山东省德州市2023-2024学年高二上学期期末统考英语试题

A family cruise（乘船游览）offers a convenient and cost-effective alternative winter vacation. Here are appealing at-sea vacation ideas to consider this winter.

Tour Australia with Princess Cruises

For a faraway family vacation, consider exploring Australia aboard the Princess. Leaving on Dec. 17, the Princess will take passengers to the Whitsunday Archipelago and the Great Barrier Reef. And on the ship, little ones can enjoy a wide range of onboard activities, from dance classes to volleyball classes. In the evening, parents and their kids can enjoy kid-friendly movies.

Explore Asian Metropolises with Regent Seven Seas

Regent Seven Seas' ships take visitors to world-class destinations across Asia. Departing on Dec. 17, this 12-day cruise offers plenty of outdoor activities. Kids will enjoy the waterfalls of Miyazaki and the legendary street food scene in Hong Kong. As for onboard food, families can choose from a variety of dining options, from fast food to an Italian eatery.

Discover Patagonia with Seabourn

The amazing journey to Antarctica and Patagonia aboard the Seabourn Quest departs on Nov, 29, and includes a jam-packed agenda. Animal lovers can admire penguins, seals and other fascinating wildlife up close via daily Zodiac boat trips. Back onboard the ship, kids can take baths, watch shows, play board games and curl up with a book at the library.

Cruise to the Caribbean with Disney

Disney Cruise Line's four ships offer plenty of bells and whistles for kids. Besides, there are plenty of family-friendly stateroom category options that cater to budget-conscious families. Depart from Port Canaveral, on a four-night cruise aboard the Disney Dream for a fun adventure through the Bahamas, with stops in Disney's privately owned island.

Johannes Fritz, an Austrian biologist, needed to come up with a plan again if he was going to prevent his rare and beloved birds from going extinct.

To survive the European winter, the northern bald ibis needs to migrate south for the winter over the Alps. But shifting climate patterns have delayed when the birds begin to migrate and they are now reaching the mountains too late to make it over the peaks, locking them in an icy death trap. Determined to save them, he decided to teach the birds a new, safer migration route by guiding them himself in a tiny aircraft. He was confident that he could succeed in this daring, unconventional plan.

Some 400 years ago, the Europeans hunted these birds without stopping and devoured the last in the wild, causing the birds to disappear entirely from the wild. When Mr. Fritz was born 56 years ago, the northern bald ibis could be found in Europe only in captivity（圈养）.

Mr.Fritz has spent his career reintroducing the birds into the wild. Through years of trial and error, he learned to fly like a bird. He modified（改装）a lightweight aircraft so it would fly at speeds slow enough for the birds to keep up. In 2004, he led the first flock from Austria to Italy, and has since led more migrations. But the route he originally taught the ibises does not work successfully. With climate change warming the area where the birds summer, they now start their migration at the end of October instead of the end of September. The trip is expected to take about six weeks, "Still, we're optimistic that it'll work," said Mr. Fritz.

His family and colleagues witnessed the risks he was taking. "But the unavoidable risks are necessary," Mr. Fritz said. "It's not so much a job, but my life's purpose."

As you're drafting your New Year's resolutions, you may think that it takes 21 days of repeating an action for that action to become a habit. So, you set out to go to the gym for 21 days, thinking that by day 22 heading to the gym will feel automatic—maybe even fun.

However, that 21-day estimate isn't true. A habit expert Wendy Wood found that this falsehood came from a self-help book in the 1960s and actually described how long it takes to get used to your new appearance after plastic surgery. It's important to note that getting used to something is not the same thing as forming a habit, and perhaps the two concepts got confused along the way, giving rise to the term today.

To figure out how long it actually takes to form a habit, Phillippa Lally, and her team did a series of research.

They recruited 96 people and asked each person to choose one new habit and report each day on whether or not they did the behavior and how automatic the behavior felt. Some people chose simple habits like "drinking a bottle of water with lunch." Others chose more difficult tasks like "running for 15 minutes before dinner." At the end of 12 weeks, the researchers analyzed the data to determine how long it took each person to go from starting a new behavior to automatically doing it.

The study found that it takes more than 2 months before a new behavior becomes automatic—66 days to be exact. And if you want to set your expectations appropriately, the truth is that it will probably take you anywhere from two months to eight months to build a new behavior into your life. Interestingly, the researchers also found that "missing one opportunity to perform the behavior did not affect the habit formation process." That is to say, it doesn't matter if you mess up every now and then. Building better habits is not an all-or-nothing process.

So, for those who wish to form certain habits, persistence is king. To form a good habit, we need to pay more energy and effort.

The house had been cleaned and decorated elegantly. The air smelt fresh. Little labels on all we saw around the house displayed important details: date of purchase and the current selling price. We were at a garage sale. There was no talking or bargaining. Buyers could pick up at the listed price.

All efforts that release cash that is locked into stuff touch me deeply. If they break conventional ideas, I will like them even more. It is my view that people love to follow suit and end up with emotions they ought to feel, rather than being true to themselves. To say that one does not care for one's grandmother's necklace is considered rude, so one would simply keep it in the locker and pass it on to the next generation.

No longer so, I am guessing.

It's not always about money, but perhaps about considering one's choices. My argument always is to use stuff, if you like it so much. Wear those pieces of jewellery; use those pieces of furnitures; take home those piles of old-time bedsheets. But if none of them fit into your current home, allow someone else to take them home. Turn those properties over instead of leaving them unused.

Hoarding（囤积）is not a virtue. It is a waste of the money that is locked into the property you are hoarding. I may use it sometime in the future, say some. Give that a time frame. If you are holding something you haven't used even once in five years, ask yourself if someone else may need it. Don't sell if you don't care for money; but do give it away.

All else needs to earn their place for their value and usefulness for you. Celebrate the liberation from hoarding and let there be light!

In our ever-evolving world, where both personal and professional areas are loaded with challenges, problem solving skills are increasingly valuable in the workplace.Here's how to enhance your strategy.

Clear and brief communication is the key to effective problem-solving, acting as the bridge that connects diverse perspectives toward a common goal.It involves choosing the right words, structuring information logically, and being mindful of the audience to ensure that your message is both impressive and comprehensible. Active listening, on the other hand, is the skill of receiving information. It includes not just hearing words but understanding the underlying messages.

To foster creativity, individuals must engage in activities that stimulate their imagination and encourage new perspectives. Have free-flowing brainstorming sessions that allow for the exploration of diverse ideas without immediate judgment. Additionally, exposing yourself to different fields promotes creative solution.

Mistakes are not failures but valuable stepping stones on the path to mastery.Analyse what went wrong, identify areas for improvement and use this knowledge to inform your future problem-solving efforts. Creating a culture that opens the eyes of mistakes within a team or organization encourages an environment where individuals feel comfortable admitting errors.

The journey to becoming a skilled problem solver is an ongoing process of growth and improvement.Remain curious and open to acquiring new knowledge and skills that are directly applicable to your problem-solving attempt. That ensures you stay ahead of evolving challenges and acquire the skills needed to navigate an ever-changing landscape.

Furthermore, participating in industry events, joining professional associations and connecting with mentors can offer insights that enrich your problem-solving skills.

Filkin's Drift, a band of two in UK, have been highlighting sustainability（可持续性）in their latest tour along the coast of Wales. The tour1 over 40 shows along the 870-mile path, which started in Flintshire on Sept. 3 and2 on Oct. 31 in Chepstow.

At one point, because of bad weather, the tour was3 temporarily. When Filkin's Drift was prepared to start touring again, they found too much of their time was spent in a car4 in traffic jams, which wasn't very good for the5 , or mental and physical health.

So Bye and Roberts,6 of the band, decided to walk their tour along the coast of Wales. They walked between stops for the rest of their tour, carrying the7 and just enough clothing to walk and8 each day. Along the way, they collected songs, stories, and tunes to make their performances9 . Also, the band raised money for a charity to10 this mission.

They shared their experiences of the walking tour11 in videos on their website blog, hoping to12 other musicians and the music industry as a whole to approach touring in a more sustainable way. They have shown that a tour on foot is13 , discovering that the music industry, as well as others, could also learn to reduce the  14 for vehicles.

Today, Filkin's Drift15 a growing number of artists and industry professionals working to spotlight sustainability and the environment in their work.

Flowers, birds, figures and landscapes seem to jump out of the pictures on the walls of craftsman Hao Ruxiang's workshop. From a（distant）, these pictures appear to be fine paintings. Yet, up close, they resemble sculptural art, with a three-dimensional feel.

It is buhu painting,was named a national cultural heritage by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism in 2014. It originatedthe traditional folk art of the Manchu ethnic people, who would use needle and thread to create patterns asapproach to mending boots, hats and clothing for（practice）and artistic purposes.

Through decades of efforts, Hao and his family have helped buhu painting to evolve,（combine）the essence of numerous traditional crafts. "We got an inspiration from cloisonne（景秦蓝瓷器）, glued gold threads along the edges of flowers,created a better visual effect." Hao explains, adding that many techniques （apply）in the art are all coming from practice.

To date, Hao（explore）many innovative techniques of her own, and managed to deliver beautiful examples of the art. However, her focus has been on broadening this art form to ensure better development, because she believes machinery cannot（full）replace manual work.

注意：1.词数应为80左右；2.请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答.

When I was young, I lived in a small town. The spirit of neighborliness was very strong then. All of us were quite poor by today's standards, but we got by.

However, one family which could be considered as living a marginal（微不足道）existence was the Acob family living in the repair shop opposite our house. Mr. Acob, the auto mechanic, had a large brood of children-twelve to be exact. The joke among the neighbors was that he was aiming to form a football team among his children. However, seriously speaking, it was no joke for him trying to feed his growing children daily.

My mother was a kind-hearted soul. Often, she would remark that his children were dressed in ragged clothes and looked malnourished（营养不良的）. My family was relatively better off in the village. My mother would bring over whatever food we could spare to our neighbors. I remember one particular year when times were very hard. The economy was doing very badly. There and then, Mom still decided to sacrifice a portion of our meals to the family. Despite the protests from my brothers and sisters that we too were hungry, she kept on doing the kind act.

I shared a room with my brothers overlooking the repair shop. I was interested in the repair of cars and would often stare out of the window to see Mr. Acob hard at work. As the street in front of my house was rebuilt into a main road, I noticed Mr. Acob looked more cheerful. The number of customers at his shop had increased steadily. His business took off like a rocket.

It was at this time that my father's business took a turn for the worse. And his health was also becoming worse. We were at our wits' end, confused by the mysterious illness he was suffering from. My father then decided to sell our family car to pay off the mounting bills, or my brothers and I had to stop schooling.

注意：1.续写词数应为150左右；2.请按下列格式在答题卡的相应位置作答.