修改时间:2024-07-13 浏览次数:501 类型:高考模拟
A few days ago, I observed a teenager doing yardwork that his dad had told him to do. Instead of doing the task1, he wandered around there for hours,2 to himself and doing a bad job.
The person he hurt the most was himself. His dad was trying to teach him 3and how to do a good job. As a result of his4attitude, he spent the whole afternoon finishing a task that should have taken one or two hours. And the yard 5 wasn't clean enough when he got through.
He6his day because of his attitude. And his dad was 7with him, and the boy's bad mood ended up8 the whole family that day.
A sweet lady was working in a fast-food9. The minute I walked in, she welcomed me10. She smiled as she took my order, and then as we11 for the food, she talked with me. As I walked off with my tray, she said with a big 12, “I hope you have a blessed day!” I think the food tasted better because of her13. There was a delay, during which I sat there hearing her singing as she14 her tasks behind the counter.
She wasn't making a large salary, and she didn't have a powerful15, either. In addition, she stood on her feet for a long shift each day, often dealing with 16customers. But she chose to be joyful.
I want to17from her. I want to do my best, even when there's no 18 or glory. Other people are watching me19 I might not realize it at the time. I want to bring joy to all those around me. A(n)20can make a great difference.
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St Moritz, the showiest of Switzerland's Alpine resorts (旅游胜地), is no ordinary ski town. It's responsible for winter tourism as we know it today. It was a small band of English holidaymakers that changed Switzerland forever. In 1864 a bet took place between hotelier Johannes Badrutt and the vacationers on a damp September evening in St Moritz. As they sat around the fire at the Engadiner Kulm Hotel, concerned about returning to the foggy London winter, the Swiss manager saw a golden opportunity.
“You holiday here in summer,” he challenged them over a bottle of red wine. “Why not enjoy the mountains year-round? Winter is so pleasant that on fine days you can even walk without a jacket.” Attracted by the promise of clean skies against a backdrop of towering peaks, the Englishmen were pleased to accept it; up until then, St Moritz had been a modest hiking destination in July and August. But if Badrutt's promise proved false, the hotelier would pay for their journey and winter-long stay. How could they lose?
Come mid-December, the group of men returned to Switzerland. Towards the end of their week-long journey, sitting on a horse-pulled sledge and wrapped head-to-toe in furs, they went through the 2,284m Julier Pass in southeastern Switzerland. But by the time of their arrival in St Moritz, the skies had cleared, they were sweating abundantly, and Badrutt, jacketless and with his shirt sleeves rolled up, was there to greet them.
Of course, Badrutt won the bet. Word quickly spread throughout Britain about St Moritz's distinctive climate—dry and sunny with a high degree of snow certainty. Year-round tourism landed the Alpine town of St Moritz.
That Badrutt almost single-handedly marketed this undeveloped winter wonderland is a little unbelievable. The first tourist office in Switzerland had been established in the same year as the bet. Other resorts like the ones in Davos and Grindelwald were also popping up then. The story of St Moritz is, in some ways, also a tale of social transformation. But what Badrutt did made the Swiss mountains accessible in a way that no one else had done before, so his role as pioneer cannot be downplayed.
20 years ago, a couple of ecologists, Daniel Janzen and Winnie Hallwachs, convinced Del Oro, a large orange juice producer, to donate part of their forestland to a national park in exchange for the right to dump (倾倒) massive amounts of orange peels on a 3-hectare piece of land within the national park, at no cost. Dealing with tons of waste peels usually involved burning them or paying to have them dumped at a landfill, so the proposal was very attractive.
A year after the contract was signed, Del Oro dumped around 12,000 tons of sticky orange waste in the land. However, another juice company and rival of Del Oro challenged the deal in court, arguing that their competitor was “polluting the national park”. They ended up winning, and the deal between Del Oro and the national park fell through. The 3-hectare piece of land virtually covered with fruit waste was completely forgotten.
Then, in 2013, Timothy Treuer, a scientist at Princeton University visited that piece of land 15 years earlier. What he found shocked him. “It was completely overgrown with trees and vines,” Timothy Treuer recently said, “the difference between fertilized and unfertilized areas was visually surprised us a lot! We needed to come up with some really good standards to evaluate exactly what was happening there.”
To confirm that the fruit waste was responsible for the revival of plant life, Treuer and his team spent months picking up samples, analyzing and comparing them. They found “dramatic differences between the areas covered in orange peels and those that were not. The area fertilized by orange waste had richer soil, greater tree-species richness and greater forest coverage. In a sense, it's not just a win-win between the company and the local park—it's a win for everyone.”
The effect the orange peels had on the land is probably not that surprising to people familiar with composting (堆肥), but what is shocking is that a judge actually called this particular example polluting the national park and stopped it from going forward. Now that Timothy Treuer's study has received worldwide attention, this type of polluting is being seriously considered as a way of bringing tropical forests back to life.
Every day, we are inching closer to some kind of artificial intelligence. Advances in big data, machine learning and robotics are going to give us a world where computers are effectively intelligent in terms of how we deal with them. Should you be scared by this? Absolutely, but not in the usual “robot overlords” (机器人帝国) kind of way. Instead, the real fear should be about getting human beings wrong, not getting AI right.
The key to the technology is the ability of computers to recognize human emotions based on the ‘‘activation” of muscles in the face. A computer can identify the positions of facial muscles and use them to infer the emotional state of its user. Then the machine responds in ways that take that emotional state into account.
One potential application of it is to provide “emotional robots” for the elderly. Having a machine that could speak in a kind way would comfort a lonely older person. That is a good thing, right? But that won't also relieve us from questioning how we ended up in a society that takes care of the elderly because we don't know what else to do with them? Can't we have more humane solutions than robots?
“Emotion data” aren't the same thing as the real and vivid emotional experiences we human beings have. Our emotions are more than our faces or voices. How can they be pulled out like a thread, one by one, from the fabric of our being?
Research programs can come with much philosophical concern, too. From the computers' point of view, what the computing technology captures are emotions, but at its root is a reduction of human experience whose outward expressions can be captured algorithmically (计算上). As the technology is used in the world, it can reframe the world in ways that can be hard to escape from.
The technology will clearly have useful applications, but once it treats emotions as data, we may find that it is the only aspect of emotion we come to recognize or value. Once billions of dollars floods into this field, we will find ourselves trapped in a technology that is reducing our lives. Even worse, our “emotion data” will be used against us to make money for someone else. And that is what scares me about AI.
When the kids are out of school, parents are eager to use the holidays for some quality family time. While there's great concern among parents about the impact of screens on physical activity and face-to-face communications, parental use of screens is often overlooked. One recent report found that parents spend over nine hours per day with screen media. It's no wonder that families find it hard to have high-quality social interactions.
Want our kids to put down the phones and tablets? It's necessary that we unplug when we ask our kids to do the same. Some family activities we create can help us engage with our kids without the concern of screen time.
Why not leave the devices at home and go for a tech-free nature walk? It will be an opportunity to make us more connected to the world beyond the screen. Focus on being in the moment and kids may enjoy collecting plant seeds or stones.
A board game night is ideal for bringing family members together and being engaged. Moreover, playing games together fosters social interaction, cooperation, and the development of Social Emotional Learning (SEL).
Some other family activities are wonderfully fun without the use of electronic devices. For example, take the kids swimming, or bring them to an indoor rock climbing gym. Bake a cake for a neighbor or plant a garden. Your kids will get lost in the activity, forgetting the devices.
To be clear, technology has many benefits to parents and children. However, creating some tech-free time can help parents and kids feel more connected to each other.
A. We parents must model that behavior.
B. Even so, too much of a good thing can be bad for family time.
C. However, many of us find it hard to compete with electronics.
D. Parents may learn from their kids about science and nature as well.
E. Best of all, family members can enjoy being engaged in a shared experience.
F. The kids are more likely to have buy-in when they feel like they have a say.
G. All these activities require family members to focus their attention on the task at hand.
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Learning is very important for each individual because we have to acquire new and advanced knowledge every day. So it will bring many advantage all through our life to be the successful learner.
Successful learners are similar to many ways. They are independent thinkers but have a positive attitude towards their study. Besides, they have the competence of applying how they have learnt to practice. How can we be successful learners? In my opinion, first of all, we should develop for our interest in study, as an old saying went, “Interest is the best teacher.” Second, we should form the habit of make plans for our study and keep a good balance between study and entertainment. Finally, remember not to depend our teachers or textbooks only. A good learner often have a lifelong habit of teaching himself.
Jane Foster was out shopping when some wedding photos in the window of an antique shop (catch) her eyes. It took her quite a while she realized that she was looking at her mom's long-lost old wedding photos.
But how did they go (miss), to begin with? Along with many other (belonging), the photos had been auctioned (拍卖) off in 2003 after her family missed a payment for the storage facility where they were kept. You can only imagine how upset Jane must (be) at the time. She was searching for them for 14 years before she (accident) found them.
She was flooded with (relieve), but the owner of the store had another surprise for her. The photos weren't the only items he had purchased from that auction. He remembered that he had also bought a wedding dress from 1948, and turned out that this was Jane's mother's dress!
Unfortunately, the woman passed away in 2013 and was therefore (able) to be reunited with her prized possessions. But her daughter is thrilled with the treasured finding, considering it a sign that her mom is still around and watching over her!
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