英语 热门试卷

（A）

（B）

Nothing could stop Dad. After he was put on disability for a bad back, he bought a small farm in the country, just enough to grow food for the family. He planted vegetables, fruit trees and even kept bees for honey.

And every week he cleaned Old Man McColgin's chicken house in exchange for manure(肥料). The Smell really burned the inside of your nose. When we complained about the terrible smell, Dad said the stronger the manure, the healthier the crops, and he was right. For example, just one of his cantaloupes filled the entire house with its sweet smell, and the taste was even sweeter.

As the vegetables started coming in, Dad threw himself into cooking. One day, armed with a basket of vegetables, he announced he was going to make stew(炖菜). Dad pulled out a pressure cooker and filled it up with cabbages, eggplants, potatoes, corns, onions and carrots. For about half an hour. the pressure built and the vegetables cooked. Finally, Dad turned off the stove, the pot began to cool and the pressure relief valve sprayed out a cloud of steam. If we thought Dad's pile of chicken manure｡was bad, this was 10 times worse. When Dad took off the lid, the smell nearly knocked us out.

Dad carried the pot out and we opened doors and windows to air out the house. Just how bad was it? The neighbors came out of their houses to see if we had a gas leak!

Determined, Dad filled our plates with steaming stew and passed them around it didn’t look that bad, and after the first wave had shut down my ability to smell, it didn’t offend the nose so much, edible, and we drank up every last drop of soup.

（C）

Across Britain, burnt toast will be served to mothers in bed this morning as older sons and daughters rush to deliver their supermarket bunches of flowers, But, according to a new study, we should be placing a higher value on motherhood all year.

Mothers have long known that their home workload was just heavy as paid work. Now, the new study has shown that if they were paid for their parental labours, they would earn as much as￡172, 000 a year.

The study looked at the range of jobs mothers do, as well as the hours they are working, to determine the figure. This would make their yearly income ￡30, 000 more than the Prime Minister earns.

By analysing the numbers, it found the average mother works 119 hours a week, 40 of which would usually be paid at a standard rate 79 hours as overtime. After questioning 1, 000 mothers with children under 18, it found that , on most days, mums started their routine work at 7am and finished at around 11pm.

To calculate just how much mothers would earn from that labour, it suggested some of the roles that mums could take on, including housekeeper, part-time lawyer, personal trainer and entertainer. being a part-time lawyer, at $48. 98 an hour, would prove to be the most profitable of the “mum jibs”, with psychologist(心理学家)a close second.

It also asked mothers about the challenges they face, with 80 percent making emotional(情感的) demand as the hardest thing about motherhood.

Over a third of mums felt they needed more training and around half said they missed going out with friends.

The study shows mothers matter all year long and not just on, Mother’s Day. The emotional, physical and mental energy mothers devote to their children can be never-ending, but children are also sources of great joy and happiness. Investing(投入)in time for parenting and raising relationships is money well spent.

（D）

Their cheery song brightens many a winter's day. But robins are in danger of wearing themselves out by singing too much. Robins are singing all night一as well as during the day, British-based researchers say.

David Dominoni, of Glasgow University, said that light from street lamps, takeaway signs and homes is affecting the birds' biological clock, leading to them being wide awake when they should be asleep.

Dr Dominoni, who is putting cameras inside nesting boxes to track sleeping patterns, said lack of sleep could put the birds' health at risk. His study shows that when robins are exposed to light at night in the lab, it leads to some genes being active at the wrong time of day. And the more birds are exposed to light, the more active they are at night.

He told people at a conference, "There have been a couple of studies suggesting they are increasing their song output at night and during the day they are still singing. Singing is a costly behaviour and it takes energy. So by increasing their song output, there might be some costs of energy. "

And it is not just robins that are being kept awake by artificial light. Blackbirds and seagulls are also being more nocturnal. Dr Dominoni said, "In Glasgow where I live, gulls are a serious problem. I have people coming to me saying `You are the bird expert. Can you help us kill these gulls?'. During the breeding(繁殖)season, between April and June, they are very active at night and very noisy and people can't sleep. "

Although Dr Dominoni has only studied light pollution, other research concluded that robins living in noisy cities have started to sing at night to make themselves heard over loud noise.

However, some birds thrive(兴旺)in noisy environments. A study from California Polytechnic University found more hummingbirds in areas with heavy industrial machinery. It is thought that they are capitalising on their predators(天敌)fleeing to quieter areas.