相关试卷

Whenever I tell people that I teach English at the Berlin Zoo, I almost always get a questioning look. Behind it, the person is trying to figure out exactly I teach…the animals?

Around seven years ago, zoo keepers mostly (speak) in German but since June 2017, right before the (arrive) of the two new pandas, Meng Meng and Jiao Qing, I have been helping the panda keepers at the zoo to feel more comfortable and confident speaking English. And who do they speak English to?

Not the pandas, even though the language (use) for the medical training instructions is actually English. They talk to floods of international tourists and to (visit) Chinese zookeepers who often come to check on the pandas, which are on loan from China. They also need to be ready to give (interview) in English with international journalists. This is they need an English trainer.

So, what are they learning? (basic), how to describe a panda's life. It's been honor to watch the panda programme develop and to see the pandas settle their new home. As a little girl, I wished to be a zookeeper when I grew up. Now, I'm living out that dream indirectly by helping the panda keepers do their job in English.

Her career in helping the sick began when her elder brother David became her first2. He fell down from the roof of a house when Clara was just 11 years old. She stayed by his side and3 him for three years.

When the Civil War began, she immediately recognized that the4 soldiers needed help.5 waiting for others to step in, Clara collected necessary things on her own. She also asked the public for donations and learned how to6 them to soldiers.

After the Battle of Cedar Mountain in northern Virginia, Clara arrived at a field hospital at7 with a vehicle full of supplies. A doctor named Paul Smith at that hospital later said8, "I thought heaven had sent out an angel that night. Her9 appeared exactly at the right time."

She successfully10 the American Red Cross and led the organization for the next 23 years. Her last field11 as president of the American Red Cross was to help the12 of the 1900 Galveston hurricane. She did not13 from the American Red Cross until she was 83. True to her14, Clara always went to where the need was the greatest.

Today, with the help of volunteers, the American Red Cross provides relief to people suffering from disasters, as well as helps people15, prepare for and respond to all sorts of emergencies.

If you are reading this article in print, chances are that you will only get through half of what I have written. And if you are reading this online, you may not even finish a fifth. They suggest that many of us no longer have the concentration to read articles through to their conclusion.

So are we getting stupider? Actually, our online habits are damaging the mental power we need to process and understand textual information. Round-the-clock news makes us read from one article to the next without necessarily engaging fully with any of the content. Our reading is frequently interrupted by the noise of the latest email and we are now absorbing short bursts of words on Twitter and Facebook more regularly than longer texts. But we are gradually forgetting how to sit back, think carefully, and relate all the facts to each other.

A desperate bunch of academics want us to take our time while reading, and re-reading. They ask us to switch off our computers every so often and rediscover both the joy of personal engagement with printed texts, and the ability to process them fully. What's to be done then? Most slow readers realize that total rejection of the web is extremely unrealistic. They feel that getaway from technology for a while is the answer. Personally, I'm not sure whether I could ever go offline for long. Even while writing this article, I am switching constantly between sites, skimming too often, absorbing too little. Internet reading has become too rooted in my daily life for me to change. I read essays and articles not in hard copy but as PDFs. I suspect that many readers are in a similar position. You can download a computer application called Freedom, which allows you to read in peace by cutting off your Internet connection. Or if you want to avoid being disturbed by the Internet, you could always download offline reader Instapaper for your iPhone. If you're still reading my article, that is slow reading.

A. The Internet is probably part of the problem.

B. Now some campaigns are advocating slow reading.

C. These are the two findings from the recent research projects.

D. But if you just occasionally want to read more slowly, help is at hand.

E. Some of them have suggested turning their computers off for one day a week.

F. Slow reading can help connect a reader to neighborhood and become popular.

G. Because of the Internet, we have become very good at collecting information.

Technology and sport are tightly linked, but controversy and debate arise when technology enhances athletic performance, sometimes called "technological doping (兴奋剂)." This refers to using functional clothing or equipment to gain an unfair advantage.

Unlike drug doping, monitored by an international agency, legal clothing and equipment are decided by each sport's organizers. It's up to these organizers to put in place technical requirements for equipment use in their sport and enforce these requirements. But there's no standardized rules across sports to disqualify an item based on its degree of enhancement, cost or exclusivity (排他性). Consequently, decisions to ban an item from competition are often made retroactively.

At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, 94% of swimming gold medals were won by athletes wearing the Speedo LZR Racer swimsuit, engineered to reduce drag. It was worn by athletes who set 23 new world records. Many labeled it technological doping, so World Aquatics later banned full-body swimsuits from competitions.

Similarly, in running race, Nike's tailored shoe for Eliud Kipchoge, helped him achieve a sub-two-hour marathon in 2019. Its commercial version, Nike Vaporfly, led to numerous long-distance world records. These super shoes feature energy-returning midsole foam, a curved rigid plate, and a shape that rolls a runner forward, improving running economy by 4% on average. Other brands have since released super shoes, but some research suggests they don't match Nike Vaporflys in performance. Differences in access to the best equipment have long been a source of inequality in sport, worsened by technological doping, where brand exclusivity and high costs limit access.

Andy Miah, a professor at the University of Salford, believes this technological race is natural in sport. "Resisting technology in athletics may be fruitless, as athletes' performances are a combination of biological capability and technological training." Miah says, "In fact, being a genius athlete is a very unnatural way of life — but that doesn't make it bad."

"Our large study did not find evidence for a protective effect of vegetable intake on the occurrence of CVD (cardiovascular disease)," said Qi Feng, an epidemiologist at the University of Oxford, in a statement.

While the study found eating raw veggies could protect against heart disease, cooked vegetables did not. Any benefit went away when researchers factored in lifestyle factors such as physical activity, educational level, smoking, drinking, fruit intake, red and processed meat consumption, and use of mineral and vitamin supplements.

"Instead, our analyses show that the seemingly protective effect of vegetable intake against CVD risk is very likely to be influenced by differences in socioeconomic situation and lifestyle," Feng said.

Don't start celebrating yet, veggie haters. Experts in the UK and United States quickly took exception to the study's conclusion.

"Although this study found that eating more vegetables wasn't associated with a lower risk of heart and circulatory diseases once other lifestyle and other factors were taken into account, that doesn't mean we should stop eating vegetables," said Victoria Taylor, a senior dietitian at the British Heart Foundation, in a statement.

"The results are not surprising. Picking out one single component and assuming just adding it to the diet, e.g., vegetables, is not likely to result in the desired effect," Alice Lichtenstein, director and senior scientist at Tufts University's Cardiovascular Nutrition Laboratory, told CNN in an email.

"One thing that has become clear over the past decade is that we should not be looking at single foods or nutrients, but rather the whole dietary pattern," said Lichtenstein.

I have spent a lot of time studying the ways the human body gives and they provide more reliable information than the words we speak. The words say one thing but the body may say something completely different. We know that crossed arms can be seen as either defensive or aggressive (攻击性的), but what about facial expressions, postures and gestures? All of these say a lot and can only be understood if you know how to make sense of the signs.

Business companies always need my services and I try to improve their confidence by teaching them about body language. I give advice about handshakes, which should always be firm and steady, and I teach the importance of personal space. They may seem like small matters, but these codes of behaviour can be the key to making or breaking a business deal.

My working life gives me a great deal of satisfaction. I feel that I'm providing a public service, but it is a service that has had its downside. Whenever I meet someone new and I tell them what I do for a living, they immediately put their guard up and they're no longer relaxed. They quite literally freeze in the attempt to hide all the signals that they think I'm reading. It makes life difficult at times, but I consider it a small price to pay for a job I enjoy so much.

Helping the butterflies

Organizers of the initiative created educational courses in English and Spanish explaining the butterflies' annual traveling and their trouble. The signs also outline ways travelers can help the butterflies recover, such as by supporting chemical-free farms and planting native nectar (花蜜) gardens.

Why butterflies fly to the California coast

Many stops in Pismo State Beach Monarch Butterfly Grove and Andrew Molera State Park, are overwintering sites where, from October to February, travelers can see thousands of butterflies gathering in forests in areas with mild temperatures.

Other sites, like the San Luis Obispo Botanical Garden and Avila Valley Barn, grow flowers that provide sugary, high-calorie food for the butterflies to eat. Butterflies settling here demonstrate how vital nectaring plants are to their survival.

How to explore the Western Monarch Trail

The butterflies' behavior varies at different times of day and depending on the weather. In the mornings, while temperatures are still cool, step out of the cottage in the Fernwood Resort where you stay overnight, you'll find many butterflies hanging together on the branches and trunks of trees at the overwintering sites. As the day starts to heat up — typically by late morning or early afternoon — you'll be amazed at the phenomenon "sunburst" — the butterflies start flying around in search of nearby nectar. Keep your eyes skyward. Don't grab your camera. Just be in the moment.