I like staying overnight at my Gramma’s house — that is, until Gramma starts telling me how wonderful my cousin Maya is. Then it’s Maya this and Maya that until I don’t ever want to hear another word about her.
That’s why I wasn’t too excited when Gramma called me on the phone to “come on over and bring your pajamas.” When I got there, it was worse than I’d expected. There, in Grandpa’s big leather rocker, sat Maya, all dressed up and formal-looking and wearing fancy shoes as if she’d just been to a party.
“Surprise, Kristen!” Gramma said. “Your cousin Maya and her parents have traveled in from the East Coast on business. Maya gets to stay with us this afternoon.” Gramma chattered away about how excited she’d been for this surprise get-together, and how cousins ought to get to know each other better.
I hung my baseball cap in the closet and set my backpack by the stairway, all the time smiling and nodding as if I’d been waiting forever for this chance to spend an afternoon with Maya. Grandpa’s chair squawked (咯咯叫) as Maya rocked back and forth. It’s the chair I like best in the house, the one I usually sit in. I sat down on the sofa across from her.
Shortly, Gramma went off to the kitchen to “see about some lunch,” she’d said. That left me stuck in the living room with rocking Maya.
She was still small but taller than I’d remembered her from her last visit four years ago. She was good at small talk, though, and was chatting away about how nice it was to see me again. But I could tell that she didn’t really think so. The last time she was here, we’d had hours of fun together building caves out of Gramma’s sofa pillows.
After that, I’d heard about her only through Gramma’s tales. Maya taking piano lessons. Maya learning math. Maya, Maya, Maya. Now Maya was here, looking great with the latest haircut and a fancy dress.
Glancing down at my jeans and my old sneakers, I wished I hadn’t come.
“How do you know all these things about me?” I asked.
| A．In a hospital. | B．In the office. | C．At home. |
| A．Thursday. | B．Friday. | C．Next Monday. |
| A．Improve it. | B．Hand it in later. | C．Leave it with him. |
The curb cut (路缘坡). It’s a convenience that most of us rarely, if ever, notice. Yet, without it, daily life might be a lot harder—in more ways than one. Pushing a baby stroller onto the curb, skateboarding onto a sidewalk or taking a full grocery cart from the sidewalk to your car—all these tasks are easier because of the curb cut.
But it was created with a different purpose in mind.
It’s hard to imagine today, but back in the 1970s, most sidewalks in the United States ended with a sharp drop-off. That was a big deal for people in wheelchairs because there were no ramps to help them move along city blocks without assistance. According to one disability rights leader, a six-inch curb “might as well have been Mount Everest”. So, activists from Berkeley, California, who also needed wheelchairs, organized a campaign to create tiny ramps at intersections to help people dependent on wheels move up and down curbs independently.
I think about the “curb cut effect” a lot when working on issues around health equity (公平). The first time I even heard about the curb cut was in a 2017 Stanford Social Innovation Review piece by Policy Link CEO Angela Blackwell. Blackwell rightly noted that many people see equity as “a zero-sum game (零和游戏)” and that it is commonly believed that there is a “prejudiced societal suspicion that intentionally supporting one group hurts another.” What the curb cut effect shows though, Blackwell said, is that “when society creates the circumstances that allow those who have been left behind to participate and contribute fully, everyone wins.”
There are multiple examples of this principle at work. For example, investing in policies that create more living-wage jobs or increase the availability of affordable housing certainly benefits people in communities that have limited options. But, the action also empowers those people with opportunities for better health and the means to become contributing members of society—and that benefits everyone. Even the football huddle (密商) was initially created to help deaf football players at Gallaudet College keep their game plans secret from opponents who could have read their sign language. Today, it’s used by every team to prevent the opponent from learning about game-winning strategies.
So, next time you cross the street, or roll your suitcase through a crosswalk or ride your bike directly onto a sidewalk—think about how much the curb cut, that change in design that broke down walls of exclusion for one group of people at a disadvantage, has helped not just that group, but all of us.
1．What does the underlined quote from the disability rights leader imply concerning a six-inch curb?| A．It is an unforgettable symbol. | B．It is an impassable barrier. |
| C．It is an important sign. | D．It is an impressive landmark. |
| A．It’s not worthwhile to promote health equity. |
| B．It’s necessary to go all out to help the disabled. |
| C．It’s impossible to have everyone treated equally. |
| D．It’s fair to give the disadvantaged more help than others. |
| A．Spaceflight designs are applied to life on earth. |
| B．Four great inventions of China spread to the west. |
| C．Christopher Columbus discovered the new world. |
| D．Classic literature got translated into many languages. |
| A．Caring for disadvantaged groups may finally benefit all. |
| B．Action empowers those with opportunities for better solutions. |
| C．Society should create circumstances that get everyone involved. |
| D．Everyday items are originally invented for people in need of help. |
By the time I was in 3rd grade, I had seemed to be the last one for everything. But things changed when a little bird entered the picture.
One day a tiny bird landed on the tree branch just outside my bedroom window. It sang a lively song as the first pale yellow rays of sunshine were over the horizon.
“Oh, what is that noise?” I complained to myself, pulling my bed sheets over my head in an attempt to avoid the noise. It was no use, and I knew it. The loud noise meant the coming of a new day. My mom knocked twice on my door, and then came in with a smile. “Time to get up, honey,” she whispered. “The early bird catches the worm, you know.”
“Ugh.” I said in a quiet voice. “What does that even mean?”
“It’s just an expression, honey,” my mom replied. She gave me a kiss on the cheek and urged me to get out of bed. I rolled over and slept for a few more minutes.
As usual, I walked downstairs slowly for breakfast, ate slowly, and consequently, missed my bus. When I finally got to school, I had missed attendance and had to get a late pass. Embarrassed and ashamed, I made a sincere apology to the teacher. Since I missed the first part of math class, I struggled to understand the lesson and had to get extra help. Thankfully, my teacher gave me extra homework to make sure I mastered the new knowledge. Worse still, I forgot to sign up for Drama Club and didn’t have time to go to the library.
My mom noticed my bad mood the moment I got back home. Learning what happened to me, my mom gave me a warm hug and told me it was time to change. I nodded without consciousness. This day was no fun, and I could hardly wait for another day.
The next morning, I was woken up by the same loud song.
This time I jumped out of bed and walked over to the window.
I was the first kid to greet the teacher.
It was report card day at Bear Country School. And there they were in their envelopes on each desk when Brother’s class returned from lunch. Most of Brother’s classmates sat right down, took their report cards out of their envelopes, and looked at them. But not Brother. He just sat there and stared at the envelope.
Most of Brother’s classmates were pleased with their marks. Most of them had gotten A’s, B’s, and a few C’s. But Brother stared at the envelope as if it were a bomb about to go off.
He picked it up and ever so slowly drew the report card out of the envelope. It was a clean sweep. Brother had gotten a terrible grade in every subject except... physical education! If Teacher Bob had given out A-pluses in physical education, Brother would have gotten one. That was because in addition to being captain and star goalkeeper on the soccer team, Brother ran track, pitched baseball, and did gymnastics like a monkey. That was the problem.
Brother was so taken up with sports that he had let his other subjects slide, slide, slide. It hadn’t happened overnight and perhaps Mama and Papa should have seen it coming. But what with one thing and another, they hadn’t. And now Brother was in the soup (深陷泥潭), deep in the soup up to his eyeballs.
Sister was waiting at the bus when school let out. She had gotten a great report card and wanted to tell Brother about it. “Brother! Brother! Guess what?” she cried. “I got three A’s and two B’s! The best report card I ever ... “But she didn’t finish. She could tell from Brother’s face that he must have gotten a very bad report card. He was looking straight ahead and walking like a robot. They climbed onto the bus.
Paragraph 1: Later, Mama and Sister watched from the next room as Papa looked at Brother’s report card.
Paragraph 2: “As you’ve been grounded (禁止外出玩) by Papa, let’s try to pull your marks up,” said Mama later.
“I like pigs,” Winston Churchill supposedly once said. “Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.” Whether Churchill’s contemporary George Orwell also liked pigs is less clear. But he, too, surely saw something in them that was lacking in many domestic (驯养的) animals, for it was they who ended up running the show in his novel, Animal Farm. Pigs, then, are intelligent social creatures.
And, like all animals, they sometimes fight. Some pigs tend to be attackers; others tend to be victims. Who is what depends largely on weight. Among pigs, pounds mean power. The attacker might bite, kick or push the victim. Most conflicts end in seconds, but some last a minute or two.
In most animal species fights would be like that. However, many of the conflicts among pigs Dr Norscia, a biologist, observed had interested parties beyond the fighters. He therefore wanted to understand the role of these bystanders in solving conflicts—and what this says about pigs’ cognitive (认知的) abilities.
Since there was usually not enough time for a bystander pig to become involved in the heat of a conflict, though this did occur, Dr Norscia looked at what happened in the three minutes immediately following a fight. Sometimes, he found, the fighters reconciled with each other on their own. The more distantly related the fighters were, the more frequently this happened. Dr Norscia guessed that relations between close relatives are more secure to start with, so rebuilding friendly relations rapidly is less necessary for them.
On other occasions, however, a third pig stepped in. Sometimes this bystander interacted with the attacker, which reduced the number of attacks coming after. Sometimes, the bystander interacted with the victim. This appeared to calm the victim down, for it reduced anxiety-related behavior.
Social intelligence need not, though, be entirely selfless. Pigs are more likely to step in after a conflict if they are closely related to either the attacker or the victim. This is probably an example of kin selection (亲属选择), which favors the development of behavior.
1．Why are Churchill and Orwell mentioned at the beginning?| A．To show their preference for pigs. | B．To add some related backgrounds. |
| C．To introduce the topic of the text. | D．To present their attitude to animals. |
| A．They aim to show power. | B．They have audiences. |
| C．They last a little bit longer. | D．They happen more often. |
| A．Caught up. | B．Kept in touch. | C．Made up. | D．Changed in tune. |
| A．Offering comfort to victim pigs. | B．Forming special bonds with strangers. |
| C．Sticking to their behavior. | D．Caring for others with selfless devotion. |
In the midst of an already record-breaking heat wave, Phoenix, Arizona, set a particularly eye-popping record: the temperature only dropped to 97 degrees Fahrenheit overnight between Tuesday and Wednesday, setting an all-time record high for a nighttime low. When temperatures stay high overnight, they place a particularly heavy burden on the body, raising the risk of heat illness and death.
The U.S. —and the world—has seen a spate of extreme heat so far this year, including the planet’s hottest-ever June and hottest week on record during the first week of July. Rising global temperatures from burning fossil fuels are the main driver of more frequent and more intense heat waves. And an El Niño event is also boosting global temperatures this year.
A heat dome has been in place for weeks over the U.S. Southwest and Texas, and it has fueled many heat records. Phoenix has now seen 20 days in a row with a daytime high of 110 degrees F or higher, a record that is likely to continue for several more days. A heat dome is an area of high pressure that parks over a region. High-pressure ridges, as they are also called, feature sinking air, which compresses and heats up. These ridges’ typical clear skies also allow the sun’s rays to beat down on the ground, further raising temperatures.
Prolonged heat extremes pose a major public health threat because heat is the number-one weather-related killer in the U.S.; it causes more human deaths than hurricanes, tornadoes and floods combined. Heat can cause dehydration, which leads the blood to thicken and makes the heart pump harder. That organ and others can be damaged by too much exposure to heat.
The soaring, triple-digit high daily temperatures grab the headlines, and they definitely are a concern—but when temperatures only drop into the 80s and 90s at night, the body doesn’t get a chance to cool down. This is particularly a concern for those who lack air-conditioning, including unhoused populations. And heat is especially a health risk for the very young, the elderly and those with preexisting health conditions such as asthma and heart disease.
1．What can be inferred from the first two paragraphs?| A．Extreme temperatures can cause damage to our hearts. |
| B．Burning fossil fuels contributes to the hottest-ever June and July. |
| C．El Nino is the dominant cause of soaring global temperature. |
| D．The temperature at night has reached a record high in Phoenix, Arizona. |
| A．It’s a weather phenomenon that contributes to high temperatures. |
| B．It’s a peak that the low pressure should reach. |
| C．It’s the damage caused by too much exposure to heat. |
| D．It’s the extra heat trapped in the sinking air. |
| A．It is the top one killer in America. | B．Exposure to heat contributes to heart diseases. |
| C．Human organs might be impaired. | D．People accommodate to 80s and 90s Fahrenheit at night. |
| A．Soaring temperatures are hitting the headlines. | B．Anew eye popping overnight low record is set. |
| C．Hot overnight temperatures threaten human health. | D．Global heat waves are causing concerns. |
The year 2013 marked a turning point in my life. In June, my husband was offered a new Job in Ghana. Feeling that I had hit a career bottleneck as a photographer and copywriter (广告文字撰写人), I, without any hesitation, made the decision to relocate with him.
While my husband engaged in work, my visa didn’t grant me the same privilege. But that’s okay. I didn’t know what to do anyway. I was left isolated, homesick and lacking purpose. Our new home was a bungalow near a river that cut across expansive grasslands. With few people around our home, I turned to nature, which had been a fondness of mine since childhood. Every day, I would take my camera and wander around, photographing aimlessly.
It wasn’t long before September arrived, bringing the full flow of the rainy season. After one particularly bad thunderstorm, I found a finch (雀) — a poor little thing barely a month old with one wing broken — on the ground. Evidently, he had been abandoned by his flock, his nest blown from a tree. The sight was heartbreaking. He was the size of my lite finger. His eyes were tightly shut and he was shuddering, too young to survive alone. I somehow felt a connection with it. Immediately I scooped him up and cautiously placed him in a cardboard box with towels, mimicking a nest, and stayed up all night researching how to care for him.
The next day, he seemed to regain some energy. He woke with his mouth open, though still too weak to let out a call. I fed him some food and chirped (叽喳) at him. To my amusement, he chirped back and even climbed into my hand. I affectionately gazed at this adorable creature, who was now boldly pecking (啄) my fingers now and then. A surge of warmth ran through me. Tenderly stroking his feathers, I chirped a lullaby, singing him to sleep. Gradually, his eyes drooped and he drifted off. I couldn’t help but chuckle at the scene — as far as he was concerned, I was his mother.
Para 1. “I will take care of you.” I murmured, making my promise to him.
Para 2. At that moment I realized that as I dedicated myself to the finch’s care, something within me changed.
Many cities around the world today are heavily polluted. Careless methods of production and
A recent study showed that two
Only a few years ago, it was impossible to find green products in supermarkets, but now there are hundreds. Some supermarket products
The
| A．part | B．lack | C．lots | D．varieties |
| A．applied to | B．contributed to | C．exposed to | D．devoted to |
| A．possibility | B．chance | C．result | D．effect |
| A．Therefore | B．Furthermore | C．Similarly | D．However |
| A．After | B．Though | C．Before | D．Unless |
| A．reused | B．safe | C．friendly | D．returned |
| A．of | B．on | C．from | D．out of |
| A．rhyme | B．way | C．section | D．branch |
| A．carry | B．take | C．include | D．make |
| A．advantage | B．technique | C．point | D．attraction |
| A．concern | B．hope | C．care | D．plan |
| A．what | B．how | C．whether | D．when |
| A．saying | B．trust | C．attitude | D．fashion |
| A．pressure | B．pleasure | C．discussion | D．interest |
| A．enlarging | B．sharing | C．cleaning | D．improving |
When my little brother Tom was four, Mom said something like “I’d give anything to have a few more hours in the day.” And Tom said, “Why don’t we buy a bigger clock?” If time worked that way, I could have used an extra-big clock last week!
Our teacher had asked us to make an art project showing how plants eat, “I can’t believe we only have two nights to finish it,” Noah said with a sigh. “I have no idea how I’ll get mine done.”
I didn’t say anything. Not because I was nervous—I wasn’t nervous at all. 1 love art projects! In fact, I was so relaxed that I didn’t work on the project at all on Monday night. I planned to start the minute I got home from baseball practice on Tuesday. But there was just one thing.
I forgot baseball would run later than usual because it was the day of Baseball Buddies, which happens every month, and it’s a chance for us older students to practise baseball with the adorable younger kids. The second I got home, I threw the entire craft box (手工盒) onto the kitchen table, took out my “How Plants Eat” paper, and started to work. But just then, the telephone rang.
It was my friend Ollie, who said his grandmother Abuela had just made cookies and wanted to know if I’d come help decorate them. I love decorating cookies, and I love, love, love Abucla’s world-famous Thanksgiving cookies that only happen once a year!
I had no choice. I had to go. Ollie and I put all the star cookies with red jam filling in one group, and all the snowflakes with white cream-cheese filling in another. It was 7 o'clock when I finally got home.1 planned to work on my project right after we ate. But then another interruption hit me.
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