How did we3a throwaway society? First of all, it is now easier to 4an object than to spend time and money to repair it. 5modern manufacturing (制造业) and technology, companies are able to produce products quickly and inexpensively. Products are plentiful and6.

        Another cause is our7of disposable (一次性的) products.As8 people,we are always looking for 9 to save time and make our lives easier. Companies10 thousands of different kinds of disposable products: paper plates, plastic cups, and cameras, to name a few.

        Our appetite for new products also 11 to the problem. We are12 buying new things. Advertisements persuade us that 13is better and that we will be happier with the latest products. The result is that we 14 useful possessions to make room for new ones.

        All around the world, we can see the 15 of this throwaway lifestyle. Mountains of rubbish just keep getting bigger. To 16the amount of rubbish and to protect the 17, more governments are requiring people to recycle materials. 18, this is not enough to solve (解决) our problem.

        Maybe there is another way out. We need to repair our possessions19 throwing them away. We also need to rethink our attitudes about 20. Repairing our possessions and changing our spending habits may be the best way to reduce the amount of rubbish and take care of our environment.

    People have been raising pigeons (鸽子) for about 10,000 years. And pigeon keepers use different kinds of pigeons for different1. Some people use pigeons for2. For example, in parts of the world, people cook a special meal with pigeon to celebrate the New Year. Some people also3pigeons because they look especially 4. There are many interesting kinds of “pretty” pigeons. Different kinds of pigeons have interesting features (特点)5 long, soft tails or designs on their heads. The6of these kinds of pigeons enter them in7and the best looking pigeons are chosen to win prizes.

    But pigeons have many other8too. Pigeons can fly a long way without growing9. They also have another10sense.No matter how far from home they are, pigeons can usually fly back to where they11. This is often called a “homing sense”. This sense makes them good for carrying 12.

    In many cities around the world, pigeons live in special houses,13pigeon keepers spend a lot of money and time14their birds. When someone has a very good pigeon, he is very15. He may also have a way to make money. But this is not usually the main16people keep pigeons. For some people, they keep pigeons as a hobby.

    People17their pigeons so much that they even take them18when they move to a new country. They19these birds as their children. “When you are looking at a pigeon in the sky you feel20. It is the best feeling you have in a strange country,” a pigeon lover says.

    Keeping The Taps Running in Thirsty Cities

    Water covers 71% of Earth's surface yet only 2% of it is accessible as a source of fresh water. 1 on this limited resources is rising, a trend likely to continue.

    It is important to recognize that it is not just city residents who 2 water. Agriculture, industry and tourism often require more water than the municipal water supply. Globally, 70% of fresh water is 3 for agriculture, but locally in heavily irrigated(灌溉)areas this can increate to 90%. A healthy environment also requires fresh water, and the quality of available water is as important as its 4.

    Water stress is not always caused by physical shortages in dry areas. 5 for water resources between different users within river catchments or basins can also be a cause.

    Every thirsty city operates within its own context, 6 to the challenge of providing adequate water supplies. Cape Town, 7, has faced three years of drought during which winter rains failed to materialize. At the end of the 2017 rainy season the city faced the 8 of its dams running dry during 2018. The dams were only 37% full—in the same week four years before they were full to the top. In January 2018, it was 9 that Cape Town would reach Day Zero, when it would be forced to turn off the taps, in April. This was despite the city reducing its water use by more than half, from 1.2 billion litres a day in 2015 to fewer than 600 million litres, and working 10 with industry and agriculture to reduce demand.

    On February 1, the authorities put in place a strict limit of 50 litres of water per person per day. 11, in Britain this is considered enough for a five-minute shower of half a washing machine cycle on full load.

    In addition, a ban was placed on using 12 water for gardens, water management devices were installed at household with a high water use and the water pressure was reduced to cut demand and leaks. At the same, the city launched a media 13 to change habits and introduced higher duties. This is not without its costs; agriculture and tourism, both significant areas of employment, have 14. It is a classic example of the problem of water economics-the cost of water is low but the cost of a lack of water is very high.

    Crises such as the Cape Town drought are in danger of becoming the new norm. The 15 of Day Zero must serve as a wake-up call for cities across the world to develop cost-effective water management strategies to cope with an uncertain future.

    Directions: For each blank in the following passages there are four words or phrases marked A, B, C, and D. Fill in each blank with the word or phrase that best fits the context.

    Microsoft Corp founder Bill Gates caught people's eye in a recent interview, when he suggested that robots should be taxed in, order to help humans keep their jobs. Gates is only one of many people in the tech world who have worried about automation and its 1 to workers.

    It's easy to see why the tech world is 2. The rise of machine learning has increased the fear that 3 humans could simply become out of date--4, 3.5 million American truck drivers might soon find their jobs threatened by driverless trucks. Though in the past, technology usually complemented workers 5 replacing them, there's no law of nature saying the technology of the future will work the same. A few economists even claim that cheap automation has already 6 income from workers to company owners.

    Another 7 is that even if the mass of humanity ultimately does find new ways to add value by complementing new technology—to “race with the machines,” as economist Erik Brynjofsson puts it—this transition could take a long time and hurt a lot of people. As Bloomberg View's Tyler Cowen has noted, wages in Britain fell for four decades at the start of the Industrial Revolution. More 8, we've seen very slow and painful adjustment to the impact of globalization. If the machine learning revolution hurts workers for 40 years before ultimately helping them, it might be worth it to 9 that revolution and give them time to adjust.

    The main argument against taxing the robots is that it might hold back 10. Growth in rich countries has slowed markedly in the past decade, suggesting that it's getting harder and harder to find new ways of doing things. Stagnating productivity, combined with falling business investment, suggests that 11 of new technology is currently too slow rather than too fast—the biggest problem right now isn't too many robots, it's too few. Taxing new technology, however it's done, could make that slowdown worse.

    The problem with Gate's basic proposal is that it's very hard to tell the difference between new technology that12 humans and new technology that replaces them. This is especially true over the long term. Power looms（织布机）replaced human weavers back in the Industrial Revolution. 13, people eventually became more productive, by learning to operate those looms. If taxes had slowed the development of power looms, the eventual improvements would have come later.

    This is a powerful argument 14 the taxation of automation. Gates is right to say that we should start thinking ahead of time about how to use policy to mitigate（缓和）the unintended consequences of automation. But given the importance of sustaining innovation, we should look at 15 policies.

    Students in Caldwell, Idaho, can attend class in their pajamas(睡衣)! At Vallivue Virtual Academy, courses are taught online. Students work at home with parents, who serve as learning coaches. A certified teacher 1 the students' progress.

    The cyber school was 2 as a free option for students in kindergarten through grade 8 who have trouble succeeding in the district's  3 public school. Supporters of the program say that virtual schools help students avoid the social pressures that can 4 with learning. In addition, supporters argue, online courses provide kids with more focused 5 and course options than they can get in a typical school.

    Not everyone gives cyber schools a passing grade, however. Some educators argue that online learning makes it hard for students to make friends. Many parents also feel that cyber schools put 6 time demands on them because they have to oversee their kids' daily work.

    Technology can benefit education, but it shouldn't 7 education. Students who go to virtual schools will miss many of the benefits of being in a real school.

    If kids attend school online, they will miss out on important social 8. Payton Mcdonough, 13, a seventh grader from Glencoe, Ill., agrees. "I don't know how I could sit at a computer all day without 9 interacting with my peers and teachers," he says.

    In addition, virtual schools don't have enough structure. Students who take online courses can set their own schedules, which will cause problems for students who have trouble staying 10.

    Furthermore, online schooling puts stress on parents because they have to  11 what their kids do at home. Many parents have full–time jobs. How are they going to run their children's education,12 in their jobs, and take care of their other responsibilities at home?

    Virtual schools will make it harder for students to learn and will put too much pressure on parents.

    Virtual learning does not need to replace classroom learning 13, but it can help students work at their own pace. If students struggle with subjects, they can take those courses online and spend more time on them. Virtual schools can also offer students much more 14 schedules. Students often handle extracurricular activities, sports, and schoolwork, and cyber schools could help them manage everything.

    Finally, attending virtual school can prepare students for college and for work after 15. "We need to be responsible for working on our own," says Angela Goscilo, a senior from Pound Ridge, N.Y. "We need to develop technology skills that will help us in whatever we do. Getting an early start is a good idea."

    After my public lectures on evolution, someone in the audience asks, "Are we still evolving?" People want to know if humans are getting taller, smarter, better looking or more athletic. My answer is truthful but 1: We're almost certainly evolving, but we don't know in what 2 or how fast.

    We've seen some evolution in our species over the past few millennia, but it was detected by reconstructing history from DNA sequences. For example, we know that during the past 10,000 years, several populations of humans — those keeping sheep, cows or goats for milk— gained the ability to digest dairy products. This quality was 3 in our earlier ancestors who, after babyhood, never encountered milk. And in the past 3,000 years, Tibetans have acquired 4 adaptations that allowed them to develop well in their high-altitude, low-oxygen home. But these well-documented changes are limited to particular populations, so the 5 for recent evolution of our entire species, remains not much.

    The authors of "Evolving Ourselves" 6. Not only, they claim, are we evolving faster than ever, but we're doing it to ourselves. Juan Enriquez and Steve Gullans argue that humans have 7 evolution — not just in our own species but virtually in all species: "For better or worse, we are increasingly in charge. We are the primary drivers of 8. We will directly and indirectly determine what lives, what dies, where, and when. We are in a different phase of evolution: the future of life is now 9."

    According to the authors, we've replaced natural selection with what they call "10selection." Overfishing, for example, has reduced the average size of many fish species, for taking the biggest fishes is 11 those smaller fishes.

    Yet while there's no doubt that we're changing the planet, the claim that we're completely changing evolution on the planet 12. Let's take those fish that are evolving to reproduce smaller and younger for example. This 13 has been documented in many species that we eat, but this is just a minuscule fraction (极小的一部分) of the 30,000 known species of fish.

    The authors speak with 14 assurance about how our species is evolving in response to nearly everything. When they claim, for example, our ingestion (摄取) of drugs and exposure to chemicals mean that "our children's brains are evolving fast," they are abusing (滥用) the word "15." Our children's brains may be changing fast in response to the new pharmacological (药理学的) environment, but change alone is not evolution.