Location
St Helena is one of the remotest islands on Earth. The subtropical (亚热带的) British Overseas Territory sits in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean, 1,200 miles from the west coast of Africa and 1,800 miles from the east coast of South America.
Size Population
St Helena is only 16 km long and 9 km wide and the population is 5,
000. This is 1/3 the size of the Isle of Wight, and the same size as Disney World Orlando. This is also the same size as San Francisco―yet the island has just
0.5% of San Francisco's population. With an extremely low-crime community, you can freely explore the island's natural and built attractions in peace.
Climate
As a subtropical island, St Helena's temperature is 15-28℃ all year round. While the four seasons are not recognized on St Helena, the "cooler months" are generally June to September and the "hotter months" are December to March. St Helena is free from extreme weather events, with even thunderstorms only occurring perhaps once a decade.
Accessibility
Until 2017, St Helena did not have an airport and was only accessible by sea. Reaching the island meant a five-day ship voyage from Cape Town, South Africa. However, since October 2017, the island's first and only airport has enabled passengers to reach the island in just a six-hour flight.
About 30 years ago, an acoustic neuroma（听神经瘤） was found inside my body. The removal of the neuroma caused my temporary balance issues and permanent hearing loss in one ear. Apart from this, I was fine.
Unexpectedly, the neuroma came back years later. It had to be removed again. Otherwise it would threaten the rest of my brain. When I awoke from the second operation, I had stroke-like symptoms. The whole right side of my body almost stopped functioning, and still does.
Overnight my whole identity had changed. I used to effortlessly leap up the stairs two at a time, but now it takes fifteen minutes to struggle. Attempts at the recovery of the old me proved to be fruitless. My family role also shifted from a father to a dependent child, and coupled with my communication problems, this led to increased frustration（沮丧）and anger.
There were concerns too about whether I would ever be accepted again in the wider world. Soon after this I just managed to swim in a pool. A ten-year-old boy I didn't know came up and asked me if I had been on the water slide yet. As politely as possible, I said no, and we struck up a conversation about it. For the first time a stranger was speaking to me as an equal like before. Though insignificant then, it opened doors to a whole new way of being seen, and seeing myself.
To make sure the neuroma did not reappear, I received radiation treatment for two hours regularly, during which I loved listening to music by Tom Waits, an eccentric（古 怪的） singer most people dislike, but I don't care. For me, life after brain injury is like Waits'odd works. Out of failure, ugliness, and horror-the most unpromising raw material-a beautiful diamond can be created that shines out even more brightly because of its dark surroundings.
The world of underwater slumber is unlike what we see on the surface. For mammals (哺乳动物), a good night's sleep sends an animal into a state of unconsciousness (无知觉) during hours of restorative sleeping that helps heal the body and solidify memories firmly in the mind. For fish, however, sleep isn't such a well-defined process. Instead, many fish species have taken to spending short periods in a state of reduced activity or rest while keeping their eyes open to scan the water for potential threats. During these periods of reduced activity, a fish's bodily functions slow down and its watchfulness drops.
The breadth of animals in the ocean that exhibit this type of reduced activity is wide-reaching. Among the hundreds of thousands of creatures in the sea, some merely ride along with the current, such as jellyfish. Others find rocky bedrooms for the night, while those such as stingrays bury themselves in the sand to rest. However, it must be really hard to get a good night's sleep when you breathe air but live in water. This is something that the world's underwater mammals have to deal with.
To prevent themselves from drowning (溺死) in their sleep, underwater mammals such as dolphins and manatees have developed the ability to "turn off" one side of their brain to rest, known as unihemispheric sleep. While one side is fast asleep, the other keeps all the animal's vital functions running, such as breathing. Manatees, for example, love to sleep, spending up to 12 hours a day in a deep slumber. However, as air-breathing animals, manatees need to surface every 20 minutes or so for oxygen. To achieve this, the half of the brain that's still awake sends the sleeping manatee to the surface to get some air.
Sonia Kleindorfer was a new director of the Konrad Lorenz Research Center in Austria. At her institute, Konrad Lorenz was a famous Austrian zoologist who could correctly name each kind of goose, which made Kleindorfer feel a certain amount of pressure. "I can do five, but when the next five come, I start to have a mental meltdown," she says. So she contacted a more technically-minded colleague and asked him: Could he write a program to distinguish these faces?
He said, yes, but he'd need a database of geese photos to work with. Kleindorfer got her team out there, snapping pictures of the geese from every angle. After building the database, they wrote a piece of facial recognition AI that could ID a goose, by looking at specific features of its beak (喙). After a couple of years, the team reports that their goose recognition software is now about 97% accurate.
"Geese have such drama—there are archrivals (劲敌), and jealousy and retribution (报答)," Kleindorfer says. To find out how faces figured into this drama, she presented the geese with full-sized pictures of themselves, their partners, or another member of the flock. She showed evidence that geese seemed to recognize photos of their partners and friends, but not themselves. For further study, Sonia Kleindorfer hopes birdwatchers will someday be able to snap a picture of a goose, ID it, and share its location with scientists. But she adds, just remember, her new research suggests that bird watching goes both ways: Geese can remember faces too. "If you are ever not kind to a goose," she warns, "that goose may find you again."
Kleindorfer thinks that facial recognition is going to play a really important role in conservation and ecology. "We need more computer scientists trained in behavioral ecology and we need more conservation scientists trained in computer science," she says. "But working together, I think we can do this."
Reading is an exercise for the mind. It is good for our vocabulary and literacy skills, teaching us math or science concepts and helping us learn history. Have you read a story and felt tears well up because of a character's suffering? If so, that is because you have empathy (共情) for the character. Empathy is a magic eye that sees into other people's hearts and it can be learned through various fictions.
Research shows that human brains react differently to stories and facts. Many more areas of your brain light up when you're enjoying a story, and your brain thinks you are in the story. .
Empathy helps you to read people's emotions and work out the best way to respond. This skill, called emotional intelligence (EI), can make it easier to communicate and connect with people. One study found that people who read the Harry Potter novels, which tell stories about humans fighting against the evil, were less likely to behave unfairly towards powerless groups including refugees (难民).
After reading The Boy at the Back of the Class, a story about a boy who is a refugee escaping from the war, students in St Michael's High School were inspired to do a 10-mile walk for the non-profit organization Refugee Action. Their empathy also stimulated them to raise £1,000 for people who were forced to leave their homes because of war.
Reading encourages us to empathise with others, which could potentially lead to several beneficial outcomes. Not only are we more likely to engage in helpful behaviors when we feel empathy for other people, but others are also more likely to help us when they experience empathy. .
A. Apart from those, reading has another benefit.
B. In a way, all this increases our ability to read well.
C. This theory of EI has been put into practice in schools.
D. This permits people to understand the emotions that others are feeling.
E. This means you experience the characters' thoughts as if they were real.
F. Research shows that building this intelligence can lead to greater tolerance.
G. For society to develop, communicative and empathetic individuals really matter.
John, 69, wanted to retire from running his small-town grocery store. However, he didn't want to 1 his local community without a grocery store to shop at. He was facing a dilemma (困境).
John's parents opened the store in 1940, and John 2 it over in
1985. When the store first opened, it was one of four grocery stores in town. Now, it's the last one 3 . Since there was no one in his family who could continue running it, John 4 selling it and put the store on the 5 three years ago. Although he got some interest, no 6 came in. 7 , he pulled the store off the market, as he worried that whoever bought the building might not continue the grocery store, which would make life harder for people in the community — especially those without 8 to a vehicle.
Then last summer, Elizabeth, who grew up in a nearby town, 9 John with an idea. She offered to raise money to buy the store, with the goal of 10 it into a sustainable social enterprise. Thus, Elizabeth turned to local residents and people 11 . Local residents, as well as people with 12 to the town, donated.
In a matter of months, the community 13 half a million dollars, which was enough for them to 14 the property and renew the store.
John, for his part, is 15 that his family's legacy (遗产) will live on, and the residents will still have a local place to shop for fresh food.
As the world's longest man-made canal, the Grand Canal is a vast waterway system in the north-eastern and central-eastern plains of China, (run) from Beijing in the north to Zhejiang province in the south.
The Grand Canal is a magnificent hydraulic (水利) project in human history. (construct) in sections from the 5th century BC onwards, it was completed in 611 AD due to the (establish) of Sui Dynasty and it reached a new peak in the Yuan Dynasty, linking five of China's main river basins. (original), it was built to transport grain and later (ship) other commodities.The regions along the canal gradually developed into the trade center of China it was considered as the economic artery (动脉) in ancient China. It also helped the evolution of Chinese culture enhancing communication between the south and the north.
The Grand Canal represents the (great) masterpiece of hydraulic engineering in the history of mankind. It is outstanding example of human creativity. Still a major means of internal communication today, it (play) an important role in ensuring the economic prosperity and stability of China over the ages.
When something that's important to you disappears, don't be hopeless. It may miraculously (奇迹般地) come back sooner or later. I learned it on one winter day.
It was one of those busy days. Especially, I had lots of clothes to wash. and Karen, my four-year-old kid, kept following me, pulling my shirt and crying for attention. I was annoyed. To stop her troubling me and make her quiet, I searched the drawers in the bedroom and found-a bag of forgotten balloons. "Yellow," she said with joy.
The balloons were the gifts for her that her uncle had bought abroad. These balloons were of good quality and very unique, unable to be found at least in our small town. Among the balloons, the yellow one was Karen's favorite. And there was only one yellow balloon. She viewed it as her best friend and even signed her name on its surface.
After I blew the balloon up, she cheerfully took it with tiny fingers, touching it and telling it her secrets. Immediately. her attention was attracted.
After lunch. we prepared to go to the local public clothes-washing shop. Before long. I was ready. Carrying her yellow balloon. Karen followed me into oat car. On the way, she was singing and had fun with the balloon. She kept beating the balloon against the back of the car seat. As I turned the corner, trying to keep my attention on my driving, I felt a sudden, big wind blow across my feet. I called out at once, "Karen! Close the window. It's cold out!"
And then I heard her frightened scream. In a hurry, I looked over my shoulder, expecting to see some terrible insects that led to her being frightened. But there wasn't one. Karen was looking out of the window. both arms reaching out, as if to get something. And she cried, "Balloon, balloon. Come back! Come back!" Then. she turned to me, calling out, "Mom, please stop the car! My balloon has escaped."
注意：
1. 续写词数应为150左右;
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
"Alright, "I said and slowly pulled over.
While walking in the park, we suddenly found a yellow balloon flying over a tree.
