Directions: Write an English composition in 120-150 words according to the instructions.
越来越多的城市居民养宠物, 宠物给人带来欢乐,但是经常会有扰民或伤人的事件发生。有人提议禁止城市居民养宠物。 请谈谈你的看法。
Directions: Translate the following sentences into English, using the words given in brackets.
1.只要你有耐心，你总能在夜市淘到一些便宜货。(pick up)
2.让他宽慰的是，在房价飙升之前，他在同事的建议下买了一套公寓。(advice)
3.这个品牌的手机各方面都比所有其他的手机好，只是价格实在太贵了。(superior)
4.鉴于这个计划风险太大，虽然设计者的分析听上去很合理，政府最终没有采纳。(risky)
Directions: Read the following passage. Summarize the main idea and main point(s) of the passage in no more than 60 words. Use your own words as far as possible.
The New Dinner and a Movie
Dinner and a movie was a two-part affair. But increasingly, the two have blended into a single experience, allowing moviegoers to get fries and a beer while they watch the latest superhero blockbuster. Full-service theaters have become a Friday-night pastime as Americans are going to the movies.
Dine-in cinemas are not altogether new. In the late 1980s, brothers Mike and Brian Mc Menamin opened one in Portland, Ore. A decade later, inspired by the Mc Menamins, Tim and Karrie League began pairing trendy beer with hits like The Craft at the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin. But in recent years, the trend has expanded from marginal to mainstream. There are now 29 Alamo locations nationwide, from Omaha to El Paso.
Full-service theaters appeal to a broader, more regionally diverse customer base. At Movie Tavern in Roswel, Ga., for instance, you can order popcorn seafood and a “Jumbo Jar” cocktail while watching Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle. AMC, the biggest U.S. movie-theater company, launched Dine-In, where meals can be ordered with the push of a button.
The rise in full-service moviegoing coincides with declining ticket sales across the industry more broadly. North American movie attendance in 2017 dropped to what appears to be a 27-year low. The downward tendency is the continuation of a 15-year trend. As younger audiences choose to consume content on their smartphones and the popularity of streaming rises dramatically, it’s no wonder that theater owners are seeking creative ways to stimulate customers off their couches. It’s working: despite a 2% decline in movie attendance over four years, AMC Dine-In achieved 4% growth in just two.
Full-service theaters are not without complaints. Despite servers’ attempts to quiet down, many find them distracting when serving food. Besides, prices tend to get steeper once varieties of food enter the mix.
But for those with the funds, the full-service theater offers reason enough to quit online movies.
Directions: Read the following passage. Fill in each blank with a proper sentence given in the box. Each sentence can be used only once. Note that there are two more sentences than you need.
There’s no denying crows are smart. They can remember where food has been hidden, recognize faces and craft tools. And, according to a new paper in Scientific Reports, some crows can even make those tools from memory. This skill may point to these clever corvids having a sort of culture of their own.
Researchers, led by Sarah Jelbert at the University of Cambridge, worked specifically with New Caledonian crows. 1. But experts haven’t been able to make sure where the crows pick up their skills. A bird in one area can construct the same tool as another bird miles away — but there’s no evidence bird one watched bird two build the gadget in order to copy it. And New Caledonian crows don’t really have a language, either.
2. Jelbert and her team had a hunch(预感) that it was because the birds were building based on the memory of tools they’d seen.
To test this, the group trained eight crows to place pieces of paper into a pseudo-vending machine (really just a wooden box) to get a treat. 3. Once they learned which sizes were rewarded, Jelbert and her team then gave the feathered participants large cards; the birds could fashion these into the coin sizes they’d picked up on earlier. Importantly, the crows didn’t get any sort of template(模板) when they were working with the big cards. And the birds snipped them into pieces that were similar in size to the coins they’d learned would get them treats.
Given the lack of a template to copy, it seems the crows were able to construct mental images of the coins and use it to replicate a tool. 4. These birds can see something and not just build it from memory, but potentially make improvements in their designs. “Most importantly,” the authors say in the study, “an improvement made by a crow during its lifetime could become part of the template learnt by subsequent generations, leading to an increase in tool complexity over time.” And this progression is a key component of cultural progression.
Jelbert and her team recognize there’s still work to be done to see if their hypothesis is solid, like testing how long the crows can remember their mental images of the tools.
A. So if they’re not building by imitation or carrying out instructions, how is this knowledge getting passed around?
B. Crafting tool is a kind of culture, which can be passed down from generation to generation by crows.
C. However, the crows only got treats when they popped in a paper “coin” of a certain size.
D. These birds, native to the islands of New Caledonia east of Australia, are known for their ability to craft tools.
E. Seeing this in action is important because it supports the idea that New Caledonian crows are capable of building — at least when it comes to crafting tools.
F. Jelbert and her team then gave the crows paper to let them cut into proper size.
Recently, a coalition of business and advocacy groups from around Washington gathered to kick off a campaign to enact a carbon pricing program in the capital. Known as the Climate and Community Reinvestment Act of D.C., the plan would place a new tax on all fossil fuels bought or sold, with the hope of ultimately discouraging the use of these polluting energy sources.
The big-picture goal of this campaign is admirable: to address the ever-deepening crisis of humanity-driven climate chaos by dissuading the continued use of coal, oil and gas, the filthy substances rapidly warming our planet. But unfortunately, the approach — one based in a world of financial markets, trading schemes and enticing new public revenue streams — is deeply and inherently flawed. Simply put, carbon pricing is a false solution to climate change and a distraction from real, effective climate solutions we must urgently pursue.
To date, there is scant(不足的) evidence to indicate that carbon taxes lower greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, the opposite is true. Recently Food & Water Watch reviewed the British Columbia carbon tax program, often cited by advocates as an example of success. From 2009 (the first full year of the tax) to 2014, emissions from taxed sources grew by 4.3 percent. And in the seven years after the carbon tax took effect, total gasoline sales increased by 7.37 percent.
Supporters of such plans like to focus on a deceivingly simple notion that increasing the price of a consumer good will automatically reduce its use. But this just isn’t the case when it comes to the purchase of necessities. People must heat their homes in winter, and they must commute to work, regardless of the cost.
Those backing the D.C. carbon pricing plan like to note that revenue from the new tax would go toward investment in clean energy sources. But only 20 percent of the generated funds would be allocated in this manner. The rest would be divvied(分摊) up in tax breaks for businesses and rebates(回扣) for consumers, another factor undercutting the notion that increased costs up front would change consumer behavior in the long run.
Meanwhile, fossil fuel giants such as ExxonMobil are increasingly coming out in support of carbon pricing. This should be cause for alarm for anyone concerned with stamping out the use of the dirty energy sources these corporations profit from. Exxon knows that carbon taxes will do little to change the business-as-usual dependence on oil and gas that it relies on to continue operating and enriching shareholders. Furthermore, corporations such as Exxon rightly view carbon pricing schemes as a means of diverting energy and interest from tougher regulations that might actually encroach on(侵犯) their business plans and bottom lines.
Despite what many well-intentioned activists and community leaders want to believe, there is no convenient, market-friendly solution to our dire climate condition. There is only the hard truth that we must tackle the problem at its source: We must stop using fossil fuels, and soon. The latest science indicates that in order to avoid the worst effects of deepening climate chaos, society must transition completely to clean, renewable energy by 2035.
1.Food &Water Watch found that _______ .
A.carbon taxes could limit greenhouse gas emissions
B.taxing carbon emissions did not reduce pollution
C.carbon emissions grew at a lower rate than gasoline sales
D.British Columbia carbon tax program achieved lasting effect
2.Which of the following is true, according to Paragraphs 4 and 5?
A.Consumers will use less of a good when its price increases.
B.Carbon taxes will benefit the development of clean energy.
C.Increased cost will do little to change the use of necessities.
D.The dependence on fossil fuels will decrease automatically.
3.Fossil fuel giants _________.
A.are expressing dissatisfaction with carbon pricing schemes
B.are reducing their dependence on dirty energy sources
C.view clean renewable energy as their future source of profits
D.see carbon pricing as distraction from tough rules against them
4.The most suitable title for this text would be __________.
A.The Carbon Tax Fallacy(谬论) B.The Climate Change Myth
C.The Call for Clean Energy D.The Causes of Climate Chaos
Recalculating the global use of phosphorus(磷), an important fertilizer element of modern agriculture, a team of researchers warns that the world's stocks may soon be in short supply and that overuse in the industrialized world has become a leading cause of the pollution of lakes, rivers and streams.
Writing in the Feb. 14 edition of the journal Environmental Research Letters, Stephen Carpenter of the University of WisconsinMadison and Elena Bennett of McGill University report that the human use of phosphorus, primarily in the industrialized world, is causing the widespread eutrophication of fresh surface water. What's more, the minable global stocks of phosphorus are concentrated in just a few countries and are in decline, posing the risk of global shortages within the next 20 years.
"There is a finite amount of phosphorus in the world," says Carpenter, one of the world's leading authorities on lakes and streams. "This is a material that's becoming rarer and we need to use it more efficiently."
Phosphorus is an essential element for life. Living organisms, including humans, have small amounts and the element is crucial for driving the energetic processes of cells. In agriculture, phosphorus mined from ancient marine deposits is widely used to boost crop yields. The element also has other industrial uses.
But excess phosphorus from fertilizer that washes from farm fields and suburban lawns into lakes and streams is the primary cause of the algae blooms that destroy freshwater ecosystems out off kilter and degrade water quality. Phosphorus pollution poses a risk to fish and other water life as well as to the animals and humans who depend on clean fresh water. In some instances, excess phosphorus sparks blooms of toxic algae, which pose a direct threat to human and animal life.
"If you have too much phosphorus, you get eutrophication," explains Carpenter of the cycle of excessive plant and algae growth that significantly degrades bodies of fresh water. "Phosphorus stimulates the growth of algae and weeds near shore and some of the algae can contain cyanobacteria(蓝菌), which are toxic. You lose fish. You lose water quality for drinking."
The fertilizer fueled algae blooms themselves amplify the problem as the algae die and release accumulated phosphorus back into the water.
Complicating the problem, says Carpenter, is the fact that excess phosphorus in the environment is a problem primarily in the industrialized world, mainly Europe, North America and parts of Asia. In other parts of the world, notably Africa and Australia, soils are phosphorus poor, creating a stark imbalance. Ironically, soils in places like North America, where fertilizers with phosphorus are most commonly applied, are already loaded with the element.
Bennett and Carpenter argue that agriculture practices to better conserve phosphate within agricultural ecosystems are necessary to avoid the widespread pollution of surface waters. Phosphorus from parts of the world where the element is abundant, they say, can be moved to phosphorus deficient regions of the world by extracting phosphorus from manure, for example, using manure digesters.
1.The word “eutrophication” (Line 4, Para.2) most probably means __________ .
A.pollution B.excess of nutrients
C.increase of algae D.growth of bacteria
2.Which of the following is not correct about the use of phosphorous?
A.It is used in industry.
B.It is used to increase crop yields.
C.It is used to drive the energetic processes of cells.
D.It is used only in small amounts in living organism
3.According to the last paragraph, we learn that ________ .
A.Environmental problems exist only in the industrialized countries.
B.Agriculture practices should conserve phosphate within agricultural ecosystems.
C.Phosphorus can be created by using manure digesters.
D.Soils are not short of phosphorus in Africa and Australia.
