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."