It’s amazing what a little free beer can accomplish. In 1997 the small Danish island of Samso, located in the Kattegat Strail, won a contest hosted by the Danish Ministry of Environment and Energy. Samso, then known for its dairy and pig farms, would become Denmark’s showcase for sustainable power, eventually going carbon-free. How that would happen, however, was far from clear, since the government initially offered no funding, tax breaks or technical expertise(专门知识).

Given that almost all its power came from oil or coal — and the island’s 4,300 residents didn’t know a wind turbine(风力发电机) from a grain silo(谷仓) — Samso seemed an strange choice. Soren Hermansen, though, saw an opportunity. A restless native son who grew up on a family farm, Hermansen was teaching environmental studies at a local school when he heard about Samso’s award. He volunteered to be the first — and only — participant. “I realized this could happen,” he says. “This was realistic.” He may have been the only one who thought so.

Hermansen knew Samso islanders were conservative, but that could be an advantage: once he convinced enough potential first movers to act, the rest would follow. So Hermansen showed up at every community or club meeting to campaign for the renewable-energy project. He pointed to the island’s unexplored potential for wind power and the economic benefits of making Samso energy-independent. He sometimes brought free beer.

It worked. The islanders bought shares in new wind turbines to build 11 large land-based turbines, enough to meet the entire island’s electricity needs. Not satisfied with that, they supported the construction of 10 huge offshore turbines,which provide power that the island’s dependence on cars and ferries needs. Today Samso isn’t just carbon-free — it actually produces 10% more clean electricity than it uses, with the extra power fed back into the national electricity network at a profit.

Hermansen has become a green angel, traveling from country to country telling the story of Samso’s success when he’s not at home running the Energy Academy, a research center for clean power. But he’s the first to say that the real credit belongs to the islanders,and that Samso’s lesson is that environmental change can only come from the ground up.

What was Hermansen’t response to the Samso’s winning the contest?

A. He regarded it as a chance.

B. He was not satisfied with the award.

C. He thought it was strange.

D. He thought it was reasonable.

From the second paragraph we can learn that __________.

A. many Samso islanders participated in the green project actively

B. most Samso islanders were against the renewable energy project

C. Samso has a long history of making use of renewable energy

D. at first people showed little interest in the renewable energy project

Why did Hermansen show up at every community or club meeting?

A. It was his duty to keep the islanders informed of government policies.

B. He wanted to convince the islanders to use clean power instead of oil or coal.

C. He wanted to persuade the islanders to be involved in the wind power project.

D. He wanted to share his beer with other islanders.

What can we learn about Hermansen’s personality from the last paragraph?

A. He is practical.                 B. He is courageous.

C. He is modest.                  D. He is ambitious.

根据短文内容,从短文后的选项中,选出能填入空白处的最佳选项。选项中有两项为多余选项。

Last month, students from one hundred and three universities in eighty-eight countries took part in an international computer programming contest. The Battle of the Brains took place in Harbin, China.    71    

Jerry Cain, coach of Stanford University Team, California, says “One of the programming problems was trying to figure out how to break an arbitrary chocolate bar into a certain number of pieces of a certain number of sizes and to do it as quickly as possible.    72   

The students first listed the problems in order of difficulty.  73  They designed ways to test their solutions. And they wrote needed software systems. Even the winning team form Shanhai Jiaotong University in China was not able to solve all the problems within the given time limit. Stanford’s team solved five problems and finished in 14th place. Stanford was one of twenty-one American universities that took part in the contest this year.

    74    It began in 1970 at Texas A and M University. The contest quickly became popular in the United States and Canada. It developed and grew as more and more schools took part in local and area contests.

The first final competition was held in 1977 at the Association for Computer Machinery Computer Science Conference. Today, a network of universities holds area competitions that send the winners to the world finals, now organized by IBM. Contest spokesman Doug Heintzman says the world champions receive prizes and scholarships.    75   

A.The competitors show great interest in IBM.

B.Then they figured out the requirements of each.

C.And that’s probably the simplest of all of them.

D.This competition is an opportunity to be recognized by famous universities from the world.

E.Three-person teams from each school had five hours to solve eleven real world problems.

F.The official name of the Battle of the Brains is the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest.

G.They are also guaranteed and offer of employment with IBM.

---I thought Tony should have won the contest

---What a shame! He ________ just too nervous while playing.

A. had been                      B. has been   C. was                      D. would have been

 

In this age of Internet chat, videogames and reality television, there is no shortage of mindless activities to keep a child occupied. Yet despite the competition, my 8-year-old daughter Rebecca wants to spend her leisure time writing short stories. She wants to enter one of her stories into a writing contest, a competition which she won last year.

As a writer, I know about winning contests – and about losing them. I know what it is like to work hard on a story only to receive a rejection letter from the publisher. I also know the pressure of trying to live up to a reputation created by previous victories. What if she doesn’t win the contest again? That’s the strange thing about being a parent. So many of our own past scars and destroyed hopes can resurface in our children.

A revelation (启示) came last week when I asked her, “Don’t you want to win again?” “No,” she replied, “I just want to tell the story of an angel going to first grade.”

I had just spent weeks correcting her stories as she spontaneously (自发地) told them. Telling myself that I was merely an experienced writer guiding the young writer across the hall, I offered suggestions for characters, conflicts and endings for her tales. The story about a fearful angel starting first grade was quickly “guided” by me into the tale of a little girl with a wild imagination taking her first music lesson. I had turned her contest into my contest without even realizing it.

Staying back and giving kids space to grow is not as easy as it looks. Because I know very little about farm animals who use tools or angels who go to first grade, I had to accept the fact that I was co-opting my daughter’s experience.

While stepping back was difficult for me, it was certainly a good first step that I will quickly follow with more steps, putting myself far enough away to give her room but close enough to help if asked. All the while I will be reminding myself that children need room to experiment, grow and find their own voices.

1.What do we learn from the first paragraph?

A.A lot of amusements compete for children’s time nowadays.

B.Children have lots of fun doing mindless activities.

C.Rebecca is much too busy to enjoy her leisure time.

D.Rebecca draws on a lot of online materials for her writing.

2.What did the author say about her own writing experience?

A.She was constantly under pressure to write more.

B.Most of her stories had been rejected by publishers.

C.She did not quite live up to her reputation as a writer.

D.Her road to success was full of pain and frustrations.

3.Why did Rebecca want to enter this year’s writing contest?

A.She believed she possessed real talent for writing.

B.She was sure of winning with her mother’s help.

C.She wanted to share her stories with readers.

D.She had won a prize in the previous contest.

4.The author took great pains to improve her daughter’s stories because _______.

A.she wanted to help Rebecca realize her dreams of becoming a writer

B.she was afraid Rebecca’s imagination might run wild while writing

C.she did not want to disappoint Rebecca who needed her help so much

D.she believed she had the knowledge and experience to offer guidance

5.The underlined sentence probably means that the author was _______.

A.trying not to let her daughter enjoy her own life

B.trying to get her daughter to do the thing as the author wished

C.making sure that her daughter would win the contest

D.helping her daughter develop real skills for writing

6.What’s the author’s advice for parents?

A.Children should be given every chance to voice their opinions.

B.Parents should keep an eye on the activities their kids engage in.

C.Children should be allowed freedom to grow through experience.

D.A writing career, though attractive, is not for every child to pursue.

 

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