Once upon a time, there was an island where 1. great number of feelings lived: Happiness, Sadness, Knowledge, and others, including Love. One day, they 2. (tell) that the island would sink (下沉), so they all began packing things and left except Love.
Love was the only one that stayed. She wanted to stay 3. the last possible moment.
When the island had almost sunk, Love was concerned 4. her safety and decided to ask for help.
Richness was passing by in a grant boat. Love asked, “Richness, can you take me with you?”
Richness answered, “No, I can’t. My gold and silver is 5. (important) than you.”
Love asked Vanity (虚荣) for help but was refused again.
Then love asked Sadness and Happiness for help, neither of 6. was willing to help.
Suddenly, there was a voice, “Come, Love, I will take you.” It was an elder. When 7. (hear) that, Love was so happy that she even forgot to ask 8. the elder’s name was. When they arrived on land, the elder went on her own way. As it was the first time that Love 9. (meet) the elder, she asked Knowledge, another elder, “Who helped me?”
“It was Time,” Knowledge answered.
“Time?” asked Love. “But why?”
Knowledge smiled and said, “because it is only Time 10. is able to understand how valuable(有价值的) Love is.”
目前，对于我国的英语学习状况，有两种截然不同的观点：
1、应加强英语学习，以适应当前的国际发展形势。2、仅为考试而学习英语，大部分人毕业后根本不使用英语，因而没必要再学。
请以Learn English or Not为题，写一篇短文，首先简述以上两条建议，然后表明你的观点，并说明理由，词数120左右。
阅读下面短文，根据以下提示：1）汉语提示，2）首字母提示，3）语境提示，在每个空格内填入一个适当的英语单词，所填单词要求意义准确，拼写正确。
People around the world have been praying for the passengers of MH370 and 1. h for a miracle.
The Boeing 777 took 2. from Malaysia’s largest city, Kuala Lumpur, in the early hours of March8, 3. it never showed up at its4. (目的地), Beijing.
There were 239 people on board the Malaysia Airlines flight, 154 Chinese 5. i . As of March 13, 12 different 6. , such as China, Vietnam and the US, were still searching for the plane.
Between 1—2 hours after liftoff, the plane suddenly 7. (失去) contact with people on the ground. The pilots didn’t place any distress calls (求救信号). No debris(残骸) was found in the area8. the flight last made contact.
People are talking about a possible hijacking(劫机) on March 9. At 9.l two passengers on the flight used10. （偷） passports to get on board.
“We are looking for at all possibilities. We can’t jump the gun(草率行事),” said Malaysian Transport Minister Hussein.
Up to two-fifths of a food crop is often wasted because it is “ugly”, a report on food waste has shown.
Produce grown in the UK that does not meet retailer(零售商) standards on appearance is often given to animals or thrown out even though it is healthy to eat.
The report from the UK’s global food security program also showed that the average household throws away more than 5kg of food a week, and nearly two-thirds of that waste is avoidable.
The waste costs £ 480 a year per household on average, and £ 680 per family.
Households throw away a fifth of the food they buy, wasting it for reasons ranging from cooking too much to not using it before it goes bad, the study showed.
Consumption is the top area where food is wasted in the UK, the study said.
Farmers respond to consumer demands for high-quality food with standards that can lead to the crop being wasted. Some supermarkets have started marketing “odd shapes and sizes” of fruit and vegetables, though.
Also, more UK consumers are prepared to accept “ugly” fruit and vegetables, amid concerns over sustainability(可持续发展) and food prices, the research said.
In developing countries, much of the loss of food occurs during post-harvesting storage, processing and packaging.
Tackling waste globally is necessary to feed a growing world population sustainably. One in eight people worldwide doesn’t have enough food, the report said.
Around a third of food produced globally is lost or wasted.
Professor Tim Benton, an expert on food security at the University of Leeds, said: “Over 5 million people in the UK live in poverty, where basic food provision is a daily challenge.”
Nearly 400,000 people used food banks last year, according to the Trussell Trust.
“At the same time, 15 million tons of food is wasted annually, with nearly half thrown away within UK households. Reducing the scale(范围) of losses and waste throughout the food system is a crucial step.”
The report highlights priorities(优先事项) for research to help reduce food waste, including improving harvesting and packaging technologies and seasonal weather prediction.
1. Food waste in developing nations is mainly due to .
A. fast growing populations
B. huge demand for high-quality foods
C. poor technology in food industries
D. people’s lack of concern about food shortages
2.We can conclude from the article that .
A. over half of the food produce in the UK is wasted within households
B. “ugly” fruits and vegetables are becoming more and more popular in the UK
C. avoiding food waste could, by itself, solve food shortage problems around the world
D. developing better farming and packaging technologies is key to reducing food waste
3.Which of the following statements might Professor Tim Benton agree with?
A. British farmers should keep up with their high growing standards.
B. The number of people living in poverty is growing too fast in Britain.
C. There is still much to do to improve British people’s awareness of food sustainability.
D. British supermarkets should be encouraged to sell food of odd shapes and sizes.
4.What is suggested in the report?
A. Cutting food prices.
B. Using different approaches to reduce food waste.
C. Improving the appearance of food.
D. Cooking at home more often.
Here is a task for you: try to make as many kinds of facial expressions as you can. How many can you come up with?
Facial expressions are like a window to your emotions inside. Scientists used to believe that we only have six basic emotions-happy, sad, fearful, angry, surprised and disgusted-and ,therefore, each of our facial expressions falls into one of the six categories.
But it turns out that this is just the tip of the iceberg. In a recent study, scientists from Ohio State University, US, mapped 21 different facial expressions, more than tripling(是……的三倍) the original number, reported Science Daily.
Restricting emotions to just six categories is like “painting only using primary colors”, said Aleix Martinez, the lead researcher. He believed that human emotions are much richer than that, which is why he and his team decided to use advanced computer technology for further investigation.
In the experiment, scientists photographed 230 volunteers-100 male and 130 female-while they made faces in response to different words such as “you smell a bad odor(气味)”. They then closely studied the images by examining key muscles on volunteers’ faces, such as the corners of the mouth or the outer edge of the eyebrow, and finally identified 21 different expressions. These included what seem to be contradictory emotions such as “happily disgusted” and “sadly angry”, which scientists call “compound(混合的) emotions”.
Take “happily disgusted” as an example.” Putting on a happy face is usually done by drawing up the cheeks and smiling while a disgusted face often involves a scrunched-up(皱起的) nose and eyes. So the “happily disgusted” emotion created an expression that combined the smile of happy with the scrunched-up eyes and nose of disgusted. It was the emotion test subjects felt when something “gross(恶心的)” happened that was also funny-for example, when people spill(洒出) a lot of food on their clothes.
Similarly, “happily surprised” is an expression for receiving unexpected good news. “Sadly angry” is the face we make when someone we care about makes us angry.
According to Martinez, the researchers’ next step is to study the pathways and chemicals in the brain that activate(激活) and recognize those emotions. He believes that this could lead to effective treatments for people who suffer from conditions such as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder(PTSD,创伤后应激障碍), which involves a lack of recognition of other people’s emotions.
1.The underlined part “this is just the tip of the iceberg” in Paragraph 3 probably means .
A. this is a truth known to us all
B. this is the total amount of something
C. this is easily seen or discovered
D. this is only the smallest and most obvious part of something
2.How does the author explain the definition of “compound emotions” in the article?
A. With comparisons.
B. Through examples.
C. Through cause and effect analysis.
D. By presenting research findings.
3.According to the article, people are likely to become happily disgusted when .
A. they receive unexpected good news
B. someone they don’t care about makes them happy
C. something unpleasant but also funny happens
D. they successfully escape from a dangerous situation
4.What can we conclude from the article?
A. There are several contradictory emotions we tend to overlook.
B. Females have more contradictory emotions than males do.
C. The chemicals in the brain that activate emotions are easy to identify.
D. Martinez’s next goal is to find an effective cure for people who suffer from PTSD.
Everyone has those nights-you lie in your bed for hours, tossing and turning, totally unable to fall asleep. You wish you could just turn your brain off as if it were a light. That would make things much easier, wouldn’t it?
Now it looks like you are one step closer to this wild dream of yours-scientists from Oxford University, UK have just discovered the “switch” that tells the brain to go to sleep, reported Forbes.
To understand the study, you first need to know that there are two mechanisms(机能) that regulate sleep. There’s one that we’re already familiar with —our body clock, which works in a 24-hour cycle based on the light changes throughout the day.
The other one is what scientists call the sleep “homeostat(动态平衡系统)”. This mechanism has nothing to do with daylight. Instead, it keeps track of the brain’s waking hours and urges it to rest if it has been awake for a long time. “It is similar to the thermostat(自动调温器) in your home. A thermostat measures temperature and switches on the heating if it’s too cold,” Professor Gero Miesenbock, who led the study, told The Telegraph.
Our bodies use both of the mechanisms to regulate sleep. “The body clock says it’s the right time, and the sleep thermostat has built up pressure during a long waking day,” explained Miesenbock.
There is no way that scientists can trick the body clock. But with the sleep homeostat, there might be something they can do.
The researchers found that the sleep homeostat works by activating a specific group of nerve cells, or neurons, in the brain. They tested their theory on fruit flies by removing the neurons from the insects’ brains. And as expected, they found that the flies without the homeostat neurons did not keep a regular sleep pattern anymore.
Now that scientists have pinpointed the exact place in the brain— or, the “switch”—that regulates sleep, they can begin investigating how to activate these cells at any given time so that people can be sent to sleep instantly.
More importantly, figuring out how sleep mechanisms work may also help us to one day unravel one of the oldest mysteries of all: why do we need to sleep in the first place?
1.What is the article mainly about?
A. A new way to treat sleep disorders.
B. The discovery of the sleep “homeostat”
C. Advice on what to do when you fail to fall asleep.
D. A comparison of the two mechanisms that regulate sleep.
2.How does the author explain the function of the sleep homeostat?
A. Through examples.
B. With comparisons.
C. Through cause and effect analysis.
D. By presenting research findings.
3.What can we conclude from the article?
A. Generally, the sleep homeostat has less effect on people during the day than at night.
B. There is little scientists can do to affect the way the sleep homeostat works.
C. What makes us go to sleep at night is probably a combination of the two mechanisms.
D. The more homeostat neurons there are in one’s brain, the more easily one can fall asleep.
4.The underlined word “unravel” in the last paragraph is closest in meaning to .
A. put up with B. figure out
C. keep track of D. take notice of
