用所给的单词或短语把下面句子翻译成汉语

这种动物快要绝种了。(die out)

Environmentalists said our planet was doomed to die. Now one man says they are wrong.
"Everyone knows the planet is in bad shape," thundered a magazine article last year. Species are being driven to die out at record rates, and the rivers are so poisonous that fish are floating on the surface, dead.
But there's a growing belief that what everyone takes for granted is wrong: things are actually getting better. A new book is about to overturn our most basic assumptions about the world's environment. Rivers, seas, rain and the atmosphere are all getting cleaner. The total amount of forests in the world is not declining. The Skeptical Environmentalist by Bjorn Lomborg, professor of statistics at the University of Aarhus in Denmark, is an attack on the misleading claims of environmental groups, and the "bad news" culture that makes people believe everything is getting worse.
Now the attacks are increasingly coming from left-wing environmentalists such as Lomborg, a former member of Greenpeace. The accusation is that, although the environment is improving, green groups — with profits of hundreds of mil-lions of pounds a year — are using scare tactics(谋略)to gain donations. Lomborg's book doesn't deny global warming — probably the biggest environmental threat — but destroys almost every other environmental claim with many official statistics.
The Worldwatch Institute claims that "deforestation(沙漠化) has been accelerating over the last 30 years". But Lomborg says that is simply rubbish. Since the dawn of agriculture the world has lost about 20 per cent of its forest cover, but in recent decades the forest area's depleting has come to a stop. According to UN figures, the area of forests has remained almost steady, at about 30 per cent of total land area, since the 1940s. Forests in countries such as the US, the UK and Canada have actually been expanding over the past 40 years. Despite all the warnings the Amazon rainforest has only shrunk by about 15 per cent.
Nor are all our species dying out. Some campaigners claim that 50 per cent of all species will have died out within 50 years. But other studies show only 0.08 per cent of species are dying out each year. Conservation efforts have been successful. Whales are no longer threatened and the bald eagle is off the endangered list.
Environmental groups claim that many of the improvements are the results of the success of their campaigns. Stephen Tindale, director of Greenpeace UK, said, "There are important examples, such as acid rain and ozone, where things aren't as bad as predicted, and that's because behavior has changed."
【小题1】In his book, The Skeptical Environmentalist, what is Lomborg's main argument?

1.Generally speaking. new things __________________ young people.

2.Many species are ________________ due to climate changes and human activities.

3.The old computers in our school _______________ new laptops months ago.

4.She _______________ after her sleep and continued to work.

5.Many houses ________________ by the flood.

6.The beautiful scenery of the sea ___________________. It was really unbelievable.

7.It is difficult to find a house _________________ our price.

8.A growing number of students are taking the driving course _____________ future careers.

9.Alice _______________ working in Spain. That’s why she has been learning Spanish.

10.______________________, Tom is the most suitable person for the position.

阅读下面的短文，然后按照要求写一篇150词左右的英语短文。

The Nigerian postal service has witnessed a reduction in the number of letters sent, especially by individuals, due to the alternatives of email and text.

“People prefer these over letters, because of the speed, although letters serve many purposes, other than conveying of messages", said Barry Varley Tipton, principal of Cherry Field College.

But some people think that the vanishing(逐渐消失的) art of letter writing has grave (严重的) consequences for students, teachers, the economy, society and the beauty of reading from loved ones, because letters in those days usually had a variety of styles .

A lover of letters writing, Hajiya Aisha refers to the occasions she has seen people enraged, because their connections at a cyber cafe took 56 seconds rather than the usual 36 hours. She says, “Although letters are slow, waiting for something good is not wholly a bad thing. Nothing beats a hand written letter.”

"When I was a graduate studying overseas twenty five years ago, my mother wrote to me daily. It was wonderful to receive those letters. They often said nothing more than everyone was thinking of me. I continue this tradition with several friends who are scattered worldwide. Hand written letters show the love that we have for family and friends. Email cannot replace the smile of actually getting the letter. The warm, sincere thank- you note, or the sweetly scented love letter we usually received and sent in those days is irreplaceable" she said.

Will electronic age stamps replace letters? Hopefully not, since it takes with it a culture rich in colour, history, and communication. Letters, like bits of ourselves, deserve to be stored away for future readers, giving them insight into details as small as the price and pattern of stamps, and as great as personal insights exchanged long ago.

【写作内容】

       1. 以约30词概括以上短文的主要内容：

       2. 然后以约120个词以“Will written letters die out ?”为主题写一篇短文，并包括如下要点：

       (1)有些人认为用手机收发短信和用因特网收发邮件更加方便快捷，写信很费时间

       (2)有些人喜欢和朋友或家人写信

       (3)你的观点

【写作要求】

       1. 你可以使用实例或其他论述方法支持你的论点，也可以参照阅读材料的内容，但不得直接引用阅读材料中的句子

2. 作文中不能出现真实姓名和学校名称

【评分标准】

       概括准确、语言规范、内容合适，篇章连贯。  (请在答题纸上作答)

Britain’s seed(种子) bank, the only one in the world aiming to collect all of the planet’s wild plant species, has reached its goal of banking 10 percent by 2010.

The Millennium Seed Bank Project, run by Kew Gardens—one of the oldest botanical(植物的)  gardens—will officially place the 24,200th species on Thursday, a pink, wild banana from China.

More than 50 countries are now on board with Kew's giant task but vast places of the globe, including India and Brazil, still need to join in and donate seeds, director Paul Smith said.                                                                                                                                                            

The seed bank is one of the largest and most diverse(多样的) in the world with more than 1.5 billion seeds. Its goal is to help protect the planet’s bio-diversity during a time of climate change.

The wild banana seed is under threat of extinction(灭绝) in southwest China from agricultural development. It is a vital food source for Asian elephants and important for growing bananas for human eating.

Stored at minus-20 degrees centigrade, so they can last for thousands of years, the seeds await the day that scientists hope never comes—when the species no longer exist in the wild.

It is a race against time, Smith said, because in the last ten years alone, 20 plants held in the bank have already been wiped out in the wild. He estimates that between a third and a quarter will become extinct this century.

"It is pressing and it is happening now. An area, the size of England, is cleared of primary vegetation（植被）every year." Smith said.

Because most of the world's food and medicines come from nature, protecting wild plant species is quite important, scientists say. There are already many other seed banks safeguarding food crops, which only account for 0.6 percent of plant diversity.

For Kew's next goal—to collect a quarter of wild varieties（种类）by 2020—the botanists need 10 million pounds a year, or a further 100 million pounds on top of the 40 million they have already been granted.

1.What’s the final purpose of the Britain’s seed bank?

A．To collect enough money for the project.     B．To safeguard food crops.

C．To protect wild plants from extinction.        D．To help scientists study wild plants.

2.We can learn from the passage that _______.

A．the seeds in the bank can be used now and then all over the world

B．India and Brazil haven’t joined in the Seed Bank Project at present

C．there is only one seed bank in the world at present

D．the wild plants in places like India and China will never die out

3.What does the underlined word “it” in paragraph 7 refer to?

A．The extinction of plant species.

B．The Millennium Seed Bank Project.

C．Britain’s seed bank.

D．Kew Gardens’ next goal.

4.Which of the following isn’t spoken about in the passage?

A．The global partnership of collecting wild plant species.

B．The temperature condition of the wild plant species in the bank.

C．The government’s support for the seed bank project by giving money.

D．Scientists’ concern on the extinct wild plant species.