In the 13^th century, the famous Indian traveller, Marco Polo, travelled a long way to China. He saw many wonderful things. One of the things he discovered was that Chinese used paper money. In western countries, people did not use paper money until the 15^th century. However, people in China began to use paper money in the 7^th century.
A Chinese man called Cai Lun invented paper almost 2,000 years ago. He made it from wood. He took the wood from trees and made it into paper. He then put these pieces of paper together and made them into a book.
Now paper still comes from trees. We use a lot of paper every day. If we keep on wasting so much paper, there will not be any trees left on the earth. If there are no trees, there will be no paper. Every day, people throw away about 2,800 tons of paper in our city. It takes 17 trees to make one ton of paper. This means that we are cutting nearly 48,000 trees every day. Since it takes more than 10 years for a tree to grow, we must start using less paper now. If we don’t, we will not have enough time to grow more trees to take the place of those we use for paper.
So how can we save paper? We can use both sides of every piece of paper, especially when we are making notes. We can also use cotton handkerchiefs（手帕） and paper ones. When we go shopping, we can use fewer paper bags. If the shop assistant does give us a paper bag, we can save it and refuse (拒绝) it later.
Everyone can help to save paper. If we all think carefully, we can help protect trees. But we should do it now, before it is too late.
【小题1】When he was in China, Marco Polo __________ .

On New Year’s Eve, people in Italy throw out all the old things. So there are chairs , beds, clothes and plates in the street. In Spain, the new year comes in more quietly. In the evening people come together to the streets .Each holds a bag of grapes. When twelve o’clock comes, people start eating the grapes.

In Japan, people eat noodles on New Year’s Eve. This food is said to bring long life. Early the next morning, some families climb Mount Fuji. There they watch the first sunrise of the new year.

1.This story is about New Year’s Eve in ______.

A．Italy              B．Spain             C．Japan             D．All of the above

2.People in Spain welcome New Year by _______ after twelve.

A．eating grapes

B．eating noodles

C．throwing the old things

D．watching the sunrise

3.People in both Spain and Japan ______ to welcome the new year.

A．throw things away

B．get together

C．eat some food

D．climb a mountain

4.Japanese climb Mount Fuji to ________ .

A．look at the stars

B．look for New Year’s wishes

C．see the sun coming up

D．have a rest

5.The people in ______ get long life from their New Year’s food.

A．Japan            B．China             C．Spain             D．Italy