阅读下面短文，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。
Hidden beneath the ocean waters and often1.(call) the " rainforests of the sea", coral reefs(珊瑚礁)are some of the most diverse ecosystems on Earth, with perhaps one-quarter of all ocean species relying on reefs for 2. (survive). Being home to countless sea3.(creature), coral reefs are important ecosystems for coastal people, too. It is estimated4. coral reefs contribute billions of dollars to world economies annually, 5. (provide) food, protection of shorelines, and jobs.
Unfortunately, coral species are being 6. (severe) threatened, many of which7.(destroy) by pollution, overfishing practices, and other impacts over the past centuries. Climate change, which results in rising ocean temperatures and ocean acidification(酸化)，8. (be) the most pressing threat to coral reefs now. High water temperatures cause corals to lose the algae(海藻) that provide them with food, 9. makes the corals appear white or bleaching (白化)and can increase outbreaks of infectious disease.
A team of researchers are trying to develop super corals at their research center at the moment. They began by selecting certain coral species that seem to have adapted. to the changing ocean conditions better 10.others. Hopefully, the super corals will not only survive but thrive in the warmer and increasingly acidic oceans.
Music is something I could never live without. As a little kid, singing my heart out and trying out for the school play really made me_______. There was nothing that could keep me away from my_______until high school.
Every eighth grader who wanted to be in the high school show choir _______the audition(试唱) for a program. When it was my_______to enter the room, I got very_______----my throat was dry and my heart raced. The audition_______1L like this, the introduction, the song of choice and the range check—the choir director played a note on the piano which I had to_______. Before I knew it, the audition was over. I felt nothing but_______, for the vibrato(颤音) was amazing and I also hit every_______.
Weeks passed and the list of who had made it into the show choir was posted. When I was ________the show choir list, I found my name.________, this wasn’t what I had expected. “Angelica—alternate(候补者).”
An alternate? Was my audition that________? I thought to myself. After I saw this, my________disappeared. My outside showed I wasn't________but on the inside my whole world had broken up. I had no ________of taking the show choir at all.
A year later, one day I was at a restaurant that held karaoke to the customers. My parents begged me to go up and sing. I said no at first but finally I got enough________ to go up. It made me ________ at the beginning, but I started off my song and gained more confidence as I continued. When I hit the high notes in “I know I'm not the only one”, the people eating cheered for me. I________I hadn't got into one program but that did not mean I had to give up all hope, and that I________had that passion. The lesson I learned was if you are ________or do not get the outcome you want, and it is something you're in love with, don't give up.
1.A.stressed B.quiet C.confused D.happy
2.A.adventure B.curiosity C.passion D.sympathy
3.A.attended B.held C.passed D.abandoned
4.A.duty B.privilege C.habit D.turn
5.A.calm B.touched C.nervous D.angry
6.A.ended B.went C.occurred D.changed
7.A.match B.take C.learn D.review
8.A.guilt B.relief C.regret D.pain
9.A.note B.target C.post D.wall
10.A.drawing up B.handing in C.taking down D.looking through
11.A.Otherwise B.Therefore C.However D.Instead
12.A.familiar B.terrible C.impressive D.natural
13.A.patience B.imagination C.independence D.confidence
14.A.sad B.cool C.serious D.grateful
15.A.wisdom B.chance C.intention D.impression
16.A.courage B.knowledge C.luck D.permission
17.A.march B.relax C.sweat D.complain
18.A.doubted B.realized C.promised D.advocated
19.A.just B.yet C.even D.still
20.A.laid off B.turned down C.looked down upon D.made fun of
The Best Way to Stop Bad Information
A lot of misinformation about a disease can sometimes flood the Internet and experts call on the public to practice "information hygiene(卫生)".What can you do to stop the spread of bad information?
1.Before you forward it on, ask some basic questions about where the information comes from. It's a big red flag if the source is" a friend of a friend" or "my aunt's colleague's neighbor."
We recently tracked how a misleading post from someone's "uncle with a master's degree" went viral (病毒式地传播)．Some of the details in the post were accu rate—some versions, for example, encouraged hand washing to slow the spread of viruses. 2.That was potentially harmful.
Could it be false? Appearances can be misleading. They may possibly pretend to be official accounts and authorities, including some famous news agencies and the government. Screenshots can also be changed to make it look like information has come from a trusted public body.3.If you can't easily find the information, it might be a trap. And if a post, video or a link looks fishy -it probably is.
Don't share if unsure whether it's true. 4.You might be doing more harm than good. Often we post things into places where we know there are experts like doctors or medical professionals. That might be OK, but make sure you're very clear about your doubts.
Think about your preference. Are you sharing something because you know it's true or just because you agree with it? "We're more likely to share posts that support our existing beliefs," says Carl Miller, research director of the Centre of the Analysis of Social Media. It's when you're angrily nodding your head that you are easily taken in.5.
A.Check your source.
B.Consider their opinions carefully.
C.Check known and confirmed accounts and websites.
D.You can't forward things on "just in case" they might be true.
E.But others made unproven claims about how to diagnose the illness.
F.So, above all, you just need to slow down everything that you do online.
G.Your followers read what you share, after all, but they may disagree with you.
Walls blanketed in moss(苔鲜)are popping up in major cities, along with promises that they can reduce air pollution—but can a few square metres of plant matter really deal with the smog?
A Berlin-based firm, Green City Solutions, believes so. Its moss walls, called the CityTree, are roughly 4 square metres in size. Armed with Wi-Fi sensors to monitor the health of moss, a City Tree functions autonomously and requires very little maintenance(维护). The wall collects rainwater, which is pumped through a built-in irrigation system to the plants, powered by solar energy. As a result, the firm says each CityTree is able to “eat” around 250 grams of particulate(颗粒) matter a day (nearly 90 kgs a year) and removes about 240 metric tons of CO2 annually. It also cools the surrounding air.
Aware that getting the surrounding air in contact with the moss wall is crucial for the CityTree to be effective, the inventors ensure that the location of each installation (安装) is chosen carefully. Spots where pollution is heavy due to traffic and where air flow is limited are picked. The importance of this step is explained by the fact that the waste gas from a car generally goes vertically a few kilometres into the air.
But this doesn’t mean moss walls will necessarily protect people from pollution. In the Netherlands, researchers found that eight walls installed in Amsterdam failed to reduce the concentration of particulate matter (PM) and nitrogen dioxide (N02). Their report concluded that even doubling the number of moss walls would do little to improve their effectiveness.
The CityTree is not meant for parks or to substitute for street trees, but to add greenery to concrete-heavy spaces where planting is not an option. It’s important to remember that street trees provide a whole host of other benefits, including shelter and habitat for urban wildlife, shade and cooling for people on the street, and reduction of urban heat islands.
1.What do we know about the CityTree?
A.It can absorb some air pollutants. B.It can irrigate other street plants.
C.It produces electricity to cool water. D.It is aimed at saving water in cities.
2.What is Paragraph 3 mainly about?
A.The importance of CityTree.
B.The function of CityTree.
C.How to operate CityTree.
D.Where to place CityTree.
3.Why is the example of Amsterdam mentioned in Paragraph 4?
A.To show that CityTree can’t always work well.
B.To prove that CityTree can reduce air pollutants.
C.To emphasize the necessity of building moss walls.
D.To analyze the reasons for the failure of the program.
4.What is the author’s attitude towards replacing street trees with moss walls?
A.Ambiguous. B.Disapproving.
C.Supportive. D.Cautious.
Tired of standing in line? Wait a bit longer, and you may never have to again. Everyone from Amazon to Silicon Valley startups is trying to lines in retail stores.
Amazon has opened 24 of its Amazon Go stores, which use cameras and artificial intelligence to see what you've taken off shelves and charge you as you walk out. Some startups are closely copying Amazon's approach to using AI-powered cameras fixed in ceilings. But others are trying an entirely different way to skip the checkout: smart shopping carts. These companies have added cameras and sensors to the carts, and are using AI to tell what you’ve placed in them. A built-in scale weighs items, in case you have to pay by the pound for an item. Customers pay by entering a credit card, or through an online payment system. When a customer exits the store, a green light on the shopping cart indicates that their order is complete, and they’re charged.
The startups behind the smart carts, including Caper and Veeve, say it’s much easier to add technology to the shopping cart than to an entire store. Amazom's Go stores rely on hundreds of cameras in the ceiling. The shelves also include sensors to tell when an item is removed. Ahmed Beshry, co-founder of Caper, believes the technology to run Go is too expensive to use in a large format grocery store. Neither Caper nor Veeve have said how much their smart shopping carts will cost, making it difficult to compare the different formats. Shariq Siddiqui, CEO of Veeve, said he’s finding increased interest from retailers given Amazon’s steady expansion of Go since opening the first store in Seattle in 2018. “We’re always happy when Amazon is doing something,” Siddiqui said. “They force retailers to get out of their old school thinking.”
Each time a business uses artificial intelligence and cameras, it raises questions about customer privacy and the impact on jobs. Beshry notes that the cameras in his shopping cart point down into the cart, so only a customer’s hand and part of their arm will be captured on camera.
1.What do we know about the smart shopping carts?
A.They are linked to the cameras fixed in the ceilings.
B.They can tell customers where to find what they want.
C.They flash the green light when the order is cancelled.
D.They are able to recognize purchases placed in them.
2.What does Beshry think of the technology applied in Amazon’s Go stores?
A.It is far more expensive than their shopping carts.
B.It may increase the cost of running a store greatly.
C.It has attracted many more retailers than before.
D.It is likely to help retailers to think differently.
3.What is the best title for the text?
A.The New Technology Promotes Retail Sales
B.AI-powered Cameras Are Used in Retail Stores
C.Smart Shopping Carts Will Let You Skip the Line
D.Artificial Intelligence Affects the Future Job Market
Sharon Okpoe has lived her entire 17 years in Makoko, known as the world’s largest “floating slum (贫民窟)”, built on a lake in Lagos, Nigeria. Okpoe’s father is a fisherman, and her mother sells smoked fish.
As many as two-thirds of the city’s 21 million residents live in slums. “Most girls are trapped in a terrible cycle of poverty. Many of them are not thinking of education, a plan for the future,” Abisoye Ajayi-Akinfolarin, a computer programmer in Lagos, recalls. But several times a week, girls like Okpoe get a glimpse of another world when they attend GirlsCoding, a free program run by the Pearls Africa Foundation that seeks to educate and excite girls about computer programming. Since 2012, the group has helped more than 400 disadvantaged girls gain the technical skills and confidence they need to transform their lives.
It’s the vision of Ajayi-Akinfolarin, who left a successful career to devote herself to this work. She'd noticed how few women worked in this growing field-a 2013 government survey found that less than 8% of Nigerian women were employed in technology jobs. She wanted to fix the gender gap. “Technology is a space that’s dominated by men. Why should we leave that to guys?” she said. “I believe girls need opportunities.”
Now, dozens of girls aged 10 to 17 get trained in computer programming technology. “I believe you can still find diamonds in these places,” Ajayi-Akinfolarin said. “They need to be shown another life.” One way her program does this is by taking the students to visit tech companies — not only showing them what technology can do, but also helping them visualize themselves joining the industry.
Okpoe, for one, has taken this to heart. She helped create an app called Makoko Fresh that went live this summer, enabling fishermen like her father to sell seafood directly to customers. She even wants to become a software engineer and hopes to study computer science at Harvard. “One thing I want my girls to hold onto is, regardless of where they are coming from, that they can make it,” Ajayi said. “They are coders. They are thinkers. Their future is bright.”
1.What can we learn about GirlsCoding?
A.It encourages girls to land a job in education.
B.It offers Nigerian girls in need part-time jobs.
C.It helps girls working in Lagos to fight poverty.
D.It teaches girls in Makoko computer programming.
2.What did Ajayi-Akinfolarin say about the growing field in Paragraph 3?
A.Men could do far better in technology jobs.
B.Girls should get equal work opportunities.
C.Men normally got paid more than women.
D.Girls tended to devote themselves to work.
3.What does the underlined word “this” in Paragraph 4 refer to?
A.Rebuilding the girls’ confidence.
B.Training the girls to find diamonds.
C.Presenting a different life to the girls.
D.Taking the girls to technology companies.
4.What can we infer about Okpoe from the last paragraph?
A.She got fishermen to benefit from her app.
B.She was admitted to Harvard University.
C.She took her father’s suggestion to heart.
D.She made some changes to computer science.
