—But it's too early to ____now. There's still much hope.
—Awful! It was the first time I ________ alone at home, bored to death.
—The telephone bill? ____.
—____! He's only 25 and still very fit.
Four Books about Curious Creatures
In these brilliant books find out about fleas, foxes and some unexpected friendships.
Animal Sidekicks
by Macken Murphy.
Illustrated byDragan Kordic
This illustrated book explores the idea of symbiosis-animals that form amazing relationships to help each other. You'll learn about clownfish living peacefully with poisonous sea anemone, the frog that lives with a tarantula, and lots more.
The Secret Life of Foxes
by ChloePetrylak.
Have you ever spotted a fox on the streets of your town at night or even in your back garden? Wildlife enthusiasts will love finding out more about the mysterious lives of foxes. As well as lots of interesting information, this book includes great ideas for ways to help foxes near you.
Please Don't Bite Me
by Nazzy Pakpour.
Illustrated by Owen Davey
Did you know that wasps can build nests as much as five metres wide? Or that fleas can jump 150 times their own height? How do mosquitoes track you down? This interesting illustrated book digs out the surprising lives of some of the buzzing, biting and stinging insects that are all around.
Stoneage beasts
by BenLerwill.
Illustrated by Grahame Baker-Smith
Travel back in time to meet incredible creatures in this beautiful book. It features many of the prehistoric animals that our human ancestors would have met face-to-face in the Stone Age. Learn about the woolly mammoth, the sabre-toothed cat, and the six-metre snake that once slithered along the forest floor.
Rachel Maclean's toy shop on Ayr high street appears like any other in a town centre at first sight. Step inside and you will notice that familiar promotional entreaties (恳求) are backwards: Don't Buy Me, Nothing Must Go. Everything is upside down and nothing is for sale.
Matilda Coleman, six, picked up one of the toys—a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Disney princess(公主), and turned her upside down. Underneath the skirt was a pale-faced witchy (女巫的) version. The girl liked it, and then was confused that the toy wasn't available to buy. Maclean's work playfully breaks the grasp that consumer culture has on modern minds.
"What art can do best is to make you look at things that you're very used to in a different way," said Maclean (b.1987), a Glasgow-based multi-media artist who has rapidly established herself as one of the most distinctive voices in the UK. "Sadly the decline of our city centres is something that is common these days, so I want to bring people into a space where they can reflect on it in a fun way."
"When the shop first opened, everyone was interested in finding out what it was," said Parker, a local teenager. "It has lots of different themes about identity, consumerism, capitalism, but they are silent messages and everyone has different thoughts about it."
Maclean has taken over this former butcher's shop in Ayr as part of Jupiter Plus, a new arts and education initiative, which aims to reluyenate empty high street shops in towns and cities in Scotland with free art exbibitions and workshops for young people. People's immediate joy at seeing something happening in here is abivious and it drives conversations about how they remember the high street and how the space could be used again.
The word paradigm comes from the Greek. It was originally a scientific term, and is more commonly used today to mean a model or theory. In the more general sense, it's the way we "see" the world — not in terms of our visual sense of sight, but in terms of perceiving, understanding, and interpreting.
A simple way to understand paradigms is to see them as maps. We all know that "the map is not the territory." A map is simply an explanation of certain aspects of the territory. That's exactly what a paradigm is. It is a theory, an explanation, or model of something else. You can never arrive at a specific location in a new city with a wrong map.
Each of us has many maps in our head, which can be divided into two main categories: maps of the way things are, or realities, and maps of the way things should be, or values. We interpret everything we experience through these mental maps. We seldom question their accuracy; we're usually even unaware that we have them. We simply assume that the way we see things is the way they really are or the way they should be. And our attitudes and behaviors grow out of those assumptions. The way we see things is the source of the way we think and the way we act.
We see the world, not as it is, but as we are or, as we are conditioned to see it. Clearheaded people see things differently, each looking through the unique lens of experience. But this does not mean that there are no facts. Instead, each person's interpretation of these facts represents prior experiences.
The more aware we are of our basic paradigms, maps, or assumptions, and the extent to which we have been influenced by our experience, the more we can take responsibility for those paradigms, examine them, test them against reality, listen to others and be open to their perceptions, thereby getting a larger picture and a far more objective view.
In 1970s, a psychologist named J. P. Guilford conducted a famous study of creativity known as the nine-dot puzzle (九点谜题). He challenged research subjects to connect all nine dots using just four straight lines without lifting their pencils from the page. All the participants limited the possible solutions to those within the imaginary square. Only 20 percent managed to break out of the confinement (束缚) and continue their lines in the white space surrounding the dots.
The fact that 80 percent of the participants were effectively blinded by the boundaries of the square led Guilford to jump to the sweeping conclusion that creativity requires you to go outside the box. The idea went viral. Overnight, it seemed that creativity experts everywhere were teaching managers how to think outside the box. The concept enjoyed such strong popularity that no one bothered to check the facts. No one, that is, before two different research teams-Clarke Burnham with Kenneth Davis, and Joseph Alba with Robert Weisberg-ran another experiment.
Both teams followed the same way of dividing participants into two groups. The first group was given the same instructions as the participants in Guilford's experiment. The second group was told that the solution required the lines to be drawn outside the imaginary box. Guess what? Only 25 percent solved the puzzle. In statistical terms, this 5 percent improvement is insignificant as this could be called sampling error.
Let's look a little more closely at the surprising result. Solving this problem requires people to literally think outside the box. Yet participants' performance was not improved even when they were given specific instructions to do so. That is, direct and clear instructions to think outside the box did not help. That this advice is useless should effectively have killed off the much widely spread — and therefore, much more dangerous — metaphor (比喻) that out-of-the-box thinking boosts creativity. After all, with one simple yet brilliant experiment, researchers had proven that the conceptual link between thinking outside the box and creativity was a misunderstanding.
To put into words my time in Antarctica and South Georgia is nearly impossible. I had always described it as a once in a lifetime experience, but as soon as I stepped foot on the continent, I immediately knew I needed to return.
About 50% of the passengers of our expedition (远征) had been to Antarctica at least once before. This goes to show just how magical of a destination it is.
All your senses will be stimulated..is the best way I can describe the time on the white continent. How tiny you feel next to towering glaciers and icebergs. The icy water moving through your body as you take the infamous Polar Plunge. The learning of heart-touching stories of survival from explorers of the past.
Antarctica makes you feel so small and insignificant, in the best way. You get front row seats to witness the most incredible show: nature. It is as much beautiful as is it cruel. Like seeing a brown skua (贼鸥) attacking a penguin chick. Your heart aches. Then your expedition guide regretfully tells you that a chick that is small in March would have very slim chances of surviving the upcoming winter. The cycle continues, and you're left wondering who to root for.
Things move fast in Antarctica, and every month offers something really unique and special to see. In March, the weather is a bit more unpredictable, and the sea ice is beginning to form again. In two more weeks, expedition ships would not be able to break through the ice.
The penguins are completing their yearly feather-changing process. The expedition team made sure we kept our distance and did not scare them into hiding under freezing water.
These animals, arguably the cutest you will ever see, survive such unfavorable environments. It's absolutely incredible to witness the challenges, the skill, the efforts, all of it. I am forever grateful to have been a visitor.
A. The list goes on.
B. But this is not always the case.
C. Our voyage was the last of the season.
D. I was not the only one who felt this way.
E. I, years later, did return to this fascinating place.
F. They are really weak during this time, and cannot dive.
G. Everything has a purpose, and the cycle of life is evident.
It's been nearly seven years.
In 2016, a group of volunteers began their 1 of the land at What Cheer Flower Farm in Rhode Island, with a simple 2 : get flowers into the hands of anyone in need of a pick-me-up. 3 , each one of the tens of thousands of bunches that What Cheer grows and delivers are 4 free of charge.
"We want to blanket the state with flowers and bring 5 to people," says Erin Achenbach, What Cheer's farmer and head florist. What Cheer regularly delivers 6 joy to people at recovery centers, food banks, senior centers, local 7 and more including AIDS Care Ocean State.
"Seeing the smiles on people's faces who didn't 8 it — who just came in to have a meeting with their case manager or take advantage of one of our programs — to just see this 9 come off their faces is great," says Stephen from AIDS Care Ocean State.
Located in a 10 industrial neighborhood, What Cheer's flower beds lie on 2.7 acres that once housed a crumbling knife factory. And it's safe to say that the What Cheer crew 11 some flowers of their own: In May, the nonprofit was awarded a record-high $500,000grant from the Environmental Protection Agency for its continued 12 of a brown field site once abandoned because of industrial pollution.
"Not only do we give this space back to the 13 by bringing life to space that's quite literally dead," says Achenbach, "but we're an eco-landing spot with the ability to help with the 14 of local insects and birds, and that'll only make people's lives better."
"What's good about a flower is that it needs 15 else," she adds. "Your only job when someone gives you flowers is to enjoy them."
The sheepskin raft (羊皮筏), the oldest ferry tool along the Yellow River in Northwest China, boasts a history of nearly 2,000 years. The airbag of the raft is made of a whole sheepskin and undergoes many processes including heating (remove) hair, soaking in salt y oil, sewing, drying and blowing. Then the airbags are fastened to a wooden stand, enabling its use for transporting people and goods the water.
It is said that the largest sheepskin raft in old times (consist) of more than 600 sheepskin airbags, will an impressive length of 22 meters and a (wide) of 7 meters. It was capable of carrying around 30 tons of goods and drifting over 200 kilometers in one day.
In the early 20th century, before the1950s, railways were not yet in operation and road traffic was (convenient), the sheepskin raft served as the most important means of transportation for residents (live) along the Yellow River.
However, with the rapid development of society, the sheepskin raft has (large) fulfilled its historical role in transporting people and goods. Nowadays, it can only _(find) along the banks of the Yellow River in some cities in Gansu province. It has become tool for people to ferry on the Yellow River for sightseeing and leisure.
For courage, my fingers clung to the harness (绳套) on Chó's broad back as we passed my neighbor fence. Walking by Mr. Groll's yard is the best part of our morning walk, and also the worst. It is the best part because the roses talk to us. "Good morning, Chó," whisper the rose scents to my guide dog's nose. Other roses shout to me, "Hello, Mai!"
Now comes the worst part: Mr. Groll. As usual, friendly Chó thumps her tail. But Chó is just a dog; how can she know that this neighbor does not like me at all?
"Hello, Mr. Groll." I greeted him as I did every morning. And like every other morning, he did not answer me. But I knew he was there, watching, behind his fence. He always sounds out of breath, and the creaky gate swings nervously in his hand. Maybe he's afraid of me because I'm blind. Disabilities do scare grown-ups sometimes. Then I remembered: the other day I heard him playing checkers with my friend Jimmy, who's in a wheelchair.
Chó and I marched on, and my thoughts kept step. "Why did Mr. Groll ignore me?" It's a mystery to me.
Papa has told me that some folks do not like people from faraway places. Does this solve the mystery? Maybe Mr. Groll does not like Vietnamese neighbors. No, that can't be it. Every Saturday Mr. Groll and my big brother, Lien, help each other with yard work. They are friends. Well, then, maybe he doesn't like me because I'm a girl. The sidewalk hummed(发出嗡嗡声) beneath my feet. A skateboard zoomed by. "Hello, Mai and Choó" my friend Jana yelled. "Hi, Mr. Groll." I waited. If Mr. Groll ignored Jana, then the mystery was solved. But his voice called out, "Hello, Jana!"
注意：1.续写两段文字；
2.词数150左右；
3.请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
Paragraph 1:
The sound of it broke my heart.
Paragraph 2:
"Chó is a very... big dog." he said in a voice that told me he thought I would laugh at him.
