Traveling by train can be a romantic way to see the world. Since it was one of the original forms of transportation worldwide, here are some fantastic train trips to add to your travel list.
Qinghai-Tibet Railway
Where it goes: Xining to Lhasa
Why not start with the world's highest train ride? The Qinghai-Tibet Railway climbs to great heights of over 16,000 feet as it snakes through the Himalayas. The wonderful 1215-mile journey only makes seven stops.
Eurostar
Where it goes: London to/from Paris
Eurostar is a popular way for folks to get from London to Paris, thanks to its quick travel time, but it has another attraction that makes it a great train trip. For 20 minutes, you will actually be riding150 feet underwater through the famous English Channel.
Trans-Siberian Railway
Where it goes: Moscow to Vladivostok
The Trans-Siberian Railway is another historically famous railroad that should be on your travel list. It is also the world's longest continuous railway. Along the way, you will pass through eight time zones and have plenty of time to see the beautiful Russian countryside.
Glacier Express
Where it goes: St. Moritz to Zermatt in the Swiss Alps
This train ride is a favorite among many , as it's the best way to experience the Swiss Alps. It's much more about the journey than the destination, and it gives new meaning to the term "slow travel", taking over seven hours to pass just 180 miles. But it's one of the most scenic train journeys out there, so the slow pace is welcomed.
Gilliam was born in Tupelo, Mississippi, in 1933 as the seventh child of eight to a father who worked on the railroad and a homemaking mother, He attended the University of Louisville for both bachelor's and master's degrees, but in 1962 moved to Washington, D. C, , where he lived and had his studio for the rest of his life. He became one of the leading artists of the Washington Color School--a1950s movement that attached great importance to large fields of color.
He was interested in freeing his paintings from the limit of canvases（ 画布） and frames. Instead, in his Drape works of the 1960s, he took unstretched canvases and hung them from ceilings or pinned（ 固定） them in great waterfalls to walls. Each time his work—part painting, part sculpture—was shown in an exhibition, it hung differently, never the same way twice.
In a 2018 Morning Edition profile, Gilliam explained that the intention behind his Drape work was "to develop the idea of movement into shapes"—and that he was inspired by laundry（洗衣店） hanging from a clothesline.
His work is represented in the collections of some of the world's most celebrated museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In 2015, he was awarded the U. S. State Department's Medal of Arts Lifetime Achievement Award.
In the 2018 Morning Edition profile, the then 84-year-old Gilliam said that he felt that he was in his prime, despite health challenges. "I've never felt better in my life. I stopped drinking. I stopped smoking. I live for this period of being in the studio and actually working."
The world produces around 359 million tons of plastics each year. Plastics are certainly a big problem, but they don't necessarily have to be. There are many ways we could set plastics on a different lifecycle. One that I have been working on is turning plastics into a hardy, reliable and sustainable building material.
Most people believe that plastics recycling is severely limited: only a few types can be recycled at all. This is not surprising. The proportion（比例） of plastics that are recycled is very small. But all polymers（聚合物） are recyclable from the technical level. Some of them can be used again and again to produce the same goods. Some can technically be processed again into new materials for different applications.
The problem is that recycling much of this plastic waste is not profitable at present. But the amount of these materials all over the world is large and keeps on growing. What if this plastic waste could be used to produce something useful to the society? Many universities and business people are attempting to do this. Most solutions target mixed plastic waste and suggest applications different from the original ones. For example, several groups have developed building materials made of plastic waste. Plastics are strong, durable, waterproof, light and recyclable—all key features for construction materials. So what if all of this plastic waste could be turned into building materials for low-income populations? Existing initiatives are promising, but not yet reproducible（可复制的） on an industrial scale.
I study plastic waste with the aim of finding interesting ways to remove it from the environment. From agricultural waste to concrete waste, mixed with recycled plastics, there are many ways to obtain materials to produce bricks and other useful elements for buildings. So perhaps plastics are not necessarily the problem. They can be part of a pathway towards a more sustainable way of living.
Individual innovation is considered one sign of intelligence within species, and elephants are among the animals that researchers have long taken an interest in because of their approach to problem solving. A newly published study in the journal Animal Behaviour details findings from a six-month-long study documenting the abilities of individual wild Asian elephants to access food by solving puzzles that unlocked storage boxes.
"This is the first research study to show that individual wild elephants have different willingness and abilities to solve problems in order to get food," said the study's lead author Sarah Jacobson. "This is important knowledge, because how animals think and innovate may influence their ability to survive in environments that are rapidly changing due to human presence."
Conducted at the Salakpra Wildlife Sanctuary in Kanchanaburi, Thailand, the study used motion-activated cameras to observe 77 wild Asian elephants who approached and decided whether to attempt opening puzzle boxes with three different compartments（隔间） that contained their favorite fruit—jackfruit. Depending on the compartments with which the elephant interacted, the jackfruit could be accessed by pulling on a chain so the door opened toward the elephant, pushing the door so that it swung open into the box, or sliding the door open to the right. The elephants had to independently interact with the puzzle boxes to discover how the compartments could be opened.
Over time, 44 of the elephants who approached the puzzle boxes interacted with them, but there were individual differences in how innovative the elephants were. The researchers found that elephants who interacted with the puzzle boxes more frequently and with greater persistence were more successful in getting food from all three different compartments.
"Conflict involving humans and elephants is increasing due to loss of natural habitat and agricultural encroachment into what is left of it," said the study's principal investigator Dr. Joshua Plotnik, a psychology professor with the CUNY Graduate Center and Hunter College, and Sarah Jacobson's dissertation advisor. "Investigating innovation and problem solving in elephants can inform our understanding of wild elephants' cognitive flexibility and its potential impact on conservation management and human-elephant conflict mitigation."
Music is present in any part of the world, and it is appreciated and felt everywhere. Without its presence, life could be boring. Studies show that music is good for your body and mind.
●Music can increase pain management. Listening to music can help increase your pain tolerance（耐痛性）. Listening to music can help you gain a sense of control over your ability to deal with pains. If you have a certain pain, for example, listening to music that you enjoy can help reduce the pain that you experience.
● Listening to certain types of music, such as relaxing music, can naturally reduce both your heartbeat rate and breathing rate. Additionally, music has shown promising results as a treatment for heart disease. Whether it involves listening to music or composing music, the calming effect that music produces further improves your heart's health by supporting it throughout the healing process.
●Music can reduce anxiety and depression. When it comes to anxiety and depression, music treatment can help to reduce the amount of stress hormones. For example, listening to music that you enjoy can naturally decrease the amount of cortisol（皮质醇） that your body releases.
●Music can improve self-expression and communication. Self-expression and communication are an important part of the human experience, especially when it comes to basic emotional and mental health needs. By listening and singing along to music, kids who struggle to interact and communicate with others can practice using the very skills needed to do so.
A. Music can improve heart health.
B. Music can increase your heartbeat rate.
C. Here are some benefits of music treatment.
D. They are two common pains in your daily life.
E. It has been proved to be helpful for anxious and depressed people.
F. Listening to music can also help decrease the strength of your pains.
G. For kids weak in both areas, music treatment can help develop their relative skills.
I am a university professor. Last year, I took a（n） 1 step: I decided to sign up for an online course to learn Arabic, a very difficult language.
My teacher was a patient and 2 man from Cairo, who had been teaching here for years. He could 3 my awkwardness in class and would find ways to help me feel more comfortable. "You are intelligent today," my teacher would often say when I 4 well in class. When I heard these words for the first time, I was filled with 5 . A few words from an authority 6 had made my day. His praise truly 7 my confidence and I became more positive about my Arabic learning.
That was when I 8 how little I had praised my own students. I had 9 that too much praise would make students too proud, and even lazy. Now, as a student, I saw things 10 . I had a change of heart. If I—a university professor with a PhD—felt 11 with a few words of encouragement, imagine what 12 my words could have on my students, sensitive young people who were looking to carve out a career in a 13 environment.
So now I praise as often and as sincerely as I can, knowing that even simple words can 14 a lot. They can save someone from a bad day, as my teacher's 15 have done for me.
We use both words and body language to express （we） thoughts and opinions in interactions with other people. Just like spoken language, body language （vary） from culture to culture. For example, making eye contact—looking into someone's eyes—in some countries is a ways （display） interest. In other countries, eye contact is not always approved s . For example, in many Middle Eastern countries, men and women are not （ social） permitted to make eye contact. In Japan, it may demonstrate respect to look down when talking to s old. The gesture for "OK" has different （meaning） in different cultures. In Japan, someone witnesses another person employing the gesture might think it means money. However, you should avoid making this gesture in Brazil and Germany. Even the gestures we use for "yes" and "no" differ around the world. In many countries, （ shake） one's head means "no", and nodding means "yes". By s （compare）, in Bulgaria and southern Albania, the gestures have the opposite meaning.
注意：1. 写作词数应为80左右；2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
Good morning!
……
Thank you!
Ruby, a 16-year-old girl in Chicago No. 1 High School, always looked up to her cousin Wanda, who was two years older than her and was studying in a university. Ruby was the only child in her family, so she regarded Wanda as her "immediate" sister. Wanda was not only beautiful, but also smart. She always had best grades in the exams and she could play several kinds of music al instruments, especially the piano. Therefore, she was very popular in her school and she had a lot of friends. In Ruby's eyes, Wanda was a perfect girl so she considered Wanda as her example. Ruby was still in high school but she wanted to go to the same university as Wanda did. Ruby was even in the same club s in the same high school as Wanda used to be.
Wanda knew that Ruby looked up to her and she appreciated that. On Christmas Day, Wanda sent Ruby a sweater with her university's logo on it as a gift. Ruby was so happy when she got the sweater. She put it on right away and wore it almost every day.
One day in class, Ruby raised her hand to answer the teacher's question and the teacher, who had ever been Wanda's head teacher, accidentally called her Wanda. "Oh, I'm sorry , but you just look a little like her," the teacher said. "I'm so glad," Ruby said. From that day on, Ruby studied harder and harder because Wanda did well in all her subjects. Ruby just wanted to catch up with her.
When college admission results came out, Ruby was so nervous to visit the website to see if she got admitted. She closed her eyes and slowly opened them. She found out that she got accepted!
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。
She called Wanda at once.
……
The next day, Wanda picked Ruby up and they drove to their university.
