每空限填1个单词。

How to be a good listener

Everyone loves a good listener. But there are more reasons to develop the skill of listening than to win hearts or popularity contests.

Listening heals hurts and builds bridges. It gives us the ability to understand and empathize, to view the world from our own point. It can bring us wisdom over and above mere intelligence. But most importantly, it allows us to give the people around us the gifts they crave (渴望) most—a sense of worth.

As it turns out, there’s more to good listening than just keeping quiet and allowing someone to speak. Effective listening is actually a combination of two key communication skills: listening and verifying (确认).

Even when we’ve managed to hear a person’s entire message, we often interpret it wrong—according to our own understanding, experience, or prejudice. As an effective listener, your goal is to hear and absorb what another has to say……in exactly the way they mean it to be understood. Only then can you respond properly. This is much easier read than done, so here are a few helpful tips:

1. Give the speaker your full attention.

Stop talking and remove all distractions. Turn off the TV, your phone, or computer. Watch your body language. The way you look at the speaker, or the way you stand or sit, makes a huge difference. The right listening body language communicates that we are listening openly and attentively, and puts the other person at ease.

2. Be patient.

Not everyone is a gifted speaker. Some people take longer to find the right word to make a point. Others are too worried to get their message across properly. If necessary, ask the speaker to explain further. It will help him / her speak more exactly and it will help you hear and understand better.

3. Keep your emotions in check.

If what someone is saying creates an emotional response in you, make an extra effort to listen carefully. When we’re angry, frightened or upset, we often miss key parts of what is being said.

4. Hold your fire.

Don’t jump to conclusions immediately. A good listener doesn’t react until comprehension is complete. If you respond in a way that makes the other person defensive, even if you “win” the argument, you may lose something far more valuable.

5. Even if you think you understand. VERIFY.

Never assume you got the message right. Pause, think about what was said, and then ask “Is this what you meant?” or “Am I understanding this right?”

6. Empathize

Take a moment to stand in the other person’s shoes, to look at the situation from his / her point of view……especially when you’re being told something personal or painful, or something you strongly disagree with. The more shoes you are able to successfully stand in within your life time, the less puzzled you’ll find your life and relationships to be.

(1)__________ of good listening	● (2)__________ hurts. ● Building (3)___________. ● Allowing us to (4)___________ and empathize, and viewing the world in an all-round way. ● Bringing us wisdom over and above mere intelligence. ● (5)_________ the people around us feel worthy.
Components of effective listening	● Good listening consists of two key communication skills: (6)__________ and verifying.
(7)__________ to be a good listener	● Listening to the speaker (8)_________. ● Trying to be a (9) _______ listener. ● Avoiding being affected by your emotions. ● Waiting before you take (10)_________. ● Verifying. ● Empathizing

 

Some plants get so hungry they eat flies, and even small frogs. What's more amazing is that these plants occur naturally (in special environments) in every state. In fact, they're found on every continent except Antarctica.
You've probably seen a Venus' flytrap -- a small plant, which grows 6 to 8 inches tall in a container. At the end of its stalks (茎) are leaves that act like traps (陷阱). Inside each trap is a lining of tiny hairs. When an insect lands on them, the traps suddenly shut. Over the course of a week or so, the plant feeds on its catch.
The Venus' flytrap is just one of more than 500 species of meat-eating plants, says Barry Meyers-Rice, the editor of the International Carnivorous Plant Society's Newsletter. He states although you might have read some science-fiction stories, no meat-eating plant does any danger to humans.
Barry says a plant is meat-eating, only if it does all four of the following: "attract, kill, digest, and absorb" some form of insects. Meat-eating plants look and act like other green plants -- well, most of the time.
All green plants make sugar to produce food. What makes meat-eating plants different is their special leaves, which need insects for one reason: nitrogen (氮). Nitrogen is a nutrient that they can't obtain any other way. Why?
Almost all green plants on our planet get nitrogen from the soil. Meat-eating plants can't. They live in places where nutrients are hard to get from the soil because of its acidity. So they've come to rely on getting nitrogen from insects and small animals. In fact, nutrient-rich soft is poisonous to meat-eating plants. Never fertilize (施肥) them! But don't worry, either, if they never seem to catch any insects. They can survive, but they'll grow very slowly.
【小题1】According to the passage, a Venus' flytrap ______.

A．is a small plant which grows in a container

B．is a kind of plant which gets hungry easily

C．can trap and feed on some form of insects

D．can only grow 6-8 inches tall

【小题2】From the passage, we can infer that ______.

A．meat-eating plants are found nowhere else except Antarctica

B．all green plants get nitrogen from the soil

C．meat-eating plants endanger humans in science-fiction stories

D．the nutrient-poor soil is beneficial to meat-eating plants

【小题3】Meat-eating plants grow very slowly, ______.

A．so you'd better fertilize them

B．probably because the supply of nitrogen is cut off

C．simply because they can't absorb nitrogen from the soil

D．and then they will die slowly

【小题4】Which of the following is true?

A．Meat-eating plants look and act like other green plants.

B．It's hard to get nutrients in the soil when acidity is high.

C．The Venus' flytrap eats flies to get nutrient from them.

D．Green plants make sugar at night.

 Water goes around and around Earth in a never ending journey called the water cycle（循环）. The sun heats up lakes, oceans, and other wet places on Earth. When the water gets warm enough, it changes into vapour. Plants also give off lots of water vapour. Some of this water vapour cools off high in the sky and becomes clouds. Then it falls back to Earth in a new place as rain or snow. This cycle happens over and over again.

The ground can absorb water like a sponge (海绵). If you could see this groundwater, it wouldn’t look like a lake or river. The groundwater is mixed in with the rocks and sand that lie in layers(层) below Earth’s surface.

Groundwater moves along slowly. How slowly? Maybe 1.5 kilometres in one century. Some of this water has been underground for thousands of years. And once groundwater is pumped out of the ground from a deep well（井） by people, it may take hundreds of years for another water to take its place.

1.In which order does water go around Earth?

a .Fall down as rain or snow.  b. Heated up by the sun on lakes, oceans and other wet places.

c. Cool off high in the sky.     d.  Form clouds.     e.  Change into vapour.

A．dacbe

B．becda

C．caebd

D．bceda

2.The groundwater seems to________.

A．be just on the ground	B．be pure water like that in a lake or river
C．exist in rocks and sand	D．flow along like rivers or streams

3.The underlined word “pumped” in the passage can be replaced by________.

A．run

B．pushed

C．drawn

D．picked

4.What conclusion（结论） can we draw from the passage?

A．Groundwater can be quickly replaced by other water once pumped out.

B．Groundwater is very valuable.

C．Groundwater has nothing to do with human beings.

D．Groundwater travel in an unknown way.

 

阅读下列各小题，根据汉语句子，用句末括号内的英语单词完成句子，并将答案写在答题卡上的相应题号后。

1.___________________________, she will spare no time to attend the party.(with)

有那么多作业要做，她抽不出时间参加聚会。

2.What I hate most is ______________________.(laugh)

我最讨厌被人嘲笑了。

3.________________________, we couldn’t get in touch with her.(know)

不知道她的电话号码，我们无法与他取得联系。

4.If you don’t go to play basketball tomorrow, _______________________.(nor) 

明天你不去打篮球，我也不去。

5.This park is a good place for the people here to ________________ on weekends.(get)

这个公园是这儿的人周末去亲近自然的一个好去处。

6.The old man on the roadside ________________ after the kind girl gave him first aid. (come)

路边上的老人在这位好心的女孩对他进行了急救之后终于醒了过来。

7.As a president, Obama always ___________________________ Lincoln. (model)

作为总统，奥巴马总是以林肯作为自己的榜样。

8.____________________ the novel, he didn’t notice that the teacher was approaching.(absorb)

由于全神贯注地看小说，他没有注意到老师正向他走来。

9.I _____________________ the music “Tante”, which, however, is so popular online.(sense)

我弄不懂“忐忑”这支曲子，而它却在网络上这么流行。

10.When I entered the theatre, I found him __________________________. (seat)

当我进剧院时，发现他坐在第一排。

 

Medical drugs sometimes cause more damage than they cure. One solution to this problem is to put the drugs inside a capsule, protecting them from the body—and the body from them—until they can be released at just the right spot. There are lots of ways to trigger (引发) this release, including changing temperature, acidity, and so on. But triggers can come with their own risks—burns, for example. Now, researchers in California have designed what could be a harmless trigger to date: shining near-infrared light (NIR, 近红外线) on the drug in the capsule.
The idea of using light to liberate the drug in the capsule isn’t new. Researchers around the globe have developed polymers (聚合物) and other materials that begin to break down when they absorb either ultraviolet (UV, 紫外线) or visible light. But tissues also readily absorb UV and visible light, which means the drug release can be triggered only near the skin, where the light can reach the capsule. NIR light largely passes through tissues, so researchers have tried to use it as a trigger. But few compounds (化合物) absorb NIR well and go through chemical changes.
That changed last year when Adah Almutairi, a chemist at the University of California, San Diego, reported that she and her colleagues had designed a polymer that breaks down when it absorbs NIR light. Their polymer used a commercially available NIR-absorbing group called o-nitrobenzyl (ONB). When they catch the light, ONB groups fall off the polymer, leading to its breakdown. But ONB is only a so-so NIR absorber, and it could be poisonous to cells when it separates from the polymer.
So Almutairi and her colleagues reported creating a new material for capsules that’s even better.This one consists of a long chain of compounds called cresol groups linked in a polymer. Cresol contains reactive(易反应的) components that make it highly unstable in its polymeric form, a feature Almutairi and her colleagues use to their advantage. After polymerizing the cresols, they cap each reactive component with a light-absorbing compound called Bhc. When the Bhcs absorb NIR light, the reactive groups are exposed and break the long polymer into two short chains. Shining additional light continues this breakdown, potentially releasing any drugs in the capsule. What’s more, Almutairi says, Bhc is 10 times better at absorbing NIR than is ONB and is not poisonous to cells.
【小题1】According to the passage, which of the following could be the best trigger?

A．Temperature change.

B．NIR light.

C．Acidity change.

D．UV light.

【小题2】Why is ONB unsatisfactory?

A．It breaks down when it absorbs NIR light.

B．It falls off the polymer and triggers drug release.

C．It has not come onto the market up till now.

D．It is not effective enough and could be poisonous.

【小题3】Which word can be used to complete the following process of changes?

A．protected

B．formed

C．exposed

D．combined