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have yet to, be shocked at, consist of, suffer from, in the face of |
An earthquake is one of the most common natural disasters. It may cause great damage. So it is wise to learn some simple safety tips to protect yourself or your family members.
Fragile items like those made of glass are easily broken and should usually be placed on a lower surface, near the ground instead of placing them in the cupboards higher up. Never place them near your bed, sofas and other furniture where you would be sitting or lying down. When there is a strong movement, these pieces will fall on the floor directly and not on you.
There is a strong chance of short circuits (短路) and fire during an earthquake. Make sure you turn off electrical connections and gas immediately when an earthquake happens.
During an earthquake, lie beneath an object that is not easily damaged. Do not go near objects that could directly fall on you. Never use the elevator to go down. Stay inside until the shaking stops and it is safe to go outside. Research has shown that most injuries happen when people inside buildings try to go out. Use the staircases at all times.
If you are outdoors, do not take shelter under a tree, streetlights, electric poles or tall buildings. If you are driving, stop your car and stay in a safe place. Do not park your car under a tree or any tall object.
If trapped in debris (瓦砾堆), cover your mouth with a handkerchief or clothing. Tap on a pipe or the wall so that rescuers (营救人员) can find you. Use a whistle (哨子) if one is available. Never shout for help. Shouting can cause you to breathe in dangerous amounts of dust. Do not light a match because you may burn yourself. Do not move about or kick up dust.
In 2015, Chennai was destroyed by one of the worst floods in over a century, leaving thousands without food, water and supplies. During the flood, many heroes arose, one of whom was Santosh, a young man who owned a take-out restaurant in Chennai.
When the first flood hit in November, he got a call from a company called Naga Rava. The company asked him to prepare 5,000 packets of food and give them to the flood victims. He, with his partners, took the order, cooked for 14 hours and delivered (递送) them. But that night, as they sat together discussing the event of the day, they actually felt ashamed (羞愧). "Here was a man not even from Chennai and he was going out of his way to help the affected people. We, while living here, had not really done anything ourselves for our own people," said Santosh later.
He then began the groundwork for a collection to help cook more dishes. Little did he know that the November flood was just the beginning, and the real show was about to begin. The December flood affected them all. His own house got flooded and his family was trapped on the second floor. They lost phone connection and electricity. In spite of this, Santosh went back out into the flood, creating a kitchen and preparing food all by himself for the victims. He did not sleep for four days, taking a one-hour break every day as he kept on cooking. As word got out about this man's effort, others stepped out to join him. From children to the elderly, strangers came to help him in cooking, packing and transporting food. Up to 300 volunteers worked together to make it all happen. By the time the fourth day finally came to an end, Santosh and his team had prepared 170,000 food boxes and delivered them to people in need.
On the day the tornado hit, there was no indication that severe weather was on its way — the sky was blue and the sun bad been out. The first alert my husband, Jimmy, 67, and I, 65, got came around 9 p.m., from some scrolling text on the TV Jimmy was watching. He ran upstairs to find me in our third-floor bedroom, and we changed the channel from the presidential primary debate I had been watching to our local Pensacola, Florida, station.
No sooner had we found coverage of the tornado than it was on top of us. It was the loudest thing I have ever heard. The bones of the house shook, and the power went out. The wind began to roar through the house, most likely through blown-out windows and the door to our garage. We had three flights of steps to navigate to get to the relative safety of the first floor, because the cupboard down there is underneath a brick staircase.
I didn't know how or if we would make it down the steps. It felt as if there were no floor underneath me as the wind lifted me off my feet. I tried to move forward, but this intense pressure held me in place.
As we reached the last flight of steps, our front door blew out. Pieces of glass that looked like crushed ice flew everywhere. Suddenly, a three-foot-long tree branch crashed into the door frame. It flew over our heads, missing us by inches. Had we been one step up, it would have hit us.
By the time I reached the cupboard, the tornado had been over us for about a minute. Jimmy pushed me down to the cupboard floor, but he couldn't get inside himself because of the wind. I held Jimmy's arm and tried to bring Jimmy with it. My knees were full of glass, but at that moment, I felt no pain. If I had let go, Jimmy would have flown right out the back of the house and into the bay.
All of a sudden, Jimmy lifted off his feet like people in tornadoes do in the movies. I thought he was gone. And then everything stopped. He landed on his feet. In those first quiet moments, I couldn't believe it was over. Jimmy said he'd go outside to check. "No," I said. "Don't leave me. Don't leave me."
Our neighbor says the storm lasted four minutes. In that time, four of the twelve town houses in our unit were completely destroyed. Of the houses left standing, ours suffered the most damage. Amazingly, none of us were severely injured.
As people across the globe stay home to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus (新冠病毒), the air has cleaned up, although temporarily. Smog stopped choking New Delhi, one of the most polluted cities in the world, and India's getting views of sights not seen in decades.
Nitrogen dioxide (二氧化氮) pollution in the northeastern United States is down 30%. Rome air pollution levels from mid-March to mid-April were down 49% from a year ago. Stars seem more visible at night.
People are also noticing animals in places and at times they don't usually. Wolves have wandered along downtown Chicago's Michigan Avenue and near San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge. A lion walked leisurely on the streets of Santiago, Chile. Goats took over a town in Wales. In India, already daring wildlife has become bolder with hungry monkeys entering homes and opening refrigerators to look for food.
When people stay home, Earth becomes cleaner and wilder.
"It is giving us this quite extraordinary insight into just how much of a mess we humans are making of our beautiful planet," says conservation scientist Stuart Pimm of Duke University. "This is giving us an opportunity to magically see how much better it can be."
Chris Field, director of the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, gathered scientists to assess the ecological changes happening with so much of humanity without leaving home. Scientists, stuck at home like the rest of us, say they are eager to explore unexpected changes in weeds, insects, weather patterns, noise, and light pollution. Italy's government is working on an ocean adventure to explore sea changes from the lack of people.
"In many ways we destroyed the Earth system violently and now we see what Earth's response is," Mr. Field says.
I work as a meteorologist (气象学家) in Tampa, Florida. It's my job to follow hurricanes (飓风) and provide information about them to scientists.
I was working for the National Meteorological Office in Bracknell, near London, in the autumn of 1995, and I saw a documentary called Stormchasers with my family. Two months later I came across an ad for a meteorologist to work in Florida. I was interviewed over the phone, moved to the US, and started to work here in Tampa in May 1996.
I have been all over the world hunting hurricanes. It's exciting to end up in different cities and different countries day after day. If you are a meteorologist, you have to love flying. I also love working with top scientists. For me, it's like a classroom in the sky.
People often ask me what an average day is like. In fact, there's no such thing as an average day in my job! We often take off at a moment's notice to hunt storms.
Next, I would like to join a space program and be the first meteorologist in space.
There aren't any hurricanes!
If you also want to be a meteorologist, study math and science and get a degree in meteorology. I have taken the hurricane hunter path, but you could do research.
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A. I have learned so much from them. B. What I like most about my job is the travel. C. It's a wonderful job and the pay is pretty good. D. It all depends on the weather, and you can't control that. E. However, I haven't come up with an experiment to do in space yet. F. Because of the job, I'm away from my family who all live in the UK. G. It was about hurricane hunters and I thought, "Wow, that's an interesting job!" |
After having a child, I found my regular exercise interrupted. Not only was I busy, but I also lacked the motivation and ambition. Solo gym sessions or some quick1following the DVD while the baby slept didn't2me at all. So I decided to sign up for a hiking trip in Peru, hoping that it would get me3again.
Looking over my travel arrangements before I left, I4phrases such as "a 3-hour hike5primitive forests" and "slide with a rope down waterfalls", and I started to feel a little worried.
However, as we made our way through the forests and were6with amazing views of awesome waterfalls, this team of strangers7me to go on. Being physically active with a group motivated me to reach the8or the valley below — rather than simply lying down on the forest floor and giving up,9I might have done if I were alone.
Experts prove my experience: Group exercise can really start a new attitude toward fitness. "People get a better10in a group than they do on their own," said Allison Kimmel, a group11instructor. That's because other people 12both support and competition. "Humans are13animals and the shared experience of facing a challenge14is compelling (令人信服的)," said David Ezell, CEO of fitness provider Darien Wellness.
With the15of a group, I'm slowly getting back into a healthier lifestyle.
Jane Goodall was born in London in 1934. She became interested in animal stories when she was a very young child. She always dreamed of working with wild (animal). When she was eleven years old, she decided that she wanted (go) to Africa to live with and write about animals. But this was not the kind of thing young women usually did in the 1940s. Everybody was laughing except her mother. "If you (real) want something, you work hard, you take advantage of opportunity, you never give up, and you will find a way," her mother said to her. The opportunity (come) at last. A school friend invited her to Africa. Jane worked as waitress until she got enough money to travel there.
In 1957, Jane Goodall traveled to Africa. She soon met the well-known scientist Louis Leakey and began working for him as an assistant. He later asked her to study a group of chimpanzees (live) by a lake in Tanzania. Very little was known about wild chimpanzees at that time.
Jane spent many years studying chimpanzees this area of Africa. It was not easy work. They were very shy and would run away she came near. She learned to watch them from far away using binoculars (双筒望远镜). Over time, she slowly gained (they) trust. Watching the chimpanzees, she made many discoveries. They ate vegetables and fruit. But she found that they also eat meat. A few weeks later, she made an even more (surprise) discovery. She saw chimpanzees making and using tools to help them catch insects.
I walked into a restaurant and sat down at a table. I picked up a menu, trying to decide what to eat. "Excuse me. Is your name Roger?" asked someone, who touched me on the shoulder. I looked up and turned to the side to see a rather nice looking woman standing before me. "Yes," I replied, looking rather confused as I had never seen the woman before.
"My name is Barbara and my husband is Tony. He is from George High School," she said, pointing to a distant table near the door. I looked in the direction but I did not recognize the man who was sitting alone at the table, with a wheelchair around the corner.
"I'm really sorry. The name doesn't ring a bell," I said.
She turned and walked back to her table. She and her husband immediately began talking and once in a while looked directly at me.
I sat there, thinking hard and tried to remember who this Tony guy was. "I must know him," I thought to myself. "He recognizes me for some reason." I picked up my coffee and took a sip. All of a sudden, it came to me like a flash lightning.
"Tony THE BULLY (校园霸凌者). The bully of my seventh grade geography class," I said to myself. I turned around and faced in his direction.
How many times that guy had made fun of my big ears in front of girls? How many times he called me "four-eyed toad"? How many times he pushed me up against the lockers just to make himself look like a big man to all the other students?
He raised his hand and waved at me. I smiled, returned the wave and turned back and began to eat my breakfast.
"Goodness. He's so thin now. Not the big guy that I remembered," I thought to myself.
注意：
1）续写词数应为150左右。
2）续写部分分为两段，每段开头语已给出。
Paragraph 1:
All of a sudden I heard the sound of dishes breaking so I turned around to see what had happened.
Paragraph 2:
"Could you help me get into the wheelchair?" asked Tony.
