Since my early childhood, my parents have always told me to enjoy every part of my life, no matter how ordinary it may seem. Before the summer of 2005, I never thought there was anything _______ about living in Sugar Land, Texas. All I wanted was to _______ Texas.
For most people, spending three weeks in the Tuscan countryside is a(n) _______ vacation. It also _______ my family. During my first week abroad, I admitted I _______ the foreign atmosphere. A new language and culture _______ me. For those seven days, I was totally absorbed in becoming something I could never be—a(n) _______. It was almost as if I wished to _______ my own identity for something new that was not _______ to me at all.
At some point along the drive between Florence and Genoa, it ________ me: I didn’t want to throw away who I was for any ________ wonders. Italy was an attractive and impressive country, ________ I had no emotional connection with it. I ________ Sugar Land. From that moment on, all I ________ was to return home.
I think it’s ________ that I could never fall in love with my home until I left it. Now I ________ the everyday parts of my life in Sugar Land are really the most prized treasures in my heart. Now ________, I find all my time spent living in Sugar Land made me ________. Therefore, now I can ________ say that being a Texan is who I am, and there’s no way I can ________ that.
1.A.special B.certain C.disappointing D.ordinary
2.A.improve B.leave C.control D.ignore
3.A.adventure B.public C.annual D.dream
4.A.expected B.shocked C.attracted D.welcomed
5.A.sensed B.created C.needed D.liked
6.A.upset B.amused C.impressed D.discouraged
7.A.traveler B.farmer C.American D.Italian
8.A.abandon B.waste C.hide D.damage
9.A.rude B.related C.useful D.close
10.A.hit B.warned C.disturbed D.embarrassed
11.A.old B.foreign C.real D.potential
12.A.so B.and C.but D.or
13.A.rely on B.show off C.stand for D.belong to
14.A.desired B.remembered C.admired D.hated
15.A.inspiring B.terrifying C.interesting D.rewarding
16.A.prefer B.guarantee C.imagine D.understand
17.A.looking back B.checking up C.growing up D.fighting back
18.A.exist B.smile C.insist D.succeed
19.A.safely B.smoothly C.confidently D.warmly
20.A.spot B.change C.use D.lack
When is the last time you slept under the stars and cooked dinner over an open fire? You never know — you may just fall back in love with the great outdoors and turn it into an annual vacation!
Escape the busy city life
Why go camping? 1. Once your tent and campsite is set-up, you don’t have to worry about cleaning, laundry or any other tasks that seem to consume your everyday life. And it’s a chance for you to turn off the smart phone, computer and other electronics to just sit back and relax.
Gain a newfound appreciation for Mother Nature
2. From beautiful mountains to freshwater lakes ideal for swimming, you’ll have your pick of outdoor activities to engage in.
Quality time with friends and family
3. This will give your friends and family a chance to have some true quality time together whether it’s playing sports, cooking or simply talking to one another — without the usual distractions.
You can learn new skills
Living outdoors gives you the opportunity to learn some survival skills. 4. You may also learn how to protect yourself from mosquitoes and other insects, as well as experience how many material possessions you really can do without.
Camping is affordable
When it comes to budget vacations, a camping trip is one of the most economical choices for a family getaway. Groceries can be bought ahead of time and once you’ve settled into the campsite, there’s no need to worry about purchasing more food or buying souvenirs. 5. Happy camping!
A.Decide with whom you are camping.
B.Make it a rule to keep the electronic games at home.
C.You’ll likely manage to build a fire after a camping trip.
D.Planning a camping trip begins with the desire to get outdoors.
E.It gives you the opportunity to do nothing for a weekend or even longer.
F.There’s so much beauty in the outdoors and we rarely get the chance to appreciate it.
G.So if you’re looking for a trip that’s going to save money, get out there and set up that tent.
This year, German environmentalists collected 1.75 million signatures for a “save the bees” law requiring an immediate change toward organic farming. But to create healthy ecosystems worldwide, people in communities across the globe will need to take similar action based on sympathy for insects — and not only for bees and butterflies. The environmentalists presented immediate, science-based actions to slow down the insect decline.
“It takes specific law to preserve the amazing variety of insects in the world and we need to stop the destroying of natural habitats, limit road building in parks and reserves and produce food without the use of pesticides,” said Basset, an entomologist, “Conserving insects is not the same as conserving big animals or rare frogs. You can’t keep millions of insects in a zoo.”
A recent article in Entomology Today suggests that successful programs to save insects have a clear and simple objective and a strategically chosen audience. By focusing on bees and butterflies and other beautiful, familiar insects, it is possible to enact the law to protect the habitat of lesser known, less attractive, but equally important species.
But there are still huge gaps in information about how different species of insects are doing, especially in the tropics. “It is next to useless to weigh insects collected in an area and say that insect communities are increasing or declining.” Basset said. “We need much more specific information. That is expensive and difficult because of the effort that it takes just to identify the species, especially in the tropics. What we are doing now is to group insects by their main function, and then to determine how each group is doing in a specific area of the world.”
1.What should people do to protect insects according to the text?
A.Stop building roads in parks and reserves.
B.Open up more natural habitats.
C.Avoid using pesticides for crops.
D.Keep them in a zoo.
2.What can we learn from the successful programs to save insects?
A.They have set up laws.
B.They focus on specific species.
C.They conserve important species.
D.They protect the habitat of lesser known species.
3.What are the environmentalists doing now?
A.Classifying the insects.
B.Identifying the species of insects.
C.Doing research on insects’ function.
D.Weighing insects collected in an area.
4.What is the best title for the text?
A.Helping Insects Is Helping Ourselves!
B.Take Action! Insects Need Protection!
C.Save the Bees — They Need Your Help!
D.Insect Decline: Where Have All the Insects Gone?
In the summer of 2016, I gave a talk at a small conference in northern Virginia. I began by admitting that I’d never had a social-media account; I then outlined arguments for why other people should consider removing social media from their lives. The event organizers uploaded the video of my talk to YouTube. Then it was shared repeatedly on Facebook and Instagram and, eventually, viewed more than five million times. I was both pleased and annoyed by the fact that my anti-social-media talk had found such a large audience on social media.
I think of this event as typical of the conflicted relationships many of us have with Facebook, Instagram, and other social-media platforms. On the one hand, we’ve grown wary of the so-called attention economy, which, in the name of corporate profits, destroys social life gradually and offends privacy. But we also benefit from social media and hesitate to break away from it completely. Not long ago, I met a partner at a large law firm in Washington, D.C., who told me that she keeps Instagram on her phone because she misses her kids when she travels; looking through pictures of them makes her feel better.
In recent months, some of the biggest social-media companies, Facebook and Twitter, in particular, have promised various reforms. In March, Mark Zuckerberg announced a plan to move his platform toward private communication protected by end-to-end encryption (端对端加密); later that month, he put forward the establishment of a third-party group to set standards for acceptable content.
All of these approaches assume that the reformation of social media will be a complex, lengthy, and gradual process. But not everyone sees it that way. Alongside these official responses, a loose collective of developers that calls itself the IndieWeb has been creating another alternative. They are developing their own social-media platforms, which they say will preserve what’s good about social media while getting rid of what’s bad. They hope to rebuild social media according to principles that are less corporate and more humane.
1.Why did the author feel annoyed when his video was spread online?
A.His video caused many arguments.
B.His video was shared without his permission.
C.His talk was opposed by a large amount of people.
D.His video’s popularity on social media is against his talk.
2.Why does the author mention the story of his partner?
A.To prove that social media has some benefits.
B.To advise people to break away from social media.
C.To tell the negative effects social media may produce.
D.To describe people’s conflicted relationships with social media.
3.What is the purpose of the reform made by some social-media companies?
A.To attract more users.
B.To make more profits.
C.To improve network environment.
D.To provide more convenient service.
4.What does the IndieWeb intend to do?
A.Develop new social-media platforms.
B.Set up principles of the use of social media.
C.Improve the existing social-media platforms.
D.Help social-media companies to make reformation.
Once a month, I volunteer at a meal center to help serve food to people who are in need. Despite the many other things that I need to do, I really look forward to meeting and serving these people, even if only briefly. Although my motivation begins with wanting to help others and be grateful for what I have been given, it is joy that helps bring me back when I am very busy. I first noticed this some time ago: at the end of our shift, after the kitchen and dining room have been cleaned up, I would experience a lightness of being.
A few years ago, as I was researching how kindness affected health, I came to learn that volunteerism was associated with a markedly lower risk of dying. One recent and large European study found that self-reported health scores were apparently better in volunteers than non-volunteers. Depending on the study, the decrease in death rates ranged between 20 to 60 percent or so.
How could volunteering decrease the risk of death? There are several factors at play. The first, and most primary, is decreased symptoms of stress and uplifted mood. Many studies have provided evidence that volunteering is good for depression, well-being, and social networking, among other effects. Secondly, people who volunteer regularly also make more effort to take care of themselves. They manage to pay visits to their doctor for preventive health care. Finally, people who volunteer may be more physically active. Volunteers have an obvious increase in walking each day compared to those who did not volunteer.
To try to tie this together, volunteering likely exerts its positive health effects by connecting people to others and to an activity that they find meaningful. Achieving connection, purpose, and meaning is critical to reducing stresses of life — particularly loneliness. Since stress is a major cause of disease, especially heart disease, the ability to satisfy the need for connection, purpose, and meaning can bring about beneficial changes for people. And when there is purpose and we are connected to others, we take care of ourselves.
1.How does the author feel about doing a volunteer job?
A.Pleased. B.Tired.
C.Surprised. D.Annoyed.
2.What is the second paragraph mainly about?
A.A study on volunteerism.
B.The health scores of volunteers.
C.The relationship between kindness and health.
D.Volunteerism’s positive effect on volunteers’ health.
3.Volunteering decreases the risk of volunteers’ death mainly by ___________.
A.making them more physically active
B.making them visit doctors frequently
C.pushing them to take care of themselves
D.reducing their stress and uplifting their mood
4.What does the underlined word “critical” in the last paragraph mean?
A.Different. B.Equal.
C.Important. D.Contrary.
If you’re planning on hitting up a festival this summer, make sure you check out the latest packing guide to camping music festivals.
Quebec City Summer Festival
When: July 4-14
Where: Toronto, Quebec
300 shows, 10 places and 11 days of music make this festival one of Canada’s biggest music festivals. Every year, this festival attracts over one million festivalgoers to Quebec City’s historic district for concerts by international superstars and top new talent.
Center of Gravity
When: July 28-30
Where: Kelowna, British Columbia
Canada’s hottest beach festival is back! Now in its 10th year, the biggest and exciting festival to hit the Okanagan includes three days packed with extreme sports, sandy beaches, and some of the biggest DJ names in the world.
Future Forest
When: August 5-7
Where: Fredericton, New Brunswick
Future Forest is an outdoor camping festival with a focus on electronic music. The festival originated in 2012 as a fundraiser for a brilliant DJ, Jay Hamilton, who was diagnosed with cancer. Future Forest proudly shows the idea that there are no audience at the event but rather participants who in some way contribute to the overall experience.
Shambhala Music Festival
When: August 9-10
Where: Salmo River Ranch, British Columbia
This is Canada’s earliest electronic music festival. Cutting edge talent, lights and sound come together to give life to this event. Seeing it for yourself is the only way to understand exactly what is Shambhala.
1.What can people do in the Quebec City Summer Festival?
A.Do some extreme sports.
B.Play on the sandy beaches.
C.Learn about Quebec City’s history.
D.Enjoy the performances of superstars.
2.What was Future Forest set up for at first?
A.To honor a brilliant DJ.
B.To promote electronic music.
C.To raise money for a cancer patient.
D.To provide outdoor camping activities.
3.Which festival is Canada’s earliest electronic music festival?
A.Quebec City Summer Festival.
B.Center of Gravity.
C.Future Forest.
D.Shambhala Music Festival.
