We produce 500 billion of plastic bags in a year worldwide and they are thrown away polluting oceans, killing wildlife and getting dumped in landfills where they take up to 1,000 years to decompose. Researchers have been unsuccessfully looking for a solution.

The 16-year-old Canadian high school student, Daniel Burd, from Waterloo Collegiate Institute, has-discovered a way to make plastic bags degrade(降解) in as few as 3 months, a finding that won him first prize at the Canada Wide Science Fair, a $10,000 prize, a $20,000 scholarship, and a chance to revolutionize a major environmental issue.

Burd’s strategy was simple: Since plastic does eventually degrade, it must be eaten by microorganisms (微生物). If those microorganisms could be identified, we could put them to work eating the plastic much faster than under normal conditions.

With this goal in mind, he grounded plastic bags into a powder and concocted(调制) a solution of household chemicals, yeast(酵母) and tap water to encourage microbes growth. Then he added the plastic powder and let the microbes work their magic for 3 months. Finally, he tested the resulting bacterial culture on plastic bags, exposing one plastic sample to dead bacteria as a control. Sure enough, the plastic exposed to the live bacteria was 17% lighter than the control after six weeks.

The inputs are cheap, maintaining the required temperature takes little energy because microbes produce heat as they work, and the only outputs are water and tiny levels of carbon dioxide.

“Almost every week I have to do chores and when I open the closet door, I have piles of plastic bags falling on top of me. One day, I got tired of it and I wanted to know what other people are doing with these plastic bags. The answer: not much. So I decided to do something myself.” Said Daniel Burd.

Daniel Burd won first prize at the Canada Wide Science Fair because      .

    A. he found a new kind of microorganism

    B. he contributed much to environmental protection

    C. he found a way to degrade plastics in shorter time

    D. he could encourage microbe growth in an easier way

Daniel Burd exposed one plastic sample to dead bacteria to      .

    A. make the live bacteria work better      B. test how effective his method was

C. know which bacteria worked faster      D. control the temperature in the process

Maintaining the required temperature takes little energy because       .

    A. plastics can get hot easily           B. microbes can produce heat themselves

    C. much carbon dioxide is produced     D. the temperature can be controlled

Daniel Burd got his idea from       .

    A. his school textbook          B. the failure of researchers

    C. his everyday work           D. the practice of other people

Passage Twelve (We Should All Grow Fat and Be Happy)

Here’s a familiar version of the boy-meets-girl situation. A young man has at last plucked up courage to invite a dazzling young lady out to dinner. She has accepted his invitation and he is overjoyed. He is determined to take her to the best restaurant in town, even if it means that he will have to live on memories and hopes during the month to come. When they get to the restaurant, he discovers that this ethereal creature is on a diet. She mustn’t eat this and she mustn’t that. Oh, but of course, she doesn’t want to spoil his enjoyment. Let him by all means eat as much fattening food as he wants: it’s the surest way to an early grave. They spend a truly memorable evening together and never see each other again.

What a miserable lot dieters are! You can always recognize them from the sour expression on their faces. They spend most of their time turning their noses up at food. They are forever consulting calorie charts; gazing at themselves in mirrors; and leaping on to weighing-machines in the bathroom. They spend a lifetime fighting a losing battle against spreading hips, protruding tummies and double chins. Some wage all-out war on FAT. Mere dieting is not enough. They exhaust themselves doing exercises, sweating in sauna baths, being pummeled and massaged by weird machines. The really wealthy diet-mongers pay vast sums for ‘health cures’. For two weeks they can enter a nature clinic and be starved to death for a hundred guineas a week. Don’t think it’s only the middle-aged who go in for these fads either. Many of these bright young things you see are suffering from chronic malnutrition: they are living on nothing but air, water and the goodwill of God.

Dieters undertake to starve themselves of their own free will; so why are they so miserable? Well, for one thing, they’re always hungry. You can’t be hungry and happy at the same time. All the horrible concoctions they eat instead of food leave them permanently dissatisfied. Wonderfood is a complete food, the advertisement says. ‘Just dissolve a teaspoonful in water…’. A complete food it may be, but not quite as complete as a juicy steak. And, of course, they’re always miserable because they feel so guilty. Hunger just proves too much for them and in the end they lash out and devour five huge guilt-inducing cream cakes at a sitting. And who can blame them? At least three times a day they are exposed to temptation. What utter torture it is always watching others tucking into piles of mouth-watering food while you munch a water biscuit and sip unsweetened lemon juice!

What’s all this self-inflicted torture for? Saintly people deprive themselves of food to attain a state of grace. Unsaintly people do so to attain a state of misery. It will be a great day when all the dieters in the world abandon their slimming courses; when they hold out their plates and demand second helpings!

1.The best title for this passage is

A.On Fat.

B.We Should All Grow Fat and Be Happy.

C.Many Diseases Are Connected with Fat.

D.Diet Deprives People of Normal Life.

2.Why do they never see each other again?

A.Because it is a memorable evening.

B.Because she lets him eat as much fattening food as he wants.

C.Because she does not eat this and drink that.

D.Because eating fattening food is the surest way to an early grave.

3.Which of the following ways is NOT mentioned for diet?

A.Doing exercises.

B.Not eating sugar.

C.Not eating fat.

D.Taking sauna baths.

4.What is the author’s attitude toward diet?

A.Persuasive.

B.Critical.

C.Indifferent.

D.Adversative.

The young boy and his father sat quietly watching the snow fall on a snowy Saturday afternoon.

“Dad, my friend told me that every snowflake is      . But they look all the same to me. How can we tell?” the child asked.

Dad felt it was his     to give a more satisfying answer. “Son, snowflakes are like people. We are each      in a very special way. We can test it right now,” he said.

The child stood up, put out his hands, and     as snowflakes landed on his gloves. “These snowflakes are all different on my gloves, but those in the yard look the same. Together they are even more_    and striking. Then if people are like snowflakes, why don't they       well?”

“Choice,”Dad said. "Their choices     them what they are.”

    choice is a bad thing?” the boy asked.

“Oh, no. Only when we choose the     things.”

“How do we tell right from wrong?" the child asked.

Dad was given the chance to build upon the foundation of his son's     . He reached down and began to     with the snow. He     the snow into two sides, three large snowballs on one side and several smaller ones on the other.

“Which side did the right thing?” he asked the boy.

The child looked at both sides but      answer. Then Dad placed the three larger snowballs on top of each other.

“It’ s a snowman! The side     made me snowman!” the boy replied with    

Yes, all these people came together and recognized how special each of them was, so they joined in a(n)      to build up mankind,” Dad said.                    

The child then stood up and     an arm full of the smaller snowballs. One by one he began to throw them at the other small piles of snow. He said,”This is what happens when people can't work together. They have a(n)     .”

Dad was shocked. He stood up, lifted the boy and     him tightly, whispering to him, “I hope that your world will learn to work and live together. I hope you will make the right      

and learn to build the best snowman ever.”

1.A. different             B. similar                               C. freezing                            D. special

2.A. challenge            B. responsibility                  C. trouble                             D. position

3.A. private                          B. associated                        C. unique                              D. isolated

4.A. inspected            B. watched                           C. glanced                            D. glared

5.A. beautiful             B. effective                          C. comfortable                    D. significant

6.A. cheer up             B. take care                          C. get along                          D. break up

7.A. remain                          B. appear                              C. become                            D. make

8.A. Though                B. However                          C. So                             D. While

9.A. exact                    B.  Wrong                           C. fortunate                         D. coincident

10.A. interest                      B. concern                           C. worry                                D. faith

11.A. communicate   B. mix                                    C. work                                 D. relate

12.A. separated                  B. divided                    C. distinguished                   D. parted

13.A. couldn' t           B. shouldn' t                         C. wouldn' t                          D. needn' t

14.A. that                    B. what                                  C. how                                   D. when

15.A. disappointment        B. frustration                       C. enthusiasm                      D. humour

16.A. power                         B. effort                                C. organization           D. attempt

17.A. gathered           B. sorted                               C. threw                                D. formed

18.A.agreement        B. debate                              C. war                                    D. negotiation

19.A. trembled          B. swung                               C. pulled                               D. held

20.A. steps                           B. turns                                 C. choices                   D. points

 

Jack London had endured more hardships by the age of twenty-one than most people experience in a lifetime. His struggles developed in him sympathy for the working class and a lasting dislike of hard work and provided inspiration for his career as a writer.

London grew up in San Francisco in extreme poverty. At an early age, he left school and supported himself through a succession of un skilled jobs ----working as a paper boy, in bowling alleys, on ice wagons, and in canneries(罐头食品厂) and mills. Despite working long hours at these jobs, London was able to read constantly, borrowing travel and adventure books from the library.

The books London read inspired him to travel, and his job experiences led him to become active in fighting for the fights of workers. He sailed to Japan on a journey aiming at catching seals and joined a cross-country protest march with a group of unemployed workers. After being arrested for vagrancy near Buffalo, New York, London decided to educate himself and reshape his life. He quickly completed high school and entered the University of California.

After only one term, however, the appeal of fortune and adventure proved uncontrollable. London gave up his studies and traveled to the Alaskan Yukon in 1897 in search of gold. Jack London was among the first of these miners. He may have searched for more than gold, however. London once commented, “ True, the new region was mostly poor; but its several hundred thousand square miles of coldness at least gave breathing space to those who else would have choked at home.” Although he was unsuccessful as a miner, London’s experiences in Alaska taught him about the human desire for wealth and power and about humankind’s inability to control the forces of nature. While in Alaska, London also absorbed memories and stories that would make him known one hundred years later.

Once back in California, London became determined to earn a living as a writer. He rented a typewriter and worked up to fifteen hours a day, spinning his Alaskan adventures into short stories and novels.

According to legend, London’s piles of rejection slips from publishers grew to five feet in height!

    Even so, London preserved. In 1903, he earned national fame when he published the popular novel The Call of the Wild. He soon became the highest paid and most industrious writer in the country. During his career, he produced more than fifty books and earned more than a million dollars. Several of his novels, including The Call of the Wild(1903),the Sea-Wolf(1904),the White Fang(1906),have become American classics. In fact, he was a creative writer whose fiction explored several regions and their cultures: the Yukon, California, Hawaii, and the Solomon Islands. He experimented with many literary forms, from traditional love stories and dystopias(反面乌托邦小说)to science fantasy. His noted journalism included war communication, boxing stories, and the life of Molokai lepers(麻风病患者). He was among the most influential figures of his day, who understood how to create a public persona and use the media to market his self-created image of poor-boy-turned-success. London's great passion was agriculture, and he was well on the way of creating a new model for spreading through his Beauty Ranch when he died of kidney disease at age 40. He left over fifty books of novels, stories, journalism, and essays, many of which have been translated and continue to be read around the world. His best works describe a person’s struggle for survival against the powerful forces of nature. “To Build a Fire”, for example, tells the story of a man’s fight to survive the harsh cold of the Alaskan winter.

1._________made Jack London reconsider his life in the future.

    A. His job experience                       B. The books he read

    C. Being arrested                           D. Long-hour work

2.What is TRUE about Jack London?

    A. Jack London was poor all his life.

    B. Jack London got enough money while in the search of gold.

    C. The books Jack London read inspired him to travel and become active.

    D. The experience of gold searching made Jack London determined to write novels about Alaska adventures.

3.After the experience in Alaska, Jack London ________________.

    A. realized the nature of human beings.

    B. knew people could control the nature finally.

    C. regretted being there.

    D.thought highly of himself.

4.In paragraph 4, the sentence “True, the new region was mostly poor; but its several hundred thousand square miles of coldness at least gave breathing space to those who else would have choked at home.”  implies_______________________________.

    A. Jack London regarded Alaska a poor place as he never got any gold there.

    B. people would have been ill at home if they had never been Alaska.

    C. People searching for gold there still have chance to win.

    D. Alaska was a poor but large region.

5.Which one of following works doesn’t belong to Jack London according to the passage?

    A. love stories     B. poetry       C. journalism       D. essays

6.What can we learn from Jack London’s final success?

    A. Failure is the mother of success.

    B. Practice makes perfect.

    C. Knowledge is powerful.

    D. All of above.

 

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