Trees are useful to man in three very important ways: they provide him with wood and other products, they give him shade, and they help to prevent drought and floods.

Unfortunately, in many parts of the world man has not realized that the third of these services is the most important. In his eagerness to draw quick profit from the trees, he has cut them down in large numbers, only to find that without them he has lost the best friends he had.

Two thousand years ago a rich and powerful country cut down its trees to build warships, with which to gain itself an empire. It gained the empire but, without its trees, its soil became hard and poor. When the empire fell to pieces, the country found itself faced by floods and starvation.

Even though a government realizes the importance of a plentiful supply of trees, it is difficult for it to persuade the villager to see this. The villager wants wood to cook his food with, and he can earn money by making charcoal(木炭) or selling wood to the townsman(城市居民). He is usually too lazy or too careless to plant and look after trees. So unless the government has a good system of control, or can educate the people, the forests will slowly disappear.

This does not only mean that the villager’s sons and grandsons have fewer trees. The results are even more serious. For where there are trees their roots break the soil up—allowing the rain to sink in and also hold the soil, thus preventing it being washed away easily, but where there are no trees, the soil becomes hard and poor. The rain falls on hard ground and flows away on the surface, causing floods and carrying away with it the rich topsoil, in which crops grow so well. When all the topsoil is gone, nothing remains but a worthless desert.

The purpose that the writer wrote this article is to ______.         

     A. tell people the use of wood

     B. tell people the function of tree roots

     C. warn that man mustn’t destroy forests any more

     D. explain how trees help to prevent drought and floods

In the writer’s opinion, _____, or the forests will slowly disappear.

     A. measures must be taken

     B. people shouldn’t draw benefit from the tree

     C. government must realize the serious results

     D. unless trees never be cut down

According to the article we know it is _____ to prevent the forests from slowly disappearing.

     A. necessary but impossible

     B. necessary but difficult

     C. impossible and unimportant

     D. difficult and impossible

In the last two paragraphs the writer wanted to make it clear that _____ .

     A. where there are no trees, the soil becomes poor but soft

     B. where there are many trees, there are more floods

     C. where there are no trees, the land might become desert slowly

     D. floods will make the land become desert      

Loma just had to get in touch with someone:“I had to tell my best friend something important. I tried calling her but I couldn’t get through. So I sent her an e-mail and then I spoke to her on MSN. Without technology I would not have been able to tell her. ”

Staying connected with friends and family is important for us. That’s why we asked our readers to tell us how cell-phones, e-mail, blogs, text messaging, and personal pages help them keep in touch. More than 1,500 responded.

Most of them told us they couldn’t live without technology:80%of teens said they need technology to stay in touch. Almost 30%said they’d be completely out of their friends without their cell-phones and other methods of communication.

What do they do when they’ve got news they need to share now? Most teens say they try to reach their friends by phone. But if they don’t reach them, they use QQ, e-mails, and text messaging to get the words out.

Lots of people use one way of communication—like text messaging—to get a friend’s attention and then use another where they can talk more. “My friends and I always tell each other everything that happens. So I send them text messages to tell them to come online so we can talk about it,” said Sabeiha.

 “When planning to get together with friends”, Julian said, “the easiest and fastest way I know is to send a text message to my contact group.”Jocelyn said. “If I want to go to see a movie with a few friends, I usually send text message to them. By telephone, you have to call every single friend one by one. But text messaging allows you to send the same message to as many as you’d like, which saves a lot of time. ”

Which of the following is NOT mentioned in the passage?

    A. E-mails.     B. Blogs.         C. Personal pages.    D. Personal letters.

What do most young people use first when they have news to tell their friends?

    A. MSN.      B. QQ.            C. Phones.          D. Text message.

The underlined part “get the words out” means“      ”.

    A. send the message          B. send the e-mail

C. talk with their friends       D. meet their friends

In which part of a newspaper can you find this passage?

    A. Sport.       B. Education.       C. Technology. D. Culture.

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