You can put a postage stamp on it, you can write an address on it, and you can send it through the U. S. mail. No, it’s not an envelope or a package. It’s the amazing coconut! The coconut is different from most other fruits because every part of it is useful. People drink the milk and eat the meat, they use coconut oil as a lotion (护肤液), and they use the husks for containers (容器). People in some island nations have even used the coconut in place of money. It is possible that humans have been using coconuts in many of these different ways for thousands of years. Even today, people are still finding new uses for the coconut.
One of the more exciting uses of the coconut is as a source of energy in place of petroleum (石油). Scientists around the world are working on using coconuts for energy because coconuts are cheap, clean, and renewable. Already, coconut-rich countries such as Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, and Vanuatu are using coconut oil for this purpose. Engineers from these countries have made an effective biofuel out of coconut oil and alcohol. The fuel can power cars, trucks, ships, and even electric-power plants. In addition, the South Pacific islands of Tokelau are using coconut oil along with solar energy as their primary energy source. The two together can produce 100 percent of the electricity the islands need.
Students at Baylor University in Texas received a grant to study the coconut husk. The result shows that coconut husks can take in water very well. Mixing coconut husks with dry soil helps the soil to hold onto more of the water. The students are also finding that the fibers can replace plastic in some cases. For example, the students are looking into using coconut husk fibers instead of plastic in parts of car interiors. If this is possible, it will help to make vehicles more environmentally friendly.
The husk of the coconut is a perfect package. It protects the coconut from damage. When the coconut falls on the ground or into water, the husk protects it. Its strong husk is the reason the U. S. Postal Service allows people to send the coconut without any extra packaging anywhere in the country. All that is necessary is to stick some stamps right onto the coconut. Each year, tourists on the Hawaiian island of Molokai post about 3, 000 of these “coconut postcards”.
Coconuts grow naturally in over 80 countries of the world. They require only sun and regular rainfall. No extra care is needed. Every year, these 80 countries produce more than 61 million tons of coconuts. It is not surprising, then, that people want to find multiple uses for the coconut. Because they’re an easy-to-grow resource, coconuts really are more than just great souvenirs to bring home after a trip to the tropics.
1. In Paragraph 2, what does the underlined part “this purpose” mean?| A．Coconuts are not only cheap and clean, but also renewable. |
| B．An effective biofuel is made out of coconut oil and alcohol. |
| C．People in coconut-rich countries use coconut a lot in daily lives. |
| D．Coconuts’ husks produce a source of energy in place of petroleum. |
| A．The husk can take in water well. | B．The husk can be used instead of plastic. |
| C．The husk can be quickly mixed with soil. | D．The husk can help protect the environment. |
| A．listing the facts | B．showing the results |
| C．expressing the opinions | D．comparing the numbers |
| A．A Perfect Package | B．A Fruit with Rich Uses |
| C．A Source of Energy | D．An Easy-to-grow Resource |
相似题推荐
【推荐1】Picture the scene: It’s midnight. You’re very hungry after studying for a long time. Then you see a nice pie in the fridge. Will you eat it? It seems that you shouldn’t, for many reasons, including its influence on your studies.
Scientists have long known that eating late at night can make us put on weight. But now a new study has shown that late night eating can also have a bad influence on our brains—it might hurt our ability to learn new things and store memories.
“We believe that late night eating may have an influence on the parts of the brain that control learning and memory,” Dawn Loh, PhD, a scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, said, “We believe the timing of when we eat may be the main cause of the damaged memory. ”
For the study, the researchers did an experiment. They looked at two groups of mice with strict feeding plans. For two weeks, the mice were allowed to eat either during the time when they are usually the most active, or during the time when they usually sleep. The mice received the same amount of sleep and calories.
Then the researchers tested the brains of the mice. In one test, the scientists tried to find out whether the mice had a good memory by putting the mice in a room connected to an electric shock for some time. The researchers noticed that, when the mice were put in the room again after 24 hours had gone by, those mice that ate when they should have been sleeping were less scared than those mice that ate during usual hours. It means that they didn’t remember.
So think twice before the midnight snack—it might be bad for more than your weight.
1. Which one is the correct order of the experiment? ________①Researchers put the mice in the room again after 24 hours.
②Researchers fed the mice in different times for two weeks.
③Researchers watched which group of mice were more scared in the room.
④Researchers put the mice in a room connected to an electric shock for some time.
| A．②④①③ | B．②④③① | C．②①③④ | D．②①④③ |
| A．the mice became smarter after the experiment |
| B．they chose the mice that enjoyed eating late at night |
| C．the mice that ate during usual hours were less scared |
| D．they gave the mice the same amount of sleep and calories |
| A．Snacks make us fat |
| B．Late eating hurts brain |
| C．Never stay up late |
| D．Keep away from snacks |
【推荐2】It’s a common belief that over time, pet owners start to look like their animals. Now comes the terrifying news that cats look up to their owners as role models and copy their behaviour.
Next time you reach for your fridge, think twice. If your cat is watching, she will probably overeat as well.
In a new study from the University of Messina, it turns out that indoor cats who live closely to their owners “mirror” the lives of their caregivers. They sleep at the same time, eat at the same time, and can even become more or less social depending on the behaviour of their owners.
“Cats are clever animals with a long memory,” Jane Brunt, director of the Catalyst Council, told Discovery News. “They watch and learn from us, noting the patterns of our actions, knowing where their food is kept and what time to expect to be fed, how to open the cupboard door that’s been improperly closed, and where their feeding and toileting areas are.” Because cats copy our habits, if you spend a lot of time raiding(搜刮) the fridge, your cat will return to its food bowl for that midnight snack, too. According to the study, this explains why “human and cat overweight rates often seem to match”.
We are not sure if drinking green tea and making sure you go to yoga will benefit(使受益) your cat, but based on the study, it sounds like sticking to a healthy eating and sleeping habit is best for both of you.
There’s a lot we can learn from our cats in return. “When they sit softly breathing, eyes half-closed, the sense of peace and calm that comes over us is like a private less on in inner meditation(冥想),”Brunt said. They’re probably pretty good at remaining calm.
So, according to science, though we think that cats are not close to us all these years, it turns out they are in fact learning from us and looking up to us. Scary, huh?
1. Why do cat owners start to look like their pet animals?| A．Because owners have looked after them for a certain time. |
| B．Because owners love their pets very much and they often looked at each other. |
| C．Because cats often eat the same kind of food as their owners. |
| D．Because cats regard their owners as role models and do what they do at home. |
| A．Cats can copy humans’ behaviors. | B．Cats are smart and have a long memory. |
| C．Green tea and yoga can benefit cats. | D．Humans can learn from cats in some way. |
| A．Humans’ keeping searching the fridge. |
| B．Humans’ drinking green tea and going to yoga |
| C．Cats’ copying humans’ habit of looking for food. |
| D．Cats’ going to their owners for food. |
| A．To remain peaceful. | B．To be able to copy. |
| C．To stay hungry. | D．To look up to friends. |
| A．Your cat can bring you pleasure | B．You are copying your cat |
| C．You can make your cat social | D．Your cat is copying your habit |
【推荐3】Almost all animals need to sleep, but some have special ways.
The albatross (信天翁) is one of the largest flying birds. They fly in the sky for months without getting to the ground. They can fly about 22,000 kilometers around the Earth in 46 days! They sometimes even sleep when they are flying.
A flamingo (火烈鸟) can sleep when standing on one leg. The standing leg always stays in the water. The other leg stays close to its body. Its head lies on its back.
Horses often sleep when standing up. If a horse lies down, it needs a long time to get up. A standing horse can escape more quickly when it sees dangerous things. And horses only need about three hours of sleep a day.
Giraffes sleep the shortest time. They sleep about 30 minutes a day, and 5 minutes at a time. They lie down when they sleep. They put their heads on their bodies or on the ground. What an interesting way of sleeping!
1. In one day, an albatross can fly ________.| A．about 22,000 kilometers | B．about 11,000 kilometers |
| C．about 480 kilometers | D．about 46 kilometers |
A． | B． | C． | D． |
| A．run away | B．eat up | C．get up | D．stay away |
| A．Giraffes sleep only 5 minutes every day. | B．Horses lie down when they are sleeping. |
| C．Albatrosses can sleep when they are flying. | D．Flamingos have a shorter sleep than giraffes. |
| A．Animals’ special sleeping ways. | B．Animals’ different sleeping time. |
| C．Animals’ favorite sleeping places. | D．Animals’ difficult sleeping problems. |
【推荐1】The first day of the month of May is known as May Day in the UK. It is a time to celebrate the beginning of warm weather. The month of May has many traditions and celebrations. Many May Day activities have now been moved to the May Day bank holiday（from 1978）on the first Monday in May, which is a public holiday.
British people celebrate May Day with lots of different customs:
MAYPOLE（五朔节花柱）DANCE
On the first day of May, English villagers used to wake up early in the morning to collect flowers and leaves. A maypole was set up in the village. Then they put the leaves and the bright flowers on the pole. Today people still set up maypoles, dance round them and have a good time together.
MAY QUEEN
Choosing a May Queen is also part of the celebration. The May Queen is a girl who begins the May Day celebrations. She is usually given flowers to wear on her head and she makes a speech before the dancing begins. People dance around her and around the maypole.
MORRIS DANCE
Morris dance is a kind of English folk（民间的）dance with a long history. The dancers are usually men. Morris dancers wear different clothes depending on the part of the country in which they live. And they are often dressed in colorful belts（腰带）.
FACEWASHING WITH MAY DEW（露水）
Washing the face with May dew is another custom. Women in the UK believe that May dew can make them beautiful.
根据材料内容判断正（T）误（F）1. In the UK, May Day is celebrated on the first Monday in May.
2. British villagers used to collect flowers on the morning of May Day.
3. May Queen usually wears flowers on her head on May Day.
4. All the Morris dancers in the UK wear the same clothes with colourful belts on May Day.
5. The passage mainly tells the stories about May Day.
【推荐2】If you’ve never heard of mineral-color painting (岩彩画), you’re not alone. This form of art is unknown to most people—even many art lovers. It is an ancient form of painting that is being given new life these days.
This kind of art is created using materials like rock powder (粉末), colored soil and sand. It can be traced back to the 3rd-century Kucha Grotto murals (龟兹石窟壁画) of Xinjiang. Yet after the Song and Yuan dynasties, with ink wash painting becoming more and more popular, mineral-color art gradually fell out of fashion.
During the Sui and Tang dynasties, some countries sent envoys (使节) to China to learn all kinds of things. “They loved mineral-color art and took the art form back to their own country,” said Miao Tong. The artist has been studying this traditional art form for years.
In the 1980s, many Chinese artists decided to revive this traditional art form in China. In the 1990s, they renamed it “mineral-color art”.
For Miao, the greatest joy in his work is to find the “right earth” to make mineral pigments (颜料). “Every year I go to Wuyi Mountain. It is known for its Danxia land formation (丹霞地貌),” he said. “You can’t imagine how beautiful the earth is there. It is naturally colored in red, green, yellow, purple, etc.”
But this soil cannot be directly applied to his works. It first has to go through a number of steps, including washing, filtering (过滤) and sun-drying. After that the soil will be mixed together with a certain kind of glue. According to the artist, one mineral-color painting may take several weeks to several months to complete.
The mineral pigments are able to stay safe from the effects of UV light (紫外线). Therefore, their color does not fade (褪色) over time. That’s why, even after thousands of years, the cave paintings in the Kucha Grottos are still very bright and colorful.
1. When did mineral-color painting first appear in the history of China?| A．In the third century. | B．In the 1980s. |
| C．During the Sui and Tang dynasties. | D．In the Song and Yuan dynasties. |
| A．give up | B．give new life | C．decorate once more | D．give a new name |
| A．Where to find the right earth. | B．How to make the special soil. |
| C．How to draw a mineral-color painting. | D．When to get a a mineral-color painting. |
| A．It always takes many years to make a a mineral-color painting. |
| B．People in the Song dynasty liked ink wash paintings very much. |
| C．In Xinjiang people can find natural earth with all kinds of colours. |
| D．Mineral-color paintings can keep the colour as it is for a long time. |
【推荐3】In recent years, many Chinese parents think schooling is the only way for their children to succeed. It seems that they have not paid enough attention to teaching their children cultures and customs (风俗). In some countries such as the USA and Canada, as well as many countries in Europe, however, many parents just do this in quite a different way. They believe strongly that passing cultures and customs on to their children is important because these things can stay with children for the rest of their life. Now, questions arise:
●What do parents in these foreign countries do to help pass on cultures and customs?
●How can the Chinese parents catch up to better educate their children?
To begin with, it is a good idea to have meaningful toys because children often easily fall in love with their first toys, each of which has a story behind it. Then, a parent should also introduce a child to music. Music plays an important part between a child and language. What else do we think of besides music? Dancing! Of course, there is nothing better than seeing a child enjoy dancing. At the same time teaching a child to cook and enjoy traditional food is also important in keeping cultures and customs alive.
In China, it is also necessary for parents to pass cultures and customs onto children. The most important thing for those who do not pay enough attention to it is to change their ideas, which will help them a lot to pass on cultures and customs. It is really helpful and useful to their children.
1. The is written for ________.| A．foreign children | B．Chinese children |
| C．foreign parents | D．Chinese parents |
| A．Cultures and customs. | B．Meaningful toys. |
| C．Music and dancing. | D．Cooking and traditional food. |
| A．By giving examples. | B．By using facts. |
| C．By raising questions. | D．By comparing differences. |
| A．Foreign parents know better than Chinese parents in educating their children. |
| B．Chinese parents need to change their ideas on how to educate their children. |
| C．It’s wrong for Chinese parents to encourage their children to succeed in school. |
| D．Things like music, dancing, cooking and so on should not give way to schoolwork. |
【推荐1】Can plants talk? Modern research has found something amazing: they do communicate with each other.
It has been known for some time that plants use chemicals to communicate with each other. This happens when a plant gets attacked by insects. The plant gives out chemicals from the leaves that are being eaten. This is like a warning, or a call for help: “I’m being attacked!” When another plant gets the chemicals, it starts to give out its own, different chemicals. Some of these chemicals drive insects away. Others attract the wasps(黄蜂；蜜蜂)! The wasps kill the insects that are eating the plants. Scientists hope to learn more about this plant warning system, so that we can use it to grow more crops.
More surprisingly, plants also use sound to communicate. People can’t hear these sounds; but plants are making them. Some plants make noises with their roots. Com and chili plants do this. Some trees make clicking noises when there is not enough water.
Most surprisingly of all, plants have an amazing system of communication that can link nearly every plant in a forest. Scientists call this system the “wood wide web”. The wood wide web is linked underground by fungi (霉菌). It links the roots of different plants to each other. It is in some ways similar to the Internet we use. Using the wood wide web, plants can share information and even food with each other. However, it may lead to bad effects. Plants may use it to steal food from each other, or spread chemicals to attack other plants. Perhaps one day scientists will learn how to create a “firewall” to help prevent these attacks within the wood wide web.
Scientists are learning more every day about the secret ways in which plants talk to each other. Maybe one day we will know enough about plant communication to be able to “talk” with them ourselves.
1. What will plants do when they are attacked by insects?| A．They will kill the insects by themselves. |
| B．They will control the wasps to kill the insects. |
| C．They will produce chemicals as a warning or a call for help. |
| A．By making noises with their roots. |
| B．By connecting the roots of different plants to each other. |
| C．By sharing food and information with each other. |
| A．To give people hope for further studies. |
| B．To praise scientists for their great achievements. |
| C．To call on people to protect the plants on Earth. |
A． | B． | C． |
| A．a science book | B．a travel guide | C．a story book |
Astronauts get to fly in rockets, float in space and see the wonderful views of the solar system.
The most difficult thing about growing plants in space is the lack of gravity.
A veggie flight pillow is a small greenhouse.
Veggie will provide a new resource for US astronauts as NASA begins to develop the abilities of growing fresh produce and other large plants on the space station.
| A．The soil may float away. |
| B．It is made of plastic and can be folded. |
| C．But NASA has a new solution: the veggie flight pillow. |
| D．But there’s one problem astronauts face: space food is terrible! |
| E．This will make sure that the plants have enough light for the roots to grow. |
【推荐3】In the Americas (在美洲), Asia, and Africa there’s a special kind of forest called the cloud forest. Cloud forests can be found in the clouds on the mountains.
Like rainforests, cloud forests experience rainfall (降雨), but they also catch water straight from the air. Water condenses (凝结), you’ll hear the drop of water, even if it’s not raining. The water caught is clear and unpolluted through the ground into rivers.
Some people call cloud forests water towers, because they are so important in providing water for nearby villages and cities. But it’s not just humans who depend on cloud forests. They are also home to a lot of animals and plants.
Cloud forests are very special places. But they face problems. Local poor people clear the forests so that they can grow crops. They also hunt (猎杀) endangered animals for meat, and cut down trees to heat their homes and cook. Farmers convert (改造) the land so that they can grow fruits and coffee beans (咖啡豆).
Once cloud forests are cleared, the harm (伤害) can be irreversible (不可逆转的). Many species (物种) which are important to the ecosystem (生态系统), go away.
Cloud forests are very valuable. With laws to protect them, we might be able to save them before it’s too late.
1. The water of cloud forests comes from _________.| A．the rain | B．the air | C．rivers | D．clouds |
| A．The meanings of cloud forests. | B．The problems of cloud forests. |
| C．The advantages of cloud forests. | D．The importance of cloud forests. |
| A．people are trying to save the cloud forests |
| B．people are doing harms to the cloud forests |
| C．farmers are making better uses of cloud forests |
| D．farmers are turning the cloud forests into green land |
| A．To ask people to protect cloud forests. | B．To tell people cloud forests are valuable. |
| C．To make people know more about forests. | D．To encourage people to walk close to nature. |
