In gardens across Britain the grass has stopped growing.
But now Britons have fallen in love with artificial grass. Evergreens UK, which sells the stuff, says it has seen a 120% rise in sales since 2015. Grass Direct reports they are up by 50% this year.
Artificial grass is popular with families who have children or dogs and don’t want mud pulled behind through their houses. It has an attractive factor, too. Andy Driver of Evergreens UK says people now see gardens as “outside rooms,”-pairing carpets of artificial grass with comfortable seating.
Not everyone is a fan.
Three protestors have tried to stop artificial grass spreading.
| A．Britons are fascinated by lawns. |
| B．They are not lacking water or drought-stricken. |
| C．These eco-gardeners are more likely to be environmentalists. |
| D．Betap, a Dutch firm, has recently launched its first British designs. |
| E．Artificial grasses contain microplastics that ruin soil and risk flooding. |
| F．Wildlife-loving gardeners are growing, many preferring to catch the insects. |
| G．The government says restricting what people do in their backyards is wrong. |
相似题推荐
【推荐1】In modern society there is a great deal of argument about competition. Some value it highly, believing that it is responsible for social progress and prosperity. Others say that competition is bad; that it sets one person against another; that it leads to unfriendly relationship between people.
I have taught many children who held the belief that their self-worth relied (依赖) on how well they performed at tennis and other skills. For them, playing well and winning are often life-and-death affairs. In their single-minded pursuit (追求) of success, the development of many other human qualities is sadly forgotten.
However, while some seem to be lost in the desire to succeed, others take an opposite attitude. In a culture which values only the winner and pays no attention to the ordinary players, they strongly blame competition. Among the most vocal are youngsters who have suffered under competitive pressures from their parents or society. Teaching these young people, I often observe in them a desire to fail. They seem to seek failure by not trying to win or achieve success. By not trying, they always have an excuse: “I may have lost, but it doesn’t matter because I really didn’t try.” What is not usually admitted by themselves is the belief that if they had really tried and lost, that would mean a lot. Such a loss would be a measure of their worth. Clearly, this belief is the same as that of the true competitors who try to prove themselves. Both are based on the mistaken belief that one’s self-respect relies on how well one performs in comparison with others. Both are afraid of not being valued. Only as this basic and often troublesome fear begins to dissolve (缓解) can we discover a new meaning in competition.
1. What does this passage mainly talk about?| A．Competition helps to set up self-respect. |
| B．Opinions about competition are different among people. |
| C．Competition is harmful to personal quality development. |
| D．Failures are necessary experiences in competition. |
| A．It pushes society forward. |
| B．It builds up a sense of duty. |
| C．It improves personal abilities. |
| D．It encourages individual efforts. |
| A．those who try their best to win |
| B．those who value competition most highly |
| C．those who are against competition most strongly |
| D．those who rely on others most for success |
| A．One’s worth lies in his performance compared with others. |
| B．One’s success in competition needs great efforts. |
| C．One’s achievement is determined by his particular skills. |
| D．One’s success is based on how hard he has tried. |
【推荐2】The Supreme Court’s decision on physician-assisted suicide carry important implications for how medicine seeks to relieve dying patients of pain and suffering.
Although it ruled that there is no constitutional right to physician-assisted suicide, the Court in effect supported the medical principle of “double effect”, a centuries-old moral principle holding that an action having two effects — a good one that is intended and a harmful one that is foreseen — is permissible if the actor intends only the good effect.
Doctors have used that principle in recent years to justify using high doses of morphine to control terminally ill patients’ pain, even though increasing dosages will eventually kill the patient.
Nancy Dubler, director of Montefiore Medical Center, contends that the principle will shield doctors who “until now have very, very strongly insisted that they could not give patients sufficient mediation to control their pain if that might hasten death.”
George Annas, chair of the health law department at Boston University, maintains that, as long as a doctor prescribes a drug for a legitimate medical purpose, the doctor has done nothing illegal even if the patient uses the drug to hasten death. “It’s like surgery,” he says. “We don’t call those deaths homicides because the doctors didn’t intend to kill their patients, although they risked their death. If you’re a physician, you can risk your patient’s suicide as long as you don’t intend their suicide.”
On another level, many in the medical community acknowledge that the assisted-suicide debate has been fueled in part by the despair of patients for whom modern medicine has prolonged the physical agony of dying.
Just three weeks before the Court’s ruling on physician-assisted suicide, the National Academy of Science (NAS) released a two-volume report, “Approaching Death: Improving Care at the End of Life”. It identifies the under-treatment of pain and the aggressive use of “ineffectual and forced medical procedures that may prolong and even dishonor the period of dying” as the twin problems of end-of-life care.
The profession is taking steps to require young doctors to train in hospices, to test knowledge of aggressive pain management therapies, and to develop new standards for assessing and treating pain at the end of life.
Annas says lawyers can play a key role in insisting that these well-meaning medical initiatives translate into better care, “Large numbers of physicians seem unconcerned with the pain their patients are needlessly and predictably suffering,” to the extent that it constitutes “systematic patient abuse”. He says medical licensing boards “must make it clear that painful deaths are presumptively ones that are incompetently managed and should result in license suspension”.
1. From the first three paragraphs, we learn that ________.| A．doctors used to increase drug dosage to control their patients’ pain |
| B．it is still illegal for doctors to help the dying end their lives |
| C．the Supreme Court strongly opposes physician-assisted suicide |
| D．patients have no constitutional right to commit suicide |
| A．Doctors will be held guilty if they risk their patients’ death. |
| B．Modern medicine has assisted terminally ill patients in painless recovery. |
| C．The Court ruled that high-dosage pain-relieving medication can be prescribed. |
| D．A doctor’s medication is no longer justified by his intentions. |
| A．prolonged medical procedures | B．inadequate treatment of pain |
| C．systematic drug abuse | D．insufficient hospital care |
| A．manage their patients incompetently |
| B．give patients more medicine than needed |
| C．reduce drug dosages for their patients |
| D．prolong the needless suffering of the patients |
【推荐3】Across the world, studies have consistently found that girls perform significantly better than boys in reading. These studies show that girls typically read more frequently than boys, and have a more positive attitude toward reading.
There are several reasons that help explain these gender-based differences. Parents read more with their daughters. This sends a strong and early message that books are for girls, as well as equipping girls with a significant advantage. Recent research has found even though boys read less frequently than girls, girls still receive more encouragement to read from their parents.
So how can parents and educators help bridge this socially-engineered gap for boys’ reading?
To improve boys’ reading performance, parents and educators may look for ways to connect boys with reading. This has led to discussion about the importance of promoting so-called “boy-friendly” books that boys supposedly “prefer” These are typically assumed to be non-fiction works, as many people believed that boys prefer to read non-fiction.
But this belief is not supported by recent research, which in fact suggests boys are more likely to choose to read fiction than non-fiction. Encouraging all boys to read non-fiction under the mistaken belief that it is their preference may actually be harmful. Fiction readers read more frequently and demonstrate faster language learning and higher language ability.
Besides encouraging more fiction reading, there are a number of ways that we can help connect boys with books. Firstly, don’t assume that boys of the same age have the same interests or that their interests stay the same over time. To match boys with suitable reading material, have regular discussions about reading for pleasure in order to keep up with their interests.
Schools should also provide access to libraries during lessons throughout the years of schooling. Girls visit the library in their free time more than boys, and as students move to higher grades they often have less access to libraries during class. Access to books for boys is essential to promote reading.
In addition, we should keep paper books available because research shows that boys are less likely to choose to read on screens than girls. Finally we should promote reading as an enjoyable pastime by being a role model. Let your children or students see you read for pleasure.
1. According to the author, what is the main cause of the difference in boys’ and girls’ reading ability?| A．Social factors. |
| B．Teaching methods. |
| C．Personal preferences. |
| D．Psychological differences. |
| A．To persuade boys to read more often. |
| B．To learn what boys are most interested in. |
| C．To help boys improve their language ability. |
| D．To show that adults are good reading role models. |
| A．Before and after class. |
| B．At any time of the school day. |
| C．At regular times during class. |
| D．When they are in the lower grades. |
| A．To show students ways to improve their reading. |
| B．To explain why boys are not as good at reading as girls. |
| C．To urge governments to provide more reading resources. |
| D．To provide strategies that can help improve boys’ reading ability. |
