2 . Ireland has had a very difficult history. The problems started in the 16th century when English rulers tried to conquer (征服) Ireland. For hundreds of years, the Irish people fought against the English. Finally, in 1921, the British government was forced to give independence to the south of Ireland. The result is that today there are two “Irelands”. Northern Ireland, in the north, is part of the United Kingdom. The Republic of Ireland, in the south, is an independent country.

In the 1840s the main crop, potatoes, was affected by disease and about 750,000 people died of hunger. This, and a shortage (短缺) of work, forced many people to leave Ireland and live in the USA, the UK, Australia and Canada. As a result of these problems, the population fell from 8.2 million in 1841 to 6.6 million in 1851.

For many years, the majority of Irish people earned their living as farmers. Today, many people still work on the land but more and more people are moving to the cities to work in factories and offices. Life in the cities is very different from life in the countryside, where things move at a quieter and slower pace.

The Irish are famous for being warm－hearted and friendly. Oscar Wilde, a famous Irish writer, once said that the Irish were “the greatest talkers since the Greeks”. Since independence, Ireland has revived (复兴) its own culture of music, language, literature and singing. Different areas have different styles of old Irish songs which are sung without instruments. Other kinds of Irish music use many different instruments such as the violin, whistles, etc.

3 . New research added brain degradation such as Alzheimer’s disease (阿尔茨海默氏病)to the growing list of effects of fine particles (微粒). A study of 63 million adults older than 65 in the United States showed that from 2000 to 2016, first­time hospital admissions for Alzheimer’s disease and related diseases rose by 13 percent with every 5­microgram (per cubic meter of air) increase in annual concentrations of PM2.5. Such particles are produced mainly during the burning of fossil fuels, especially coal and oil. The risk remained high even when concentrations were below 12 micrograms per cubic meter of air, a level the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency currently considers safe.

“Our study builds on the small but clear evidence indicating that long­term PM2.5 exposure is associated with an increased risk of worsening brain health,   even when PM2.5 concentrations are well below the current national standards，” said Xiao Wu, a doctoral student in Harvard.

Antonella Zanobetti, a co­author of the study, said the new research results showed that the current U. S. regulations are inadequate to protect the aging American population, highlighting the need for stricter standards and policies that help further reduce PM2.5 concentrations and improve air quality overall.

Women and urban populations, particularly those in the northeast, were particularly at risk, the research showed. The researchers figured that the increasing effects on urban populations might be due to the “abundance of metal­bearing particles in the urban atmosphere, which have very small size and can access the brain directly”. They owed the increased risk to women to longer life, which meant the probability of death from other causes before developing Alzheimer’s disease was higher in men.

4 . Not long ago, people could only buy organic food in small shops. Today it is common in most major supermarkets. The reason for the increase is that more and more people are demanding food grown without chemicals. Since the 1990s, organic farm production has gone up continuously. This pattern is expected to continue around the globe.

Australia leads the world in land used as for organic agriculture. It has four times as all of Asia. However, most of the land is not very fertile, and it only produces a modest amount of food. Argentina is a distant second, followed by Brazil, the United States and China. In Africa, only a very small amount of land is registered for organic farming. That does not mean Africa relies on chemicals. In fact, many farmers do not use chemicals because they cannot afford them. Yet there are no programmes for these farmers to prove they do not use chemicals. Without these programmes their food can never be approved organic.

India has had the most dramatic recent increase in organic farming. Like many other countries, India sees continual growth in organic food sales around the world. This, of course, leads to growth in profits. Sales of organic food were more than doubled from 2000 to 2005. Like India, many countries are trying to increase commercial organic farming to get a share of the sales. This has led to criticism. Some people believe that organic farming should not just be about making money. They think the goal is to help the environment. Others say organic farming will not continue if it is not profitable. They say that people should be able to make money while providing healthy food for mankind.

5 . Much information can be clearly conveyed, purely through our eyes, so the expression “eyes also talk” is often heard.

Can you think of any experience that further proves this? On a bus you may quickly glance at a stranger, but not make eye contact. If he senses that he is being stared at, he may feel uncomfortable.

It is the same in daily life. If you are looked at for more than necessary, you will look at yourself up and down to see if there is anything wrong with you. If nothing goes wrong, you will feel angry about other’s staring at you that way. Eyes do speak, right?

Looking too long at someone may seem to be rude and aggressive. But things are different when it comes to staring at the opposite sex. If a man continues to glance at a woman for more than 10 seconds, his intentions are obvious. That is, he wishes to make her understand that he is admiring her.

However, the normal eye contact for two people engaged in conversation is that the speaker will only look at the listener from time to time, In order to make sure that the listener does pay attention to what the former is speaking. As for the listener, he will, to a certain degree, look continuously at the speaker to tell him that he is attentive.

If a speaker looks at you continuously when speaking, as if he tries to control you, you will feel uneasy. A poor liar usually exposes himself by looking too long at the victim, since he believes the false idea that to look straight in the eye is a sign of honest communication.

In fact, continuous eye contact is limited to lovers only, who will enjoy looking at each other gently for a long time, to show affection that words cannot express.

Clearly, eye contact should be done according to the relationship between two people and specific situation.

8 . I felt anxious when going into my room from school. Every day, my room was something different. The hours away at school were long enough to cause a terrible change to my peaceful harbor. Today was no ________.

As I entered the house, Mom ________ me with a smile. It seemed like nothing was ________. But I was still doubtful about it. Yesterday, around the ________ of my favorite figurine (小雕像) was a chocolate cookie.________, Callie had enjoyed the cookie so much that she wanted to share it with my angel.

I ________ Callie, who had just turned three. I didn’t see her, but I heard the TV blaring (发出声音) in the other room. As I ________ the family room, I noticed it was pretty ________. There were toys all over the floor, but none of them seemed to be mine. Maybe she hadn’t entered today. I was so ________ that I breathed a sigh of relief.

I pushed my room door open and saw damage! There were a few headless dolls, some broken blocks, and a few juice-stained stuffed animals. “She did it again!” I screamed in ________. My mother ran up to me, embarrassed. She ________ to put a Callie-proof lock on my door tonight. I felt ________, because I knew that soon my room would truly belong to me. However, I was still angry with my little sister so I went into the family room to tell her how she had made life ________ for me. “Callie,” I started. “Hooray!” she shouted.

She leaped off the sofa and hugged my knees with such happiness that I could only look down at her and smile.________, she was only three and learning about the world in her own way. And she always chose to explore and ________ my room because she loved me, her big sister.