Shopkeepers in Modbury population 1500, agreed to stop handing out disposable plastic bags to customers on Saturday. They said paper sacks and cloth carrier bags would be offered instead.
Last month, San Franciso became the first U.S. city to ban plastic grocery bags. Internationally, laws to discourage the use of plastic bags have been passed in parts of South Africa and Ireland, where governments either tax shoppers who use them or fine companies that hand them out. Bangladesh already bans them, and so do at least 30 remote Alaskan villages.
Modbury, about 225 miles southwest of London,has also declared a bag amnesty(宽限期), allowing local people to hand in plastic bags that have piled up at home.They will be sent for traveling.
The Modbury ban was the idea of Rebecca Hosking, who saw the effect of bags on marine life while working in the Pacific as a wildlife camerawoman. She said response(反应) in the town so far had been “really positive”.
“Modbury is quite an old-fashioned town and a lot of people have wicker baskets to go out shopping anyway,” Hosking told Sky News Television.
The Worldwatch Institute, an environmental research agency, states that 100 billion plastic bags are thrown away each year in the United States alone. More than 500 billion are used yearly around the world.
1. What was Rebecca Hosking?| A．A lawyer. | B．An environmentalist. |
| C．A sailor. | D．A photographer. |
| A．acceptable | B．valuable |
| C．throw-away | D．long-lasting |
| A．most of the people in Modbury continue to use plastic bags |
| B．fewer and fewer plastic bags will be used in the world |
| C．San Francisco is the first city to ban plastic bags in the world |
| D．most countries in the world have passed laws to ban plastic bags |
| A．Environmental Protection |
| B．Big Cities Banning Plastic Bags |
| C．Effect of Plastic Bags on Sea Animals |
| D．British Town Banning Plastic Bags |
Shadow Ridge Summer Camps offer so many exciting things for campers to do.Unlike other camp programs that include horses as a small part of their program,at Shadow Ridge horses ARE the program!We are 100% horse from stable(马厩) management,nature walks,and track rides to bedroom furnishings.
Horses help us achieve many of our aims.Girls can learn to develop responsibility,self-confidence and personal connections in their lives while having fun.Using horses as a wonderful tool for education,our camps offer an interesting place for growth and learning.
Imagine each girl having her very own horse to spend time with and a best friend to love and take care of.Each camper is responsible for a horse for the week.Our riding program provides a lot of riding and lesson time.Campers will learn how to take care of the horse and the tack(马具),as well as how to ride.Days are filled with horse-related activities to strengthen the connection between each girl and horse,as the girls learn to work safely around the horses.
At Shadow Ridge we try to create a loving,caring family atmosphere for our campers.We have “The Bunkhouse” (4 girls),the “Wranglers Roost” (4 girls),and “The Hideout” (2 girls) in our comfortable 177-year-old farm house.All meals are home cooked,offering delicious and healthy food for the hungry rider.
Our excellent activities create personalized memories of your child’s vacation.Each child will receive a camp T-shirt and a photo album.(usually 300-500 pictures) of their stay at camp.
Our camps are offered during June,July and August 2007,for small groups of girls aged 13-16 years,not only from Canada but also other parts of the world.
We will send you full program descriptions at your request.
1. What is the main purpose of the passage?
| A．To attract people to the camps. |
| B．To talk about camping experiences. |
| C．To describe the programs of the camps. |
| D．To explain the aims of the camps. |
| A．Campers are required to wear camp T-shirts. |
| B．Horses play a central role in the activities. |
| C．Campers learn to cook food for themselves. |
| D．Horse lessons are offered all the year round. |
| A．understand horses better |
| B．enjoy a family atmosphere |
| C．have fun above other things |
| D．achieve an educational purpose |
| A．horse riders | B．teenage girls |
| C．Canadian parents | D．international travelers |
Being able to multitask—doing several things at the same time—is considered a welcome skill by most people. But if we consider the situation of the young people aged from eight to eighteen, we should think again.
What we often see nowadays is that young people juggle an ever larger number of electronic devices(电子产品)as they study. While working, they also surf on the Internet, send out emails, answer the telephone and listen to music on their iPods. In a sense, they are spending a significant amount of time in fruitless efforts as they multitask.
Multitasking is even changing the relationship between family members. As young people around them. They can no longer greet family members when they enter the house, nor can they cat at the family table.
Multitasking also affects young people’s performance at university and in the workplace. When asked about their opinion of the effect of modern gadgets(器具)on their performance of tasks, many young people gave a positive response(反应). However, the response from the worlds of education and business was not quite as positive. Educators feel that multitasking by children has a serious effect on later development of study skills. They believe that many college students now need help to improve their study skills. Similarly, employers feel that young people entering the job market need to be taught all over again, as modern gadgets have made it unnecessary for them to learn special skills to do their work.
1. What does the underlined word “juggle” in Paragraph 2 most probably mean?
| A．Want to buy | B．Take the place of. |
| C．Use at the same time | D．Seek for information from. |
| A．family members do not cat at the family table |
| B．family member do not greet each other |
| C．young people live happily in their families |
| D．young people seldom talk with their family members |
| A．Multitasking is harmful to young people’s development. |
| B．Young people benefit a lot from modern gadgets |
| C．Multitasking is an important skill to young people. |
| D．Young people must learn skills for future jobs. |
| A．providing typical examples | B．following the natural time order |
| C．comparing opinions from different fields | D．presenting a cause and analyzing its effects |
Steve Minear, UK
Here are the things you can think of: the desire to explore a foreign and unique environment, the excitement of being the first humans to open up a new world, the expectation of fame and glory…For scientists there is another reason. Their observations and research will probably lead to great scientific achievements.
Donal Trollop, Canada
There are already too many people on the Earth. I think that sometime before the end of the century, there will be a human colony(殖民地)on Mars. It will happen when people finally realize that tow-way trips to the red planet Mars are unnecessary. Most of the danger of space Flight is in the launches(发射) and landings. Cutting the trip home would therefore reduce the danger of accidents, save a lot of money, and open the way to building an everlasting human settlement on another world.
Enough supplies can be sent on ahead. And every two years more supplies and more people will needs, and Mars is far more pleasant than the other planets in the outer space.
Paul Davies. USA
1. The main purpose of Steve Minear’s writing is .
| A．to report his classmates’ discussion | B．to invite an answer to his question |
| C．to explain the natural state of Mars | D．to show his agreement on going to Mars |
| A．There is a plan to send humans to Mars. |
| B．There are many reasons for going to Mars. |
| C．Scientists become famous by doing research on Mars. |
| D．It is possible to build an Earth-like environment on Mars. |
| A．humans need only a one-way ticket to Mars. |
| B．two-way trips to Mars will be made safe soon |
| C．it is easy to reduce the danger and cost of flights to Mars |
| D．it is cheap to build an everlasting human settlement on Mars |
| A．Humans will have to bring all they need from the Earth. |
| B．Humans will find Mars totally unsuitable for living. |
| C．Humans can produce everything they need. |
| D．Humans can live longer in the colony on Mars |
5 . I am a writer. I spend a great deal of my time thinking about the power of language—the way it can evoke(唤起) an emotion, a visual image, a complex idea, or a simple truth. Language is the tool of my trade. And I use them all—all the Englishes I grew up with.
Born into a Chinese family that had recently arrived in California, I’ve been giving more thought to the kind of English my mother speaks. Like others, I have described it to people as “broken” English. But feel embarrassed to say that. It has always bothered me that I can think of no way to describe it other than “broken”, as if it were damaged and needed to be fixed, as if it lacked a certain wholeness. I’ve heard other terms used, “limited English,” for example. But they seem just as bad, as if everything is limited, including people’s perceptions(认识) of the limited English speaker.
I know this for a fact, because when I was growing up, my mother’s “limited” English limited my perception of her. I was ashamed of her English. I believed that her English rejected the quality of what she had to say. That is because she expressed them imperfectly her thoughts were imperfect. And I had plenty of evidence to support me: the fact that people in department stores, at banks, and at restaurants did not take her seriously, did not give her good service, pretended not to understand her, or even acted as if they did not hear her.
I started writing fiction in 1985. And for reasons I won’t get into today, I began to write stories using all the Englishes I grew up with: the English she used with me, which for lack of a better term might be described as “broken”, and what I imagine to be her translation of her Chinese, her internal(内在的) language, and for that I sought to preserve the essence, but neither an English nor a Chinese structure: I wanted to catch what language ability tests can never show; her intention, her feelings, the rhythms of her speech and the nature of her thoughts.
1. By saying “Language is the tool of my trade”, the author means that ________.| A．she uses English in foreign trade |
| B．she is fascinated by languages |
| C．she works as a translator |
| D．she is a writer by profession |
| A．impolite | B．amusing |
| C．imperfect | D．practical |
| A．Americans do not understand broken English. |
| B．The author’s mother was not respected sometimes. |
| C．The author’s mother had positive influence on her |
| D．Broken English always reflects imperfect thoughts. |
| A．well structured | B．in the old style |
| C．easy to translate | D．rich in meaning |
| A．The changes of the author’s attitude to her mother’s English. |
| B．The limitation of the author’s perception of her mother. |
| C．The author’s misunderstanding of “limited” English. |
| D．The author’s experiences of using broken English. |
