江苏省扬州重点中学2022-2023学年高三下学期英语3月月...

The Right Electric Bike For You

The bicycle fever is back, but this time it has gone electric. According to NPD Group which tracks the bicycle industry, electric bike sales have more than doubled since 2019. And their popularity is still on the rise. Confirm your need and pick the electric bike that's best for you.

My husband and I always wanted to go to the Caribbean but didn't know much about the islands or how we were going to afford it. By chance, a friend of ours in Australia mentioned "pet sitting" and that it is something you can do all over the world.

We quickly created an account on a pet sitting website and began searching for options. There were only a couple of sits available in that part of the world, but we tried our luck, sent a request, and to our surprise landed a three-month job in Grenada, so our year was going to be taken up with Caribbean pet sits.

Inspired by a Canadian couple, we decided to start our own travel blog. We began by writing about The Virgin Islands, highlighting the beautiful beaches. However, for every photo album of a beautiful beach, there were 10 photos of trash  (垃圾). It was hard to ignore the plastic pollution issue, especially on such primitive and remote beaches. So, we began to share photos of the trash we saw and how much we could pick up on our daily dog walks.

The more we looked into plastic pollution, the more we realized the severity of the global plastic pollution. From that point, we used our platform to create awareness and highlight ways to say no to plastic and travel plastic-free. We changed our daily routines, our way of living, and even our diets to accommodate more organic foods and little to no plastic packaging.

It's been over three years now and we continue to do what we can. This journey has led us to some amazing places, working with great brands and even organizing a country-wide beach clean-up campaign in Grenada.

Our aim now is to keep on going. We love connecting with like-minded people. It's been amazing few years that was sparked by a conversation about pet sitting. Who would have guessed?

Housing officials say that lately they are noticing something different: students seem to lack the will and the skill, to address ordinary conflicts. "We have students who are mad at each other and they text each other in the same room," says a teacher. "So many of our roommate conflicts are because kids don't know how to negotiate a problem."

And as any pop psychologist will tell you, bottled emotions lead to silent discontent that can boil over into frustration and anger. At the University of Florida, emotional outbursts occur about once a week, the university's director of housing and residence education says. "It used to be: ‘Let's sit down and talk about it.'" he says. "Over the past five years, roommate conflicts have increased. The students don't have the person-to-person discussions and they don't know how to handle them." The problem is most dramatic among freshmen; housing professionals say they see improvement as students move toward graduation, but some never seem to catch on, and they worry about how such students will deal with conflicts after college.

Administrators speculate that reliance on cell phones and the Internet may have made it easier for young people to avoid uncomfortable encounters. Why express anger in person when you can vent in a text? "Things are posted on someone's wall on Facebook: Oh, my roommate kept me up all night studying," says Dana Pysz, an assistant director in the office of residential life at the University of California, Los Angeles. "It's a different way to express their conflict to each other, consequently creating even more frictions as complaints go public." In recent focus groups at North Carolina State University, dorm residents said they would not even confront noisy neighbors on their floor.

Administrators point to parents who have fixed their children's problems in their entire lives. Now in college, the children lack the skills to attend to even modest conflicts. Some parents continue to interfere on campus.

In habitats across the planet, animals periodically drop everything to walk, fly or swim to a new place. Wildlife such as whales and geese learn migration paths by following their parents. Others, including small songbirds, gain the distance and direction of their migration within their genetic code. And some animals use a combination of genetics and culture to guide their migration.

Another group of migrators does not quite fit either model, and researchers have only recently started to figure out how they find their way. Take the Cory's shearwater, an oceangoing sea bird that migrates over the Atlantic every year. The young do not migrate with their parents, so culture cannot explain their journeys. And the exact paths vary wildly from individual to individual, making genetics equally unlikely.

Cory's shearwaters are long-lived, rarely producing young successfully before age nine. This leaves an opening for learning and practice to develop their migration patterns. Researchers call this the "exploration-refinement", and until now it has been hypothetical (假设的) because of difficulties in tracking migratory animals' movements.

But a team of researchers has done that by attaching small geolocators to more than 150 of the birds aged four to nine. They found that younger birds traveled longer distances, for longer periods, and had more diverse paths than older birds. "We finally have evidence of the ‘exploration-refinement' for migratory birds," says Letizia Campioni, who led the study. Younger Cory's shearwaters are able to fly just as fast as the adults— but they do not, suggesting that the young do more exploring, which gradually fades as they mature and settle into a preferred course.

Although it may seem less efficient than other strategies, "exploration refinement could be beneficial to birds and other organisms in a rapidly changing world due to unpredictable man-made changes," says Barbara Frei. "It might be safer to repeat a behavior that was recently successful than to rely on patterns that were perfected long ago but might no longer be safe."

I believe almost everyone would like two things from their jobs and careers: success and happiness. They want to do relatively well financially, receive fair recognition for their accomplishments, enjoy their work as much as one can, and become happier as a person as a result. So many people, especially ambitious, hard-working people, simplify them in a logical way: They first seek success and then assume that success will lead to happiness. . Chasing success has costs that can end up lowering happiness.

This is not to say that you have to choose between success and happiness. . But you have to reverse (颠倒) the order of operations: Instead of trying first to get success and hoping it leads to happiness, start by working on your happiness, which will enhance your success.

Whether you are an employee or employer, it is a better investment to increase happiness at work and in life, rather than simply trying to increase measures of success.

. No matter how much you enjoy your work, overwork will become an obstruction (阻碍) to well-being.

Once work quantity is under control, happiness at work requires a sense of meaning and purpose. . Earned success implies a sense of accomplishment and recognition for a job well done, while service to others requires knowledge of the real people who benefit from your work.

Ultimately, although success and happiness are linked, the magic mostly works one-way — and not in the way that most people think. , and may lead you to unhappiness. But working on your happiness. gives you the best chance at getting both.

A. You can obtain both

B. But this reasoning is faulty

C. It's fairly reasonable to think this way, though

D. Working on your success to get happier is inefficient at best (充其量)

E. The first thing to remember is that happiness requires balance

F. It's dangerous to pursue success instead of happiness

G. The two key aspects of meaningful work are earned success and service to others

One of the benefits of social media is that it allows us to witness little moments of joy all around the world. And this was just the1when a classical pianist, Karim Kamar, quite literally lent a helping hand to a 2 youngster who only learned to walk recently.

In a short video on TikTok, in front of 3 Karim Kamar is playing the public piano at London's busy St. Pancras train station. Then a little youngster walked 4 to him and asked the pianist to 5 from the public piano, so he could have a 6 at playing.

Kamar, who's played at many well-known concerts, 7stood up for the tiny child and helped him on to the piano seat. He then bent down to perform with his young pupil, 8his hands as the little kid picked out the 9 to a favorite, "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star."

In this short video, it's lovely to see the pianist take the10 to help the child play the instrument. And it reminds us of the11 of music to unite us when generations 12 and pass down their know-how to those starting out.

It's also 13 to remember just how our little ones desire to learn more, and we should always find a way to14them—even when it tries our 15! —as they try and make sense of the huge world that surrounds them.

Cold Dew, the 17th solar term of the year, begins this year on Oct 8 and ends on Oct 22. At this time, there are some interesting (phenomenon) you need to know.

Not only temperatures drop significantly, but also rainfall is reduced. When the cold air encounters autumn rain, it turns into misty rain or fog. When the humidity is high, (fog) regions form in many areas of China.

People always say that fishing in shallow water in autumn makes sense. That's temperatures decrease quickly and sunshine doesn't reach deep water thoroughly. Fish swim to shallow water areas the water temperature is (relative) high.

Pomegranates (石榴) are ripe during Cold Dew, releasing a sweet scent. With their exquisite beauty, flavor and color, pomegranates never fail to attract people and (cherish) for centuries also for their health benefits and anti-aging benefits.

Chrysanthemum (菊花) is the iconic flower of Cold Dew. (prevent) autumn dryness, many regions in China have the custom of drinking chrysanthemum wine, which is thought to boost heart health by strengthening blood vessels and (stimulate) blood flow.

During Cold Dew, North China takes on a look of late autumn with white clouds, red leaves and early frost. People often climb hills with cornels (茱萸) the day of the Double Ninth Festival, aiming to dispel evils.

1）栏目介绍；

2）稿件要求；

3）期待来稿。

注意：

1）写作词数应为 80 左右；

2）请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。

Dear Mr. Brown,

……

Yours,

Li Hua

Gifts for the poor

Mrs. Susan was mean and bad-tempered. There was no other way to describe her. Just the other day I heard her telling the headmaster that children took too much time in arts. She even said that most of us didn't understand what we were doing. I left the office feeling very angry.

My anger didn't last, however. It was December and Christmas was approaching. Excitement filled me right up to the top of my head. I smiled and laughed, singing "Jingle Bells" as we rode home from school.

After dinner, Mom and Dad called me into the family room. I knew what we were going to discuss. Every year for as long as I could remember, we had chosen a family who needed some extra help at Christmas time, and we had taken gifts and food to their house. It was one of our family's favorite traditions.

Dad said, "It's time we decide which family to help this year. Do you have a suggestion?" Some years it had been really easy to decide, but this year I couldn't think of anyone. Dad looked at Mom. "Maybe Mom has a suggestion. Sometimes she notices things the rest of us miss." Mom smiled. "I do know of someone who needs our help. I think we should help Mrs. Susan."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing! "But, Mom," I protested, "she seems to have plenty of money and she dresses in nice clothes. Besides, she's really bad-tempered. She doesn't even like kids. She might even kick our gifts off her porch (门廊). I think we should choose someone else."

"I know Mrs. Susan has enough money," Mom said. "I know she isn't very pleasant to be around. But she was divorced before she moved here. She has three children who have their own children and never come to see her. She is very lonely and unhappy. You see, she never celebrates Christmas. April, you weren't quite right when you said she wasn't poor."

"You mean she's poor in love?" I asked. "Yes. Sometimes it's much more painful to be poor in love than it is to be poor in money?" I was quiet for minutes. Then Dad said, "Let's take a vote." Dad' and Mom's hands went up. Looking at them, I unwillingly raised mine.

注意：

1）续写的词数应为150左右;

2）请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。

Mom said besides buying her a gift, we should make something by hand.

……

With the box in hand, I could feel my heart pounding when ringing Susan's doorbell.