Where do the turtles go?

Every summer, thousands of endangered green sea turtles climb onto beaches around the world. Each mother sea turtle produces 100 or more eggs in a hole, and covers the hole with sand before she swims away.

Two months later, the eggs hatch(孵化), and the baby turtles climb out of the sand and swim into the ocean. They don’t reappear until they have grown as large as dinner plates. Until now, no one knows where the baby turtles go or what they do.

“if we don’t know where these little turtles are, we can’t protect them,” says Kim Reich, who helps solve part of the mystery.

Her teacher, Karen Bjorndal, has studied green sea turtles for more than 30 years. Every year, Bjorndal goes to the Bahamas Islands. Many young sea turtles come here to live and eat at the end of their childhood.

These turtles are the only sea turtles that live as plant eaters. In fact, their name may be a result of what they eat. The turtles don’t look green but they do have green fat. Scientists learned that the turtles eat green sea plants, which may turn their fat green.

Between 2002 and 2004, Bjorndal caught 44 green sea turtles in the Bahamas. After testing them, she found something to support the 20-year-old idea: baby green sea turtles eat meat before they turn to a diet of plants. In fact, they eat animals that live in the open ocean.

Scientists still need to find where exactly green sea turtles grow. We now know that baby green sea turtles are out in the open ocean, but the open ocean is a big place.

It is really a problem,” says Bjorndal. The discovery may help us do a better job of protecting this sea animal.

1.What can we learn from the first two paragraphs?

A. baby turtles go to the ocean when they are two months old.

B. Mother turtles leave the eggs alone after they produce them.

C. No one knows when turtles appear on the beach.

D. Mother turtles are as large as dinner plates.

2.Kim Reich does research on where baby turtles go because she wants to _________.

A. help her teacher B. prove an idea

C. protect turtles D. become a scientist

3.What does Karen Bjorndal’s research prove about green sea turtles?

A. the young live in the Bahamas Islands.

B. The young eat meat before turning to a diet of plants

C. They live in the open ocean for a lifelong time

D. They are the only sea turtles that live as plant eaters.

4.What does the underlined word “It” in the last paragraph refer to?

A. Finding out where young turtles grow.

B. Protecting this endangered sea animal.

C. Changing young turtles’ eating habits.

D. Living in the open ocean.

Across the rich world, well-educated people increasingly work longer than the less-skilled. Some 65% of American men aged 62-74 with a professional degree are in the workforce, compared with 32% of men with only a high-school certificate. This gap is part of a deepening divide between the well-education well off and the unskilled poor. Rapid technological advance has raised the incomes of the highly skilled while squeezing those of the unskilled. The consequences, for individual and society, are profound.

The world is facing as astonishing rise in the number of old people, and they will live longer than ever before. Over the next 20 years the global population of those aged 65 or more will almost double, from 600 million to 1.1 billion. The experience of the 20th century, when greater longevity translated into more years in retirement rather than more years at work, has persuaded many observers that this shift will lead to slower economic growth, while the swelling ranks of pensioners will create government budget problems.

But the notion of a sharp division between the working young and the idle old misses a new trend, the growing gap between the skilled and the unskilled. Employment rates are falling among younger unskilled people, whereas older skilled folk are working longer. The divide is most extreme in America, where well-educated baby-boomers (二战后生育高峰期出生的美国人) are putting off retirement while many less-skilled younger people have dropped out of the workforce.

That even the better-off must work longer to have a comfortable retirement. But the changing nature of work also plays a big role. Pay has risen sharply for the highly educated, and those people continue to reap rich rewards into old age because these days the educated elderly are more productive than the preceding generation. Technological change may well reinforce that shift: the skills that complement computers, from management knowhow to creativity. Do not necessarily decline with age.

1.what is happening in the workforce in rich countries?

A. younger people are replacing the elderly

B. well-educated people tend to work longer

C. unemployment rates are rising year after year

D. people with no college degree do not easily find work

2.what has helped deepen the divide between the well-off and poor?

A. Longer life expectancies

B. Profound changes in the workforce

C. rapid technological advance.

D. A growing number of well-graduated.

3.what do many observers predict in view of the experience of the 20th century?

A. Economic growth will slow down.

B. Government budgets will increase.

C. More people will try to pursue higher education

D. There will be more competition in the job market.

4.What is the result of policy changes in European countries?

A. Unskilled workers may choose to retire early.

B. more people have to receive in-service training.

C. Even wealthy people must work longer to live comfortably in retirement.

D. People may be able to enjoy generous defined-benefits from pension plans.

5.What is characteristic of work in the 21st century?

A. Computers will do more complicated work.

B. More will be taken by the educated young.

C. Most jobs to be done will be creative ones.

D. Skills are highly valued regardless of age.

A

Fat and shy, Ben Saunders was the last kid in his class picked for any sports team. "Football, tennis, cricket--- anything with a round ball, I was useless," he says now with a laugh. But back then he was the one always made fun of in school gym classes in Devonshire, England.

It was a mountain bike he received for his 15th birthday that changed him. At first he went biking alone in a nearby forest. Then he began to ride the bike along with a runner friend. Gradually, Saunders set up his mind on building up his body, increasing his speed and strength. At the age of 18, he ran his first marathon.

The following year he met John Ridgway and was hired as an instructor at Ridgway's school of adventure in Scotland, where he learnt about Ridgway's cold-water exploits. Greatly interested, Saunders read all he could about North Pole explorers and adventures, the decided that this would be his future.

In 2001, after becoming a skillful skier, Saunders started his first long-distance expedition towards the North Pole. It took unbelievable energy. He suffered frostbite, ran into a polar bear and pushed his body to the limit, pulling his supply-loaded sled up and over rocky rice.

Saunders has since become the youngest person to ski alone to the North Pole, and he's skied more of the North Pole by himself than any other British man. His old playmates would not believe the change.

Next October, Saunders, 27, heads south from the coast of Antarctica to the South Pole and back, a 2900-kilometer journey that has never been completed on skis.

1.What change happened to Saunders after he was 15 years old?

A. He became good at most sports.

B. He began to build up his body.

C. He joined a sports team

D. He made friends with a runner.

2.The underlined word “exploits” (paragraph 3) is closest in meaning to ______.

A. journeys B. researches

C. adventures D. operations. W

3.What does the story mainly tell us abut Saunders?

A. He is a success in sports.

B. He is the best British skier.

C. He is Ridgway's best student.

D. He is a good instructor at school.

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