题目内容
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Saving the Planet with Earth-Friendly Bamboo Products
Jackie Heinricher’s love with bamboo started in her backyard. “As a child, I remember playing among the golden bamboo my dad had planted, and when there was a slight wind, the bamboos sounded really musical.”
A fishing biologist, Heinricher, 47, planned to work in the industry in Seattle, where she lived with her husband, Guy Thornburgh, but she found it too competitive. Then her garden gave her the idea for a business: She’d planted 20 bamboo forests on their seven-acre farm.
Heinricher started Boo-Shoot Gardens in 1998. She realized early on what is just now beginning to be known to the rest of the world. It can be used to make fishing poles, skateboards, buildings, furniture, floors, and even clothing. An added bonus: Bamboo absorbs four times as much carbon dioxide as a group of hardwood trees and releases 35 percent more oxygen.
First she had to find a way to mass-produce the plants—a tough task, since bamboo flowers create seed only once every 50 to 100 years. And dividing a bamboo plant frequently kills it.
Heinricher appealed to Randy Burr, a tissue culture expert, to help her. “People kept telling us we’d never figure it out,” says Heinricher. “Others had worked on it for 27 years! I believed in what we were doing, though, so I just kept going.”
She was right to feel a sense of urgency. Bamboo forests are being rapidly used up, and a United Nations report showed that even though bamboo is highly renewable, as many as half of the world’s species are threatened with dying out. Heinricher knew that bamboo could make a significant impact on carbon emissions (排放) and world economies, but only if huge numbers could be produced. And that’s just what she and Burr figured out after nine years of experiments—a way to grow millions of plants. By placing cuttings in test tubes with salts, vitamins, plant hormones, and seaweed gel, they got the plants to grow and then raised them in soil in greenhouses.
Not long after it, Burr’s lab hit financial difficulties. Heinricher had no experience running a tissue culture operation, but she wasn’t prepared to quit. So she bought the lab.
Today Heinricher heads up a profitable multimillion-dollar company, working on species from all over the world and selling them to wholesalers. “If you want to farm bamboo, it’s hard to do without the young plants, and that’s what we have,” she says proudly.
72. What was the main problem with planting bamboo widely?
A. They didn’t have enough young bamboo.
B. They were short of money and experience.
C. They didn’t have a big enough farm to do it.
D. They were not understood by other people.
73. What does Heinricher think of bamboo?
A. Renewable and acceptable B. Productive and flexible.
C. Useful and earth-friendly. D. Strong and profitable.
74. The underlined word “renewable” in Paragraph 6 probably means “________”.
A. able to be replaced naturally B. able to be raised difficultly
C. able to be shaped easily D. able to be recycled conveniently
75. What do you learn from the passage?
A. Heinricher’s love for bamboo led to her experiments in the lab.
B. Heinricher’s determination helped her to succeed in her work.
C. Heinricher struggled to prevent bamboo from disappearing.
D. Heinricher finally succeeded in realizing her childhood dream.
72-75 ACADA
孟建平小学滚动测试系列答案It is often said that man has become the enemy of our planet. This is no exaggeration(夸张), for reports show that man’s greed has done much to destroy the earth. Man, in his greedy desire for financial growth, has polluted the air, land and water, and has robbed our valuable natural resources. Man’s industrial plants pour out poisonous waste that pollutes the sea and puts life in the sea under the threat of dying out; at the same time, they release alarming amounts of carbon dioxide, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and other pollutants. Small wonder that the air now is much warmer and more impure than ever before.
Of course, this is not just because of man’s greed—it is man’s pressing need as well. For instance, in developing countries, huge financial foreign debts have forced governments to approve the cutting of forests for agriculture or ranching. As a result, forests are cut down just to meet man’s immediate needs.
Perhaps unknowingly，man has changed the make-up of the earth's atmosphere. Scientific studies have shown that CFCs used in refrigerators and industrial cleaners are fast destroying the ozone layer—a protective layer in the atmosphere that protects us against the harmful effects of the sun’s ultraviolet (紫外线)rays. In fact, documented reports have shown a terrible fact that there are “holes” in the ozone layer over the Antarctic. And they appear to be expanding.
Faced with these environmental problems, world leaders have shown deep concern. The UN Environmental Programme (UNEP) has arranged international agreements like the Vienna convention of 1985 and the Montreal Protocol of 1989 to preserve the ozone layer by controlling the production, use and trade of destructive chemicals.
There may be some doubt as to how effectual these agreements may be, given that some countries still maintain an “I-don’t-care” attitude. Their attitude is probably due to their failure to grasp the importance of the problem. Then, there is no doubt that environmental education on an international scale（规模）is greatly needed, so that all countries, great and small—the “haves” and the “have nots”—may realize their responsibilities for our planet.
In the meantime, the UNEP seems to have taken steps in the right direction, and it is hoped that in the not so distant future, all nations of the world will join hands in saving mother earth.
1.Which of the following is a reason for the cutting and burning of forests?
A. To build houses for more population.
B. To have land for agriculture.
C. To export trees to other countries.
D. To build industrial plants.
2.The holes in the ozone layer are largely due to________.
A. man’s research activities B. the greenhouse effect
C. the ultraviolent D. harmful chemicals
3.Why don’t some countries care about the problem of the environment?
A. They don’t want to put their lives in danger.
B. They just don’t know how to solve the problem.
C. They haven’t realized the seriousness of the problem.
D. They don’t want to break their international commitment.
4.What is the author’s attitude towards the future of the environment?
A. Hopeful. B. Unconcerned C. Doubtful D. Objective
