修改时间：2024-07-13 浏览次数：377 类型：期末考试
Welcome to the pumpkin weigh-off at Half Moon Bay (半月湾), California. The event has always been very popular among most pumpkin growers. Thousands of people line up along the city's High Street and watch the proud pumpkin owners from across the country. Each pumpkin is carefully picked up by forklifts (叉式升降机) and placed on a digital weighing scale.
Organizers are offering $30,000 in total prize money for a new record pumpkin entering Half Moon Bay. But in order to receive the “New Record Prize”, the grower will have to bring a pumpkin heavier than the 2,624-pound one grown by Mathias Willemijns in 2017. If the heaviest pumpkin in the contest is unable to surpass (超过) the record, its owner will receive $6 for every pound it weighs.
When: Monday, October 9, 2018. Weighing will begin at 7 am and will end at 11 am. Growers will start lining the street as daylight breaks by 7 am.
Where: I.D.E.S. Grounds, 735 Main Street, Half Moon Bay, California.
Prize Money:
New Record Pumpkin: $30,000 (in total)
1st Place: $6 per pound
2nd Place: $2,000
3rd Place: $1,500
4th Place: $1,000
5th~10th Place: $500 each
11th~20th Place: $100 each
Special Prizes: $500 for the most beautiful pumpkin, judged by the audience (color, shape and size).
The top five pumpkins will be on display for the thousands of visitors to Half Moon Bay's famous Art and Pumpkin Festival that will take place on October 14-15, 2018.
Who is the most beautiful woman in the world? This question can't be answered as quickly as the magic mirror I answers the queen in Snow White. However, PEOPLE, a US magazine has been trying to answer that question since 1990. The magazine has its own Most Beautiful Woman every year. And last year it announced its pick for “World's Most Beautiful Woman” of 2017. It was Julia Roberts, who had won the title five times. “I am very happy,” said the Hollywood star. “I think I'm now peaking.”
Roberts has been named “Most Beautiful” more times than anyone else. She first appeared on the magazine in 1991 at the age of 23. Roberts is perhaps not the perfect choice in all people's mind. There are so many beautiful ladies in different fields after all. But PEOPLE has its own reasons, and it's not just about her looks. Julia has never looked better. Her beauty also lies in her self-confidence and good humour. It lies in her ability to develop while keeping the best parts of herself. It lies in her talent for creating characters and telling stories that take us to new places. It lies in her beautiful smiles.
In Julia's view, the most important secret for beauty is being happy! “Beauty is about your spirit. Be happy and live the life you want to live. That's the key to looking your best,” said Julia.
A spaceship is flying to the sun in summer 2018! It will be the first-ever to a star and will be one of the biggest achievements space exploration (探险) in human history. The purpose is to study the sun's outer atmosphere and better understand how stars work.
The spaceship, with no man inside, will fly within 4 million miles of the sun's surface - right into the solar atmosphere, where the temperature is over 4,500℃. To protect the spaceship, it is covered with a 12cm-thick coating.
The spaceship is called Parker Solar Probe and it is named after Eugene Parker, a professor from the University of Chicago. It's the first NASA spaceship to be named after a researcher who is still alive. In 1958, Eugene Parker first created the term “solar wind”-the sun sending out a flow of particles (颗粒) and energy.
“The spaceship is going where it has never been before. It's very exciting that we'll finally get to know more about the solar wind. I'm sure there will be some surprises. There always are,” said Professor Parker.
Parker calls it a heroic scientific space adventure, and he means that the spaceship will have to experience high temperatures and sun radiation (辐射). “The spaceship is going to do the hottest and fastest work. I love to call it the coolest hottest work under the sun,” said Scientist Fox Nasa.
Happy, angry, amazed—these are some of the emotions we like to express these days when we're sending a message on our smartphones! That's why many of us now add little pictures to our texts to brighten up someone's mobile screen but we're also using them as a quick way of telling someone how we're feeling. Yes, emojis (表情符号) have become a popular tool for communication.
The emoji was first invented in Japan in the late 1990s and the word “emoji” comes from the Japanese words for “picture” and “character”. The number of different images has greatly increased since then and now we have a picture for nearly every mood or situation.
Why are emojis widely used today? Professor Vyv Evans says, “Increasingly, what we're finding is that digital communication is replacing face-to-face talk in some ways. One of the reasons why emojis are so interesting is that they really do enable us to express our emotional selves much more effectively.”
Another advantage of emojis is that they are an international language—they don't use words but tell a message with pictures so they can be easily understood whatever your native language is.
But as linguist (语言学家) Neil Cohn says, “To many, emojis are an exciting evolution (进化) of the way we communicate; but to others, they are linguistic Armageddon.” It does show by using emojis, there is a lot more to our communication than words alone, but does this also mean that the traditional writing will die out one day?
B . 
C . 
D . 
March 22 is World Water Day. As we know, water is the most important natural resource on the Earth.
Water covers more than 70% of the Earth's surface, but most of that is sea water. Fresh water takes up only 2.5% of the total water.
People in many places arc facing serious water problems. Many kinds of waste from cars, factories' farms and homes make rivers, lakes, and oceans dirty. In the beginning, waste from cars and factories pollutes the air. Then, when it rains, the rain water comes down and makes our drinking water dirty.
Scientists say that in 30 years, more than half of the people in the world won't have enough clean water. Here is some advice.
Turn off the tap while you arc brushing your teeth. You can save as much as 450 litres (升) of water each month.
Leaky (漏水的) taps waste a lot of water. Fix them right away!
You can easily cut your shower time short, and you'll be still clean.
A. It reminds us to save water.
B. One of them is water pollution.
C. We have to learn how to save water.
D. People can't use it directly in daily life.
E. Water problems are quite serious today.
F. Many people in Africa don't have enough water.
G. When you wash the dishes, don't let the water run.
Once a circle lost one of its wedges (楔子). The circle wanted to be 1, so it went around looking for its missing piece. But 2 it was incomplete and therefore could roll only very 3, it admired the flowers along the way. It chatted with worms. It enjoyed the sunshine. It found lots of4 pieces, but none of them fit. So it 5 them all by the side of the road and kept on 6. Then one day the circle found a piece that fit 7. It was so happy. Now it could be whole, with 8 missing. It incorporated (合并) the missing piece into itself and began to 9. Now that it was a perfect 10, it could roll very fast,11 fast to notice flowers or talk to the worms. When it 12 how different the world seemed when it rolled so quickly, it13, left its found piece by the side of the road and rolled slowly away.
The 14 of the story is that in some strange sense we are more whole when we are lacking in something. The man who has everything is in some ways a 15 man. He will never know what it feels like to hope, and to nourish (滋养) his soul with the 16 of something better. He will never get the 17 of having someone who loves him give him something he has always wanted or 18 had. When we19 that imperfection is part of being human, and when we can continue rolling through life and 20 it, we will have achieved a wholeness that others can only long for.
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