Ambition (志向，抱负) is a necessary quality in life. It is the force which drives us on to use whatever talent we have got1., these talents will not be used for our own and other's benefit. Without ambition we are just jellyfish that flop though life. We only react to events: we don't try to control them.
2., First of all, it can be unrealistic. We may not be able to see the limits of our own abilities, so we do ambitious things that are completely beyond us. Some people can see our good qualities and our limitations objectively. They may tell us that we haven't the ability We refuse to take their evaluation. We keep on trying. Many years and many disappointments later we are forced to accept their judgment. But what a waste of time our ill-founded ambition has caused us!
Besides, our ambition can be too concentrated. We devote our attention to one narrow aim, such as getting distinctions in our science subjects. Everything that may draw us away from this aim is cutout of our lives. In the end we get our distinctions. But we are isolated beings who only care about particular examination. And we probably won't make good scientists 3..
And our ambition can be limited to lifeless objectives4. Persons who feel inferior try to make up by seeking the respect of others through owning these artificial signs of worth.
5. But, like all blind forces, it must be directed if not to cause disaster.
A. Still, ambition can have several disadvantages
B. Because our ambition may make us among selfish people
C. Unless we have got some degree of ambition.
D. Since we don't have the breadth of view necessary for greater success
E. Ambition is necessary in the lives of individuals
F. As long as tightly controlled by the head and the heart
G. We want to gain money, or power, or membership of some circles
Scene one: Michael flies in.
When he was high enough, Michael looked down. He could see the van parked among the trees, but he couldn't see the gang. He started to fly towards the wall. He went through the details of the plan in his head. He had to wait until he heard the bell ring at ten. It took fifteen minutes there was nobody outside the building. That was when he had to fly in.
A minute later the bell rang and he saw the guards started to move away from their posts. He flew quickly over the wall and dropped down to the ground next to the building he had to enter. He spoke quietly into his microphone.
“I'm at the main door.”
‘Ok, Now press these keys on the number pad on the door. Ready? 7-8-5-0-7-9-9’.
'Ok. Done.’
'Now press the key that says “Enter”.'
Michael pressed the ‘Enter' key. He heard a click.
‘The door's open.’
‘Good. Now go and do everything that I told you to do. Call me again when you get out with the “Lion” envelope.'
Michael slowly pushed the door open. To his amazement, he saw a man in military uniform standing in the middle of the corridor. He was holding a large sign which said:
MICHAEL, DONT SAY SPEAK!
IT’S OK!
THE POLICE ARE HERE.
YOUCAN WAIT TOTHE FFIE.THE ALARMS ARE OFF.
The man smiled, and Michael smiled back. He worked down the corridor to the office, where there was a uniformed policeman. He held a sign which said:
MICHAEL DON’T SAY ANYTHING!
TAKE THE ENVELOPE OUT OF THE CUPBOARD.
THERES A TRACKING DEVICE IN IT .
THERE'S ANOTHER TRACKING DEVICE ON THE DESK.
PUT IT IN YOUR POCKET.
Michael found the envelope and put it in his pocket, together with toe the tracking device. He waved cheerfully at the policeman and walked out of the office and down the corridor. As he stepped out into the courtyard, he spoke into his microphone, “I have got the Lion” envelop.
‘Good! ’ said Wilson. 'Now fly straightly back to us.'
He flapped his wings and flew up high to get above the lights. He knew he had to follow the plan so as not to make the men suspicious. As he flew over the wall, he started to feel scared again.
Scene two: Good news on Shillan.
‘We've found him!’ said Detective Riley to the Broads as he came back into the living room after his latest phone call.
‘Oh, that's wonderful news!' said Sarah. ‘Where is he now?’
‘He's still with the criminals,’ answered Riley, but our officers have given him a tracking device so we can follow him everywhere he goes.
‘But why is he back with the criminals?' asked Sarah. ‘Isn't that dangerous?
We need to catch these people, Mrs. Broad, We need Michael's help. said Detective Riley.
‘Oh, dear!' said Sarah. ‘So he's not safe at all. You're going to use him to find those terrible people.’
‘I'm sorry, Mrs. Broad,' answered Riley. ‘But you must understand that I'm doing this for the safety of the country, and perhaps the whole world.'
1.What were the details of the plan of Michael?
A. He would wait until the bell rang ten times.
B. He would fly into the building in a quarter of an hour.
C. He would press the keys 7-8-5-0-7-9-9 and say Enter.
D. He would walk along the corridor and then enter the office.
2.According to the dialogue between Michael and Wilson, what could we get?
A. Michael was skilled at the task he was doing.
B. Michael was going to do something bad.
C. Wilson was not familiar with the building.
D. Wilson was once the guard in the building.
3.According to the signs, what can we infer?
A. It was safe for Michael to talk with the two men quietly.
B. The police had already arranged everything for Michael.
C. Someone had already put the envelope on the cupboard.
D. Michael could use the tracking devices to contact the police.
4.What did Sarah think after being told the fact of Michael?
A. Detective Riley was using Michael at the risk of his life.
B. Detective Riley couldn't rescue Michael at that moment.
C. Michael was able to catch the criminals despite in danger.
D. Michael should sacrifice for the safety of the whole country.
5.As to the characters in the story, which of the following statements is NOT true?
A. Wilson is a criminal.
B. Michael is an innocent boy.
C. Sarah is likely to be Michael's mother.
D. The man in military uniform is a policeman.
Good news for people who have difficulty in remembering things. A memory technique invented by the ancient Greeks has recently been proved to be able to greatly improve ordinary people's memory ability. You may even become a memory champion if you practice hard enough.
This is according to a study published in the journal Neuron. Researchers fro
Radboud University Medical Center in the Netherlands found that memory champions aren't all that different to us. People with an average memory can greatly improve their memory ability by using what's known as the“ mind palace” method.
The method is the secret weapon (武器) of the fictional (虚构的) character Sherlock Holmes.
In order to do this, you need to picture a place you're familiar with, such as your living room. Then, you have to remember this place in as much detail as possible as this is your own mind palace.
Suppose you want to remember a shopping list. You can start by spreading out all the items around your living room in your mind. This means each item on your list is connected with a remembered place in your living room. You travel to that remembered place as you recall the list.
To explore the effects of this method on the brain, researchers gathered 51 participants with average memory levels and no previous memory training. After 40 days of daily 30-minute training sessions (一段时间), participants doubled the amount of words they could remember - they went from recalling an average of 26 words out of 72, to an impressive 62. Four months later, even without continued training, their recall performance remained high.
“Once you are familiar with these strategies and know how to apply them, you can keep your performance high without much further training,” Martin Dresler, assistant professor from Radboud University Medical Center, told the Daily Mail.
In addition, the training also affects the way our brain cells connect. After training, the way that the participants' brain cells connect began to be like those of memory champions compared to scans(扫描检查) taken before training. Researchers believe this could be responsible for their increased memory.
But what makes this research so fascinating is that it seems to prove that the talent to store things in your mind isn't down to genes. Dresler found there was no deference in brain structure between memory champions and normal people, which means memory champions are not born with different brains.
“They, without a single exception, trained for months and years using methods to achieve these high levels of performance,” Dresler told Science Daily.
It’s clear that more studies are needed to find out what's going on here, but the “mind palace” method might be your best bet to never forget an important name, date or appointment ever again.
1.The main purpose of the text is to_____
A. present a research on a memory improvement strategy
B. explore the secrets of memory champions
C. argue whether good memory is natural or trained
D. explain how a memory improvement strategy works.
2.Which of the following statements is TRUE about the “mind place” method?
A. The method became popular because of Sherlock Holmes.
B. People need to draw a familiar place on paper before using the method.
C. The effects of this method are likely to fade when the raining stops
D. The method relies on a connection with a familiar environment to remember things.
3.What would Marin Dresler probably agree with?
A. People's memory level has a lot to do with their brain structure.
B. Memory champions are often born with outstanding memory ability
C. Memory training could change the way our brain cells connect.
D. With continued training, everyone can develop into a memory champion.
In the movie Jurassic Park (1993) a billionaire creates a theme park filled with dinosaurs, brought back from extinction through cloning by a team of scientists.
Although the film is of course fictional, the methods used in it to bring animals back from the dead may soon become reality.
Scientists from Harvard University in the US are currently working on resurrecting the woolly mammoth, a mammal that became extinct around 4,000 years ago.
However, it wouldn't be an exact copy of the hairy beast. "Our aim is to produce a hybrid elephant-mammoth embryo,” Professor George Church, head of the team of scientists, told The Guardian.
“Actually, it would be more like an elephant with a number of mammoth traits. We're not there yet, but it could happen in a couple of years."
The team is hoping to make a “mammophant”- a mix between an elephant and a mammoth. It would be like a regular elephant but have features from the mammoth that would make it more adaptable to cold weather.
Small ears, a thick layer of body fat and, of course, long hair are what helped the mammoth live in freezing temperatures.
So why go through all the effort and expense to bring back an animal that died out thousands of years ago? The answer lies in climate change.
It's hoped that the creatures will stop frost in the world's tundra from melting and releasing huge amounts of harmful greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
Mammoths used to keep the tundra from thawing by punching through snow and allowing cold air to come in," said Church. In the summer, they knocked down trees and helped the grass grow."Church and his team are attempting to mix mammoth DNA, recovered from frozen samples of the animal found in Siberia, with that of the Asian elephant, which is its closest relative.
There are critics who believe that the media has got carried away with the story though, after several websites ran headlines such as Woolly mammoths will be roaming Earth again within two years.
“So far, scientists have managed to incorporate traits of the mammoth into elephant DNA. In a few years, they hope to make an embryo, but that's a long way from creating a viable embryo, "Popular Science magazine wrote.
Some have even gone so far as to call the story “fake news". Paleoanthropologist(古人类学家)John Hawks wrote on blog platform Medium: Is this just another case of the media sensationalizing(大肆渲染) what is otherwise a good science story?"
Although we may not be seeing woolly mammoths at the zoo any time in the near future, it's still exciting to know that there is still the possibility of a real Jurassic Park someday, however tiny that possibility may be.
1.The underlined word “resurrecting” in Paragraph 3 probably means__________.
A. making something adaptable to current condition
B. studying a sample of something
C. bringing something back to life
D. producing a hybrid embryo of something
2.What would a mammophant look like according to the text?
A. It would be a combination of elephant, mammoth and dinosaur.
B. It would be an exact copy of the woolly mammoth with long hair.
C. It would look like a normal elephant but also share some mammoth traits.
D. It would be like a bigger sized elephant with small ears and short hair.
3.What is the main purpose of producing mammophants according to Church?
A. To improve biodiversity.
B. To help fight global warming.
C. To remove frost in the tundra.
D. To help grass grow in the tundra.
4.What can be concluded from the text?
A. The media holds a cautious attitude toward the mammophant program.
B. A hybrid elephant- mammoth embryo is likely to be produced within two years
C. The method used to produce mammophants was borrowed from the movie Jurassic Park,
D. Scientists still have a long way to fulfill the goals of the mammophant program.
It’s a rink which has become synonymous with a healthy life style-but is green tea the magical potion many heath sites would have us believe? Green tea has been popular in China for centuries and has been used in traditional Chinese medicine to treat a number of health issues-including depression.
Its virtues have also been extolled by celebrities and so-called heath experts for a number of reasons. These include its ability to help weight-loss as well as containing antioxidants which are believed to help combat different types of cancer. heart disease and Alzheimer's. Given these claims, it’s easy to see green tea as sort of magical elixir.
1.Green tea and weight loss
Green tea contains B vitamins, folate (naturally occurring folic acid), manganese, potassium, magnesium, caffeine and other antioxidants, such as catechins. It’s catechins along with green tea’s naturally occurring caffeine which are thought to help the body burn more calories. Weight-loss products containing green tea have a higher concentration of catechins and caffeine than the typical green tea beverage. However, there's some bad news. A review from 2012 of 18 studies involving 1,945 people found no significant effect of weight loss from drinking green tea.
2. Green tea and cholesterol
Thanks again to the catechins, in a reputable review from 2013 of 11 studies involving 821 people, it was found daily consumption of green and black tea (as a drink or a capsule) could help lower cholesterol and blood pressure.
It's important to note, however, that the authors of the study pointed out the trials were short-term, and cautioned longer-term trials would be needed to substantiate their findings. These were back up by an earlier review in 2011, which found drinking green tea enriched with catechins led to a small-reduction in cholesterol, a main cause of heart disease and stroke.
Though no one could say for certain how much green tea a person would need to drink to reap the benefits.
3. Green tea and cancer
On this the NHS is clear. There is no evidence drinking green tea protects against different types of cancer.
1.What's the meaning of the underlined word in the second paragraph?
A. Criticized B. Commented C. Praised D. Exaggerated(夸张)
2.People think the ingredients in green tea that can burn more calories are_______.
①vitamins ② folate ③catechins④magnesium ⑤ caffeine
A. ①② B. ④⑤ C. ③⑤ D. ②⑤
3.According to Part 2, we can infer that______
A. further researches are needed to prove the findings
B. the short-term research is not right
C. the long-term research is not in the works
D. over drinking green tea benefits health
听下面一段独白，回答以下小题。
1.What is the first thing to celebrate the festival?
A. A group discussion.
B. A lecture.
C. A women's program.
2.Who is Dr. Linda Thompson?
A. Author of Gender Connection.
B. President of the university.
C. Secretary of an organization.
3.What will follow Thomas Lane's talk?
A. A reception. B. A competition. C. A group discussion
4.How can student poets participate in women's History Month?
A. By writing for the newspaper. B. By reading their own poets. C. By giving lectures.
