The word “conservation” has a thrifty meaning. To conserve is to save and protect, to leave what we ourselves enjoy in such a good condition that others may also share the enjoyment. Our forefathers had no idea that human population would increase faster than the supplies of raw materials: most of them, even until very recently, had the foolish idea that the treasures were “limitless” and could “last forever”. Most of the citizens of earlier generations knew little or nothing about the complicated and delicate system that runs all through nature, and which means that, as in a living body, an unhealthy condition of one part will sooner or later be harmful to all the others.

　　Fifty years ago, nature study was not part of the school work; scientific forestry was a new idea; wood was still cheap because it could be brought in any quantity from distant woodlands; soil destruction and river floods were not national problems; nobody had yet studied long-term climatic cycles in relation to proper land use; even the word “conservation” had nothing of the meaning that it has for us today.

　　For the sake of ourselves and those who will come after us, we must now set about correcting the mistakes of our forefathers. Conservation should be made part of everybody’s daily life. To know about the water table in ground is just as important to us as a knowledge of the basic math formulas. We need to know why all watersheds (上游集水区) need the protection of plant life and why the running current of streams and rivers must be made to give their full benefit to the soil before they finally escape to the sea. We need to be taught the duty of planting trees as well as of cutting them. We need to know the importance of big, grown trees, because living space for most of man’s fellow creatures on this planet is figured not only in square measure of surface but also in cubic (立方体的) volume above the earth. In a word, it should be our goal to restore as much of the original beauty of nature as we can.

The author’s attitude towards the use of natural resources is _________.

    A. positive         B. uninterested     C. optimistic           D. critical

According to the author, the greatest mistake of our forefathers was that _________.

　　A. they had no idea about scientific forestry

　　B. they had little or no sense of environmental protection

　　C. they were not aware of the importance of nature study

　　D. they had no idea of how to make good use of raw materials

To avoid repeating the mistakes of our forefathers, the author suggests that _________.

　　A. we plant more trees

　　B. natural sciences be taught to everybody

　　C. environmental education be directed toward everyone

　　D. we return to nature

How can you understand the underlined sentence in the last paragraph?

A. Our living space on the earth is getting smaller and smaller.

B. Our living space should be measured in cubic volume.

C. We need to take some measures to protect space.

D. We must preserve good living conditions for both birds and animals.

阅读理解

阅读下列短文，从每题所给的四个选项中选出最佳选项。

　　There are 25,000 kinds of bees identified in the world. The most well-known are the honey bee. In the United States there are known 3,500 species. Most bees do not live in large groups, they are solitary(独居的)bees. The honey bee is not a native of the United States. The first bees were brought to the U.S. from Holland. Later other bees were brought from many other countries. South America had some honey bees, but they did not produce much honey.

　　When honey bees were brought to the United States, native American called them“white man's flies”. Soon bees became a known sight in America.

　　In Brazil, honey bees did not survive well and scientists brought African bees to Brazil. These bees were found to be aggressive(好斗的) and mistakenly escaped into the wild. These bees are very common in Brazil now.

　　Beekeepers raise bees for honey, but more often they raise them to pollinate crops. Pollination occurs when the bee lands on a flower and some of the pollen(花粉)gets stuck to the bees' hairy legs. The next time the bee lands, some of the pollen falls off her legs and onto another flower, allowing it to reproduce.

　　Beekeepers have been raising bees for their honey for thousands of years. The first beekeepers kept their bees in hollow logs or clay pots. Now they keep the bees in wooden hives. When beekeepers raise bees for honey, they must remove part of the hive to retrieve (获取) the honey. They must“calm”the bees by using a special smoker. The smoke is puffed out around the bees and the bees move slower and are not as aggressive.

1．What's the best title for the passage?

[　　]

A．An Introduction to Bees.　　　　　　B．Why Bees Are Kept.

C．The Great Use of Bees.　　　　　　D．Bees in the USA.

2．What's the meaning of the underlined word“pollinate”?

[　　]

A．Make something fertile (结果实的) with pollen.

B．Get pollen away from.

C．Plant.

D．Harm.

3．From the passage we can infer that _____.

[　　]

A．bees want their honey to he taken away in order to get more room

B．all bees are kept by raisers

C．bees don't want their honey to be taken away

D．it is easy to retrieve the honey

With fears of a possible nuclear meltdown(核反应堆堆芯的熔毁) in Japan building up, evidence has come to light that the nation received warnings over the stability of its power plants from an international watchdog more than two years ago.
　　As the Telegraph is reporting, an official from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in December 2008 that safety rules were out of date, and strong earthquakes would cause a “serious problem” for the power stations.
　　A U.S. embassy document, by quoting（引用）an unnamed expert, states: “He (the IAEA official) explained that safety guides for earthquakes have only been updated three times in the last 35 years and that the IAEA is now re-examining them. Also, the presenter noted recent earthquakes in some cases have gone beyond the design basis for some nuclear plants, and that this is a serious problem that is now driving earthquake safety work.”
　　The Telegraph also reports that the government responded to the warnings by building an emergency response center at the Fukushima Daiichi plant designed to resist magnitude-7.0 earthquakes. Friday's earthquake, originally named a magnitude-8.9 shock, has since been upgraded to magnitude-9.0.
　　Other nuclear experts state IAEA officials had willingly ignored lessons from the Chernobyl disaster to protect the nuclear industry's expansion, reports Bloomberg. “After Chernobyl, all the force of the nuclear industry was directed to hide this event, for not creating damage to their reputation,”Russian nuclear accident specialist Iouli Andreyev tells Reuters, before noting that radiation from spent fuel rods（棒）stored close to reactors at Fukushima looked like an example of putting profit before safety. “The Japanese were very greedy, and they used every square inch of the space. But when you have a dense(密集的) placing of spent fuel in the basin, you have a high possibility of fire if the water is removed from the basin.”
【小题1】 From the passage, we know that ____________.

A．people fear that the nuclear meltdown will possibly become more and more serious in Japan

B．people are becoming more and more afraid of a possible nuclear meltdown in Japan

C．Japan made no response to the warnings over the safety of its power plants

D．Iouli Andreyev warned Japan not to store spent fuel rods close to reactors

完形填空：阅读下面短文，掌握其大意，然后从各题所给的四个选项中选出一个最佳答案。（共20小题，每小题1.5分）

   In the past, man did not have to think about the protection of his environment. There were few people on the earth, and natural resources seemed to be　46　 .                    Today things are　 47　 , the world has become too　 48　 . We are using up our natural resources too quickly, and at the same time we are　 49　 our environment with dangerous chemicals. If we continue to do this, human life on the earth　 50　 survive.

　　Everyone　51　 today that if too many fish are taken from the sea, there will soon be none left. Yet, with modern fishing　 52 , more and more fish are caught. We know that if too many trees are cut down, 　53　 will disappear and nothing will grow on the land. Yet, we　 54　 to use bigger and more powerful machines to　 55　 more and more trees.

　　We realize that if rivers are polluted with waste products from factories, we will die.　 56　 , in most countries wastes are　 57　 put into rivers or into the sea, and there are　 58　 laws to stop this. We know, too, that if the　 59　 of the world continues to rise at the present rate, in a few years there will not be enough 60　. What can we do to solve these problems ?

　  If  we eat more vegetables and less　 61　 , there will be more food available for everyone. Land that is used to grow crops　 62　 five times more people than land where animals are kept. Our natural resources will　 63　 longer if we learn to recycle them. The world population will not rise so quickly if people use modern methods of birth 64　 .

　　Finally, if we educate people to think about the problems, we shall have a better and clearer 65　 in the future.

A. beautiful         B. unlimited          C. rare                  D. valuable

A. common         B. the same            C. changeable     D. different

A. crowded         B. small                C. dirty                 D. busy

A. protecting       B. saving            C. polluting           D. fighting

A. may not          B. will not             C. shall not            D. could not

A. wonders         B. realizes             C. consider            D. discovers

A. poles              B. boats                 C. methods            D. ideas

A  mountains     B. the sea                  C. trees                 D. forests

A. continue         B. have                 C. ought                D. go on

A. grow            B. plant                 C. save                  D. cut down

A. Thus       B. However     

C. Generally speaking  D. Therefore

A. still                     B. even                 C. also                  D. certainly

A. too many      B. a few                C. some                 D. few

A. production    B. pollution           C. population      D. revolution

A. houses          B. vegetables      C. food                 D. lives

A. fruit             B. meat                 C. fish                   D. grain

A. feeds            B. increases           C. supplies             D. helps

A. use               B. stay                  C. keep                 D. last

A. control         B. born                 C. plan                  D. reward

A. nature           B. sea                 C. planet            D. forest