Many Americans concerned about pollution are demanding cleaner supplies of energy. The demand has resulted in increased research about ethanol fuel. Ethanol is an alcohol that can be mixed with gas. It burns up most of the pollutants in gas. It replaces some of the chemicals that are known to cause cancer, and it can be produced in the United States.
Some experts say that in the future ethanol will replace some of the oil imported into America. Today ethanol is less than one percent of total American fuel supply. The head of the National Corn Growers Association, Kieve Hard, says ethanol will provide twenty-five percent of the fuel supply by 2030. The organization is involved in the production of ethanol because it can be made from corn.
One company in the American Midwest says it is starting to produce ethanol because of demands from people and from the government. The Congress approved the Clean Air Act in 1990. The company says this means the market for ethanol will expand. The company is a major producer of corn starch that can be used to make ethanol.
At Texas A and M University Professor Mark Holzapple produces ethanol from materials found in solid waste. He has developed a way to turn materials like paper into simple sugar. He then uses yeast to turn the sugar into ethanol. Professor Holzapple says two hundred liters of ethanol fuel can be produced from one ton of solid waste.
A professor at the University of Arkansas, John Geddie, is exploring another way to make ethanol. He is using acids on paper material. He says a large factory could produce ethanol from waste paper at a cost about the same as the cost of producing gasoline.
Environmentalists support the use of ethanol because it turns solid waste into a useful product. Professor Holzapple says law makers in industrial nations need to support the development of this clean, less expensive fuel of the future.Why does the interest in ethanol fuel increase in the United States according to the passage?
| A．Ethanol products are known to cause cancer. |
| B．Ethanol can remove some harmful pollutants from gas. |
| C．The production of ethanol is protected by law. |
| D．Ethanol-fueled automobiles are cheaper than gas-fueled ones. |
In this passage, what is the significance of the Clean Air Act passed by American Congress in 1990?
| A．It will increase the consumers’ demand for ethanol as a fuel. |
| B．It may increase the cost of producing gas. |
| C．It reflects the view of the government on automobiles production. |
| D．It limits the ethanol production of one company in the American Midwest. |
The author mentions all of the following resources for making ethanol except____.
| A．corn starch | B．natural gas |
| C．waste paper | D．solid waste |
What does Professor Mark Holzapple think of the development of ethanol in countries?
| A．It needs the cooperation of many chemists. |
| B．It associates with the use of advanced equipment. |
| C．It will improve the use of heat from exhaust gases. |
| D．It requires the support of the government. |
As more and more people speak the global languages of English, Chinese, Spanish, and Arabic, other languages are rapidly disappearing. In fact, half of the 6,000--7,000 languages spoken around the world today will likely die out by the next century, according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
In an effort to prevent language loss, scholars from a number of organizations--UNESCO and National Geographic among them--have for many years been documenting dying languages and the cultures they reflect.
Mark Turin, a scientist at the Macmillan Centre Yale University, who specializes in the languages and oral traditions of the Himalayas, is following in that tradition. His recently published book, A Grammar of Thangmi with an Ethnolinguistic Introduction to the Speakers and Their Culture, grows out of his experience living, working, and raising a family in a village in Nepal.
Documenting the Thangmi language and culture is just a starting point for Turin, who seeks to include other languages and oral traditions across the Himalayan reaches of India, Nepal, Bhutan, and China. But he is not content to simply record these voices before they disappear without record.
At the University of Cambridge Turin discovered a wealth of important materials-including photographs, films, tape recordings, and field notes--which had remained unstudied and were badly in need of care and protection.
Now, through the two organizations that he has founded–the Digital Himalaya Project and the World Oral Literature Project--Turin has started a campaign to make such documents, for the world available not just to scholars but to the younger generations of communities from whom the materials were originally collected. Thanks to digital technology and the widely available Internet, Turin notes, the endangered languages can be saved and reconnected with speech communities.Many scholars are making efforts to ______.
| A．promote global languages |
| B．set up language research organizations. |
| C．search for language communities |
| D．rescue disappearing languages |
What does “that tradition’ in Paragraph 3 refer to?
| A．Telling stories about language users |
| B．Writing books on language teaching. |
| C．Having full records of the languages |
| D．Living with the native speaker. |
What is Turin’s book based on?
| A．The cultual studies |
| B．The documents available at Yale. |
| C．His language research in Bhutan. |
| D．His personal experience in Nepal. |
Which of the following best describe Turin’s work?
| A．Write, sell and donate. |
| B．Collect, protect and reconnect. |
| C．Record, repair and reward. |
| D．Design, experiment and report. |
Passenger pigeons(旅鸽) once flew over much of the United States in unbelievable numbers. Written accounts from the 18th and 19th centuries described flocks(群) so large that they darkened the sky for hours.
It was calculated that when its population reached its highest point, there were more than 3 billion passenger pigeons--a number equal to 24 to 40 percent of the total bird population in the United States, making it perhaps the most abundant bird in the world. Even as late as 1870 when their numbers had already become smaller, a flock believed to be 1 mile wide and 320 miles (about 515 kilometers) long was seen near Cincinnati.
Sadly, the abundance of passenger pigeons may have been their undoing. Where the birds were most abundant, people believed there was an ever-lasting supply and killed them by the thousands. Commercial hunters attracted them to small clearings with grain, waited until pigeons had settled to feed, then threw large nets over them, taking hundreds at a time. The birds were shipped to large cities and sold in restaurants.
By the closing decades of the 19th century, the hardwood forests where passenger pigeons nested had been damaged by Americans’ need for wood, which scattered (驱散) the flocks and forced the birds to go farther north, where cold temperatures and spring storms contributed to their decline. Soon the great flocks were gone, never to be seen again.
In 1897, the state of Michigan passed a law prohibiting the killing of passenger pigeons, but by then, no sizable flocks had been seen in the state for 10 years. The last confirmed wild pigeon in the United States was shot by a boy in Pike County, Ohio, in 1900. For a time, a few birds survived under human care. The last of them, known affectionately as Martha, died at the Cincinnati Zoological Garden on September 1, 1914.In the 18th and early 19th centuries, passenger pigeons________.
| A．were the largest bird population in the Us |
| B．lived mainly in the south of America |
| C．did great harm to the natural environment |
| D．were the biggest bird in the world |
The underlined word “ undoing” probably refers to the pigeons’ ________.
| A．escape | B．liberation |
| C．ruin | D．evolution |
What was the main reason for people to kill passenger pigeons?
| A．To seek pleasure. | B．To save other birds. |
| C．To make money. | D．To protect crops. |
What can we infer about the law passed in Michigan?
| A．It was ignored by the public. |
| B．It was declared too late. |
| C．It was unfair. |
| D．It was strict. |
Since the first Earth Day in 1970, Americans have gotten a lot “greener” toward the environment. “We didn’t know at that time that there even was an environment, let alone that there was a problem with it,” says Bruce Anderson, president of Earth Day USA.
But what began as nothing important in public affairs has grown into a social movement. Business people, political leaders, university professors, and especially millions of grass-roots Americans are taking part in the movement. “The understanding has increased many, many times,” says Gaylord Nelson, the former governor from Wisconsin, who thought up the first Earth Day.
According to US government reports, emissions (排放)from cars and trucks have dropped from 10.3 million tons a year to 5.5 tons. The number of cities producing CO beyond the standard has been reduced from 40 to 9. Although serious problems still remain and need to be dealt with, the world is a safer and healthier place. A kind of “Green thinking ” has become part of practices.
Great improvement has been achieved. In 1988 there were only 600 recycling programs, today in 1995 there are about 6,600. Advanced lights, motors, and building designs have helped save a lot of energy and therefore prevented pollution.
Twenty–five years ago, there were hardly any education programs for environment. Today, it’s hard to find a public school, university, or law school that does not have such a kind of program. “Until we do that, nothing else will change!” says Bruce Anderson.According to Anderson, before 1970, Americans had little idea about ________.
| A．the social movement |
| B．environmental problems |
| C．recycling techniques |
| D．the importance of Earth Day |
Where does the support for environmental protection mainly come from?
| A．The business circle | B．Government officials |
| C．The grass–roots level | D．University professors |
What have Americans achieved in environmental protection?
A. They have cut car emissions to the lowest.
B They have reduced pollution through effective measures.
C. They have lowered their CO levels in forty cities.
D. They have settled their environmental problems.What is especially important for environmental protection according to the last paragraph?
| A．Planning | B．Education |
| C．Green living | D．CO reduction |
Arriving in Sydney on his own from India, my husband, Rashid, stayed in a hotel for a short time while looking for a short time while looking for a house for me and our children.
During the first week of his stay, he went out one day to do some shopping. He came back in the late afternoon to discover that his suitcase was gone. He was extremely worried as the suitcase had all his important papers, including his passport.
He reported the case to the police and then sat there, lost and lonely in strange city, thinking of the terrible troubles of getting all the paperwork organized again from a distant country while trying to settle down in a new one.
Late in the evening, the phone rang. It was a stranger. He was trying to pronounce my husband’s name and was asking him a lot of questions. Then he said they had found a pile of papers in their trash can（垃圾桶）that had been left out on the footpath.
My husband rushed to their home to find a kind family holding all his papers and documents. Their young daughter had gone to the trash can and found a pile of unfamiliar papers. Her parents had carefully sorted them out, although they had found mainly foreign addresses on most of the documents. At last they had seen a half-written letter in the pile in which my husband had given his new telephone number to a friend.
That family not only restored the important documents to us that day but also restored our faith and trust in people. We still remember their kindness and often send a warm wish their way.What did Rashid plan to do after his arrival in Sydney?
| A．Go shopping | B．Take a vacation |
| C．Join his family | D．Find a house |
What does the underlined word“restored”in the last paragraph mean?
| A．Showed | B．Gave back |
| C．Delivered | D．Sent out |
Which of the following can be the best title for the text?
| A．Turning Trash to Treasure. | B．Living in a a New Country. |
| C．From India to Australia. | D．In Search of New Friends. |
Country music is one of the most popular kinds of music in the United States today because it is about simple but strong human feelings and events---love, sadness, good times, and bad times. It tells real-life, stories and sounds the way people really talk. As life becomes more complicated(复杂), it is good to hear music about ordinary people.
Country music, sometimes called country-western, comes from two kinds of music. One is the traditional music of the people in the Appalachian Mountains in the eastern Unite States. The other is traditional cowboy music from the west. The singers usually play guitars, and in the 1920s they started using electric guitars. At first city people said country music was low class. It was popular mostly in the South. But during World War II, thousands of Southerners went to the Northeast and Midwest to work in the factories. They took their music with them. Soldiers from the rest of the country went to army camps（军营）in the South. They learned country music. Slowly it became popular all over the country.
Today country music is also popular everywhere in the United States and Canada—in small towns and in New York City, among black and white, and among educated and uneducated people. About 1, 200 radio stations broadcast country music twenty-four hours a day. English stars sing it in British English, and people in other countries sing it in their own languages. The music that started with cowboys and poor southerners is now popular all over the world.It can be learned from the passage that country music comes from_____ .
| A．the Northeast and Midwest |
| B．factories and army camps in the South |
| C．the Appalachian Mountains and the West |
| D．real-life stories in small towns |
Before World War II country music was popular mainly in_____ .
| A．the south | B．the north |
| C．the Midwest | D．the Northeast |
During World War II many Southerners went to the Northeast and the Mid-west because _____.
| A．they wanted to take music with them |
| B．they wanted to make other people like country music |
| C．they wanted to work in the factories there |
| D．they wanted to make country music popular |
Country music is one of the most popular kinds of music in the world today because_______.
| A．city people said it was low class |
| B．people could sing it in many different languages |
| C．it started with cowboys and poor Southerners |
| D．it is loved by different kinds of people in the world |
Which of the following is NOT true according to the passage?
| A．Country music is about human feelings and events. |
| B．Country music is sung by stars all in English. |
| C．Country music is popular among city people today. |
| D．City people didn’t like country music at first. |