Senator Jeff Flake, an adventurous politician, went on a four-day Robinson Crusoe style holiday with his two sons, (25)_____ of whom are teenagers, to a remote, uninhabited island in the North Pacific Ocean. They traveled 5,200 miles from Phoenix, Arizona to the island of Biggarenn. They didn’t carry any food or water.

The island is part of the Marshall Islands. It offered no basic facilities, (26)_____ the Flakes had to catch and cook their own food and purify their water. Their diet (27)_____(make) up of coconuts(椰子), fish and other seafood. They captured the fish and other sea creatures themselves and cooked the food over an open fire (28)_____(start) with a magnifying glass(放大镜).

The Flakes brought along a lobster(龙虾) trap in hopes of having some delicious treats, but it was lost within the first few hours after (29)_____(attack) by a shark. They also carried two pumps to remove salt from ocean water. It took them hours each night (30)_____ (pump) for just a small amount of fresh water.

One of the most memorable moments of the trip, the father said, was (31)_____ he and his 15-year-old son were chased by sharks after catching a fish in the ocean.

Still, it was quite (32)_____ enjoyable holiday for the politician. “For a dad it was a wonderful thing. No video games around, no television, no texting,” Flake recalled.

Count to three and rip(撕) it off as fast as you can—this is how most people remove a band-aid(创可贴). (33)_____ _____ _____ fast you do it, it’s still going to be painful. That’s for sure. Or is it?

A group of American scientists from Boston have just developed a band-aid that can be taken off without causing pain, reports the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Traditional band-aids are supposed to break apart (34)_____ the skin meets the glue, which is what makes taking them off so painful. But the new band-aid has an extra layer that sits (35)_____ the glue and the backing. When you tear off the band-aid, you remove the backing and middle layers, (36)_____(leave) the glue behind. The glue (37)_____ then be simply rubbed off with one’s fingers or left to fall off naturally. Importantly, this process is pain-free.

This is not the first time scientists (38)_____(try) to solve this problem. But methods they tried in the past led to band-aids that were (39)_____(sticky) and therefore didn’t stay on for long.

The Boston study was first aimed at helping babies (40)_____ skin is too delicate for standard band-aids. But adults with sensitive skin might also enjoy the benefits.

A. comprehensive

B. spread

C. impact

D. incredible

E. observed

F. compared

G. success

H. firmly

I. combination

J. heavily

K. motivate

A new report by the World Health Organization (WHO) reveals that around one in a hundred deaths worldwide is due to passive smoking, which kills an estimated 600,000 people a year.

In the first study to assess the global __41__ of second-hand smoke, WHO experts find that children are more __42__ exposed to second-hand smoke than any other age-group, and around 165,000 of them a year die because of it.

Children’s exposure to second-hand smoke is most likely to happen at home, and the double blow of infectious diseases and tobacco seems to be a deadly __43__ for children in these regions. Commenting on the findings, Heather Wipfli and Jonathan Samet from the University of Southern California, said policymakers try to __44__ families to stop smoking in the home.

While deaths due to passive smoking in children were skewed(曲解) toward poor and middle-income countries, deaths in adults were __45__ across countries at all income levels.

In Europe’s high-income countries, only 71 child deaths occurred, while 35,388 deaths were in adults. Yet in the countries like Africa, an estimated 43,375 deaths due to passive smoking were in children __46__ with 9,514 in adults.

Only 7.4 percent of the world population currently lives in places with __47__ smoke-free laws, and those laws are not always __48__ enforced(施行). In places where smoke-free rules are __49__, research shows that exposure to second-hand smoke in high-risk places like bars and restaurants can be cut by 90 percent, and in general by 60 percent, the researchers said.

Studies also show such laws help to reduce the number of cigarettes smoked by smokers and lead to higher __50__ rates in those trying to quit.

Ecotourism is a combination of ecology (the study of systems of living things) and tourism. It is ___51___ “responsible travel to natural areas that preserves the environment and improves the welfare of the local people” by the International Ecotourism Society. Actually, ecotourism can mean travel to far-off places of great natural beauty, but not always in a(n) ___52___ way. It’s a big business, and the attraction of money can cause people to think about ___53___ first. While ecotourism offers benefits to people and ecosystems, it leaves ecosystems open to negative effects, too.

Costa Rica, once a Spanish colony, and independent since 1821, has an ecotourism industry worth over one billion dollars yearly, and thousands of jobs have been ___54___. Nearly 21 percent of the land is now protected national parks, ___55___ thanks to ecotourism. Nevertheless, due to the number of people visiting the country’s natural places, some damage to the ecosystem has occurred.

While ___56___ can have a negative impact on ecosystems, the same areas might have been ___57___ by industries such as farming, logging, or mining if there were no ecotourism industry. Shelters (庇护所) have been created ___58___, keeping the ecosystem protected. And, by visiting beautiful rainforests and seeing rare animals, visitors get a sense of their ___59___, and of gratitude for them. Tour guides can also be educators who train people to love and care for the environment. Visitors can take these ___60___ with them to their home countries.

Unfortunately, while their effect may not be ___61___ in the off-season, the constant parade of visitors in the high season can be damaging. At one national park in Costa Rica, wild monkeys now feed on garbage left by the tourists. ___62___, ecotourists tend to seek out places with the rarest animals and plants, ___63___ the most delicate living things.

It is easy to be critical of the ecotourism industry, but it is important to be ___64___ as well. Ecotourism can never be “pure”. We can’t expect zero negative effects on the ecosystem. It is also ___65___ to suppose that humans won’t go anywhere accessible to them. If protection efforts are maintained and increased, those remaining places of undisturbed nature may be stressed, but they won’t be destroyed.

When I was young, it wasn’t the parental love that filled my thoughts in the spring. It was baseball.

I loved everything about the game — the crack of a bat, the excitement of chasing a ground ball across short green grass, even watching the games on our old black-and-white TV. Yet looking back now, nothing was quite as important to me as the annual ritual (老规矩) of playing catch with my dad.

Dad was never much of a baseball fan, but as green leaves began to shoot on bare branches and warmth returned to the air, he would grab his old mitt (棒球手套) and head out to the yard with me just the same. There was something beneficial about playing catch with him, the hum of the ball as it sailed through the air, and the friendly pop as it hit the leather netting. We may have been 50 feet apart, but the flight of that ball connected us, forming as strong a relationship as any father-son talk ever could have.

I was never the star of my Little League team, yet Dad never cared about that. Every year, he would be out there, waiting to field any false throw I sent his way.

As I grew older, I realized that our game was a reflection of our relationship — that even if a problem didn’t involve a glove and a ball, Dad would always be there to handle anything I threw in his direction. His devotion to our springtime ritual showed his devotion to me — not only to my love of baseballl but also to my life.

I’ve often heard it said that “the devil is in the details.” Now I realize that in my relationship with my father, love was in the details.