Ask someone what they have done to help the environment recently and they will almost certainly mention recycling. Recycling in the home is very important, of course. However, being forced to recycle often means we already have more material than we need. We are dealing with the results of that over-consumption in the greenest way possible, but it would be far better if we did not need to bring so much material home in the first place.
The total amount of packaging has increased by 12% between 1999 and 2005. It now makes up a third of a typical household's waste in the UK. In many supermarkets nowadays food items are packaged twice with plastic and cardboard.
Too much packaging is doing serious damage to the environment. The UK, for example, is running out of it for burying this unnecessary waste. If such packaging is burnt, it gives off greenhouse gases which go on to cause the greenhouse effect. Recycling helps, but the process itself uses energy. The solution is not to produce such items in the first place. Food waste is a serious problem, too. Too many supermarkets encourage customers to buy more than they need. However, few of them are coming round to the idea that this cannot continue, encouraging customers to reuse their plastic bags, for example.
But this is not just about supermarkets. It is about all of us. We have learned to associate packaging with quality. We have learned to think that something unpackaged is of poor quality. This is especially true of food. But it is also applied to a wide range of consumer products, which often have far more packaging than necessary.
There are signs of hope. As more of us recycle, we are beginning to realize just how much unnecessary materials are collected. We need to face the wastefulness of our consumer culture, but we have a mountain to climb.
【小題1】What does the underlined phrase "over-consumption" refer to?

A．Using too much packaging.

B．Recycling too many wastes.

C．Having more material than is needed.

D．Making more products than necessary.

【小題2】The author uses figures in Paragraph 2 to show_______.

A．the tendency of cutting household waste

B．the increase of packaging recycling

C．the fact of packaging overuse

D．the rapid growth of supermarkets

【小題3】According to the text, recycling_________.

A．means burning packaging for energy

B．helps control the greenhouse effect

C．is the solution to gas shortage

D．leads to a waste of land

【小題4】What can be inferred from Paragraph 4?

A．Unpackaged products are of bad quality.

B．Supermarkets care more about packaging.

C．Other products are better packaged than food.

D．It is improper to judge quality by packaging.

【小題5】What can we learn from the last paragraph?

A．Needless material is mostly recycled.

B．Fighting wastefulness is difficult.

C．People like collecting recyclable wastes.

D．The author is proud of their consumer culture.

Europe is now the biggest market for organic food in the world, having grown by 25 percent a year over the past 10 years. Denmark’s agriculture minister is herself an organic farmer. The UK market for organic food grew by 55 percent in 2000, while the food market as a whole grew by only one percent. Yet only seven percent of British shoppers account for nearly 60 percent of organic sales. However popular the idea of organic farming may be, it is still an interest for only a few people.
So what makes the idea of organic farming popular? Organic farming means farming with natural materials, rather than with man-made fertilizers or pesticides(殺蟲劑). Organic farmers rely on many methods — such as crop rotation (農(nóng)作物的輪作) and the use of resistant（有抵抗力的）varieties, because they are necessary for organic farmers to compensate for the shortage of man-made chemicals.
Organic farming is often supposed to be safer than traditional farming for the environment. Yet after a long research on organic farming worldwide for a number of years, science continues to be against this opinion. The House of Commons committee on agriculture stated that, even with complete research work, it would fail to find any scientific evidence to prove “that any of claims made for organic farming is always true”.
However, the talk about the benefits of organic farming is going on. This is partly because many people depend on their individual farm, the soil, the weather, and so on.
【小題1】The first paragraph mainly tells us _________.

A．organic farming has been performed only in Europe over the past 10 years.

B．governments of European countries have cared less about organic farming.

C．organic farming isn’t so popular as expected.

D．European countries need organic food more than the other countries in the world.

【小題2】The underlined words “compensate for” in the second paragraph probably mean “_________”.

A．a(chǎn)rgue for	B．care for
C．make up for	D．pay for

【小題3】 What can we know about organic farming?

A．It refers to farming with natural materials, instead of chemical fertilizers.

B．It refers to farming with chemical fertilizers rather than natural fertilizers.

C．It refers to farming with soil rather than any other thing.

D．It refers to growing crops with man-made fertilizers and pesticides.

【小題4】According to the third paragraph, _________.

A．organic farming is safer than traditional farming for the environment.

B．the idea that organic farming is safer has not been proven by science.

C．organic farming is accepted by the UK’s House of Commons committee.

D．organic farming is preferred to traditional farming.

【小題5】Which of the following is TRUE, according to the passage?

A．The UK’s agriculture minister is an organic farmer.

B．Organic farming is popular with young people.

C．Farmers try every means to improve the organic sales system.

D．Ninety-three percent of British shoppers don’t buy organic products.

Think about the different ways that people use wind. You can use it to fly a kite or to sail a boat. Wind is one of our cleanest and richest power sources, as well as one of the oldest. Evidence shows that windmills (風(fēng)車) began to be used in ancient Iran back in the seventh century BC. They were first introduced to Europe during the 1100s, when armies returned from the Middle East with knowledge of using wind power.
For many centuries, people used windmills to grind (磨碎) wheat into flour or pump water from deep underground. When electricity was discovered in the late 1800s, people living in remote (偏僻的) areas began to use them to produce electricity. This allowed them to have electric lights and radio. However, by the 1940s when electricity was available to people in almost all areas of the United States, windmills were rarely used.
During the 1970s, people started becoming concerned about the pollution that is created when coal and gas are burned to produce electricity. People also realized that the supply of coal and gas would not last forever. Then, wind was rediscovered, though it means high costs. Today, there is a global movement to supply more and more of our electricity through the use of wind.
【小題1】From the text we know that windmills _______.

A．were invented by Europeans armies

B．have a history of more than 2800 years

C．used to supply power to electric lights in remote areas

D．have rarely been used since electricity was discovered

【小題2】 What was a new use for wind power in the late 19^th century ?

A．Sailing a boat.	B．Producing electricity.
C．Grinding wheat into flour.	D．Pumping water from underground.

【小題3】One of the reasons why wind was rediscovered in the 1970s is that ______ .

A．wind power is cleaner

B．it is one of the oldest power sources

C．it was cheaper to create energy from wind

D．the supply of coal and gas failed to meet ends

【小題4】What would the writer probably discuss in the paragraph that follows ?

A．The advantages of wind power.

B．The design of wind power plants.

C．The worldwide movement to save energy.

D．The global trend (趨勢(shì)) towards producing power from wind.

“I’ve never met a human worth cloning,” says cloning expert Mark Westhusin from his lab at Texas A&M University. “It’s a stupid endeavor.”
That’s an interesting choice of adjective, coming from a man who has spent millions of dollars trying to clone a 13-year-old dog named Missy. So far, he and his team have not succeeded, though they have cloned two cows and a cat.
They just might succeed in cloning Missy soon — or perhaps not for another five years.
Westhusin's experience with cloning animals leaves him upset by all this talk of human cloning. In three years of work on the Missy project, using hundreds upon hundreds of dog's eggs, the A&M team has produced only a dozen or so embryos carrying Missy's DNA. None have survived the transfer to a surrogate（代孕的）mother. The wastage of eggs and the many spontaneously aborted(流產(chǎn)，發(fā)育不全) fetuses（胎）may be acceptable when you're dealing with cats or bulls, he argues, but not with humans. “Cloning is incredibly inefficient, and also dangerous,” he says.
Even so, dog cloning is a commercial opportunity, with a nice research payoff. Ever since Dolly the sheep was cloned in 1996, Westhusin's phone has been ringing with people calling in hopes of duplicating their cats and dogs, cattle and horses. “A lot of people want to clone pets, especially if the price is right,” says Westhusin. Cost is no obstacle for Missy's mysterious billionaire owner; he's put up $3.7 million so far to fund A&M's research.
Contrary to some media reports, Missy is not dead. The owner wants a twin to carry on Missy's fine qualities after she does die. The prototype（原型；雛形）is, by all accounts, athletic, good-natured and super-smart. Missy's master does not expect an exact copy of her. He knows her clone may not have her temperament（氣質(zhì)、性情）. In a statement of purpose, Missy's owner and the A&M team say they are “both looking forward to studying the ways that her clones differ from Missy.”
Besides cloning a great dog, the project may contribute insight into the old question of nature vs. nurture. It could also lead to the cloning of special rescue dogs and many endangered animals.
However, Westhusin is cautious about his work. He knows that even if he gets a dog pregnant, the offspring, should they survive, will face the problems shown at birth by other cloned animals: abnormalities like immature lungs and heart and weight problems~ “Why would you ever want to clone humans,” Westhusin asks, “when we're not even close to getting it worked out in animals yet?”
【小題1】By “stupid endeavor”, Westhusin means to say that ________.

A．human cloning is a foolish undertaking

B．a(chǎn)nimal cloning is absolutely impractical

C．human cloning should be done selectively

D．a(chǎn)nimal cloning is not worth the effort at all

【小題2】What does the second paragraph tell us about Westhusin's dog cloning project?

A．Its success is already in sight.

B．It is progressing smoothly.

C．It is doomed to utter failure.

D．Its outcome remains uncertain.

【小題3】By cloning Missy, Mark Westhusin hopes to ________.

A．study the possibility of cloning humans

B．search for ways to modify its temperament

C．find out the differences between Missy and its clones

D．examine the reproductive system of the dog species

【小題4】We learn from the passage that animal clones are likely to have ________.

A．a(chǎn) bad temper

B．defective（有缺陷的、有毛病的）organs

C．immune deficiency

D．a(chǎn)n abnormal shape

【小題5】What’s the best title of the passage?

A．Cloning of Missy

B．Scientist Says ‘No’ to Human Cloning

C．Human Cloning Is Dangerous .

D．Westhusin Is Cautious about Cloning

An experiment was carried out at British school into the performance of new pupils.  At the start of the year, the pupils were each given a rating, ranging from “excellent prospect” to “unlikely to do well”. These were totally untrue ratings and did not reflect how well the pupils had previously performed. However, these ratings were given to the teachers. At the end of the year, the experimenters compared the pupils’ performance with the ratings. Despite their real abilities, there was an astonishingly high connection between performance and ratings. It seems that people perform as well as we expect them to.
The Self-fulfilling Effect is also known as the Pygmalion Effect. This comes from an old Greek story. The story was also the basis of George Bernard Shaw’s play “Pygmalion”, later turned into the musical “My Fair Lady”. In Shaw’s play, Professor Henry Higgins claims he can turn a Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle into a duchess. But, as Eliza herself points out to Higgins’ friend Pickering, it isn’t what she learns or does that determines whether she will become a duchess, but how she’s treated.
The implication (含義) of the Pygmalion Effect for leaders and managers is massive. It means that the performance of your team depends less on them than it does on you. The performance you get from people is no more or less than what you expect, which means you must always expect the best. As Goethe said, “Treat a man as he is and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he can and should be and he will become as he can and should be.”
【小題1】The underlined word “rating” in Paragraph 1 can be replaced by “_________”.

A．program	B．regulation
C．correction	D．classification

【小題2】What’s the passage mainly about?

A．A new scientific experiment.

B．The Self-fulfilling Effect.

C．Shaw’s play “Pygmalion”.

D．An improved teaching method.

【小題3】The experiment was made in order to _________.

A．try out a new teaching method

B．pick out the most excellent pupils

C．learn if expectations affect performance

D．give each pupil a proper rating

【小題4】What made Eliza change into a duchess according to Eliza herself?

A．Strict training from Higgins.

B．Her own strong will and hard work.

C．The proper way she was regarded

D．Warm encouragement from Pickering.

【小題5】According to the Pygmalion Effect, if you want a man to finish a hard task in a short time, you should say, “_________”.

A．I’m sure you can make it

B．I will help you any time

C．It is as easy as pie

D．It doesn’t matter if you fail

“If you want to see a thing well，reach out and touch it！”
That may seem a strange thing to say.But touching things can help you to see them better.
Your eyes can tell you that glass ball is round.But by holding it in your hands，you can feel how smooth and cool the ball is.You can feel how heavy the glass is.
When you feel all these about the ball，you really see it.
With your skin，you can feel better.For example，your fingers can tell the difference between two coins in your pocket.You can feel a little drop of water on the back of your hand，too.
You can even feel sounds against your skin.Have you ever wanted to know why some people like very loud music? They must like to feel the sounds of music.
All children soon learn what “Don't touch！” means.They hear it often.Yet most of us keep on touching things as we grow up.In shops，we touch things we might buy，such as food，clothes and so on.To see something well，we have to touch it.
The bottoms of our feet can feel things，too.You know this when you walk on warm sand，cool grass or a bad floor.All feel different under your feet.
There are ways of learning to see well by feeling.
One way is to close your eyes and try to feel everything that is touching your skin.Feel the shoes on your feet，the clothes on your body，the air on your skin.At first，it is not easy to feel these things.You are too used to them!
Most museums are just for looking.But today some museums have some things to touch.Their signs say，“Do touch! There you can feel everything on show.If you want to see better，reach out and touch.Then you'll really see！”
【小題1】By touching things ________.

A．you will have a strange feeling

B．you will learn how to reach out

C．you can tell the difference between them

D．you can tell what colors they are

【小題2】When people buy things in shops，they often ________.

A．try them on first

B．put their right hand on them

C．just has a look

D．feel and touch them

【小題3】Why does it say，“At first，it is not easy to feel these things？”

A．The things are used by people，too.

B．People are used to the things.

C．People know how to use the things.

D．The things are easy to feel.

【小題4】Which of the following can be the best title of the story?

A．Touching by Feeling	B．To See or to Feel
C．To See Better — Feel	D．Ways of Feeling

A rainforest is an area covered by tall trees with the total high rainfall spreading quite equally through the year and the temperature rarely falling below 16℃. Rainforests have a great effect on the world environment because they can take in heat from the sun and adjust the climate. Without the forest cover, these areas would reflect more heat into the atmosphere，warming the rest of the world. Losing the rainforests may also influence wind and rainfall patterns, potentially causing certain natural disasters all over the world.
In the past hundred years, humans have begun destroying rainforests in search of three major resources : land for crops, wood for paper and other products, land for raising farm animals. This action affects the environment as a whole. For example，a lot of carbon dioxide in the air comes from burning the rainforests. People obviously have a need for the resources we gain from cutting trees but we will suffer much more than we will benefit.　　  There are two main reasons for this. Firstly, when people cut down trees, generally they can only use the land for a year or two. Secondly, cutting large sections of rainforests may provide a good supply of wood right now, but in the long run it actually reduces the world’ s wood supply.Rainforests are often called the world’s drug store. More than 25% of the medicines we use today come from plants in rainforests. However, fewer than 1% of rainforest plants have been examined for their medical value. It is extremely likely that our best chance to cure diseases lies somewhere in the world’s shrinking rainforests.
【小題1】 Rainforests can help to adjust the climate because they________.

A．reflect more heat into the atmosphere

B．bring about high rainfall throughout the world

C．rarely cause the temperature to drop lower than 16℃

D．a(chǎn)bsorb the heat from the sun, reducing the effect of heat from the sun on the earth

【小題2】 What does the word “this” underlined in the third paragraph refer to?

A．We will lose much more than we can gain.

B．Humans have begun destroying rainforests.

C．People have a strong desire for resources.

D．Much carbon dioxide comes from burning rainforests.

【小題3】 It can be inferred from the text that________.

A．we can get enough resources without rainforests

B．there is great medicine potential in rainforests

C．we will grow fewer kinds of crops in the gained land

D．the level of annual rainfall affects wind patterns

【小題4】. What might be the best title for the text?

A．How to Save Rainforests?

B．How to Protect Nature?

C．Rainforests and the Environment.

D．Rainforests and Medical Development.

Animals are natural resources that people have wasted all through our history.
Animals have been killed for their fur and feathers, for food, for sport, and simply because they were in the way. Thousands of kinds of animals have disappeared from the earth forever. Hundreds more are on the danger list today. About 170 kinds in the United States alone are considered in danger.
Why should people care? Because we need animals. And because once they are gone, there will never be any more.
Animals are more than beautiful or interesting or a source of food. Every animal has its place in the balance of nature. Destroying one kind of animal can create many problems.
For example, when farmers killed large numbers of hawks(鷹), the farmers’ stores of corn and grain were destroyed by rats and mice. Why? Because hawks eat rats and mice. With no hawks to keep down their numbers, the rats and mice multiplied(繁殖) quickly.
Luckily, some people are working to help save the animals. Some groups raise money to let people know about the problem. And they try to get the governments to pass laws protecting animals in danger.
Quite a few countries have passed laws. These laws forbid the killing of any animal or plant on the danger list. Slowly, the number of some animals in danger is growing.
【小題1】Why do people kill animals?

A．They kill animals for something they need.

B．They kill animals to raise some money.

C．Animals destroy their natural resources.

D．Animals create many problems.

【小題2】Animals are important to us mainly because ______.

A．they give us a source of food

B．they are beautiful and lovely

C．they keep the balance of nature

D．they give us a lot of pleasure

【小題3】Which of the following is NOT true?

A．People care much about animals because they need them.

B．Once a certain kind of animal is gone forever, there will never be any more.

C．Killing all rats and mice may cause some new problems.

D．People must not kill any animal or plant.

The size and location of the world’s deserts are always changing. Over millions of years, as climates change and mountains rise, new dry and wet areas appear. But within the last hundred years deserts have been increasing after frightful speed. This is partly because of natural changes, but most responsible for creating deserts are men.
Man can make deserts, but they can also prevent them from getting bigger. Algeria is planning a green belt of trees along the edge of the Sahara Desert to stop the sand. In China, too, windbreaks are being built in the northwest to keep the desert from growing.
But desert still threaten the world. Experts believe that land that is on the way to becoming deserts equals the size of Australia, Russia and US put together. Can we stop the spread of the world’s deserts and save the land that is so essential to mankind? Yes, we can, And we must.
【小題1】The reason for the land that turns into deserts is mostly because of _______

A．the changing of the climates	B．man
C．the natural changes	D．the wind

【小題2】The word “windbreak” means _______

A．trees planted as a belt to stop the wind

B．high walls as a belt to stop the wind

C．long and deep ditch as a belt to stop the wind

D．men stood side by side as a belt to stop the wind

【小題3】 The deserts still threaten the world in the way ______

A．of increasing at an unbelievable speed

B．of spreading in Australia , Russia, and the US

C．of appearing new dry and wet areas in every part of the world

D．that they cause the changes of the climates

【小題4】Which of the following do you think is the best method?____

A．People move away from the land that is on the way to become deserts

B．To build great walls to stop the wind and sand

C．To plant trees and grass on the surface of the land

D．To irrigate the desert

Grasshoppers are having to change their song — one of the iconic sounds of summer — to make themselves heard above the noise of road traffic, ecologists have discovered. The study, published in the British Ecological Society's journal Functional Ecology, is the first to show that human-made noise affects natural insect populations. Animals use sound to communicate for many reasons, including marking out territory, warning of predators and finding mates, and although previous research shows birds, whales and even frogs change their calls in noisy environments, the impact of human-made noise on insects has been neglected until now. Ulrike Lampe and colleagues from the University of Bielefeld in Germany caught 188 male bow-winged grasshoppers, half from quiet locations and half from beside busy roads. The grasshoppers use their song to attract mates.
The team then studied the differences in the two groups' songs in the laboratory. To encourage them to sing they exposed the males to a female grasshopper, and then recorded their courtship songs. Analysis of almost 1,000 recordings revealed grasshoppers living beside noisy roads produced different songs to those living in quieter locations.
According to Lampe: "Bow-winged grasshoppers produce songs that include low and high frequency components. We found that grasshoppers from noisy habitats increase the volume of the lower-frequency part of their song, which makes sense since road noise can mask signals in this part of the frequency spectrum(頻譜)."
The team's findings are important because traffic noise could be upsetting the grasshopper's mating system(交配系統(tǒng)). "Increased noise levels could affect grasshopper courtship in several ways. It could prevent females from hearing male courtship songs properly, prevent females from recognizing males of their own species, or impair females' ability to estimate how attractive a male is from his song," Lampe explains.
Having discovered that human-made noise affects insect communication, the researchers now want to learn more about how the mechanism works, and whether the grasshoppers adapt to noise during their development as larvae（幼蟲）, or whether males from noisy habitats produce different songs due to genetic differences.
The bow-winged grasshopper is a common species in Central Europe. Adults occur mainly between July and September, preferring dry grasslands. Around 1.5 cm long, they vary in colour from green and browns to red and purple. The male's song consists of 2 second-long phrases that increase in amplitude (振幅) towards the end. The beginning of a phrase is characterized by slower ticking sounds that increase in speed and amplitude, leading to a buzzing sound towards the end of the phrase. A courtship song usually includes 2 phrases.
【小題1】The author wrote the article to _________________.

A．introduce how grasshoppers make noises to attract mates.

B．raise the awareness of protecting bow-winged grasshoppers.

C．inform us of a recent discovery of ecological research.

D．warn us that human-made noise has changed ecological system.

【小題2】Which of the following could be the main idea of the passage?

A．Bow-winged grasshoppers use their songs to communicate.

B．Grasshoppers change their songs to adapt to the noisy environment.

C．Grasshoppers’ songs include both low and high frequency components.

D．Bow-winged grasshoppers are a common species in Central Europe.

【小題3】What does the underlined word “impair” in the fourth paragraph mean?

A．repair	B．develop
C．weaken	D．improve

【小題4】Which of the following statements is true according the passage?

A．Road noise can cover the lower-frequency part of their song.

B．Animals make sounds only for the purpose of finding mates.

C．Grasshopper larvae learn to adapt to human-made noise.

D．Bow-winged grasshoppers grow up into adults in spring.