People in Paris, France are growing concerned about a problem that has worried people for centuries: bedbugs, which are small, flat insects that live in beds and other places.
With more and more reports of bedbugs being found, the French government is worried about the problem. Millions of people will be traveling to Paris this summer for the 2024 Olympics. France doesn’t want the country to leave a bad impression by letting its visitors get bitten by bedbugs. No one likes bedbugs, but it’s important to remember that they can be upsetting and leave itchy bites behind, but they do not spread diseases. They’ve been around for thousands of years, and even found in old Egyptian tombs.
After World War II, people began using dangerous chemicals to kill them, which caused bedbugs and many other pests to become much less common. But in the past 20 or 30 years, bedbugs have become common again. For one thing, now many bedbugs aren’t affected by most of the chemicals that used to kill them. Some people think that the bedbugs that are left may be ones that the chemicals don’t work on. For another, people are traveling more these days. Bedbugs can hide in tiny spaces, including inside suitcases. When people bring their suitcases to new places, bedbugs can spread to new areas — or from those areas back home.
In France, bedbugs are a long-standing problem. Jean-Michel Berenger, a scientist who studies insects in Marseille, says, “Every late summer we see a big increase in bedbugs.” That’s mainly from people returning after traveling. And now, in addition to reports of bedbugs in hotels and apartments, there’re also reports of them being found in other places: on seats at movie theaters, on long-distance trains, on the Paris subway, and at the country’s busiest airport. French officials are making sure Paris’ apartments, along with hotels and other places where tourists stay, are safe and clean.
【小题1】Why does the French government start dealing with bedbugs?A.They are spreading diseases. | B.They may affect a big event. |
C.They bite more and more people. | D.They exist in France for too long. |
A.The places where bedbugs often live. | B.The ways that bedbugs travel globally. |
C.The reasons why bedbugs come back. | D.The fact that bedbugs beat chemicals. |
A.Bedbugs can be easily got rid of. |
B.The bedbug problem is getting worse and worse. |
C.Bedbugs live mainly in hotels and apartments. |
D.The number of bedbugs decreases sharply in late summer. |
A.A local newspaper. | B.A travel brochure. |
C.A sports magazine. | D.A research report. |
While a healthy diet has always been considered necessary for fitness, many hospitals have failed to notice its powerful potential for curing. In some areas, that’s beginning to change. In Pennsylvania four years ago, St. Luke’s Hospital partnered with Rodale Institute to start an organic produce (有机农产品) farm at the hospital’s campus in Easton. Since its first season, the St. Luke’s farm has become greater in size.
Today, St. Luke’s sends all new mothers home with a basket of organic produce. New moms aren’t the only ones benefiting from the farm’s generous actions. Organic produce is also served to patients. Meanwhile, it is cooked up in cafeterias operated by the hospital’s six-campus network and sold at nearby farmers’ markets.
While some hospitals are getting food from nearby farms, others are turning unused land on their grounds into community (社区) gardens. Even though most hospital farms aren’t growing enough to completely give their workers and patients food needs, providing even a small amount of fresh produce makes educational information about how healthy and delicious a plant-rich diet can be.
While the farm-to-hospital movement continues to gain support, it’s experiencing some challenges along the way. For one, health workers don’t necessarily know how to grow food. This means that most hospitals need to hire a full-time farmer and other farm labor to manage the land, which can be expensive. It takes between 3 and 5 years for most hospital farms to make the cost and income equal. Even so, these hospitals believe that the benefits are worthwhile. As the movement continues to enlarge, you might soon experience a farm-fresh meal at a hospital near you.
【小题1】What does the underlined word “its” in Paragraph 1 refer to?A.Rodale Institute’s. | B.St. Luke’s farm’s. |
C.The community’s. | D.St. Luke’s hospital’s. |
A.It operates a hospital farm alone. |
B.It sells organic produce to patients. |
C.It pays much less attention to a healthy diet. |
D.It offers new moms organic produce for free. |
A.To get plants from the community. |
B.To make full use of the green land. |
C.To offer their workers enough food. |
D.To educate people on a plant-rich diet. |
A.Managing hospital farms costs nothing. |
B.Hospital farms will benefit more people. |
C.Farm-to-hospital movement is worthless. |
D.Health workers have to learn to grow food. |
Teens Aren’t Getting Enough Sleep And Schools Are Partly to Blame
Most kids are severely sleep deprived, and early school starting times aren’t helping.
Across the country, only 17.7 percent of middle and high schools start classes after 8:30 a.m.. The average school start time for middle and high schools around the country is 8:03 a.m., according to a new analysis from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The AAP advises that schools start after 8:30 to help teenagers get 8.5 to 9.5 hours of sleep a night — the amount the AAP says is ideal. Currently, less than a third of high school students sleep 8 hours a night, says the CDC analysis.
The analysis uses 2011–2012 information from the Department of Education to gather the start times of about 39,700 schools. Alaska has the latest average school start time at 8:33 a.m., while Louisiana has the earliest at 7:40 a.m.
Sleep-deprived teenagers are more likely to suffer from depression, use drugs, get low grades and be overweight. Even though schools often face obstacles when trying to delay school start times due to traffic and scheduling concerns, some have made progress recently.
After Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts delayed school start times in 2008 from 7:55 a.m. to 8:30 a.m., the private school saw a number of benefits. As the Huffington Post previously reported, the school’s 2014 viewbook noted that students earned higher grades; ate more breakfasts, visited the health center far less frequently; and performed better in athletics. Teachers reported that first-period discussion classes were uncharacteristically lively from the beginning bell.
Half of parents whose teens attend schools that start before 8:30 would support a later start time, according to a 2014 survey from the University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital.
【小题1】The benefits of enough sleep for students don’t include ________.A.earning higher grades | B.eating more breakfast |
C.visiting the health center more frequently | D.performing better in athletics |
A.making a comparison | B.using examples |
C.presenting research findings | D.quoting diagrams |
A.The earlier schools start, the higher grades students can get. |
B.All schools should start after 8:30 across the world. |
C.Nine hours of sleep a night is the most ideal choice. |
D.The lack of sleep may lead to various terrible problems. |
A.A research report. | B.A health guide. |
C.A class presentation. | D.An official document. |
Healthcare staff and bank clerks have been on the front line of the health and economic crises striking the UK, but behind the scenes, another group of workers robots have been toiling away and overcoming both emergencies with no fear of COVID-19. But will COVID-19 speed up the rise of robots?
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is software that robotizes repetitive back-office tasks. The National Health Service (NHS) has used it during the widespread disease to con-trol demand and capacity planning in caring for all levels of patients day and night. Jason Kingdon, Blue Prism's new chief executive who is recovering from COVID-19, says, “Before RPA, these were manual processes. You had to train a number of staff to put them in place. Now, you only need to train a single robot to manage the administration.” More than two fifths of bosses across 45 countries that responded to a survey by EY (Ernst & Young) said they were planning on accelerating spending on automation technology to prepare for a post-Covid world.
COVID-19 has already left tens of millions unemployed, so firms won't be short of cheap labour on the other side of the crisis. But experts still think Al will be the more cautious choice for companies. One of them said, “It's important to remember that even in China, which has much lower wages, 12.5 million manufacturing jobs have been cut over the past four years as more robots have been adopted.”
However, Al is overhyped (过分提倡)in many ways and poor application could lead to a rise in anxiety towards automation. Again, we should think of history as a guide. A lot of, workers riots(暴动) in the early 19th century happened during the continental blockade of the Napoleonic Wars when there was significant mess to trade in Britain. These things are not unrelated.
【小题1】What does the underlined phrase “toiling away” in paragraph 1 mean?A.Walking slowly. | B.Working lazily. |
C.Working hard. | D.Walking toughly. |
A.He prefers to use robot workers. |
B.He has refused to accept robots' service. |
C.He wishes to employ more human staff. |
D.He dislikes the survey by EY. |
A.Supportive. | B.Worried. |
C.Indifferent. | D.Opposed. |
A.Robots Have Taken the Place of Humans |
B.COVID-19 Has Terrible Effects on Our Life |
C.It’s Time to Stop Robots from Taking the Place of Humans |
D.COVID-19 Speeds up the Trend of Robots Replacing Humans |
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