The Great Barn Adventure

One morning when I was 11, I explored the town’s abandoned round grain barn（谷仓）. I found a chained sliding door that was wide enough for me to pass through.

Inside, there was a heavy smell of dead mice in the dark. After my eyes adjusted, I noticed a shaft (升降机井) that rose all the way to the top of the barn. On one side was a one-man elevator with a long rope and roller.

I stepped onto the platform and gave the rope a drag and the elevator began sliding up the shaft, but stopped halfway. After a brief panic attack, I noticed holes in the wall at regular intervals, forming a ladder. For reasons known only to an 11-year-old, I decided it would be better to go up than down. So, with shaking hands, I began climbing the wall.

After what seemed like forever, I reached the top of the shaft. I stood up, dusted myself off and found absolutely nothing of interest. It was just an empty room with a ladder leading up to the roof. I climbed all the way up here for this? Then I noticed a fire extinguisher（灭火器）,which I’d always wanted to shoot off. So this was the chance of a lifetime. I tried it, and, much to my surprise, the thing worked! It shot out a thick cloud of powder that instantly filled the room. I couldn’t breathe. I was going to choke to death, and they’d probably never even find my body.

Luckily, I remembered the ladder to the roof. I climbed up, popped the straw roof and saw a bright blue sky.

I suddenly realized the dust and powder pouring out of the top could draw attention. So when the dust had settled, I climbed down and slipped out of the chained door. I’m not sure if I was more excited about being alive or about not being caught, but I ran all the way back home.

1. When the author got inside the barn, he _______.

A. noticed a man on the elevator

B. opened the chained sliding door

C. saw many dead mice in the dark

D. found a shaft leading to the top

2. Which of the following is the right order of the author’s adventure?

a. The elevator stopped halfway.

b. He entered the round grain barn.

c. He climbed to the top of the shaft.

d. He found a fire extinguisher and shot it off.

A. b-a-c-d         B. a-c-b-d         C. c-a-d-b            D. b-c-a-d

3. After getting out of the chained door, the author might feel _______.

A. inspired         B. relieved        C. surprised        D. disappointed

4.. From the passage, we can learn that the author was probably a boy full of _______.

A. passions       B. dreams        C. curiosity        D. imagination

Evening Workshops

Optional evening workshops will be held at small restaurants or other meeting places near the conference hotel. Meals and other costs are not included but are also optional. Locations will be announced at the conference site. Workshops are very loosely organized and most represent discussions that have been held at Society for Economic Botany (SEB) meetings over a series of years.

Workshop 1: Student Network

Date: Wednesday evening, Feb. 5th

Chairs: Hugo de Boer and Arika Virapongse

Sponsor:    Society for Economic Botany

Description: Student members of the SEB hold a networking mixer each year in order to meet each other and to become familiar with a variety of educational programs and faculty advisors(大学指导老师). Faculty members who are part of training programs are encouraged to join the mixer to meet and talk with students.

Workshop 2: Botanical Film Making

Date : Wednesday evening, Feb. 5th

Chair : David Strauch

Sponsor : University of Hawaii

Description : Digital film making is a particularly useful tool of linking cultural information to recognizable plants. This workshop is aimed towards increasing the quality of material recorded by giving participants greater control over the medium. We will cover technical aspects (e.g. camera settings, audio), technical aspects (framing, lighting, focus), and some ways of presenting the material. Experienced filmmakers are encouraged to attend, and participants are welcome to bring their own camera equipment.

Workshop 3: Collections for Botany

— Collections Development and Management

Date: Friday evening, Feb. 7th

Chair: Jan Salick

Sponsor: Society for Economic Botany

Description: SEB is a network of researchers who have been developing standards for the development of collections of artifacts, plant samples and related materials. Participants discuss successes, problems, and funding sources for solving management issues.

5. One of the purposes of a networking mixer held each year is to ________.

   A. provide students with greater control over the media

   B. link cultural information to recognizable plants

   C. help the students to deal with most of the environment issues

   D. help the students to be familiar with educational programs

6. Which of the following is true according to the poster?

   A. Evening workshops will be held at small restaurants with meals included.

   B. Participants have more than one option on Feb.5th than another night.

   C. Workshops have nothing to do with the discussions held at SEB meetings. 

   D. Faculty advisers can join the mixer without training experience.

7. You are a college student, interested in plants and good at taking TV pictures. Which of the Evening Workshops is most suitable for you?

   A. Botanical Film Making.                                        B. Collections for Botany.

   C. Student Network.              D. Society for Economic Botany.

The extraordinary Eastgate Building in Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital city, is said to be the only one in the world to use the same cooling and heating principles as the termite mound(白蚁堆).

Architect Mick Pearce used precisely the same strategy when designing the Eastgate Building, which has no air-conditioning and almost no heating. The building—the country’s largest commercial and shopping complex—uses less than 10% of the energy of a conventional building of its size. The Eastgate’s owners saved $3.5 million on a $36 million building because an air-conditioning equipment didn’t have to be imported.

The complex is actually two buildings linked by bridges across a shady, glass-roofed atrium(天井) open to the air. Fans suck fresh air in from the atrium, blow it upstairs through hollow spaces under the floors and from there into each office through baseboard vents(通风口). As it rises and warms, it is drawn out via ceiling vents and finally exists through forty-eight brick chimneys.

During summer’s cool nights, big fans blow air through the building seven times an hour to cool the empty floors. By day, smaller fans blow two changes of air an hour through the building, to circulate the air which has been in contact with the cool floors. For winter days, there are small heaters in the vents.

This is all possible only because Harare is 1600 feet above sea level, has cloudless skies, little dampness and rapid temperature changes—days as warm as 31℃ commonly drop to 14℃ at night. “You couldn’t do this in New York, with its hot summers and cold winters,” Pearce said.

The engineering firm of Ove  Arup & Partners monitors daily temperatures. It is found that the temperature of the building has generally stayed between 23℃ and 25℃, with the exception of the annual hot period just before the summer rains in October and three days in November, when a doorkeeper accidentally switched off the fans at night. And the air is fresh—far more so than in air-conditioned buildings, where up to 30% of the air is recycled.

8. Why was Eastgate cheaper to be built than a conventional building? 

A. It was designed in a smaller size.

B. No air conditioners were fixed in.

C. Its heating system was less advanced.

D. It used rather different building materials.

9. What does “it” refer to in Paragraph 3?

A. Fresh air from outside.      B. Heat in the building.       

C. Hollow space.                D. Baseboard vent.

10. Why would a building like Eastgate Not work efficiently in New York?

A. New York has less clear skies as Harare.

B. Its dampness affects the circulation of air.

C. New York covers a larger area than Harare.

D. Its temperature changes seasonally rather than daily.

11. The data in the last paragraph suggests Eastgate’s temperature control system_____.

A. allows a wide range of temperatures

B. functions well for most of the year

C. can recycle up to 30% of the air

D. works better in hot seasons

Men are spending more and more time in the kitchen encouraged by celebrity (名人) chefs like Gordon Ramsay and Jamie Oliver, according to a report from Oxford University.

     The effect of the celebrity role models, who have given cooking a more manly picture, has combined with a more general drive towards sexual equality and men now spend more than twice the amount of time preparing meals than they did in 1961.

According to the research by Prof. Jonatahn Gershuny, who runs the Centre for Time Research at Oxford, men now spend more than half an hour a day cooking, up from just 12 minutes a day in 1961.

Prof. Gershuny said, “The man in the kitchen is part of a much wider social trend. There has been 40 years of sexual equality, but there is another 40 years probably to come.”

Women, who a generation ago spent nearly two hours a day cooking, now spend just one hour and seven minutes—a great fall, but they still spend far more time in the kitchen than men.

Some experts have named these men in aprons as “Gastrosexuals (men using cooking skills to impress friends)”, who have been inspired to pick up a kitchen knife by the success of Ramsay, Oliver as well as other male celebrity chefs such as Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Marco Pierre White and Keith Floyd.

       “I was married in 1974. When my father came to visit me a few weeks later, I was wearing an apron when I opened the door. He laughed,” said Prof. Gershuny. “That would never happen now.”

Two-thirds of adults say that they come together to share at least three times a week, even if it is not necessarily around a kitchen or dining room table. Prof. Gershuny pointed out that the family meal was now rarely eaten by all of its members around a table—with many “family meals” in fact taken on the sofa in the sitting room, and shared by family members. “The family meal has changed a lot, and few of us eat—as I did when I was a child—at least two meals a day together as a family. But it has survived in a different format.” 

12. What is one reason behind the trend that men spend more time cooking than before?

A. The improvement of cooks’ status.

B. The influence of popular female chefs.

C. The change of female’s view on cooking.

D. The development of sexual equality campaign.

13. What does the author think about the time men and women spend on cooking?

A. Men spend more time cooking than women nowadays.

B. Women spend much less time on cooking than before.

C. It will take 40 years before men spend more time at the stove than women.

D. There is a sharp decline in the time men spend on cooking compared with 1961.

14. How did Prof. Gershuny see the family meal according to the passage?

A. It has become a thing of the past.

B. It is very different from what it used to be.

C. It shouldn’t be advocated in modern times.

D. It is beneficial to the stability of the family.

15. Which is the best title for the passage?

A. The Changes of Family Meals

B. Equality between Men and Women

C. Cooking into a New Trend for Men

D. Cooking—a Thing of the Past for Women

Americans use many expressions with the word “dog”. People in the United States love their dogs and treat them well.    16   However, dogs without owners to care for them lead a different kind of life. The expression, to lead a dog's life, describes a person who has an unhappy existence.

Some people say we live in a dog-eat-dog world.   17   They say that to be successful, a person has to work like a dog. This means they have to work very, very hard. Such hard work can make people dog-tired. And, the situation would be even worse if they became sick as a dog.

     18   This means that every person enjoys a successful period during his or her life. To be successful, people often have to learn new skills. Yet, some people say that you can never teach an old dog new tricks. They believe that older people do not like to learn new things and will not change the way they do things.

     19   People who are unkind or uncaring can be described as meaner than a junkyard dog. Junkyard dogs live in places where people throw away things they do not want. Mean dogs are often used to guard this property. They bark or attack people who try to enter the property. However, sometimes a person who appears to be mean and threatening is really not so bad. We say his bark is worse than his bite.

Dog expressions are also used to describe the weather. The dog days of summer are the hottest days of the year. A rainstorm may cool the weather. But we do not want it to rain too hard.   20   

A. Still, people say every dog has its day.

B. We do not want it to rain cats and dogs.

C. Some people are compared to dogs in bad ways.

D. Dogs are their best friends and they are loyal to people.

E. There are many other expressions waiting for you to explore.

F. That means many people are competing for the same things, like good jobs.

G. They take their dogs for walks, let them play outside and give them good food and medical  

  care.