Unit 2 Exploring English 知识点题库

    A year back I received a full scholarship (奖学金) to attend the University of San Francisco. All of my hard work paid off. My mom had spent a lot on my attending a private high school, so I made sure to push myself: I volunteered, took part in various clubs, and graduated with honors. I was so excited to start a new part of my life.

    Soon enough, the big day came, but it wasn't like what I had thought. The first two weeks were the most difficult days of my entire life. Every night I would cry myself to sleep. I was missing my family, my home and everything in my hometown so much and I didn't know how to deal with my broken heart.

    To distract myself, I threw myself into my studies. I also found a ton of jobs. In any free time, I started forcing myself to go to the gym. I wanted to keep every part of my day busy so I wouldn't think about how lonely I felt. Soon after, I began to control my eating, considering it another solution to my homesickness(想家). But soon there was something wrong with me.

    Finally, I went to see a doctor. When the doctor told me I had no choice but to take time away from school, I started to fear. How could I stop? School was what I was best at. "I'm not so bad," I thought in my head. But the result was that I was taken to hospital again a month later and my mother came heartbrokenly. I had to take a semester off from school, and go to the treatment center near my home.

    If there are girls who are suffering similarly, I hope you know that there is hope and that you should have a positive attitude towards life. Though you may feel alone, there are so many people who can understand your struggle. That's why I want to share my story.

    What a day! I started at my new school this morning and had the best time. I made lots of new friends and really liked my teachers. I was nervous the night before, but I had no reason to be. Everyone was so friendly and polite. They made me feel at ease. It was like I'd been at the school for a hundred years!

    The day started very early at 7:00 am. I had my breakfast downstairs with my mom. She could tell that I was very nervous. Mom kept asking me what was wrong. She told me I had nothing to worry about and that everyone was going to love me. If they didn't love me, Mom said to send them her way for a good talking to. I couldn't stop laughing.

    My mom dropped me off at the school gates about five minutes before the bell. A little blonde (金发的) girl got dropped off at the same time and started waving (招手) at me. She ran over and told me her name was Abigail. She was very nice and we became close straight away. We spent all morning together and began to talk to another girl called Stacey. The three of us sat together in class all day and we even made our way home together! It went so quickly. Our teacher told us that tomorrow we would really start learning and developing new skills.

    I cannot wait until tomorrow and feel as though I am really going to enjoy my time at my new school. I only hope that my new friends feel the same way too.

    Researchers in Australia, who studied 1,500 people and their lifestyles, have found that having good friends can help you live longer. An American study of 10,000 students, over a period of 35 years, also found that if you make more friends than the average (普通的) person at school, you'll receive a higher salary (工资) in later life. People need good social skills at work to manage people and work in a team successfully. These are the same skills we use to make friends at school.

    On average, teenagers aged between 15 and 17 have 500 “friends” on their favourite social networking site. Adults (成年人) have 130. So if you believe this research, you might live for a long time and be very rich.

    However, according to Professor Robin Dunbar from the University of Oxford, it probably won't make any difference. Dunbar studied the number of messages between users of a popular social networking website, each of whom had between 200 and 2,000 friends. He found that they always communicate with a maximum (最大量) of 150 people.

Among these 150, Dunbar believes that around five people are close friends. You've most likely known them for a long time; they are probably old friends and you share all your good and bad experiences with them. Then there are ten more friends. Although they're close to you, you may not keep in touch with them every week. Next there are 35 people who you might spend time with because of a shared interest. You aren't close. And finally, there's a large group of 100. You see or speak to these people at least once a year, but you don't know them well. Beyond (超过) this number, Dunbar says, it's impossible to make any relationship meaningful.

    If you have a lot of online "friends", try this experiment: First take away anyone you haven't been in touch with for a year. Then remove people you can't remember and, finally, take away friends who you wouldn't mind losing touch with. How many do you have left? How many of these people are actually good friends? According to the research, these are the only people that really matter.

    Self­love is the key to a happy life. After we have learned how to love ourselves, we will be able to love others.  You have to learn some steps to develop self­love.

    Accept yourself the way you are. Every person has his or her own advantages and disadvantages. Our advantages make us proud but our disadvantages make us unhappy. This isn't the right attitude towards life.   In fact, no one on this earth is perfect. The key is to achieve a better balance (平衡) and try to be as happy as possible.

    Stop worrying.  It won't help you get the solution (解决办法). In fact, it will make you very unhappy. So, don't let your worries influence you. This will help you face the difficulties of life more positively.

    Enjoy life. Take part in activities that you love and develop a hobby.  Take some time to enjoy them at least once a week. This way you are doing something that you are good at, which will make you feel good about yourself，and make you start loving life and everyone and everything in it.

    If your body is weak and suffering from some health problems, you aren't going to like anything about it. So you must take good care of your health. It includes eating fresh healthy food, taking enough rest and doing exercise.

A. Live a healthy lifestyle.

B. Make efforts to improve yourself.

C. It will hold you back from loving yourself.

D. They can be anything that makes you happy.

E. Worrying about a problem won't let you think clearly.

F. However, learning to love yourself isn't going to be easy.

G. The correct thing to do is accept the fact that you aren't perfect.

An elderly woman is crediting (归功于) her neighbor's 4­year­old dog with saving her life during last week's dangerously cold temperatures.

Tim Curfman was 1 his garbage with his dog Midnight when he felt its 2 was unusual. It had its ears held up looking at him. It didn't 3 do that. Curfman got the feeling that something's 4. So he observed how his dog was acting and 5 it to a spot on the other side of his house. There, he saw his 87­year­old neighbor, Noreen, 6 in the snow. She was trying to fill her bird feeder when she fell.

Curfman 7 she was out there at least half an hour. She could not get up because she didn't have enough 8 to push herself up, and there was nothing around the corner to get a 9 of, either. The temperature was one degree below zero, but Curfman and Midnight were able to 10 her quickly.

Noreen, who didn't have serious injuries, was lucky to 11 frostbite (冻伤) even though her clothes were wet. Curfman called his wife and they together helped his neighbor up from the snow and into her 12, where his wife helped the elderly woman get into 13 clothes.

Noreen was 14 to Midnight for saving her life. "A dog like this 15 to be proud of because it's not every dog that pays attention to things like this," Noreen said in an interview.

The way of Chinese people's life has been changed through the China's "New Four Great Inventions". What are "New Four Great Inventions"? They are High­speed rail, Shared bike, Online shopping and AliPay.

What did the China's "New Four Great Inventions" bring to us?

High­speed rail—Modern transportation makes everybody neighbor. The invention of the high­speed railway makes it easy to thousands of miles a day. Today China's rail transit technology is the best, the China's daily average of 4, 000 trains, sending about 4.6 million passengers.

Shared bike—Short walks become more convenient and faster, and carbon emissions are reduced, which is friendly to the environment. You can download the APP about shared bikes, pay some money, then you can use bicycles everywhere in the street. The Chinese shared bicycle programs have been becoming more and more popular.

Online shopping—Don't need to go out to find the needs for living. Online shopping, as the name implies, is to pay money online. Purchases (购买物) can be sent home. China has 751 million Internet users, 724 million mobile phone users; total transactions (销售额) on November 11 and December 12 hit a record high every year. Online shopping lets Chinese Internet users enjoy "shopping carnival" every day.

Alipay—A software which can replace cash payment. With intelligence phones' popularization, AliPay has become an indispensable (不可或缺的) APP. Through scanning the "QR code", AliPay wants to realize the ambition of "replacing cash payments" gradually. On 11th November 2018, both the mobile payment account and the transaction reached 213.5 billion

There is no doubt that China has already used its own power of "New Four Great Inventions" to become the great powerful technological country, showing the power of China once again.

—I think it is _______ you are doing too much.

Jean was a teacher who taught first grade. She drove an old Jetta with dull blue paint and worn seats. It wasn't the speediest tool, but Jean was never late to work. In fact, each school day she was the first teacher to arrive and the last teacher to leave.

She took great care to plan instruction, create assessments, and decorate her classroom. Parents in the neighborhood would beat down the principal's door to have their children arranged to her class. Jean could teach a mouse to read, and all her students passed into second grade with advanced vocabularies and language skills.

One August, two sisters in high school did not want to enter foster care (家庭寄养). They contacted their first grade teacher, Jean. Jean lived in quite an ordinary home with her son. Yet, she took the sisters in. Packed with children, the little blue Jetta sputtered (劈啪作响), but they had a good laugh.

One day, Jean spoke about her car, which she had driven for many years and had been old enough to retire. It was kind of dangerous for students to ride in such a car. She wanted a van. However, a new van was not within her ability. As a good friend, I listened to her concerns. Then, an idea came to me. I wrote a letter to The Oprah Winfrey Show, sharing Jean's story and her wish.

A month passed. Jean was invited to attend The Oprah Winfrey Show. Oprah hugged the teacher and told the details of Jean's story. Oprah announced that Jean deserved a new van.

The year was 1999. Six hundred miles away, I watched the joy of it all from the television. Jean's big heart taught me many lessons that year. One of them is that the simplest acts (like writing a letter) can require a strong faith. And nothing impossible.

During a pandemic (流行病), for many reasons, there are lots of poor parents who are isolated (隔离) with their kids, or roommates who are stuck together in an apartment. But what about the people who have nobody to talk to?

It is common that people feel lonely. However, during the pandemic, this situation can be much worse for experiences like long-time hospital stays or being unable to move due to poor health, disability or age.

Recently, a friendly robot named Robin got a test run in the children's treatment center of the Wigmore Clinic in Yerevan. About as tall as an 8-year-old child, Robin's plastic body and square head may not put you in mind of a human partner, but its face screen containing two big eyes and expressive brows (眉毛) is attractive, which can help children forget their stress for a while.

A hospital can be very stressful for anybody. And the time of treatment and recovery might seem tiresomely long to an adult stuck in a hospital bed. For a child who can't play with his or her friends or sometimes even family, the long course and boring atmosphere seem unbearable. That's where Robin comes in. It can recognize (识别) facial expressions and use the mood of a talk to build personalized, natural conversations and dialogues with a lonely child in the way another child might use. Robin also plays games, tells stories, and makes children take part in various other activities.

According to Expper Technologies, the makers of Robin, during the program with Wigmore Clinic, Robin improved the experience of children in the hospital by 26 percent over those who did not have the chance to play with Robin, and reduced their stress levels by 34 percent during their hospital stay. Mary, whose son was one of those users, said, "Thanks to Robin, my son became happy every day during this pandemic." John Smith, a father of a five-year-old girl in the clinic, told a reporter, "Robin is a great partner. It brings big smiles to my daughter's face."

International tourism is becoming interestingly popular, and large numbers of people from all over the world come to visit famous places such as the Great Wall of China and the Sistine Chapel in Vatican. They've thrown rubbish everywhere, brought more traffic and even done serious damage to ancient relics.

As for the damage, there are many different causes. For example, the paintings in the Sistine Chapel are being damaged by people breathing onto them when they visit. That may raise the humidity (湿气) of the air and damage the paintings. Damage in other places such as the Great Wall is because of tourists climbing on delicate (脆弱的) areas. Besides, roads have also been built to help visitors climb the Great Wall easily. These activities can cause a lot of damage to the area.

Firstly, we have to cut down tourist numbers, because fewer visitors will result in less damage. Secondly, we should make strict rules about which areas people can visit and what they can do when they get there. People will not be allowed to walk off the paths. Visitors to indoor places can be asked to wear masks to protect the paintings.

In short, it is necessary to control tourism at famous places. And people who live hundreds of years later will have no chance to see these great places.

A. For example, special paths can be built.

B. What can we do to deal with these problems?

C. The Great Wall was built over 2,000 years ago.

D. However, these visitors have caused many problems.

E. Traveling is the best way for us to get to know the world.

F. If we do not do this, these places will disappear from our planet.

G. Their breath contains very small drops of water that are present in the air.

When I lived in Spain, some Spanish friends of mine decided to visit England by car. Before they left, they asked me for advice about how to find accommodation (住所). I suggested that they should stay at "bed and breakfast" houses, because this kind of accommodation gives a foreign visitor a good chance to speak English with the family. My friends listened to my advice, but they came back with some funny stories.

"We didn't stay at bed and breakfast houses," they said, "because we found that most families were away on holiday."

I thought this was odd. Finally I understood what had happened. My friends spoke little English, and they thought "VACANCIES" meant "holidays", because the Spanish word for "holidays" is "vacaciones".  So they did not go to the house where the sign outside said "VACANCIES", which in English means there are free rooms. Then my friends went to the house where the sign said "NO VACANCIES", because they thought this meant the people who owned the house were not away on holiday. But they found that these houses were all full. As a result, they stayed at hotels!

We laughed about this and about mistakes my friends made in reading other signs. In Spanish, the word "DIVERSION" means fun. In English, it means that workmen are repairing the road, and that you must take a different road. When my friends saw the word "DIVERSION" on a road sign, they thought they were going to have fun. Instead, the road ended in a large hole.

English people have problems too when they learn foreign languages. Once in Paris, when someone offered me some more coffee, I said "Thank you" in French. I meant that I would like some more. However, to my surprise the coffee pot was taken away! Later I found out that "Thank you" in French means "No, thank you".