When early humans killed a mammoth, how did they keep the meat before they could eat it all? We don’t know; maybe they didn’t. But perhaps they preserved their mammoth steaks in salt. However, it is hard to know for sure. We do know for certain that by 3,000 years ago, the Babylonians, Egyptians, and Chinese were all experts at salting. They used salt to preserve food.
For thousands of years, salting was a common way to preserve food. But for a long time, no one knew why salt worked. Then, in the 1800s, a Frenchman named Louis Pasteur discovered the secret: bacteria. What does salt have to do with bacteria? First, bacteria need moisture to grow and multiply. Salt pulls moisture out of food, so the bacteria no longer have enough moisture. Besides, salt is poisonous to many bacteria. If you cover food with salt, bacteria outside the food die before they get in, and bacteria already in the food are poisoned by the salt.
So how do you preserve food with salt? For meat or fish, you pour on a layer of salt, then rub it in well. Hams are often made this way. Another way is to alternate layers of food and salt in a big container. The salt will draw the moisture out of the food, creating a brine that the food sits in. You’ll need to make sure the brine completely covers the food; any food left exposed to the air will spoil. If you preserve cabbage this way, you’ll make sauerkraut.
How well salt preserves food depends on how much is used. The more salt, the longer the food is preserved. Unfortunately, using enough salt to preserve food for a very long time can cause problems. It can make food tough. It can destroy flavor. And, of course, it can make the food too salty to eat, which is harmful to our health.
Today, even though we no longer rely on salt to keep our food fresh, we haven’t lost our taste for salt. We don’t want to give up our bacon, salami, and watermelon pickles!
1.Why are examples of the ancient people mentioned in the first paragraph?
A.To make an introduction to the topic.
B.To explain our ancestors were very clever.
C.To tell us the ancient people had a lot of food to eat.
D.To show the ancient people were good at preserving food.
2.Which of the following will the author probably agree with?
A.If you want to make a ham, you should keep it in a brine.
B.If you want to make sauerkraut, you’d better pour on a layer of salt and rub it.
C.To keep our food longer, you should put as much salt on the food as possible.
D.People needn’t give up salty food completely as long as they control the amount.
3.What’s the author’s purpose in writing the text?
A.To explain how the ancient people preserve food.
B.To tell us how salt works in preserving food.
C.To persuade people to give up salty food.
D.To introduce the way of preserving food with salt.
If you’ve ever taken a handwritten prescription(处方) from a doctor, it seems that you can never make sense of the letters. Bad handwriting almost seems like a requirement for graduating medical school.
However, it’s not like only people with bad handwriting are attracted to the medical field. Ruth Brocato, MD, primary care doctor with Mercy Medical Center says she went from winning a handwriting award in grade school to having totally unreadable handwriting now. So why?
For one thing, doctors have to write more than just about any other job. Long days plus tons of writing equals a very tired hand. Most doctors’ handwriting gets worse over the course of the day as those small hand muscles get overworked, says Asher Goldstein, MD, pain management doctor with Genesis Pain Centers. If doctors could spend an hour with every patient, they might be able to slow down and give their hands a rest. But the fact is, most physicians are rushing around to the next patient. With so many patients to see in a limited time, doctors are more concerned with getting the information down than perfecting their handwriting.
The jargon (术语) that doctors deal with also lends itself to bad handwriting. For instance, QD is shorthand for a Latin phrase meaning “one a day” and TID means “three times a day.” Your pharmacist would know exactly what your doctor meant, but you’d probably just write it off as chicken scratch.
Now, doctors are moving toward electronic medical records to cut down on errors. No studies have looked into whether the yearly death rate from wrong prescriptions has gone down, but doctors agree there’s less chance for errors.
Of course, typing everything isn’t perfect either. There’s still the possibility of entering, say, 30 instead of 300. While we’re all for electronic medical records, we’ll write by hand whenever we can. Now, learn about these secrets hospitals don’t want to tell you—but every patient should know.
1.How many reasons are mentioned in the passage to explain why doctors are likely to have bad handwriting?
A.One. B.Two.
C.Three. D.Four
2.Which of the following statements is true?
A.Only people with bad handwriting are attracted to the medical field.
B.Most doctors’ handwriting gets better over the course of the day.
C.QD is shorthand for a Latin phrase meaning “three times as day”.
D.There is less chance for errors by using electronic medical records.
3.What’s the author’s attitude towards handwritten prescriptions?
A.Supportive. B.Disapproving.
C.Indifferent. D.Concerned.
4.What’s the best title for the passage?
A.No time left for doctors to write well.
B.Secrets that hospitals don’t want to tell you.
C.Reasons why most doctors have bad handwriting.
D.Errors reduced by using electronic medical records.
Looking at his beautiful green lawns, Ed Adams can’t help smiling – thanks to a bit of bravery and a lot of hard work, he’s now enjoying the life that is just a fantasy for most of us.
Five years ago, Ed and his wife Laura, along with their three children, moved from their narrow house in the city to the a much larger and more peaceful property in the country. Having grown up on a farm, Ed, a video producer, longed for a more rural lifestyle. Then, in 2016, a new job came up for Ed in the US. They were about to set off when the whole deal was canceled. Although disappointed, it inspired them to buy a new home in rural north Buckinghamshire.
Soon, the whole family moved to their new home, Church End Cottage. They also came up with a plan to turn some of their extra space into an attractive home hotel to increase their family income, which meant lots of building work to create two extra guest rooms.
Besides, with all the building work, the garden had become a mess. To get it back into shape, he had to reseed all the lawns. In time the lawns grew back, but Ed admits keeping them clean and tidy is a big job, especially on top of his daily commute to work in London and the responsibilities of running the home hotel.
Now, there comes a cutting-edge robotic mower. Rather than spending hours working up and down, he is delighted to find he can relax himself while the mower does all the hard work. For Ed, who also has a dog and keeps chickens, the biggest attraction is being able to get so much time back. He says: “Instead of spending boring hours pushing the mower, I can take time to plant the flowerbeds or help out with the hotel. It also means I can spend more time with the kids.”
1.What does the word “bravery” in paragraph 1 refer to?
A.The decision to move to a rural area. B.The decision to open a home hotel.
C.The chance to move to the US. D.The dream of living in a rural area.
2.Why did they decide to open a home hotel?
A.They wanted to serve guests.
B.They wanted to add to their income.
C.They wanted to make full use of their space.
D.They wanted to have more people in their house.
3.What can we infer from the last two paragraphs?
A.Ed finds it easy to keep the lawns tidy.
B.Ed is completely running the home hotel now.
C.The robotic mower can do the work by itself.
D.With the help of the robotic mower, Ed can do fewer other things.
假定你是李华，你的英国朋友Robert看了BBC纪录片《杜甫》后，发来一封邮件，询问中国人对杜甫的看法。请你回复邮件，内容包括：
1. 最伟大的诗人；
2. 著述颇丰；
3. 心怀百姓。
注意:
1. 词数100左右；
2. 可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。
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假定英语课上老师要求同桌之间交换修改作文，请你修改你同桌写的以下作文。文中共有10处语言错误，每句中最多有两处。每处错误仅涉及一个单词的增加、删除或修改。
增加:在缺词处加一个漏字符号 (∧)，并在其下面写出该加的词。
删除:把多余的词用斜线 (＼) 划掉。
修改:在错的词下画一横线，并在该词下面写出修改后的词。
注意:
1. 每处错误及其修改均仅限一词；
2. 只允许修改10处，多者(从第11处起)不计分。
I still remember that cold day when Chris and I go skating on a lake. While enjoying ourselves, I suddenly noticed something unusual. The ice broke and at the moment. I warned Chris to take care, he slipped into the lake. I was too frightening to know what to do. I cried for help anxious. Hearing my cries, a young man rushed over, jump into the lake to save Chris. At last, he was out of the water and we immediately sent him to the near hospital. After short while, Chris’ parents arrived. They expressed their thank to the young man. How a respectable man!
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。
Dear world, here is why you should care about astronomy. It’s true that its advances benefit millions of people across the world. It has developed technology now to track where your 1. (pack) goes, to determine where you are and so 2..
But all of these are mere second thoughts, 3. (benefit) that have occurred without the primary intention of the maker. And that is 4. makes astronomy beautiful. To study something - not because we’re looking to gain anything in particular, but purely 5. (enjoy) natural wonders - 6. (be) all that makes us human. Doing work for the work itself creates room for mindfulness and joy.
I 7. (firm) believe that astronomy has a spiritual dimension in the sense of how it connects us with something bigger than ourselves. Because 8. astronomy, we now know exactly when the Universe 9. (come) into existence. And we’ve spotted thousands of planets orbiting other stars. It has explained mysteries (神秘的事物) 10. (confuse) us for thousands of years, but even more significant, it has opened up more mysteries than any of us can study in our lifetime.
