Plastic straws (吸管) cause danger to the environment. They’re so small and they easily find their way into the ocean, where they can harm animals because they may eat them. Then, what can you use instead of plastic straws to protect the environment? Here are some choices.
Bamboo straws
Fast-growing bamboo is ideal for making drinking straws. Many companies now produce bamboo straws, often without the use of chemicals (化学物质). Bamboo straws can be washed by hand and used again and again. When they do wear out, they break down easily.
Glass straws
Glass straws can also be reused, and if they’re clear, it’s easy to see whether they’re clean or not. Some companies make bent glass straws, which means you don’t have to tip (倾斜) your glass to drink with them. They are available in different colors and widths, so customers have many choices to choose from.
Bottles that come with straws
Many water bottles come with built-in straws. Although that straw may be made of plastic, you keep it and use it repeatedly. That means it probably won’t end up in the ocean any time soon. Water bottles can also replace (替代) paper cups, which cuts down on waste even more.
No straw
For many drinks, straws aren’t required; people can drink straight out of a cup. Businesses can cut down on the number of straws they use by just asking people if they want one. Many people hardly notice whether they have a straw or not.
Plastic straws are far from the only way to enjoy your favorite drink. Giving them up is an easy way to help take care of our planet.
1. Why do plastic straws do harm to animals in the ocean?2. How many choices are mentioned to replace plastic straws in the passage?
3. How can businesses cut down the numbers of straws they use?
4. What is the passage mainly about?
5. What do you think of giving up plastic straws?
相似题推荐
Garbage(垃圾) Island
You can’t see it from the air. It’s almost impossible to see from a ship. But somewhere in the North Pacific is a huge island of garbage, just below the water surface.
What is the island made of?
The garbage island is not an island, but a collection of millions of plastic and other objects. The water movements of Pacific Ocean bring the objects together and cause them to go around in a big circle.
Charles Moore found it in 1997 and named it “the Great Pacific Garbage Patch” .
Where does all the plastic come from?
Much of the garbage comes from everyday objects, such as shopping bags and water bottles. Some of these objects finally reach the ocean. Garbage from the western coast of North America takes about six years to reach it. Objects from East Asia take about a year. Other garbage comes from ships passing through the area.
Is the Garbage Patch dangerous?
The larger pieces of garbage are a problem for wildlife. For example, sea turtles（海龟）and seabirds often think the plastic is their food. They eat the plastic and die.
In addition, the plastic stops sunlight from reaching deeper water. Without sunlight, very small sea animals die. Then, there is less food for larger fish to eat.
What can we do to help stop it?
Cleaning up the island isn’t easy. But we can make people realize the problem. One environmentalist(环保主义者), David de Rothschild, is sailing around the world in boat made of plastic bottles to teach people about the problem of garbage in the sea.
Another idea is that we can recycle the plastic garbage. Environmental engineer Cesar Harada is building a robot that collects pieces of plastic. Harada hopes to use his robot in the Pacific. Harada also has a website for reporting environmental problems. He says, “I hope everybody can become an environmental activist.”
1. What is the garbage made of?
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2. How long does it take objects from East Asia to reach the island?
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3. Is the garbage island dangerous?
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4. Why is David de Rothschild sailing in bottle boat?
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5. What can you do to help stop garbage island?
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【推荐2】What will our life be like in 100 years? No one can truly know the answer, but we are sure that it will be very different from the life today.
My brother David makes some predictions. Here are some of his ideas.
First, people will have less work to do.
People will spend most of their time playing sports and traveling. So people will become stronger and healthier, and they will live longer as well.
Second, computers will control (控制) the cars and people don’t need to drive. So there will be fewer and fewer traffic accidents (交通事故).
Planes will be very popular, and most people would like to take a plane for their trips. As for robots, they’ll be very popular with human beings. Every family will have a robot. Robots will do dangerous and heavy work for people.
Third, people will be able to live in the sea, on the moon or on other planets. The earth won’t be crowded or noisy any more. So there will be much space for people to plant trees. There will be less pollution.
Finally, water shortage (短缺) will become one of the most serious problems. If we don’t save water now, people will start wars for water in 100 years.
1. What will people spend most of their time doing in the future?2. How will most people go traveling?
3. Why will robots be very popular with people?
4. Where will people live in 100 years?
5. What will happen if we don’t save water now?
【推荐3】The Yangtze River, about 6,300 kilometres long, is the longest river in Asia. It provides a lifeline for hundreds of millions of people. It covers an area of 1.8 million square kilometres, about a fifth of the national total. The river also provides a third of our country’s fresh water resources. Along with the Yellow River, it is considered as China’s “mother river”.
However, in recent years, this “mother river” has met with some environmental problems. It was seriously polluted and the number of the fish is getting smaller. To solve these problems, the government passed the Yangtze River Protection Law. The law came into force on March 1, 2021. There are nine parts in the law, covering areas such as resource protection, anti-pollution measures, green development and legal responsibilities. More importantly, the law has introduced a fishing ban (禁令) on the Yangtze River’s natural waterways. According to the new law, both the central government and local organizations would put the river protection into their economic (经济的) and social development plans.
Around 231,000 fishermen had given up their fishing rights along the Yangtze River. Chinese Vice-premier Han Zheng said that more support should be given to these people to help them find new jobs. He also calls for stronger efforts to help prevent activities which are not allowed by the law and encourages the public to support the ban.
回答下面5个问题，每题答案不超过5个词。
1. What does the underlined word “It” in Paragraph 1 refer to?
2. Why did the government pass the Yangtze River Protection Law?
3. How many parts are there in the law?
4. How would the government help the fishermen?
5. What do you think of the Yangtze River Protection Law?
【推荐1】The geese are back
Canada geese do not live only in Canada. They spend spring and summer in Alaska（阿拉斯加加州）and northern（北方的）Canada. In autumn, many of the geese migrate（迁徙）to warmer places. They usually fly to northern Mexico（墨西哥）, but lately many began to fly to the south of the USA. This may be because it is warmer there now than it was in the past.
Canada geese fly very fast. They can fly as fast as 100 kilometers per hour. The geese usually travel in groups of about 100, but groups of 1,000 are common. On cloudy days, the geese will fly lower, but on sunny days they can fly as high as 2,500 meters.
Canada geese know when to migrate by checking how long and how warm the days are. They also wait until the young geese learn to fly. When the day becomes shorter and the temperature（气温）gets lower, they know it is time to leave. This is usually at the end of August. A few days before leaving, all the geese get very excited. They start honking（雁叫）and making a lot of noise.
The Canada geese make a “V” shape in the sky when they fly south. This helps them fly more easily through the air. The first goose pushes through the air, and this makes it easier for the other geese to follow. Each goose takes a turn being the first goose.
No one is sure how the geese find their way. Some scientists think that geese use the stars at night to help them know where they are.
1. Where do Canada geese spend spring and summer?2. Why do some geese now fly to the south of the USA?
3. How many geese fly in a group?
4. What do they do when they fly on cloudy days?
5. Why do the geese fly in a “V” shape?
Last month some parents visited a pizza restaurant in Florida with their children. On the door, they saw a sign “NO CHILDREN”. “Why can’t we bring our children?” “What on earth does the owner want to do?” The parents were surprised and complained angrily.
So why did the restaurant put up the sign on its door?
Troy Taylor, the owner of the pizza restaurant, found that many parents couldn’t control their children and many children couldn’t have meals quietly, so they disturbed other customers. Some people said that this was unfair. Mr Taylor explained his decision. He said that the restaurant was near a busy road, so there might be some danger if the parents didn’t take good care of their children. So he made up his mind to ban（禁止）children from his restaurant.
Others supported his decision. They said they were bored of noisy children in restaurants and now they could finally have a place for adults only.
In fact, many other restaurants have also met the same problem. Some have done nothing and others have tried to ban children during certain times of the day. There’s one restaurant in Italy. It has been dealing with the problem. They rewarded（奖励）well-behaved children to encourage parents to control their children.
These methods may be useful for a while, but it is difficult to solve this problem completely.
1. How did the parents feel about the sign?2. Why did some supported Mr Taylor's decision?
3. How many methods to solve this problem in this passage?
4. Translate the underlined sentence into Chinese.
5. Give a proper title for the passage.
【推荐3】“We all have suffered(遭受) from air pollution. If we don’t call for an end to firecrackers(鞭炮), the environment will get worse and worse in the future.” said Zhang Wei. He put up a notice in his neighborhood. In the notice, he called on more people to set off fewer firecrackers during this year’s Spring Festival.①
Lots of parents agreed with Zhang Wei. (A) They said that they hated the noise of firecrackers. The noise often woke up their babies easily. And the babies really needed a (B)
More Chinese are looking forward to celebrating the holiday in greener ways. ②Many people decide not to set off firecrackers and they decide not to waste food. They think that the new ways are fashionable. “My family didn’t buy firecrackers this year. (C)
In my opinion, it’s very important for us to celebrate our traditional festival—the Spring Festival. But it’s more important to reduce air pollution and protect our environment. ③We need more people like Zhang Wei or “Fighter” who uses electronic ways like QQ, WeChat or Blog to spread the ideas of environmental protection. I believe more and more people will join them and our environment will get better and better.
阅读短文，根据题目要求完成下列任务。1. 用英文写出文中（A）处They所指代的内容：
2. 在文中（B）处和（C）处各填上一个适当的词，使文章的意思完整。
（B）
3. 在文中①②③处，选出能够填入“We had better express our cheerful feeling and best wishes in greener ways.”的最佳位置：
4. 在文中找出一个与所给英文释义相匹配的单词。
5. 请根据文章内容，给此文拟一个恰当的标题：（不超过8个单词）
【推荐1】When we meet new people, we don’t begin by telling them our life story. We start with small talk, like traffic or weather. People make small talk just about anywhere, but there are certain places where it is very common. Most often, small talk happens in places where people are waiting for something. People with many different relationships use small talk. The most common type of people to use small talk are those who do not know each other at all. Though we often teach children not to talk to strangers, adults are expected to say at least a few words in certain situations.
Small talk can start new friendship. When we begin conversations with new people, we use small talk to find common interests. Small talk even helps people get a job. So, how can you make small talk lead to a new friendship or job?
First of all, choose something around you that you share with the other person. Next, keep the conversations going. Compliment (赞美) the other person to make him or her feel comfortable, and ask questions to show interest. Third, talking to strangers is not an easy thing for shy people. But with more practice, small talk does get easier.
Some people think things like traffic or weather are just too small. However, small talk is anything but small. In fact, it is actually a big deal!
1. Where does small talk happen most often?2. What type of people use small talk most common?
3. What advantages (好处) can small talk bring you?
4. About making small talk, how many pieces of advice did the writer give you?
5. How do you keep the small talk going?
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Normal people need 7 to 9 hours of sleep every night. But for teenagers, a healthy amount (数量）is about 8 to 10 hours. Sadly, only 1/3 of people manage that.
_______
Tiredness usually reaches its highest twice a day, at 2 a.m. and 2 p.m. That explains why students easily fall asleep in afternoon classes. So sleeping at noon for a while helps us work better in the rest of the day.
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People can make mistakes if they don't get enough sleep. Students cannot pay attention in class or do well in sports. Drivers who have fallen asleep while driving have caused 1%-10% of the traffic accidents in our life. And we can imagine what will happen if a doctor feels sleepy at the operating-table!
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There are several ways that can help us sleep better, such as avoiding drinks that make us excited late in the day, going to sleep at the same time each night, and sleeping in a comfortable place that is dark, quiet and warm.
A. Bad influences B. Sleeping hours C. The most tiring moments D. Good sleeping habits
1.
2.
3.
4.
5. The passage mainly encourages us to
Around the world, about 450 million people are living with a mental (心理的) health problem right now. However, few people would like to talk about any mental health problem they have because they think it is a shame (羞耻).
To bring attention to mental health problems and help people to solve those problems, World Mental Health (WMH) Day was first celebrated in 1992. Now, more and more people celebrate WMH Day on 10th October.
It is important for us to look alter our own mental health. Do you know how good exercise is for mental health? Doing exercise and spending time in nature can really help to deal with worries and depression (沮丧). So why not go for a walk in a park or the countryside?
Your diet can also change how you feel. If you eat candies, cake, chocolate, etc., your blood sugar will rise and fall, making you feel angry and tired. Make sure you eat enough vegetables and fruit, and you may feel good. It’s also important to drink enough water—being thirsty (口渴) can make it difficult to think clearly.
Also, it’s good to spend time with other people. Talking to others and asking them for support can help to reduce (减少) the shame.
World Mental Health Day encourages us to pay more attention to both our own mental health and other people’s. Anything you do on WMH Day will help us all to better understand and support people with mental health problems.
1. How many people are living with a mental health problem right now?2. Was World Mental Health Day first celebrated in 1992?
3. Why is it important to drink enough water?
4. What can help to reduce the shame of mental health problems?
5. What is the passage mainly about?
