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(杀虫剂). Organic farmers rely on many methods — such as crop rotation (农作物的轮作) 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.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. |
The underlined words “compensate for” in the second paragraph probably mean “_________”.
| A．argue for | B．care for |
| C．make up for | D．pay for |
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. |
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. |
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. |
Americans plan parties for many reasons. As in other cultures, many Americans attend parties for weddings and religious or national holidays. But some parties are especially American. For example, a group of neighbors may gather on their street to eat food, play music and visit with one another. This is called a block party. A woman might invite a group of women to a party called a baby shower for a friend who is about to give birth. Guests bring presents for the new baby.
Americans also attend tailgate parties. A tailgate is the back end of a truck or other vehicle that opens down. The tailgate parties are a big part of sports culture in the United States. Friends bring food and drink to a sports event. They eat together in the parking area of the sports stadium.
Birthday parties are also very popular. Many parents organize a party for their child around a theme. Birthday parties usually include gifts and a birthday cake with candles. In many parts of the United States, cupcakes have become a popular replacement for cakes.
Birthday parties can be low cost or very costly. Some parents take their children’s birthday parties very seriously, even when the child is too young to fully understand the celebration.
One group of parents started a website called Birthdays Without Pressure. They decided that some parents were under too much social pressure to plan costly parties for their children. The group sees this movement as an example of America’s culture of “too much stuff”. The group’s website gives suggestions on how to keep birthday celebrations simple, meaningful and fun without spending a lot of money. Their advice may be very helpful during this period of economic recession (萧条)．What can be the best title for the passage?
| A．Reasons for parties |
| B．Birthdays without pressure |
| C．American parties |
| D．Different parties in the world |
How many kinds of parties does the passage mention?
| A．5. | B．6. | C．7. | D．8. |
Which of the following is NOT true according to the passage?
| A．Block party is especially American. |
| B．Some parties in America are the same as in other countries. |
| C．There’s a party for the mother before her new baby is born. |
| D．Birthday parties are the most popular in America. |
The purpose of Birthdays Without Pressure is to advise people to _________.
| A．relieve people’s pressure |
| B．have meaningful birthday parties with low cost |
| C．make birthday parties meaningful and costly |
| D．spread America’s culture |
This March is a busy month in Shanghai. There’s a lot to do. Here are the highlights.
Live Music—Late Night Jazz
Enjoy real American jazz from Herbie Davis, the famous trumpet player. He’s coming with his new 7-piece band, Herbie’s Heroes. Herbie is known to play well into the early hours, so don’t expect to get much sleep. This is Herbie’s third visit to Shanghai. The first two were sold out, so get your tickets quickly.
Scottish Dancing
Take your partners and get ready to dance till you are tired. Scottish dancing is fun and easy to learn.
Instructors will demonstrate the dances. The live band, Gordon Stroppie and the Weefrees, are also excellent.
Exhibitions—Shanghai Museum
There are 120,000 pieces on show here. Your can see the whole of Chinese history under one roof. It’s always interesting to visit, but doubly so at the moment with the Egyptian Tombs exhibition. There are lots of mummies and more gold than you’ve ever seen before. Let us know if you see a mummy move!
Dining –Sushi chef in town
Sushi(寿司) is getting really big in Shanghai. In Japan, it’s become an art form. The most famous Sushi ‘artist’ is Yuki Kamura. She’s also one of the few female chefs in Japan. She’ll be at Sushi Scene all of this month.
For a full listing of events, see our website.Suppose you are going to attend an activity at 8:00p.m. on Saturday, which one can you choose?
| A．Live Music—Late Night Jazz |
| B．Scottish dancing |
| C．Exhibitions –Shanghai Museum |
| D．Dining—Sushi chef in town |
Which of the following is true according to the advertisements?
| A．Scottish dancing is so interesting and easy that it never tires you out . |
| B．The performance given by the American jazz band won’t last long . |
| C．Sushi is not popular in Shanghai as it is a kind of Japanese traditional food. |
| D．It is more interesting to visit Shanghai Museum for the exhibits from Egypt. |
From the text we may learn that Kamura is _________.
| A．a cook | B．a waitress |
| C．an musician | D．an artist |
I found out one time that doing a favor for someone could get you into a lot of trouble. I was in the eighth grade at the time, and we were having a final test. During the test, the girl sitting next to me whispered something, but I didn’t understand. So I leaned over her way and found out that she was trying to ask me if I had an extra pen. She showed me that hers was out of ink and would not write. I happened to have an extra one, so I took it out of my pocket and put it on her desk.
Later, after the test papers had been turned in, the teacher asked me to stay in the room when all the other students were dismissed（解散）. As soon as we were alone she began to talk to me about what it meant to grow up; she talked about how important it was to stand on your own two feet and be responsible (负责任) for your own acts. For a long time, she talked about honesty and emphasized（强调） the fact that when people do something dishonest, they are really cheating themselves. She made me promise that I would think seriously about all the things she had said, and then she told me I could leave. I walked out of the room wondering why she had chosen to talk to me about all those things.
Later on, I found out that she thought I had cheated on the test. When she saw me lean over to talk to the girl next to me, it looked as if I was copying answers from the girl’s test paper. I tried to explain about the pen, but all she could say was it seemed very very strange to her that I hadn’t talked of anything about the pen the day she talked to me right after the test. Even if I tried to explain that I was just doing the girl a favor by letting her use my pen, I am sure she continued to believe that I had cheated on the test.The story took place（发生）exactly ____________ .
| A．in the teacher’s office | B．in an exam room |
| C．in the school | D．in the language lab |
The girl wanted to borrow a pen, because ____________ .
| A．she had not brought a pen with her |
| B．she had lost her own on her way to school |
| C．there was something wrong with her own |
| D．her own had been taken away by someone |
The teacher saw all this, so she asked the boy ____________ .
| A．to go on writing his paper |
| B．to stop whispering |
| C．to leave the room immediately |
| D．to stay behind after the exam |
The boy knew everything ____________ .
| A．the moment he was asked to stay behind |
| B．when the teacher started talking about honesty |
| C．only some time later |
| D．when he was walking out of the room |
Energy independence. It has a nice ring to it. Doesn’t it? If you think so, you’re not alone, because energy independence has been the dream of American president for decades, and never more so than in the past few years, when the most recent oil price shock has been partly responsible for kicking off the great recession(经济衰退).
“Energy independence” and its rhetorical (修辞的) companion “energy security” are, however, unreliable concepts that are rarely thought through. What is it we want independence from exactly?
Most people would probably say that they want to be independent from imported oil. But there are reasons that we buy all that oil from elsewhere.
The first reason is that we need it to keep our economy running. Yes, there is a trickle(涓涓细流) of bio-fuel(生物燃料) available, and more may become available, but most biofuels cause economic waste and environmental destruction.
Second, Americans have basically decided that they don’t really want to produce all their own oil. They value the environmental quality they preserve over their oil imports from abroad. Vast areas of the United States are off-limits to oil exploration and production in the name of environmental protection. To what extent are Americans really willing to tolerate the environmental impacts of domestic(国内的) energy production in order to cut back imports?
Third, there are benefits to trade. It allows for economic efficiency, and when we buy things from places that have lower production costs than we do, we benefit. And although you don’t read about this much, the United States is also a large exporter of oil products, selling about 2 million barrels of petroleum products per day to about 90 countries.
There is no question that the United States imports a great deal of energy and, in fact, relies on that steady flow to maintain its economy. When that flow is interrupted, we feel the pain in short supplies and higher prices. At the same time, we get massive economic benefits when we buy the most affordable energy on the world market and when we engage in energy trade around the world.What does the author say about energy independence for America?
| A．It sounds very attractive. |
| B．It will bring oil prices down. |
| C．It ensures national security. |
| D．It has long been everyone’s dream. |
What does the author think of bio-fuels?
| A．They keep America’s economy running healthily. |
| B．They cause serious damage to the environment. |
| C．They prove to be a good alternative(substitute) to petroleum. |
| D．They do not provide a sustainable energy supply. |
Why does America rely heavily on oil imports?
| A．It wants to expand its storage of raw oil. |
| B．Its own oil reserves are quickly running out. |
| C．Its own oil production falls short of demand. |
| D．It wants to keep its own environment untouched. |
What does the author say about oil trade?
| A．It makes for economic recession． |
| B．It brings benefit only to the sellers． |
| C．It improves economic efficiency． |
| D．It saves the cost of oil exploration． |
What is the author’s purpose in writing the passage?
| A．To explain the increase of international oil trade. |
| B．To raise Americans’ awareness of the energy crisis. |
| C．To argue for America’s dependence on oil imports. |
| D．To stress the importance of energy protection. |
If you saw another kid ride her bike too fast around a corner and fall down, you might ride your bike more slowly on that turn. Yes, we humans are very sensitive to others’ mistakes. And the same is true for other animals. Animals mess up all the time. They might eat poisonous leaves, fall off a tree or let their prey(猎物) slip away. By watching others fail, an animal can avoid making the same mistakes, thus improving its chance of survival.
Scientists suspected that one part of the brain helps animals process information about others’ errors. Cells in that part appear to become more active when a person sees someone else making a mistake. But researchers didn’t know whether individual cells in this part of the brain play different roles in detecting errors.
To investigate the brain’s response to errors in more detail, the researchers taught a game to two macaques, a type of monkey. One monkey could press a yellow or green button while the other watched. If the first monkey pressed the right button, the team gave both animals a treat. Every couple of rounds, the two monkeys switched roles. Meanwhile, the scientists monitored individual cells in the animal’s brains.
When the first monkey messed up the game by pressing the wrong button, a group of cells in the second monkey’s brain fired. But if the second monkey also made the wrong choice during its turn, some of the cells in that group didn’t respond. Those unresponsive cells reacted specifically to mistakes made by others, not to the monkey’s own mistakes.
Scientists believe other parts of the brain also might help people process information about another’s errors. “You start to think about this other person and see things from his angle.” Ellen de Bruijn told Science News. She studies the brain at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands.According to Paragraph l, animals’ ability to learn from others’ mistakes .
| A．used to be ignored by humans |
| B．helps them to survive better |
| C．is being lost because of humans |
| D．ensures that they will never fail |
The underlined word “detecting” in Paragraph 2 probably means “”.
| A．correcting | B．making | C．drawing | D．sensing |
From the game the scientists taught to two macaques, we can see.
| A．animals can avoid the same mistakes |
| B．which part of the brain is more active |
| C．how the brain responds to mistakes |
| D．how the brain processes information |
In the experiment mentioned, those unresponsive cells are only sensitive to .
| A．others’ mistakes | B．the same buttons |
| C．one’s own mistakes | D．the monkey’s brain |
What’s the main idea of the passage?
| A．Animals can learn from mistakes like human beings. |
| B．An interesting experiment by scientists surprised us. |
| C．Monkeys can avoid making mistakes by learning from us. |
| D．The brain cells are always sensitive to others’ information. |