What does the woman really mean?
A. There's no problem. B. She is very busy. C. She’ll go to another place.
What’s the time now?
A. 10:30. B. 10:10. C. 9:50.
When will the woman speaker come back home?
A. Early in the evening. B. Late in the evening. C. Early in the afternoon.
Eco City Farms is an educational nonprofit organization. It seeks to empower the community by teaching economic development, job training and a healthier way of living. The group has set up farms near automobile repair businesses and fast food stores in urban neighborhoods.
Social activist Margaret Morgan-Hubbard founded Eco City Farms. She says that lack of fresh produce is a major health problem for children and their families living in Maryland. “What’s critical is that 70 percent of the people in these towns are either overweight, have some illnesses, for example, diabetes, or have other kinds of diet-related ailments because they don’t have access to healthy food.
Eco City Farms offers several programs for agriculture, food and finding jobs with environment-friendly businesses. People can also learn how to cook healthier foods and teach others how to prepare meals. On a recent day, Philip Sidibe demonstrated his cooking skills. He prepared Aloco, a popular food in Cameroon where he grew up. He and other young people not only cook their food, they also grow it in a large garden.
Tameka Barbour-Gaskins lives in Autumn Woods. She says her whole family is eating healthier meals because of the local produce. “I like junk food. I like quick meals. Not easy to just go from eating a certain way all your life to switching over to being healthier… With the urban garden here, with my son learning, he can help me switch around my style of eating. I want a healthy family.”
Margaret says the urban garden is an agent for change and the young people are its newest supporters. “Our program is about planting seeds. It’s about planting seeds not just in the ground, but in other human beings so that the movement can grow and it’s really exciting because these young people will be working with us throughout the year to help plan the actual farm and to finally own it.”
1.What does Eco City Farms aim to do? (No more than 20 words)
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2.What does the underlined word “ailments” in Paragraph 3 mean? (1 word)
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3.According to Margaret, what’s the major danger to people’s health in Maryland? (No more than 10 words)
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4.How do people benefit from the programs offered by Eco City Farms? (No more than 15 words)
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5.What do you think of Eco City Farms? Please explain. (No more than 15 words)
___________________
单词拼写
1.His c_____(性格) is a combination of strength and kindness.
2.The town was f____(建立) by English settlers in 1790.
3.She is always c____(抱怨) about working over time.
4.A jazz band provided the e_____(娱乐), while people ate and drank under the stars.
5.Mark has two kids from a p____(以前的) marriage.
6.Olivia’s house was s____ by lightning during the storm last night.
7.He is a good student except that he is o_____(偶尔) careless.
8.The bank is just o_____(在对面) the church. You won’t miss it.
9.During the Spring Festival, all the supermarkets are c____with people busy buying things for holiday.
10.S____on the northeast coast, Barcelona is the second largest city of Spain.
In the kitchen of my mother’s houses there has always been a wooden stand (木架)with a small notepad(记事本)and a hole for a pencil.
I’m looking for paper on which to note down the name of a book I am recommending to my mother. Over forty years since my earliest memories of the kitchen pad and pencil, five houses later, the current paper and pencil look the same as they always did. Surely it can’t be the same pencil. The pad is more modern, but the wooden stand is definitely the original one.
“I’m just amazed you still have the same stand for holding the pad and pencil after all these years.” I say to her, walking back into the living-room with a sheet of paper and the pencil. “You still use a pencil. Can’t you afford a pen?”
My mother replies a little sharply. “It works perfectly well. I’ve always kept the stand in the kitchen. I never knew when I might want to note down an idea, and I was always in the kitchen in those days.”
Immediately I can picture her, hair wild, blue housecoat covered in flour, a wooden spoon in one hand, the pencil in the other, her mouth moving silently. My mother smiles and says, “One day I was cooking and watching baby Pauline, and I had a brilliant thought, but the stand was empty. One of the children must have taken the paper. So I just picked up the breadboard and wrote it all down on the back. It turned out to be a real breakthrough for solving the mathematical problem I was working on.”
This story—which happened before I was born—reminds me how extraordinary my mother was, and is, as a gifted mathematician. I feel embarrassed that I complain about not having enough child-free time to work. Later, when my mother is in the bathroom, I go into her kitchen and turn over the breadboards. Sure enough, on the back of the smallest one, are some penciled marks I recognize as mathematics. Those symbols have traveled unaffected through fifty years, rooted in the soil of a cheap wooden breadboard, invisible(看不到的) exhibits at every meal.
1.Why has the author’s mother always kept the notepad and pencil in the kitchen?
A. To leave messages. B. To list her everyday tasks.
C. To note down maths problems. D. To write down a flash of inspiration.
2.What is the author’s original opinion about the wooden stand?
A. It has great value for the family. B. It needs to be replaced by a better one.
C. It brings her back to her lonely childhood. D. It should be passed on to the next generation.
3.The author feels embarrassed for ________.
A. blaming her mother wrongly
B. giving her mother a lot of trouble
C. not making good use of time as her mother did
D. not making any breakthrough in her field
4.In the author’s mind, her mother is ________.
A. strange in behavior B. keen on her research
C. fond of collecting old things D. careless about her appearance
