Here are four wonderful hotels and campsites in Europe.
Ekies All Senses Resort, Chalkidiki, Greece
This could be the perfect retreat for stressed parents who need spoiling. For a start, it’s in lovely Greece, but there’s no need to take a ferry, as it’s on the mainland. With a juice bar beside the(heated)pool, open-air spa, calm beach, restaurants or meals on demand, and secret bays to explore by boat, it makes for a super-relaxed break.
·Doubles from € 88, junior suite(sleeps 4)from €138 a night, family suite(sleeps6) from €272 B&B, open late
April-October, i-escape.com
Casa Vicentina, Algarve, Portugal
For a back-to-nature feel, family-run Casa Vicentina in the Algarve is perfect. Built with ecological materials, it’s in a protected park area on a natural lake. Breakfast is a plentiful buffet-and bikes are supplied free of charge so you can go to the beach or cafes and restaurants. Accommodation is in brightly decorated rooms or larger suites complete with small kitchens.
·Rooms from €75 B&B, wonderfulland. Com
Fairy Chimney Inn, Cappadocia, Turkey
Older kids will love the fairytale landscape of Cappadocia and the excitement of staying in a cave hotel. The Fairy Chimney Inn used to be part of a cave monastery(修道院). Its rooms are beautiful and homely, with traditional decorations and the occasional reminder of the modern world. All rooms have courtyards overlooking the extraordinary landscape.
·Rooms from €55 B&B, plus 11 per child, fairychimney. Com
Casa San Gabriel, Umbria, Italy
Casa San Gabriel is a small hilltop farm where three self-catering cottages share a swimming pool, playground and barbecue. There’s added excitement for young guests in the family of alpacas(羊驼)kept on site. There are several water, wildlife and activity parks nearby, and slightly further afield a Pinocchio theme park.
·A week at II Fienile cottage (sleeps 4-6)costs from €650, B&B (low season only) from €95, casasangabriel. com
1.In the Ekies All Senses Resort, you can enjoy_______.
A. a ferry journey B. an open-air spa
C. living in tree houses D. dancing in the playground
2.Which of the following will you choose if you want to enjoy a breakfast buffet?
A. The Ekies All Senses Resort. B. Casa Vicentina
C. The Fairy Chimney Inn D. Casa San Gabriel
3.If you want to see some wildlife on holiday, which website should you click?
A. i-escape.com B. wonderfulland.com
C. fairychimney.com D. casasangabriel.com
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
My wife and I owned two doge that we had owned before we met and brought into the marriage. Her dog was a pit bull(斗牛犬) named Zack, and he hated me. When our daughter was born, I was worried that the family pit bull would be dangerous to have around our young daughter. I warned my wife that the dog would have to go at the first sign of trouble. I said, “If he nips(啃咬) at the baby, he’s gone.”
We brought our daughter home in a car seat, and both dogs sniffed(嗅）and licked her, tails wagging. I had to pull Zack away from her because he wouldn’t stop licking her. Zack immediately became my daughter's protector, and when she was lying on a blanket on the floor, he always had one foot on the blanket.
Zack loved my daughter extremely, and when she became a little older always walked her to bed, and then slept on the bed with her. He somehow knew whenever it was time to go upstairs, and he would wait at the bottom of the stairs for her, and then follow her up to bed.
Zack was poisoned by some neighbor kids, and we had one of the worst days of our lives. Watching my daughter say goodbye to him as he lay still on the kitchen floor, my wife and I were both sobbing.
At 8:00 that night, my daughter walked to the stairs to go to bed. At that moment, all three of us realized what was about to happen. My daughter looked at her mother and me with a look of horror and panic. It was at that moment that my dog, Sam who loved my daughter dearly, stood up, walked over to her, and nudged her with his head. He put his foot on the stairs, and looked up at her. They walked up to bed, with my daughter holding his neck tightly.
For the next six years, until he died, Sam waited for her by the stairs each night.
1.Why did the author pull Zack away from his daughter?
A. Because Zack kept licking his daughter.
B. Because Zack hated his daughter.
C. Because his daughter was sensitive to dogs.
D. Because his daughter was afraid of dogs.
2.After the death of the dog Zack, the daughter_______.
A. felt very horrified and sad
B. wanted to buy another dog
C. asked her parents to sleep with her
D. asked to stay with the other dog
3.The underlined word “nudged” in Paragraph 5 can be replaced by “_______”
A. lifted B. licked
C. pushed D. pulled
4.What is the main idea of the passage?
A. Dogs can be man’s best friend
B. It’s a natural thing that children like dogs
C. Parents should protect their children from dogs
D. Dogs sometimes may cause trouble for their owners.
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
Half an hour into a cooking competition at Green Street Academy, Tyana Givens, 15, dipped a plastic spoon into a pot with tomatoes, bell peppers, onions, garlic and mushrooms over a burner in a science classroom. She and the two other students, Kalimah Ball and Maya Smith, were making meat sauce.
The girls had spent the past five weeks learning how to grow their own produce using food computers-tabletop greenhouses controlled by computer programs-at Green Street Academy, a charter school in Baltimore. The course, which weaved together lessons on programming, food systems and agriculture, ended with an “Iron Chef”-style cooking contest.
With the help of instructor Melanie Shimano, the girls finished their contest successfully using the food they planted in tabletop greenhouses. The tabletop greenhouses can control temperature, light and water inside using the computer code that the students wrote by themselves. Shimano, a 26-year-old entrepreneur, piloted(试行)the course as part of Green Street Academy’s junior biotechnology class in the spring and will expand the program to other schools in the fall.
“Technology is not something that a lot of teachers have a lot of resources for all the time, but it’s something that’s not difficult to do with a relatively low amount of funding,” Shimano said. “Baltimore is a center for startups and food, so kind of fostering that culture of being into technology and into design and seeing all the pieces fit together is really cool.”
While her course is unique to Baltimore, it’s part of a broader program born at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab called the Open Agriculture Initiative, or OpenAg, which aims to create inventive, sustainable food systems through open-source technology. In addition to 10 full-time staff and researchers, OpenAg is primarily an online community of about 1,400 educators, growers, chefs and retailers in 47 countries, according to Hildreth England, OpenAg’s assistant director.
“The interest level across the board generally comes from folks who are concerned about food systems and concerned about the environment, and it’s usually a combination of the two,” England said.
1.What’s special about the course taken by Tyana Givens?
A. It’s a cooking course
B. It involves several subjects
C. It is intended for a contest
D. It is controlled by tabletop greenhouses.
2.Why did the students have to write computer codes to grow food?
A. To win a cooking contest
B. To finish homework
C. To create a greenhouse
D. To control the growing conditions
3.What’s Shimano’s opinion about technology education?
A. It calls of teachers with many resources
B. It calls for a lot of money
C. It is supposed to combine skills together
D. It can only be carried out in big cities.
4.What can be learned about the Open Agriculture Initiative?
A. It is participated by full-time. M. I. T researchers as well as people from different walk of life
B. It will help create a better education system
C. It only covers the USA
D. It focuses on food and catering industry.
难度: 困难查看答案及解析
“Educational researchers, political scientists and economists are increasingly interested in the characteristics and skills that parents, teachers and schools should foster in children to increase chances of success later in life,” said lead author Marion Spengler, PhD of the University of Tubingen.” Our research found that specific behaviors in high school have long-lasting effects for one’s later life.”
Spengler and her co-authors analyzed data collected by the American Institutes for Research from 346, 660 U. S. high school students in 1960, along with follow-up data from 81,912 of those students 11 years later and 1,952 of them 50 years later. The initial high school phase measured a variety of student behaviors and attitudes as well as personality characteristics, cognitive abilities, parental socioeconomic status and demographic(人口统计的)factors. The follow-up surveys measured overall educational attainment, income and occupational prestige(声望).
Being a responsible student, showing an interest in school and having fewer problems with reading and writing were all significantly associated with greater educational attainment and finding a more prestigious job both 11 years and 50 years after high school. These factors were also all associated with higher income at the 50-year mark. Most effects remained even when researchers controlled parental socioeconomic status, cognitive aibility and other broad personality characteristics such as conscientiousness.
While the findings weren’t necessarily surprising, Spengler noted how reliably specific behaviors people showed in school were able to predict later success.
Further analysis of the data suggested that much of the effect could be explained by overall educational achievements, according to Spengler.
“Student characteristics and behaviors were rewarded in high school and led to higher educational attainment, which in turn was related to greater occupational prestige and income later in life,” she said. “This study highlights the possibility that certain behaviors at crucial periods could have long-term consequences for a person’s life.”
1.What’s the finding of Marion Spengler’s research?
A. Teachers play a decisive role in students’ later success
B. Personality characteristics are more important than academic performances
C. Higher educational attainment has little to do with occupational prestige
D. Behaviors in the high school should be highly stressed.
2.Which is TRUE about the research?
A. The research was conducted among totally different people during different periods
B. The research was based on the data collected from 1960 to 2010
C. More people were involved in the follow-up surveys
D. The initial high school phase measured attitudes only
3.What is likely to contribute to later success according to the research?
A. Parental socioeconomic status
B. Overall educational achievements
C. Cognitive ability
D. Hard work
4.Why did the researchers control some factors like parental socioeconomic status?
A. To avoid the previous mistakes
B. To highlight the effects of certain specific behaviors
C. To draw an immediate conclusion
D. To hid some negative findings
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
Things You Can for the Ocean
The ocean supports a global underwater circulation system of currents, which affects temperature and nutrient distribution. 1.. It’s time for you to do something for the ocean. Be the best citizen of the ocean you can be by taking these simple today.
2..
The Monterey Bay Aquarium has made it easy to choose ocean-friendly seafood wherever you live or travel. You can visit their site to determine the pocket guide. And try to carry a reusable cup when travelling. More than 200 billion pounds of plastic is produced in the world every year and about 10% of it ends up in the ocean! 3. You can also make your efforts to reduce the plastic waste by travelling with your own cup.
Leave it better than you found it and reduce water pollution.
Leave natural areas and beaches better than you found them.4., or get together with like-minded members of your community by participating in a local beach clean-up. Reducing water pollution is also beneficial protecting the ocean. There are simple things you can do to reduce water pollution locally and impact water quality globally. 5..You should correctly deal with dangerous materials. Moreover, you should use native plants and natural fertilizers, and be mindful when washing your vehicle.
A. And this in turn affects ultimately human life
B. The ocean pollution has been a serious problem
C. Eat sustainable seafood and carry a reusable cup
D. Bring a small bag and pick the rubbish along the way
E. You should not eat at the restaurants selling wild animals
F. You should use poisonless household products whenever possible
G. Refusing bottled water is an effective way to reduce the waste stream of plastic
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
One morning in early fall, I found a pair of wild geese on our pond. The beautiful sight caught me by ______. because we’d never seen geese there before. I ______they would soon be on their way, so I enjoyed the ______ to be close to them. I wondered where they came from and why they’d _______our pond.
The next morning, the geese were _____ our guests, so I watched them at a distance to show them I meant no ____ . Still, I couldn’t_____ getting a closer look. I stopped by some trees near the water’s edge and quietly looked at them through the______. I was surprised to see that they were _____me.
As the days passed, I continued to see them every-day. They craned their necks and raised their heads______but seemed to realize I was a friend. Later, my _____about why they were staying at the pond so long changed to concern. It wouldn’t be long before the______winter came and the pond froze over.
One day, as they were feeding in the grass, I discovered the reason for their _____--the male had a broken left ________. He was unable to fly, and his mate would not leave him behind. I asked a wildlife biologist friend what I should do. He explained that sometimes a broken wing will _______by itself and suggested tat I let nature take its course.
On the first day of November, I _____sight of the geese running toward the pond, beating their wings with great effort. Both________climbed higher and flew over the pond. Then they turned back toward me, flying no more than 50 feet over my head as if to say goodbye. Then they were______.
The season’s first snow fell the every next day. The birds must have______that winter was coming and that it was time to go. I miss them very much now and I’ll never forget their______to each other. We can all learn a lesson or two from this pair.
1.A. anger B. surprise C. terror D. sorrow
2.A. denied B. imagined C. realized D. assumed
3.A. opinion B. opportunity C. feeling D. message.
4.A. decided B. ordered C. chosen D. forgotten
5.A. also B. still C. even D. seldom
6.A. violence B. pain C. harm D. punishment
7.A. bear B. stop C. risk D. resist
8.A. windows B. forests C. villages D. branches
9.A. laughing at B. shouting at C. string at D. waving at
10.A. cautiously B. positively C. skeptically D. clearly
11.A. worry B. hesitation C. claim D. curiosity
12.A. short B. cruel C. mild D. early
13.A. love B. plan C. journey D. visit
14.A. wing B. foot C. leg D. eye
15.A. test B. appear C. drop D. heal
16.A. fixed B. caught C. met D. remembered
17.A. hopefully B. curiously C. recently D. gradually
18.A. out of sight B. out of question C. out of place D. out of reach
19.A. sensed B. planned C. found D. smelt
20.A. advice B. respect C. devotion D. attention
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
A graduation speech given by Chief Justice John Roberts became a talking point after The Washington Post published it.
Roberts 1.(address)his son’s ninth grade graduating class. He advised the young graduates 2.(take)life’s setbacks in their stride(从容地). But he did not wish 3.(they)good luck.
“Now, the speakers will typically also wish you good luck and extend good 4.(wish) to you. I will not do that, and I will tell you why,” Roberts said.
“From time to time, in the years to come, I hope you will be treated 5.(unfair), so that you will come to know the value of justice. Sorry to say, but I hope you will be lonely from time to time, so that you don’t take friends 6.granted. I wish you bad luck again, from time to time, so that you will be conscious of the role of chance in life and understand your success is not completely deserved and 7.the failure of others is not completely deserved either.”
He continued, “I hope you 8.(ignore), so you know the importance of listening to others, 9.I hope you will have just enough pain to learn compassion.”
In the end, each graduate received a pocket-size copy of the Constitution 10.(sign) by Roberts.
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
假定英语课上老师要求同桌之间交换修改作文，请你修改你同桌写的以下作文。文中共有10处语言错误，每句中最多有两处。每处错误仅涉及一个单词的增加、删除或修改。
增加：在缺词处加一个漏字符号(∧)，并在其下面写出该加的词。
删除：把多余的词用斜线(＼)划掉。
修改：在错的词下划一横线，并在该词下面写出修改后的词。
注意：1．每处错误及其修改均仅限一词；
2．只允许修改10处，多者(从第11处起)不计分。
When it comes to face a challenge, all I can think of is how I make efforts to improve my physics. After entering the senior high school, had difficulty learning physics. So I decide to do something to improve situation. Firstly, I prepared my lessons carefully before class, made marks where I didn’t understand. Secondly, I listened attentive in class, and figured out that I didn’t know. If there were still some problems troubling me, I would turn to my teacher with help. As if a saying goes, “Anything is impossible for a willing heart.” As long as you are willing to meet all challenge, you will surely conquer all difficulties and succeed.
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
假设你是学生李华，你的外国朋友Sam最近了解到中国的“新四大发明”，并对其中的手机支付（Alipay）非常感兴趣，他来信希望你能简单地向他介绍手机支付，并且谈谈你对手机支付的看法。请你用英语给他回信。
注意：1.词数100左右；
2.可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。
Dear Sam,
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Yours,
Li Hua
难度: 中等查看答案及解析