，I think.
A．Of course B．It depends
C．Don’t mention it D．By no means
I spent the whole day repairing the motorbike. The work was ____ simple.
A. anything but B. nothing but C. something of D. all except
It doesn’t _______ if you are late to my party. I just want you to come.
A. take me by surprise B. make sense C. take a chance D. make a difference
