【题目】Australia is famous for its beautiful beaches. And Australian people love swimming and going to the beach. But it wasn't always that way.

Different Climate, Different Habits

When Europeans first invaded (侵略Australia, the only people here who were good at swimming were the Aboriginal people. The Europeans came from climates where it was too cold to swim. However the warm climate of Australia soon changed their attitude to swimming. At first, only men swam. They swam without any clothes on there were no women to see them.

Cover up!

By the 1880s and 1890s visiting the beach was very fashionable. People wore everyday street clothesmuch more than people wear at the beach today.

In those days people believed they should cover their most body so it would not be seen by the opposite sex. Special bathing costumes (服装 were designed for women. This costumes used a lot of cloth and were very heavy when wet, making it difficult to swim.

Laws Made and Laws Changed

The government decided to stop men swimming naked. It passed a law which forbade bathing between 6 am and 7 am. But in 1903the laws changed; people could swim in the daytime, but they had to wear neck-to-knee costumes.

The Shrinking Costume

As time passed, swimming costumes became smaller and more convenient.

At first men and women were covered from neck to knee. Then arms became bare. Then more of the legs were uncovered. Each new change was regarded by many as shocking and rude and peope wrote letters to the newspapers complaining about the new costume. Nowadays some people go to special "nude beaches" to swim naked.

However, most people cover their bodies more than they did ten years agonot because they think bare skin is shockingbut to protect their skin from the harmful rays of the sun.

1 Which of the following statements about the climate of Australia is TRUE?

A. It made European settlers think differently about swimming.

B. It changed European settlers' swimming costume.

C. It made European settlers feel much hotter.

D. It made European settlers have to swim naked.

2 What should swimmers do during the late 19th century?

A. They should hide when they meet a person of the opposite sex.

B. They should cover their body to avoid being seen by the opposite sex.

C. They should wear many heavy clothes on beaches.

D. They should wear special wet costumes designed for them.

3 What does the underlined sentence mean?

A. People were surprised by each new change and criticized it.

B. People were amazed by each new change and praised it.

C. Only newspapers were in favor of each new change.

D. Only newspapers thought poorly of each new change.

4 What can we conclude from the last paragraph?

A. People worry about getting skin cancer from too much sun.

B. People protected their swimming costumes from too much sun.

C. People are greatly shocked by the nude beaches.

D. People think it rude to swim with the smaller costumes.

【题目】Beijing had its coldest morning in almost 40 years and its biggest snowfall since 1951. Britain is suffering through its longest cold snap (寒潮since 1981. And freezing weather is hitting the US south.

Whatever happened to global warming?

Such weather doesn't seem to fit with warnings from scientists that the earth is warming because of greenhouse gases. But experts say the coldness doesn't deny global warming at allit's just a blip in the long-term heating trend.

"It's part of natural variability(变化性)," said Gerald Meehl, a senior scientist at the National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. With global warming, he said"We'll still have record cold temperatures. We'll just have fewer of them.

Scientists say man-made climate change does have the potential to cause more frequent and more severe weather extremes, such as heat waves, storms, floods, droughts and even coldness. But experts did not connect the current cold weather to climate change.

So what is going on?

"We basically have seen just a big outbreak of Arctic air over populated areas of the Northern Hemisphere"Arndt said. In the atmosphere, large rivers of air travel roughly west to east around the globe between the Arctic and the tropics. But recently, this air flow has become bent into a pronounced (明显的z pattern, moving from north and south. If you live in a place where it brings air up from the south, you will get warm weather. In fact, record highs were reported this week in Washington state and Alaska.

But in some other unlucky parts of the globe, Arctic air is moving down from the north. And that's how you get the low temperature in Beijing, and 18 inches of snow in parts of Britain, where a member of Parliament who said the snow "clearly indicates a cooling trend " was laughed at by colleagues.

The z pattern arises naturally from time to time, but it is not clear why it's so strong right now, said Michelle Heureux, a meteorologist at the Climate Prediction Center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The center says the pattern should begin to weaken in a week or two.

1 Many areas are suffering low temperature except __________.

A. Beijing

B. Washington state and Alaska

C. the US south

D. Britain

2 The underlined word blip in Paragraph 3 means __________.

A. temporary phenomenon

B. abnormal phenomenon

C. common phenomenon

D. rare phenomenon

3 From the text, it can be learned that __________.

A. global warming trend has proved wrong

B. there will be less coldness in the future

C. the z pattern Arctic air flow seldom happens

D. scientists haven't found out the reason of coldness

4 The present coldness is probably caused by __________.

A. climate change

B. Arctic air traveling west to east

C. the z pattern Arctic air flow

D. the cooling trend

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