In our life, we have rarely expressed our gratitude to the one who’d lived those years with us.In fact, we don’t have to wait for anniversaries to thank the ones close to us—the ones so easily overlooked. If I have learned anything about giving thanks, it is this: give it now！While your feeling of appreciation is alive and sincere, act on it. Saying thanks is such an easy way to add to the world’s happiness.
Saying thanks not only brightens someone else’s world, but it also brightens yours. If you’re feeling left out, unloved or unappreciated, try reaching out to others. It may be just the medicine you need.
Of course, there are times when you can’t express gratitude immediately. In that case don’t let embarrassment sink you into silence—speak up the first time you have the chance.
Once a young minister, Mark Brian, was sent to a remote parish of Kwakiutl Indians in British Columbia. He had been told that the Indians did not have a word for thank you. But Brian soon found that these people had exceptional generosity. Instead of saying thanks, it is their custom to return every favor with a favor of their own, and every kindness with an equal or superior kindness. They do their thanks.
I wonder if we had no words in our vocabulary for thank you, would we do a better job of communicating our gratitude? Would we be more responsive, more sensitive and more caring?
Thankfulness sets in motion a chain of reaction that transforms people all around us—including ourselves, for no one ever misunderstands the melody of a grateful heart. When we say something for what others do for us, it ______.
| A．is good for both us and people who help us |
| B．benefits the people who do something for us |
| C．wastes our and our friends' time at the same time |
| D．does harm to both us and people who help us |
According to the writer, could be the best way to prevent ourselves from being left out.
| A．seeing a doctor to find the right medicine we need |
| B．expressing our gratitude in an easy way |
| C．speaking up the moment we have the chance |
| D．showing others actively we are willing to help them |
Mark Brain’s story is mentioned in the passage in order to show the fact that .
| A．the Indians didn’t have any words for appreciation |
| B．the Indians were particularly generous to others |
| C．some people may express their gratitude through different approaches |
| D．Mark Brain set the Indians an example to show saying thanks is very important |
New rules will let millions of Americans know where more of their food comes from. The law is known as COOL-Country of Origin Labeling.
American Congress first passed the law in 2002. Stores have had to label seafood by country-of-origin since 2005. But industry pressure delayed other requirements until last week.
Products that must now be labeled include fresh fruits and vegetables, muscle meats and some kinds of nuts. But the rules are complex, and many foods are excluded. For example, organ meats are free to be labeled. So are processed foods, including cooked or smoked food.
The United States has imported more and more food in recent years to save money and expand choices. Country-of-origin labeling has become more common lately but has still been limited in many stores.
Food safety is one reason why some shoppers pay close attention to where foods came from. For example, when a large number of people recently got sick from salmonella (沙门菌病），officials blamed peppers from Mexico. Yet the last big food scare involved spinach (菠菜）grown in California. But labeling is also a way for people to know they are getting what they want. Some want to buy local foods or foods from a particular country.
The country-of-origin labeling law gives stores 30 days to correct any violations that are found. Stores and suppliers that are found to be deliberately violating the law could be fined 1，000dollars per violation. Federal inspectors are not to take action to en-force the law for six months to give time for an education campaign.
Some food safety activists say they are generally pleased with the law. They call it a good step that will give people more useful information. What's the regulation in the new rules?
| A．Stores have to label food by its producing date from now on. |
| B．The country-of-origin labeling has to be marked on more food. |
| C．Stores have to label seafood by country of origin. |
| D．Labeling of food should include more useful information. |
Why has more and more food been imported to the United States in recent years?
| A．Because it is economical and provides people with more choices. |
| B．Because the United States is short of food supply. |
| C．Because Americans need more and more food recently. |
| D．Because foreign food is of higher quality than native food. |
Consumers are more concerned about where foods came from because __________.
| A．they are curious about the country of the food origin |
| B．they are particular about the tastes of the food |
| C．they are concerned about food safety and want to get what they want |
| D．most of the shoppers are food safety activists themselves |
The new rules of the country-of-origin labeling law will come into effect __________.
| A．right now |
| B．in a month |
| C．in three months |
| D．in half a year |
Which of the following can be inferred from the passage?
| A．Most Americans prefer imported vegetables to the vegetables grown in local places， |
| B．The government of America will forbid importing peppers from Mexico. |
| C．The law was not fully carried out until last week because of food industry's resistance. |
| D．Store owners are most likely to be the supporters of the law. |
Even plant can run a fever, especially when they're under attack by insects or disease. But unlike human, plants can have their temperature taken from 3，000 feet away straight up. A decade ago, adopting the infrared (红外线）scanning technology developed for military purposes and other satellites, physicist Stephen Paley came up with a quick way to take the temperature of crops to determine which ones are under stress. The goal was to let farmers precisely target pesticide (杀虫剂）spraying rather than rain poison on a whole field, which invariably includes plants that don't have pest(害虫）problems.
Even better, Foley's Remote Scanning Services Company could detect crop problems before they became visible to the eyes. Mounted on a plane flown at 3，000 feet at night, an infrared scanner measured the heat emitted by crops. The data were transformed into a color-coded map showing where plants were running " fevers". Farmers could then spot-spray, using 50 to 70 percent less pesticide than they otherwise would.
The bad news is that Paley's company closed down in 1984，after only three years. Farmers resisted the new technology and long-terra backers were hard to find. But with the renewed concern about pesticides on produce, and refinements in infrared scanning, Paley hopes to get back into operation. Agriculture experts have no doubt the technology works. " This technique can be used on 75 percent of agricultural land in the United States，" says George Oerther of Texas A & M. Ray Jackson, who recently retired from the Department of Agriculture, thinks remote infrared crop scanning could be adopted by the end of the decade. But only if Paley finds the financial backing which he failed to obtain 10 years ago. Plants will emit an increased amount of heat when they are __________.
| A．sprayed with pesticides |
| B．facing an infrared scanner |
| C．in poor physical condition |
| D．exposed to excessive sun rays |
In order to apply pesticide spraying precisely, we can use infra-red scanning to __________.
| A．estimate the damage to the crops |
| B．measure the size of the affected area |
| C．draw a color-coded map |
| D．locate the problem area |
Farmers can save a considerable amount of pesticide by __________.
| A．resorting to spot-spraying |
| B．consulting infrared scanning experts |
| C．transforming poisoned rain |
| D．detecting crop problems at an early stage |
The application of infrared scanning technology to agriculture met with some difficulties. For example，__________.
| A．the lack of official support |
| B．its high cost |
| C．the lack of financial support |
| D．its failure to help increase production |
Infrared scanning technology may be brought back into operation because of __________.
| A．the desire of farmers to improve the quality of their produce |
| B．growing concern about the excessive use of pesticides on crops |
| C．the forceful promotion by the Department of Agriculture |
| D．full support from agricultural experts |
Like all animal species, plant species must spread their off-spring to suitable areas where they can grow and pass on their parents' genes. Young animals generally spread by walking or flying. Because plants don't have that ability, they must somehow hitchhike(搭顺风车). Some plant seeds scatter by blowing in the wind or floating on water. Many other plant species, though, trick an animal into carrying their seeds. How do they do this? They enclose the seeds within a tasty fruit and advertise the fruit's ripeness by its colour or smell. The hungry animal collects and swallows the fruit, walks or flies off, and later spits out the seeds somewhere far from its parent tree. Seeds can thereby be carried for thousands of miles. It may surprise you to learn that plant seeds can resist digestion. In fact, some seeds actually require passage through an animal's body before they can grow.
Wild strawberries offer a good example of hitchhiking tactics. When strawberry seeds are still young and not yet ready to be planted, the surrounding fruit is green, sour and hard. When the seeds finally mature, the berries turn red, sweet, and tender. The change in the berries'colour serves as a signal to birds which then eat the strawberries, fly off, and eventually spit out the seeds.
Naturally, strawberry plants didn't set out with a conscious intention of attracting birds only when their seeds were ready to be dispersed . Nor did birds set out with the intent of planting strawberries. Rather, strawberry plants evolved through natural selection. The sweeter and redder the final strawberry, the more birds spread its ripe seeds ； the greener and more sour the young strawberry, the fewer birds destroyed the seeds by eating berries before the seeds were ready. What does the underlined word "dispersed" in the third para-graph mean?
| A．Spread. | B．Eaten. | C．Born. | D．Planted. |
For plants, which of the following is NOT a way of spreading their offspring to suitable areas?
| A．Hitchhiking. |
| B．Blowing in the wind. |
| C．Floating on water. |
| D．Tracking an animal. |
Which strategy does the example of wild strawberries describe?
| A．The conscious intent of attracting birds. |
| B．Spreading by walking. |
| C．Spreading by flying. |
| D．The strategy of taking a lift. |
Why does the author describe how strawberry seeds are spread?
| A．To show plants are good at adapting to the environment. |
| B．To show strawberry's special way. |
| C．To show the plant has different ways of spreading seeds. |
| D．To show the mystery of plant. |
What's the passage mainly about?
| A．How animals disperse offspring. |
| B．How plants disperse their offspring. |
| C．Plant evolution. |
| D．Plants'hitchhiking on animals. |
UCLA scientists report for the first time on the only known frog species that can communicate using purely ultrasonic(超声）calls, whose frequencies are too high to be heard by humans. Known as Huia cavitympanum, the frog lives only on the Southeast Asian island of Bomeo(婆罗洲）.
Ultrasounds are high-pitched sounds more than 20 kilohertz(kHz) in frequency, which exceeds the upper limit of sounds detectable by humans and is far higher than the 5 to 8 kHz frequencies most amphibians (两栖动物)，reptiles and birds are capable of hearing or producing. Key parts of the ear must be specially adapted to detect ultrasounds.
The frogs can hear sounds up to 38 kilohertz, the highest frequency that any amphibian species has been known to hear, the scientists report. Humans can hear up to about 20 kHz and typically talk at 2 or 3 kHz.
While most of the more than 5，000 frog species worldwide have eardrums that are flat on the side of the head, Huia cavitympanum has eardrums recessed in the side of the skull, similar to mammals.
Peter Narins, UCLA distinguished professor of physiological science and of ecology and evolutionary biology, and Victoria Arch, a UCLA graduate student in ecology and evolutionary biology, spent several nights in the remote area where the frogs live.
" We had very little information suggesting that they would be in this location，" said Arch, lead author of the study. " We found them our first night out. "
The study was published on April 29 in the online journal PLOS ONE, a publication of the Public Library of Science, and is available at
http://dx. plos. org/10. 1371/journal, pone. 05413. Huia cavitympanum mainly live __________.
| A．in all over the world |
| B．in many parts of China |
| C．only on the Southeast Asian island of Borneo |
| D．only on the certain countries' marsh |
This kind of new-found frog can hear each other with up to __________ kHz ultrasounds.
| A．2-3 | B．5 -8 |
| C．more than 20 | D．38 |
If people can hear ultrasounds as frogs do, they should __________.
| A．hear as frogs do carefully |
| B．have a pair of good enough ears like frogs |
| C．concentrate their energy on them |
| D．turn them into common sounds |
According to the passage we can infer that __________.
| A．the result of study is concluded not easily |
| B．some scientists have done a lot of work for the result |
| C．all the frogs have the ability with 38 kHz frequency |
| D．this kind of frogs is as important as animals |
This passage probably appears __________.
| A．on the newspaper | B．on the textbook |
| C．on the website | D．on the report |
The black robin (知更鸟）is one of the world's rarest birds. It is a small, wild bird and it lives only on the island of Little Mange-re, off the coast of New Zealand. In 1967 there were about fifty black robins there ； in 1977 there were fewer than ten. These are the only black/robins left in the world. The island has many other birds, of course, of different kinds, large and small, and they seem to multiply (繁殖）very happily.
Energetic steps are being taken to preserve the black robin—to guard those appeal for money has been made. The idea is to buy another island nearby as a special home, a "reserve"，for threatened wildlife, including black robins. The organizers say that Little Man-gere should then be restocked (再储存）with the robin's food—it eats only one kind of seed—and so renewed for it. Thousands of the required plants are at present being cultivated (耕种）in New Zealand. The public appeal is aimed at improving the conscience of mankind, so that the wild black robin will not die out and disappear from the earth in our time at least.
In the earth's long, long past, hundreds of kinds of creature have evolved (进化），risen to a degree of success and died out. In the long, long future there will be many new and different forms of life. Those creatures that adapt themselves successfully to what the earth offers will survive for a long time. Those that fail to meet the challenges will disappear early. That is Nature's proven method of operation.
The rule of selection " the survival of the fittest" is the one by which man has himself arrived on the scene.
Life seems to have grown too tough for black robins. The black robin is dying out mainly because __________.
| A．people have been very careless about its survival |
| B．its only food is becoming exhausted(耗尽)on Little Mangere |
| C．the other birds on the island have destroyed it |
| D．the appeal for money has come at the wrong time |
The writer's attitude towards the protection of the black robins is __________
| A．active | B．passive |
| C．indifferent | D．pessimistic |
The success of other small birds on Little Mangere shows that __________.
| A．the island cannot have very much food left |
| B．something has to die out, and they can't all be winners |
| C．the big birds have all been attacking the black robin |
| D．the robin has failed to meet the challenges of life |
As regard selection and survival, the decisive factor seems to be __________
| A．the ability to adapt to changed or changing conditions |
| B．the number of wildlife reserves that are available |
| C．the concern and generosity of the public |
| D．the size of the home, or the amount of space one has to live in |
The evidence seems to suggest that __________
| A．it is a disaster for everyone when one kind of bird dies out |
| B．all creatures are concerned about the survival of others |
| C．nature expects and accepts the dying out of weaker breeds |
| D．man is to blame when such a thing happens |
