1 . Welcome to the Cherry Blossom Gift Shop in Washington, D.C. Live Yoshino Cherry Blossom Trees
$ 24.00
PRODUCT ID: 9813108
The Japanese Yoshino Cherry tree is a hybrid cherry of unknown origin. It occurs as a natural hybrid in Japan and is now one of the most popular flowering cherries worldwide.
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2019 Festival Holiday Ornament
$25.00
PRODUCT ID: 2271405
The National Cherry Blossom Festival, the nation’s greatest springtime celebration, entertains more than one million people each year, commemorating the gift of trees and the enduring friendship between the people of the United States and Japan.
2019 National Cherry Blossom Festival Glass Ornament design was created by famous Hawaiian artist, Jing Jing Tsong. Hand painted, comes in a very pretty box.
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Cherry Blossom Glass Balls
$30,00
PRODUCT ID: 9813020
The hand-made ornament is simply beautiful and no two balls are alike. It comes in a set of three. These ornamental glass balls are suitable for any occasion as a gift, and can be displayed indoors or outdoors, on a desk or shelf.
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2019 National Cherry Blossom Festival Lapel Pin
$10.00
PRODUCT ID: 1218138
The 2019 Cherry Blossom Festival Lapel Pin showcases the beautiful budding of these magnificent trees and celebrates the 107th year since these trees were given to our country. The pin is presented on a card which reads: Celebrating 107 Years of the Gift of Trees.
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1. If a customer is interested in gardening, which product ID will he choose?| A．9813108 | B．2271405 |
| C．1218138 | D．9813020 |
| A．Each glass ball is unique. |
| B．They are presented on a car. |
| C．They come in a set of four. |
| D．They are simply designed. |
| A．In a newspaper. | B．Over the radio. |
| C．On the television. | D．On the Internet. |
2 . While jewelry made from gold can be beautiful, most people admit that wearing the heavy metal over long periods of time can get a little annoying. Now, researchers from Swiss university ETH Zurich have created a new form of lightweight gold that weighs five to ten times less than traditional 18-carat gold—which typically consists of 75 percent gold and 25 percent copper—but has the same purity.
The researchers began by mixing gold with water, salt, protein fibers and other materials. They then replaced the water with alcohol and placed the mixture inside a high-pressure carbon dioxide (CO2) box. The reaction between the gas and alcohol transformed the golden plastic into a light material that can be heated to melt and made into whatever form was needed. "This gold has some characteristics of plastic,” says team leader Raffaele Mezzenga, professor of Food and Soft Materials at ETH Zurich.
In addition to being lighter, the "plastic” gold has other advantages over traditional forms. It can be melted into shape at about 105 degrees Celsius, much lower than the 1,064 degrees Celsius required to melt pure 24-carat gold. The metal's firmness can be easily adjusted by changing the components at the beginning of the process. It is also much easier to vary the color. "As a general rule, our approach lets us create almost any kind of gold we choose, in line with the desired properties, says Mezzenga.
The researchers, who published their study in the journal Advanced Functional Materials on January 10, 2020, believe the new lightweight gold will be able to replace the metallic version in most traditional applications, including jewelry and watches. However, given that most buyers associate high-quality gold with weight, that may take some time. But the material will undoubtedly be beneficial for use inside electronic devices, chemical catalysts (催化剂),and even radiation shielding.
1. Why do many people find the traditional gold annoying?| A．It costs too much。 |
| B．Its purity is too low. |
| C．It feels too heavy to wear long. |
| D．Its beauty lasts a short time, |
| A．The functions of the "plastic" gold. |
| B．The components of the "plastic” gold. |
| C．The characteristics of the "plastic” gold. |
| D．The production process of the "plastic" gold. |
| A．It is easier to process. |
| B．It is more widely used. |
| C．It has a lower temperature. |
| D．It is more convenient to get. |
| A．A diary. | B．A guidebook. |
| C．A novel. | D．A magazine. |
3 . Air travel is growing around the globe, and so is its contribution to climate change. The climate cost of flying has drawn more public attention in recent years, even leading to“ flight shame” in some places, especially for local or avoidable flights.
And while a decline in air travel would help with climate change，flight shame can also be added by other ways that make air travel more environmentally friendly. That includes switching to cleaner，renewable fuel , but as a new study indicates , there's also another, less obvious option: flying at lower altitudes.
In a new study, researchers used computers to predict how adjusting aircraft altitudes might reduce the number of contrails(尾迹)，which we see as white lines across the sky containing black carbon particles (颗粒)，thus reducing their warming effect. The study found that aircraft would only need to adjust their altitudes by about 2 ,000 feet, and since some flights have a larger climate effect than others , only a small part of flights would need to make any adjustments.
Of course flying at a lower altitude might increase flying time and it also means burning significantly more fuel, and thus giving off more CO₂, but the benefits of controlling contrails are worth it.
In addition to changing altitudes，better engine technology could also help control contrails, the researchers add, since black carbon particles are produced by incomplete fuel combustion ( 燃烧). With more efficient engines, aircraft could reportedly reduce their contrail by as much as 70%。Combined with slight altitude adjustment for a small part of flights, this could help reduce overall contrail problems by 90%，the study suggests.
This is promising, but more research i still needed, and it may be a while before improvements like these take effect at a significant scale. So, while it's good to know air travel can have a smaller effect on the climate, for now the best way to achieve that is often by simply staying on the ground whenever possible.
1. What might be the effect of“flight shame" ?| A．People will avoid traveling by plane. |
| B．Airline companies will limit service targets. |
| C．The cost of air travelling will become higher. |
| D．People will feel shamed if they haven't taken a plane. |
| A．Planes can travel faster. | B．Planes can save more fuel. |
| C．Planes may give off less CO2. | D．Planes may have less warming effect. |
| A．A way to change altitudes. | B．The future of engine technology. |
| C．An approach to reducing contrails. | D．The concept of incomplete combustion. |
| A．Energy. | B．Climate. |
| C．Finance. | D．Safety. . |
4 . The chief problem in dealing with foreign motorists is not so much remembering that they are different from you, but that they are largely variable. Cross a frontier(边境) without adjusting and you can be in deep trouble.
One of the greatest gulfs separating the driving nations is the Atlantic Ocean. Or rather, it is the mental distance between the European and the American motorist, particularly the South American motorist. Compare, for example, an English driver at a set of traffic lights with a Brazilian.
Very rarely will an Englishman try to anticipate(预先准备) the green light by moving off. You will find the occasional someone who watches for the yellow light to come up on the set of lights. However, he will not go until he receives the lawful signal. Brazilians view the thing quite differently. If, in fact, they see traffic lights, they regard them as a kind of roadside decoration.
The natives of North America are much more disciplined. They show this in their addiction to driving in one lane(车道) and sticking to it—even if it means settling behind some great truck for many miles.
To prevent other drivers from falling into wrong ways, American motorists try always to stay close behind the vehicle in front which can make it impossible to make a real lane change. European visitors are always falling into this trap. They return to the Old World still waving their arms in disappointment because while driving in the State in their cars they kept failing to get off the highway when they wanted to and were swept along to the next city.
However, one nation above all others lives cautiously by its traffic regulations — the Swiss. In Switzerland, if you were simply to anticipate a traffic light, the chances are that the motorist behind you would take your number and report you to the police. There are slight regional variations among the French, German and Italian speaking areas, but it is generally safe to assume that any car bearing a CH sticker will be driven with a high degree of discipline.
1. How do American drivers behave on the road according to the passage?| A．They run the red light sometimes. |
| B．They drive close behind other drivers. |
| C．They care little about the traffic light. |
| D．They start their car at the yellow light. |
| A．The Swiss. | B．The Brazilians. |
| C．The English. | D．The French. |
| A．analyzing causes | B．describing changes |
| C．making comparisons | D．pointing out similarities |
| A．Culture. | B．Business. |
| C．Entertainment. | D．Geography. |
5 . Almost everyone has heard the expression “the calm before the storm.” It is usually used to describe a peaceful period just before a very stressful situation or a tense argument.
British sailors coined the phrase in the late 1600s; they noted that before certain storms the seas would seem to become still and the winds would drop.
Science has given us the reason. According to US website HowStuffWorks, a calm period occurs because many storms, tornadoes and hurricanes draw in all the warm and humid(湿热的) air from the surrounding area. As this air rises into the storm clouds, it cools and acts as “fuel for the storm, like petrol in a car”. Once the storm has taken all the energy it can from the air, it is pushed out from the top of the storm clouds and falls back down to ground level. As the air goes down, it becomes warm and dry. Warm and dry air is stable, so once it covers an area, it causes a calm period before the storm. This same process also causes the “eye of the storm” in hurricanes and tornadoes. In these conditions, the calm occurs in the center of the storm because of the strong rotating (旋转的) winds.
The Weather Network has a tip for working out how far away a storm is. First count how many seconds there are between a flash of lightning and a clap of thunder, roughly three seconds equal one kilometer. So, for example, if you count nine seconds, the storm is about three kilometers away. A good method is that if your count is below 30 seconds, you should seek shelter straight away.
However, due to the complexity of storm system, not all storms take place after calm. Given the right conditions, some storms announce themselves with heavy rain and fierce winds.
So, your best bet is to keep yourself updated with weather reports for any predictions regarding a coming storm in your area. That's the most reliable way to predict the next display(展示) of nature's temper (脾气).
1. What is the function of Paragraph 3?| A．To describe how the eye of the storm comes into being. |
| B．To stress why tornadoes and hurricanes are destructive. |
| C．To explain why a peaceful period occurs before some storms. |
| D．To remind how dangerous a storm can be in certain situations. |
| A．one kilometer away | B．three kilometers away |
| C．four kilometers away | D．five kilometers away |
| A．Heavy storms don't usually last long. |
| B．It is not always quiet before a storm. |
| C．Storms have a big influence on our life. |
| D．Weather reports often fail to predict a storm. |
| A．A travel journal. | B．A science fiction. |
| C．A literature review. | D．A geography magazine. |
6 . Around 45% of plastic waste is recycled annually in the UK and is on the increase. However, one of the problems with present plastic recycling methods is that you end up with a lower-quality plastic with worse properties （特性）than the original. This means that plastic drink bottles cannot simply be recycled into new drink bottles continuously, but instead are used for other lower-grade products like park benches.
Now, British scientists have developed a new method of chemical recycling. They use lower temperatures and more environmentally-friendly starting chemicals than previous methods to turn plastics back into their constituent chemical molecules （分子）.In this way, they can be used to make new plastics of the same quality as the original.
"Most plastic is now recycled using mechanical methods, where they are transformed into liquids before being made into something new," said a professor named Matthew Jones. "The problem is, melting plastic changes its properties and reduces the quality. Out method of chemical recycling overcomes this problem. Then plastics can be used all over again without losing any properties?"
The researchers are recycling some kinds of plastics, including plant-based PLA, a plastic used for food packaging and PET, which is used for drink bottles. So far, the technology has only been demonstrated on a small range. However, scientists are now working to produce larger quantities of starting chemicals.
"There is no single solution to the problem of plastic waste — the approach has to be a combination of reducing, reusing and recycling. Our method of chemical recycling could allow carbon to be recycled endlessly rather than digging more up from the ground in the form of fossil fuels, or letting it into the atmosphere as a greenhouse gas," said Dr. Paul McKeown from the University of Bath.
1. What is the problem with the present plastic recycling?| A．The quality of recycled plastics declines. |
| B．Plastic drink bottles cannot be recycled. |
| C．The amount of plastic waste is increasing. |
| D．Recycled lower-grade products sell badly. |
| A．By transforming it into fuels. |
| B．By heating it into liquid state. |
| C．By keeping its original properties. |
| D．By changing its molecule structure. |
| A．Fossil fuels are endless resources. |
| B．The plastic waste problem has no solution. |
| C．Recycled carbon leads to greenhouse gases. |
| D．The chemical recycling is environment-friendly. |
| A．Business. | B．Tech & Science. |
| C．Lifestyle. | D．Arts & Culture |
7 . The African grey parrot’s ability to talk and mimic sounds makes it a charming companion. African grey owners often report that their greys oftentimes talk in context and can understand their people’s emotions (情感). The African grey parrot is not just a top talker - this bird is also known for its extreme intelligence, which gives them the name “The Einsteins of the Bird World”.
The bird is medium-sized, dusty-looking and almost pigeon-like. It has a bright red tail, intelligent orange eyes, and a stunning scalloped (扇形的) pattern to its feathers. Their diet in the wild consists mostly of nuts, seeds, fruits, and leafy matter.
At home, African greys need plenty of toys that challenge their intelligence, such as food searching and puzzle toys. Nutri-Berries by Lafeber Company are a perfect choice, which, with a balance of grains, seeds and other nutrients in the shape of a berry, encourages African greys to hold, bite off, and even play with, just as they do in the wild.
African greys seem especially affected by stress and disturbing noise in their environment and can be put more at ease by placing one corner of the cage against a wall as opposed to in the middle of a room.
African grey parrots are more likely to suffer from lack of Vitamin-A/beta-carotene, and therefore benefit from eating vegetables high in beta-carotene, such as cooked sweet potato and fresh kale. Lack of Vitamin-D is another concern, especially for greys on a poor diet. Offering a balanced, pill-shaped diet, such as Nutri-Berries, helps prevent vitamin and mineral shortage.
1. Why are African grey parrots called “The Einsteins of the Bird World”?| A．Because of their brain size. | B．On account of their intelligence. |
| C．Owing to their rich emotions. | D．Due to their talking ability. |
| A．A brand of bird food. | B．Puzzle toys for birds. |
| C．A type of round fruit. | D．Wild Intelligence games. |
| A．They may get ill due to lack of Vitamin |
| B．They prefer to stay in the middle of the room. |
| C．They are dusty looking with blue eyes. |
| D．They are smart and love to have fun. |
| A．In a wildlife magazine. | B．In science fiction. |
| C．In a travel guide. | D．On a shopping website. |
8 . Nearly two years ago, Jeremiah Mock heard a student in Marin County, California, complain that her school was littered with e-cigarette waste. A health anthropologist(人类学家), Mock did some research in a student parking lot, where he found a significant amount of e-cigarette and tobacco waste. Surprised, Mock went further.
From July 2018 through April 2019, he and a colleague, Yogi Hendlin, collected tobacco, cannabis(大麻)and e-cigarette waste from 12 public high school parking lots across the San Francisco Bay Area. They discovered that e-cigarette waste made up 19 percent of the rubbish that a decade ago would hardly have existed on high school campuses anywhere. As media report focuses on the public health crisis of e-cigarette waste, and its link to a recent sudden burst of mysterious lung illnesses and deaths, researchers warn there is also an environmental threat. Little research has been done on the effect of e-cigarette waste. In fact, Mock and Hendlin’s study, published earlier this month, is the first about it. “I would say it’s alarming,” said Mock, a professor at the University of California, San Francisco, and a member of the school’s Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education.
The FDA reports that 20.8 percent of high school students use e-cigarette devices, and recent surveys indicate that the use is growing even among children in middle school. E-cigarettes, which are especially popular among teenagers, are now forbidden in eight states. Many teens and adults have become victims to a growing public health crisis involving e-cigarette waste products. Earlier this month, a 17-year-old from New York became the first teenager to die of a mysterious e-cigarette related illness that has killed 33 people and threatened nearly 1,500 across every state except Alaska, according to the CDC.
1. Why did Jeremiah Mock make a survey in a parking lot two years ago?| A．To find out the truth of violent incidents in the school. |
| B．To catch the student smokers in the school. |
| C．To learn the information related to the e-cigarette. |
| D．To collect some data of the death-rate from smoking. |
| A．By observing the smokers. | B．By using experimental tests. |
| C．By analyzing questionnaires. | D．By collecting evidence. |
| A．The increasing use in e-cigarette drew the researchers’ attention. |
| B．More people died from lung illnesses in the past two decades suddenly. |
| C．They found e-cigarette consisted of micro plastics, metals and nicotine. |
| D．The government in eight states in the United States had forbidden smoking. |
| A．A health magazine. | B．A fashion magazine. |
| C．An advertisement. | D．A Chemistry textbook. |
9 . If plastic had been invented when the Pilgrims sailed from Plymouth, England, to North America - and their Mayflower had been stocked with bottled water and plastic-wrapped snacks, their plastic waste would likely still be around four centuries later. Atlantic waves and sunlight would have worn all that plastic into tiny bits. And those bits might still be floating around the world’s oceans today, waiting to be eaten by some fish or oyster, and finally perhaps by one of us.
Because plastic wasn’t invented until the late 19th century, and its production only really took off around 1950, we have a mere 9. 2 billion tons of the stuff to deal with. Of that, more than 6. 9 billion tons have become waste. And of that waste, a surprising 6. 3 billion tons never made it to a recycling bin - the figure that shocked the scientists who published the numbers in 2017.
No one knows how much unrecycled plastic waste ends up in the ocean, the earth’s last sink. In 2015, Jenna Jambeck, a University of Georgia engineering professor, caught everyone’s attention with a rough estimate: between 5. 3 million and 14 million tons of plastic waste each year just come from coastal regions.
Meanwhile, ocean plastic is estimated to kill millions of marine( 海 洋 的 )animals every year. Nearly 700 species, including endangered ones, are known to have been affected by it. Some are harmed visibly, stuck by abandoned things made of plastic. Many more are probably harmed invisibly. Marine species of all sizes, from zooplankton to whales, now eat microplastics, the bits smaller than one-fifth of an inch across.
“This isn’t a problem where we don’t know what the solution is,” says Ted Siegler, a Vermont resource economist who has spent more than 25 years working with developing nations on garbage. “We know how to pick up garbage. Anyone can do it. We know how to deal with it. We know how to recycle.” It’s a matter of building the necessary institutions and systems, he says, ideally before the ocean turns into a thin soup of plastic.
1. Why does the author mention the Pilgrims in paragraph 1?| A．To prove plastic was difficult to invent. |
| B．To introduce what marine animals like eating. |
| C．To tell the Pilgrims contributed a lot to the marine protection. |
| D．To show plastic waste has a lasting effect on the ocean. |
| A．Lacking protection. | B．Being stuck by plastics. |
| C．Being caught by humans. | D．Treating plastics as food. |
| A．Some people don’t know the solution of plastics waste. |
| B．Plastics will turn the ocean into a soup of plastic. |
| C．It’s time to take measures to deal with plastic waste. |
| D．People should avoid using plastics to protect the ocean. |
| A．A biology textbook. | B．A travel brochure. |
| C．An environmental report. | D．A lifestyle magazine. |
10 . YOUR ADVENTURES START HERE!
Discover Bangladesh
We are specialists in tours of Bangladesh, a beautiful country still relatively untouched by tourism. Our 27-day tour visits the best attractions in the country for just £ 2,130 per person. There is a maximum of six people in each group. Read travelers’ recent comments on our website and discover how good we are!
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Explore Japan
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1. What is special about Discover Bangladesh?| A．It gives a discount. | B．It is a small-group tour. |
| C．It offers travelers’ comments. | D．Il covers hiking and cycling. |
| A．Explore Japan. | B．Discover Bangladesh, |
| C．Yukon and Alaska Walk. | D．Challenge Yourself in Europe. |
| A．A research paper. | B．A travel brochure. |
| C．A nature magazine. | D．A geography textbook. |
