相关试卷

As a teenager, I was pretty lazy when it came to doing things for my family. I found myself refusing to 1  out at home with even the simplest things. 

Every Wednesday afternoon, for example, my mother 2  me to another town for a piano lesson. During my two-hour lesson, she' d rush to the nearby store and buy a week' s worth of 3  . Given the fact that my mom had driven me twelve miles there, twelve miles back, and 4  for my lesson, you' d think I' d be very 5  to help her bring the groceries into the house. But I wasn' t. I generally just brought in an armload and left the rest for Mom as I ran to my room and shut the door. 

Don' t get me wrong. Back in my room, I felt 6  about not helping my mother more. Deep inside, I wanted to change my 7  . But I also realized that once I took on more responsibility, my parents would start 8  more from me. At age fifteen, I sensed that this one small change would mark something much bigger: my personal change from a spoiled(宠坏的) child to a more 9  young man. 

I' ll never forget the Wednesday when I made a(n) 10  to try and see what would happen. Returning home from the lesson I disappeared into my room, as usual. But once inside, I felt that deep and burning 11  . Throwing my school books on the bed, I suddenly opened my door and 12  back to the garage to help my mother. How happy I felt that day! Surely, over time, I continued to help out with more housework. The more I helped out, the 13  I felt about myself. As Mom and Dad realized they could 14  on me more, our trips became far less stressful, too. 

Sometimes the little things we put off doing for the longest time 15  out to be simplest things to complete. Feeling happy beats feeling guilty any day. 

If something that you' re doing doesn' t challenge you, then it doesn' t change you. We all need some normal stress in our lives, after all.  So challenge the following limits:

⒈Figure out what you' re scared of and do it continuously. 

If you' re a salesman, and you' re scared of talking to people personally or over the phone now, instead of being scared and thinking you' ll fail, spend at least five minutes a day to pick up the phone and make a call.  But don' t stop on the first try! Eventually, you can look at fear in the eye and say, " Go on. I' m not scared! " 

⒉  

Make sure this hobby is not linked to your career; you have to relax and relieve your stress while performing this. Some examples might be cooking, sewing, painting and so on. Apart from helping you challenge yourself, taking a class for your hobby may also give you extra income. 

⒊Set aside at least nine minutes a day for physical exercise. 

  A simple 9-minute run around your neighborhood can do wonders for yourself. Exercise can not only help you maintain your regular weight, but also make you feel better about yourself. 

⒋Travel and allow yourself to be interested in new people. 

Don' t just limit yourself to your fellow travelers, try to connect with the service staff. You never know what kind of people they' re going to be. Get out of your house or go online to book your ticket right now. 

A. Someone may hang up on you. 

B. You should do it continuously. 

C. You don' t need to go to the gym. 

D. Running in the gym may be a better choice. 

E. Start to travel now and learn to challenge yourself. 

F. Take a class for a hobby you' ve been wanting to develop. 

G. You can never see any improvement if you stick to your comfort zone. 

What comes into your mind when you think of British food? Probably fish and chips or a Sunday dinner of meat and two vegetables. But is British food really so uninteresting? Even though Britain has a reputation for less-than-impressive cuisine, it is producing more top class chefs who appear frequently on our television screens and whose recipe books frequently top the best seller lists. 

It' s thanks to these TV chefs rather than any advertising campaign that Britons are turning away from meat-and-two-veg and ready-made meals and becoming more adventurous in their cooking habits. It is recently reported that the number of those sticking to a traditional diet is slowly declining and around half of Britain' s consumers would like to change or improve their cooking in some way. There has been a rise in the number of students applying for food courses at UK universities and colleges. It seems that TV programmes have helped change what people think about cooking. 

According to a new study from market analysts, 1 in 5 Britons say that watching cookery programmes on TV has encouraged them to try different food. Almost one third say they now use a wider variety of ingredients (配料) than they used to, and just under 1 in 4 say they now buy better quality ingredients than before. One in four adults say that TV chefs have made them much more confident about expanding their cookery knowledge and skills, and young people are also getting more interested in cooking. The UK' s obsession (痴迷) with food is reflected through television scheduling. Cookery shows and documentaries about food are broadcast more often than before. With an increasing number of male chefs on TV, it' s no longer " uncool" for boys to like cooking. 

All the wisdom of the ages and all the stories that have delighted mankind for centuries are easily and cheaply available to all of us within the covers of books. The most unfortunate people in the world are those who have never discovered how satisfying it is to read good books. 

Reading is the pleasure of the mind, which means that it is a little like a sport: your eagemess and knowledge and quickness make you a good reader. Reading is fun, not because the writer is telling you something, but because it makes your mind work. Your own imagination works along with the author's or even goes beyond his. Your experience,compared with his, brings you to the same or different conclusions, and your ideas develop as you understand his. 

Every book stands by itself, like a one-family house, but books in a library are like houses in a city. Although they are separate, together they all add up to something. They are connected with each other and with other cities. Books influence each other, they link the past, the present and the future and have their own generations, like families. Wherever you start reading, you connect yourself with one of the families or ideas, and in the long run, you not only find out about the world and the people in it but also you find out about yourself. to -. 

Reading can only be fun if you expect it to be. If you concentrate on books somebody tells you "you ought" to read, you probably won't have fun. But if you put down a book you don't like and try another till you find one that means something toyou, and then relax yourself with it, you will almost certainly have a good time and if you become, as a result of reading, better, wiser, kinder, or more gentle, you won't have suffered during the process. 

On September 7, 1930, Yuan Longping was born in Beijing. Fluent in English, his mother often read Friedrich Nietzsche's works to him. Influenced by his mother, Yuan Longping liked English, geography and chemistry at school. After graduating from university, he became a teacher in the countryside of Hunan in 1953. 

With lots of crop failures, nationwide hunger hit China in the 1960s, making many people live a bad life. Yuan was sad and felt he must do something. Since the climate in Hunan was not friendly to growing wheat. He decided to devote himself to studying how to increase the production of rice, a basic food for over 60 percent of Chinese people. From then on, he began a lifelong connection with rice. 

Yuan Longping succeeded in growing the world's first high production hybrid rice (杂交水稻) variety in 1973, which could reach a yield of over 500 kg per more than 200 kg than before. For the next four decades, he continued to work on the research of hybrid rice. In 2020, hybrid rice developed by his team achieved 1,500 kg per mu in two growing seasons, a new world record. 

Nowadays, the hybrid rice is grown in almost half of China's rice fields and its production accounts for 60 percent of the total rice production in China. The hybrid rice production is 20 percent more than the common kinds , the yearly increase of which feeds up to 100 million people. 

In 2019, Yuan Longping, known as the " Father of hybrid rice" , was awarded with Medal of the Republic, China's highest honor. 

Yuan Longping's biggest dream in life was to develop more hybrid rice varieties, which could be grown all over the world to help solve the global food problem. So far, the hybrid varieties he developed have been grown in over 40 countries, including the USA, Brazil and India. 

Middle School Laboratory Safety Rules

Science is about discovering and exploring the natural world. Explorations can happen in the classroom, laboratory or field. As part of your science lessons, you will take part in many activities using many different materials, equipment and chemicals, which can be dangerous if not used correctly. As a result, you may be faced with biological, chemical or physical hazards. 

Safety is THE MOST IMPORTANT thing. The following safety rules have been developed for the protection and safety of everyone. 

★Behave yourself in a responsible way at all times. Risky behavior-such as throwing things and doing experiments without teachers'  instructions is not allowed. 

★Eating, drinking, chewing gum, wearing make-up, touching contact lenses (隐形眼镜) or other unsafe activities are not allowed. 

★Do not enter or work in the laboratory unless an instructor is present. 

★Never enter areas where chemicals are kept. 

★Taking any chemicals or equipment away from the classroom or laboratory is not allowed. 

The safety rules must be followed at all times. Review these rules with your teacher and parents, then sign and get the signature (签名) of a parent. The signature shows that you understand the lab can be dangerous, and that you have read the rules and agree to follow them at all times. Signatures are needed before you can go on with any lab or science classroom activity. 

阅读下面短文，根据所给情节进行续写，使之构成一个完整的故事。

It was summer, and my dad wanted to treat me to a vacation like never before. He decided to take me on a trip to the Wild West.

We took a plane to Albuquerque, a big city in the state of New Mexico. We reached Albuquerque in the late afternoon. Uncle Paul, my dad's friend, picked us up from the airport and drove us up to his farm in Pecos.

His wife Tina cooked us a delicious dinner and we got to know his sons Ryan and Kyle. My dad and I spent the night in the guestroom of the farm house listening to the frogs and water rolling down the river nearby. Very early in the morning. Uncle Paul woke us up to have breakfast. "The day starts at dawn on my farm," he said. After breakfast, I went to help Aunt Tina feed the chickens, while my dad went with Uncle Paul to take the sheep out to graze (吃草). I was impressed to see my dad and Uncle Paul riding horses. They looked really cool.

In the afternoon, I asked Uncle Paul if I could take a horse ride, and he said yes, as long as my dad went with me. I wasn't going to take a horse ride by myself anyway. So, my dad and I put on our new cowboy hats, got on our horses, and headed slowly towards the mountains. "Don't be late for supper," Uncle Paul cried, "and keep to the track so that you don't get lost!" "OK!" my dad cried back. After a while Uncle Paul and his farm house were out of sight. It was so peaceful and quiet and the colors of the brown rocks, the deep green pine trees, and the late afternoon sun mixed to create a magic scene. It looked like a beautiful woven (编织的) blanket spread out upon the ground just for us.

注意：1. 所续写短文的词数应为150左右；2. 续写部分分为两段，每段的开头语已为你写好。

Paragraph 1:

Suddenly a little rabbit jumped out in front of my horse.

Paragraph 2:

We had no idea where we were and it was getting dark.

内容包括：1. 人物简介；2. 尊敬和爱戴的原因。

注意：（1）词数80左右；（2）可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。

Good morning, respected teachers and dear fellow students,

……

Thank you for your listening!

Wild animals are equipped with a variety of techniques to avoid becoming lunch for a much (big), toothier animal. The most well-known (method) include the classic "fight" and "flight", as well as "freeze".

A team of researchers wondered  closeness to people might influence those survival strategies.  (find) out, Blumstein and his workmates combined information from 173 studies of more than 100 species,  (include) mammals, birds, fish and so on.

It turns out that the animals react in a similar way to life among humans: they lose their anti-predator (躲避掠食者) characteristics. That pattern is  (especial) obvious for social species. This behavioral change is perhaps unsurprising when it's the result of domestication (驯化),  means training or adapting an animal to live in a human environment and be  (use) to humans.

Urbanization (城市化) alone leads  a similar change, though much more slowly. If the urbanization process  (help) animals better coexist with people, it can be to their benefit. But if it makes them weaker or easier to be hurt by their nonhuman predators, it can be a real problem.

Many children may be fond of animals, but few ever think of making the study of animals as their career. Even fewer will be1 by the whole world,2 the title of United Nations Messenger of Peace.

But one woman has3 all that. She has lived with chimps in the African forest for many years and made great4 . Jane Goodall's lifelong5 in animals began at an early age. By the age of 10 or 11, Jane6 going to Africa to live with animals. This was quite a strange dream in those days, as young girls didn't think of having such "wild" actions. But she was7 by her mother. She told her that if she really wanted something, she should work hard, take advantage of chances and never give up looking for a way.

When a close friend invited Jane to Kenya in 1957, she readily8 it. Within a few months of her arrival, she met the famous anthropologist (人类学家) Dr Louis Leakey, who soon decided that Jane was the 9 person he was looking for to begin a10 of wild chimps (猩猩) on the shore of Lake Tanganyika in Tanzania.

In the beginning, studying the chimps was not11 for her. The animals fled from her12 . With a strong13 , she searched the forest every day, trying not to get too close to the chimps too soon. Gradually the chimps became used to her presence.

In October 1960, she observed a chimp making and using14 to fish for termites (白蚁). This discovery threw light on the popular idea at the time that man was the world's only toolmaker. The longer Jane's research continues, the more it becomes obvious that chimps are very15 to humans.

Since the mid-1980s, Jane has been lecturing around the world to raise people's sense about environmental protection. "Let's live in the new age with hope, respect for all living things, understanding and love," she said.

"The calm before the storm" is a very familiar expression. It is usually used to describe a peaceful period just before a very stressful situation or a tense argument. They noted that before certain storms the seas would seem to become calm and the winds would drop.

But why is it often so calm before a storm? According to US website How Stuff Works, a calm period occurs because many storms, tornadoes and hurricanes draw in all the warm and damp air from the surrounding area. As this air rises into the storm clouds, it cools and acts as " fuel for the storm, like petrol in a car. "

Once the storm has taken all the energy it can from the air, it is pushed out from the top of the storm clouds and falls back down to ground level. So once it covers an area, it causes a calm period before the storm. 

 First count how many seconds there are between a flash of lightning and a clap of thunder, roughly three seconds equal one kilometer. A good judgement is that if your count is below 30 seconds, you should seek shelter straight away. 

However, due to the complexity of storm system, calm doesn't always go first. So, your best bet is to keep yourself updated with weather reports for any predictions regarding a coming storm in your area.

A. Science has given us the answer.

B. There is no definite answer to the question.

C. Weather reports sometimes cannot be trusted.

D. British sailors coined the phrase in the late l600s.

E. As the air declines, it becomes warm and dry, which is stable (稳定的).

F. The Weather Network has a tip for working out how far away a storm is.

G. That's the most reliable way to predict the next display of nature's temper.

One morning a few years ago, Harvard President Neil Rudenstine overslept. For this busy man, it was a sort of alarm: after years of non-stop hard work, he might wear himself out and die an early death.

Only after a week's leave—during which he read novels, listened to music and walked with his wife on a beach—was Rudenstine able to return to work.

In our modern life, we have lost the rhythm between action and rest. Amazingly, within this world there is a universal but silly saying: "I am so busy."

We say this to one another as if our tireless efforts were a talent by nature and an ability to successfully deal with stress. The busier we are, the more important we seem to ourselves and, we imagine, to others. To be unavailable to our friends and family, and to be unable to find time to relax—this has become the model of a successful life.

Because we do not rest, we lose our way. We miss the guide telling us where to go, the food providing us with strength, the quiet giving us wisdom.

How have we allowed this to happen? I believe it is this: we have forgotten the Sabbath, the day of the week—for followers of some religions—for rest and praying. It is a day when we are not supposed to work, a time when we devote ourselves to enjoying and celebrating what is beautiful. It is a good time to bless our children and loved ones, give thanks, share meals, walk and sleep. It is a time for us to take a rest, to put our work aside, trusting that there are larger forces at work taking care of the world.

Rest is a spiritual and biological need; however, in our strong ambition (抱负) to be successful and care for our many responsibilities, we may feel terribly guilty when we take time to rest. The Sabbath gives us permission to stop work. In fact, "Remember the Sabbath" is more than simply permission to rest; it is a rule to obey and a principle to follow.

Who is smarter? A human being or artificial intelligence?

The question swept the world last week when a Google-developed program called AlphaGo defeated the world top player, South Korean Lee Se-del, 4-1.

So, what comes next?

Some people have been arguing that artificial intelligence, or AI in short, will be a bad thing for humans. In an interview with the BBC in 2014, UK scientist Stephen Hawking warned that "the development of full artificial intelligence could mean the end of the human race."

So are we really about to live in the world shown in the Terminator movies?

"Not quite," answered The Economist. After all, it's not hard to get a computer program to remember and produce facts. What is hard is getting computers to use their knowledge in everyday situations.

"We think that, for the human being, things like sight and balance（视觉平衡）, are natural and ordinary in our life." Thomas Edison, founder of Motion Figures, a company that is bringing AI to boys, told the newspaper. "But for a robot, to walk up and down just like human beings requires various decisions to be made every second, and it's really difficult to do."

As The Economist put it, "We have a long way to go before AI can truly begin to be similar to the human brain, even though the technology can be great."

Meanwhile, John Markoff of The New York Times said that researchers should build artificial intelligence to make people more effective.

"Our fate is in our own hands," he wrote. "Since technology depends on the values of its creators, we can make human choices that use technology to improve the world."

On February 20, 2021, Jasmine Harrison, who's from England, without lots of experience in rowing long distances, became the youngest woman to row alone across the Atlantic Ocean. It took her 70 days, 3 hours and 48 minutes to reach the end of the journey.

Every year, rowers taking part in the Atlantic Campaign set off from the Canary Islands and row about 3,000 miles across the Atlantic. Some do the rowing in teams of two, three, or four. Others, like Ms. Harrison, row by themselves. Every day, Harrison would row for about 12 hours, pushing her 550-pound boat across the ocean. On her journey, Ms. Harrison said she survived just on cookies and chocolate. When asked what she was looking forward to the most, she said, "Food. Definitely food."

Harrison had a satellite phone that allowed her to talk with her family and friends every day. But the journey still left her with a lot of time all by herself, which she said she enjoyed. But things got a little harder after her speaker fell in the water and she could no longer listen to her music. 

She had other company along the way. She saw several whales. For several days, she was followed by a small group of dolphins. "It's just amazing," she said. But there was danger, too. Twice, her boat turned over in the night by large waves, and she hurt her arm quite badly. Another time, she nearly ran into a ship. Somehow, she kept going. Finally, she was taking her first steps on land in over two months.

Ms.Harrison's trip didn't just set a record; it also raised over 18,500 pound for two charities (慈善机构): Blue Marine Foundation, which works to control overfishing, and ShelterBox, which helps people who have suffered from natural disasters.