Many different tribes live in the Ituri rain forest of Africa, but the Pygmies are the most unusual. Most of the men are
not much more than four feet tall. They weigh only about eighty pounds. The women are even smaller and thinner. But in spite of the fact that they are small, these people are perfectly formed men and women.
It is an exciting experience to visit a Pygmy encampment for the first time. Before you go, you must send word ahead that you are coming. Some friendly native or trader must take the message to the Tiki-Tikis. Otherwise the whole tribe will disappear into the depths of the jungle long before you have come close enough to be welcomed.
The great Ituri rain forest seems cut off from the rest of the earth. There are living, dead, and dying trees on every side. Except where a clearing has been burned and chopped out, a man may live his whole life in the Ituri and never see farther than twenty yards.
It takes sharp eyes to discover the almost hidden path to the Pygmy camp. The path is no wider than a small man’s foot. No sound breaks the silence in this part of the forest. There are no signs of people.
The stranger must walk carefully. What appears to be a bent branch may prove to be a deadly snake. A spotted gold patch of sunlight may be a crouching leopard(豹).
Even the Pygmy camp comes as a surprise. The leafy shelters in which the little people live are hardly three feet high. They look so much like the surrounding undergrowth that they might easily be passed by. These houses contain no furniture of any sort. The beds are merely plantain leaves spread out on the earth floor. There are no cooking pots: food is eaten raw or smoked over a fire. Spears, bows and arrows are the only possessions of these people. When the tribe moves to a new camp there is nothing to carry except these weapons and babies too small to walk.
【小题1】According to the passage, we can conclude _____.
| A.the Pygmies are the shortest tribe worldwide |
| B.the Pygmies are short but normal in mentality |
| C.most of the Pygmy men are more than four feet |
| D.the Pygmies live in the forest of America |
| A.are unwilling to communicate with people outside |
| B.are very cruel and they will |
| C.are friendly to the tourists visiting them for the first time |
| D.move so fast and often that can’t be caught up with easily |
| A.Quiet. | B.Active. | C.Hard. | D.Busy. |
| A.Their houses can’t be easily found in the hurt rain forest. |
| B.Their houses, which are three feet high, are made of wood. |
| C.Weapons and cooking pots are their most valuable possessions. |
| D.They are living in harmony with dangerous animals around. |
As A/H1N1 continues to spread, experts from the Centers for Disease Control to the World Health Organization to neighborhood doctors are calling on the people to practice smart flu prevention techniques. Here are some tips to keep body improved and immune(免疫)system ready to fight infection.
Wash Your Hands
And wash them often, in hot soapy water, and for the amount of time it takes you to sing “Happy Birthday” twice.
Get Enough Sleep
This means slightly different things to different people, but try to get 8 hours of good rest each night to keep your immune system in top flu-fighting shape.
Keep Hydrated
Drink enough water each day to clear poisonous matter from your system and keep up good moisture(湿度)production in your body.
Eat Immune-Improving Foods
Keeping you body strong and ready to fight infection is important in flu prevention. Fatty foods can slow your metabolism(新陈代谢), make you feel inactive, and weaken your immune
system. So stick with whole grains, colorful vegetables, and vitamin-rich fruits.
Avoid Alcohol
Alcohol is likely to decrease your resistance to infections and further damages the immune system. So avoid alcoholic drinks to keep your immune system strong.
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Proper exercise-for example walking for 30-40 minutes 3-4 times a week-supports the immune system by increasing circulation, oxygenating the body, removing poisonous material through sweat, and reducing tension and stress. So get moving!
Avoid Contact with Sick People
If you’re coughing or sneezing, cover your mouth(and then wash your hands),and if you have to be around someone who is sick, try to stay a few feet away from them and avoid physical contact.
Know When to Get Help
A/H1N1 can look like regular flu, so don’t feel like you necessarily are infected if you’re exhibiting flu-like symptoms(症状). But do go to your doctor if you live in an area where there are recorded cases, or if your symptoms are very serious.
【小题1】To fight A/H1N1 infection, it’s helpful for us to_______ .
| A.sing “Happy Birthday” while washing hands |
| B.eat more fatty foods and colorful fruits |
| C.keep away from alcoholic drinks |
| D.refuse communication with patients |
| A.Support the Immune System | B.Keep Physically Active |
| C.Get Enough Sweat | D.Walk to Reduce Stress |
| A.get enough sleep after eating fatty foods |
| B.wash hands with soap after a cough or sneeze |
| C.drink more water after drinking alcohol |
| D.see a doctor immediately if you have flu-like symptoms |
| A.Washing your hands. | B.Eating fatty foods. |
| C.Getting enough sleep. | D.Drinking enough water. |
Rabbits are easy to raise. They are clean and quiet. They don’t need a lot of room. And it costs a small amount of money to feed them, but you can get a big return.
One male and two females will produce as many as fifty more rabbits in a year. That is enough to provide enough meat for a family. Rabbit meat is high in protein and low in fat.
You don’t have to be a farmer to raise rabbits. You can raise them in the city.
Rabbit houses are easy to make with wood and wire. They don’t have to be very big. But each rabbit must have its own little room in the house. This is very important. Each room should be about 75 centimeters wide, 60 centimeters high and one meter deep.
Fencing is used for the sides and floor of the rabbit house. The holes in the wire fencing should be about one centimeter square. Waste from the animals will drop through the holes. This keeps the rabbit house clean and dry.
Rabbits need a lot of fresh air and sunlight. Cover the sides of the rabbit house only to protect it from rain.
Rabbits eat mostly grass and leaves. Hang feeding containers on the outside of the house to let the rabbits eat whenever they want. They simply pull the grass and leaves through the holes in the fence.
Each room should have fresh water. The water containers should be heavy so the rabbit cannot turn them over. Or you can tie the containers to the fence.
One month after mating(交配), female rabbits give birth to about eight babies. In two months, a baby rabbit should weigh about two kilograms. This is big enough to make a meal for a small family.
Rabbits are also valuable for their fur. It takes time, skill and money to prepare the fur and skin for use. If you have only a few rabbits, it probably would be best to let a tanner(制革工) prepare the fur for you. Skill is also needed to remove the fur from the rabbit.
But rabbits do not have to be dead to be valuable. Many people enjoy keeping rabbits as friendly pets. And rabbit waste makes an excellent fertilizer(肥料). It can be mixed directly into the soil to improve the growth of vegetables, trees, and flowering plants.
【小题1】The text is written mainly_______.
| A.to explain why rabbits are clean and quiet | B.to let people know more about rabbits |
| C.to tell readers how to raise rabbits | D.to introduce a small friendly animal pet |
| A.Holes are needed for waste to drop through. |
| B.Each rabbit must be given a separate room. |
| C.Each room must have clean water every day. |
| D.Feeding containers are hung on the fence. |
| A.Because the holes let in sunlight. |
| B.Because rabbits like these holes. |
| C.Because rabbits get food from them. |
| D.Because waste of rabbits drops through the holes. |
| A.You don’t have to kill rabbits to make more money. |
| B.Rabbits cannot be sold to make money when they are alive. |
| C.Rabbits are more valuable when they are alive. |
| D.Rabbits have to be killed to be more valuable. |
Ask someone what they have done to help the environment recently and they will almost certainly mention recycling.Recycling in the home is very important of course.However, being forced to recycle often means we already have more material than we need.We are dealing with the results of that over–consumption in the greenest way possible, but it would be far better if we did not need to bring so much material home in the first place.
The total amount of packaging has increased by 12% between 1999 and 2005.It now makes up a third of a typical household’s waste in the UK.In many supermarkets nowadays food items are packaged twice with plastic and cardboard.
Too much packaging is doing serious damage to the environment.The UK, for example, is running out of it for burying this unnecessary waste.If such packaging is burnt, it gives off greenhouse gases which go on to cause the greenhouse effect.Recycling helps, but the process itself uses energy.The solution is not to produce such items in the first place.Food waste is a serious problem, too.Too many supermarkets encourage customers to buy more than they need.However, few of them are coming round to the idea that this cannot continue, encouraging customers to reuse their plastic bags, for example.
But this is not just about supermarkets.It is about all of us.We have learned to associate packaging with quality.We have learned to think that something unpackaged is of poor quality.This is especially true of food.But it is also applied to a wide range of consumer products, which often have far more packaging than necessary.
There are signs of hope.As more of us recycle, we are beginning to realize just how much unnecessary materials are collected.We need to face the wastefulness of our consumer culture, but we have a mountain to climb.
【小题1】What does the underlined phrase “that over-consumption” refer to?
| A.Using too much packaging. |
| B.Recycling too many wastes. |
| C.Making more products than necessary. |
| D.Having more material than is needed. |
| A.the tendency of cutting household waste |
| B.the increase of packaging recycling |
| C.the rapid growth of supermarkets |
| D.the fact of packaging overuse |
| A.helps control the greenhouse effect |
| B.means burning packaging for energy |
| C.is the solution to gas shortage |
| D.leads to a waste of land |
| A.Unpackaged products are of bad quality. |
| B.Supermarkets care more about packaging. |
| C.It is improper to judge quality by packaging. |
| D.Other products are better packaged than food. |
Algae(水藻) are very simple plants. They grow in fresh water or salty water. Seaweed is algae that grow in salty water. Seaweed is red or brown in color. The Japanese people use these plants from the sea in many ways. From it, they make a food called Kombu. Kombu is seaweed that has been dried, cooked and pressed together. Then it is dried again and cut into long pieces. The Japanese eat a lot of Kombu and like it very much.
Japanese farmers often use seaweed as fertilizer. It makes their plants grow better. Many farmers also find seaweed makes a fine food for their animals.
From seaweed the Japanese also get iodine(碘), which they sell to other countries. Iodine is used in many ways all over the world. It is used in making medicine. It is added to the salt we use at the table. Scientists even use one form of iodine to “ seed clouds” when they want rain to
fall.
【小题1】 Kombu is a kind of ____ according to the text.
| A.plant | B.medicine | C.food | D.fertilizer |
| A.clouds spreading like seeds |
| B.the seeds like clouds |
| C.to make rain fall with human power |
| D.dropping seeds by clouds |
| A.The Japanese eat seaweed when they want rain to fall. |
| B.Kombu is made into medicine for farmers. |
| C.The Japanese use seaweed in many ways. |
| D.The Japanese eat a lot of Kombu. |
Experts say the American state of Hawaii has been invaded (入侵)by a small frog called the coqui (ko--kee). There may be millions of the small frogs in Hawaii. However, they do not belong there. They are normally found in the southeastern United States. The coqui frogs are harming Hawaii’s environment. And the extremely loud noise they make is causing problems for Hawaiian citizens and visitors.
The coqui invaders arrived in Hawaii about ten years ago. They were believed to have been brought in accidentally in shipments of plants from Florida. Their number has sharply increased. They have quickly spread around the Hawaii Islands hidden in plants.
The coqui is a brown frog about five centimeters long. During the day, the frogs hide in wet protected areas, such as under plant leaves. At night, the frogs move onto trees to feed, call to females and mates. The call of the male coqui sounds like. Ko kee! Ko kee!
In the southeastern United States, local people celebrate coqui frogs. But in Hawaii, the foreign frog has been considered as a harmful animal. The coqui frogs are a major danger to Hawaii’s environmental system. The frogs eat thousands of insects (昆虫)every night. These insects are important for the reproduction of plants. The insects also are important food for Hawaii’s native rare birds. The frogs also are affecting the tourism industry in Hawaii. Increasing numbers of hotels, visitors and local people have been annoyed by the loud calls made by male coqui
frogs to female frogs. At night, the noise often makes it difficult for people to sleep.
The frogs do not have any natural enemies in Hawaii to reduce their population size. The warm weather permits them to lay eggs all year long. There are many efforts in Hawaii designed to stop the spread of the coqui. It is a crime to transport ,sell or release(释放)the frogs there.
The Hawaii Department of Agriculture is trying to find an effective chemical that can be safely used to kill the frogs. For now, the frogs may only be caught by hand. The Hawaii Department of Agriculture says the greatest danger to the economy and environment of the state is from harmful species, like the coqui.
【小题1】The statement that can best summarize the main idea of the passage is .
| A.the coqui invaders have seriously affected the tourism industry in Hawaii |
| B.it is not permitted to transport, sell or release the coqui frogs in Hawaii |
| C.the coqui invasion has serious effects on the economy and environment in Hawaii |
| D.great efforts have been made by the Hawaii people to kill the coqui |
| A.by chance | B.at the request of all the local citizens |
| C.as a gift | D.as goods demanded in the local market |
| A.they are a big danger to the environmental system there |
| B.the loud noise made by the frogs bother their rest at night |
| C.they affect the reproduction of the local plants and insects |
| D.visitors could no longer see the native rare birds because of them |
| A.the frogs’ habit and the environment in Hawaii |
| B.the large number of the insects and the plants in Hawaii |
| C.the geographic location of Hawaii and its tourism industry |
| D.the warm weather there and the frogs’ lack of natural enemies |
It was once thought that air pollution
affec
ted only the area immediately around large c
ities with factories and/or heavy automobile traffic. Today, we know that although these are the areas with the worst air pollution, the problem is literally worldwide. On several occasions over the past decade, a heavy cloud of air pollution has covered the entire eastern half of the United States and led to health warnings even in rural areas away from any major concentration of manufacturing and automobile traffic. In fact, the very climate of the entire earth may be affected by air pollution. Some scientists feel that the increasing concentration of carbon dioxide in the air resulting from the burning of fossil fuels(coal and oil) creating a greenhouse effect-holding in heat reflected from the earth and raising the world’s average temperature. If this view is correct and the world’s temperature is raised only a few degrees, much of the polar ice cap will melt and cities such as New York, Boston, Miami, and New Orleans will be under water.
Another view, less widely held, is that increasing particulate matter in the atmosphere is blocking sunlight and lowering the earth’s temperature-a result that would be equally disastrous(灾难的). A drop of just a few degrees could create something close to a new ice age, and would make agriculture difficult or impossible in many of our top farming areas. At present we do riot know for sure that either of these conditions will happen(though one recent government report prepared by experts in the field concluded that the greenhouse effect is very likely). Perhaps, if we very lucky, the two tendencies will offset each other and the world’s temperature will stay about the same as it is now.
【小题1】As pointed out at the beginning of the passage, people used to think that air pollution ______.
| A.caused widespread damage in the countryside |
B.affected the entire eastern half of the United States |
| C.al |
| D.existed merely in urban and industrial areas |
| A.shares the same view with the scientists |
| B.is uncertain of its occurrence |
| C.rejects it as being ungrounded(无根据的) |
| D.thinks that it will increasingly destroy the world soon |
| A.raising the world’s temperature a little would not do much harm to life on the earth |
| B.lowering the world’s temperature a little would lead to agricultural disasters |
| C.almost no temperature variations have occurred over the past decade |
| D.the world’s temperature will remain stable forever |
| A.the greenhouse effect in the world |
| B.the measures to adjust the climate |
| C.the potential effect of air pollution |
| D.the measures to protect the environment |
COOL INVENTIONS![]()
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From school to band Practice, the Venturi Eclectic is an Earth-friendly way to get Where you want to go.This battery-powered, zero-emission (meaning it doesn't pollute the air) vehicle runs mainly on renewable energy.Solar panels on the Eclectic's roof absorb sun rays when you're driving.On windy days, you can connect a machine to the car's roof that collects energy from the wind while you're parked.The Eclectic's top speed is 28 miles an hour; the battery lasts for 31 miles before it needs to be recharged.Zipping (迅速行进) around the neighborhood has never been better.
Here's an eco-friendly way to tell time: Simply fill the Bedol Water-powered Clock's tank (箱) with water, add some lemon juice, and the clock will display the time without the need for environmentally harmful batteries.There are two sets of metal electrodes (电极) inside the water tank.Water contains ions (离子) that carry negative and positive charges.These ions complete a charge between the electrodes, creating enough energy to power the clock.Just refill the tank every few weeks, and this clock will keep on
ticking.
Bloodhound SuperSonic Car (SSC) will be the first car to attempt to break the l,000-mile-an-hour barrier.(The current record is 763 miles an hour.) A concept for now, the rocket-shaped car gets its initial push to 350 miles an hour from a jet engine.Then a rocket fires up, pushing the SSC past 1,000 miles an hour.In order to keep the car streamlined (流线型的), the driver lies back at a 45-degree angle.
You're having a blast at your friend's birthday party.But when it's time to bring out the cake, everyone crowds around, blocking your view.No worries.Throw the Triops into the air, and this clever camera captures the view from above.The Triops can take three pictures at once, each from different angles.You can also record sounds and command the Triops to start shooting whenever it hears that noise.That's one smart camera.
【小题1】According to the passage, the Venturi Eclectic .
| A.is popular with businessmen | B.is suitable for a long trip |
| C.can turn wind into energy | D.has only a little gas emission |
| A.They don't need batteries. | B.They are difficult to operate. |
| C.They can be powered by water. | D.They are environmentally friendly. |
| A.looking at a picture | B.enjoying yourself |
| C.blowing out a candle | D.recording sounds |
| A.The Triops is sensitive to sounds. |
| B.The driver of the SSC must be of great size. |
| C.The color of the Bedol Water-powered Clock is like that of lemon. |
| D.The SSC doesn’t have anything to do with a rocket actually. |
United States