1 . Although small business training and credit programs have become more common throughout the world, little attention has been paid to the need of young people, and even less to the children living on the street or in difficult condition.

Over the past nine years, Street Kids International (S.K.I.) has been working with partner organizations in Africa, Latin America and India to support the economic lives of street children and develop opportunities for street children to earn income.

The S.K.I. Bicycle Courier Service first started in the Sudan. Street children who took part in it were given bicycles, which they used to deliver parcels and messages. A similar program was taken up in Bangalore, India. The Shoe Shine Collective was a program with the Y.W.C.A. in the Dominican Republic. The children in this project were lent money to buy shoe shine boxes. They were also given a safe place to store their equipment, and facilities for individual savings plans. The Youth Skills Enterprise Initiative in Zambia is a program with the Red Cross Society and the Y.W.C.A. Street youths are supported to start their own small business through business training, life skills training and access to credit.

During the program, The S.K.I. and partner organizations have drawn lessons from the past: First of all, being a businessman is not for everyone, nor for every street child. And it is important for all loans to be linked to training programs that include the development of basic business and life skills. Secondly, small loans are provided firstly for buying fixed assets such as bicycles, shoe shine kits and basic building materials for a market stall. As the children gain experience, they can be given more loan amounts. And all S.K.L. programs have charged interest on the loans. Generally the rates have been lower than bank rates. Most importantly, it is believed that credit must be given with other types of support that help the young develop key life skills as well as productive businesses.

1. How does S.K.I. help the street children?

A．By giving the street children chances to go to school.

B．By encouraging the public to give money to street children.

C．By creating chances for street children to make money.

D．By drawing the attention of governments to help street children.

2. Street youths can be lent money to buy shoe shine boxes in _______.

A．The Dominican Republic	B．Zambia
C．India	D．Sudan

3. The underlined word “assets” in the last paragraph probably can be replaced by _______.

A．clothing

B．vehicle

C．equipment

D．belongings

4. From the last paragraph we know _______.

A．each child can only enjoy one kind of loan

B．not all loans should be linked to training programs

C．any child can apply for the business training and loan

D．the children have to pay back slightly more money than they borrow

2 . Walk through the Amazon rainforest today and you will find it is steamy, warm, damp and thick. But if you had been around 15,000 years ago, during the last ice age, would it have been the same? For more than 30 years, scientists have been arguing about how rainforests like the Amazon might have reacted to the cold, dry climates of the ice ages, but until now, no one has reached a satisfying answer.

Rainforests like the Amazon are important for mopping up CO₂ from the atmosphere and helping to slow global warming. Currently the trees in the Amazon take in around 500 million tons of CO₂ each year: equal to the total amount of CO₂ giving off in the UK each year. But how will the Amazon react to future climate change? If it gets drier, will it still survive and continue to draw down CO₂ ?

Scientists hope that they will be able to learn in advance how the rainforest will manage in the future by understanding how rainforests reacted to climate change in the past. Unfortunately, getting into the Amazon rainforest and collecting information are very difficult. To study past climate, scientists need to look at fossilized pollen, kept in lake mud. Going back to the last ice age means drilling deep down into lake sediments （沉淀物）which requires specialized equipment and heavy machinery. There are very few roads and paths, or places to land helicopters and aeroplanes. Rivers tend to be the easiest way to enter the forest, but this still leaves vast areas between the rivers completely unsampled（未取样）.So far, only a handful of cores have been drilled that go back to the last ice age and none of them provide enough information to prove how the Amazon rainforest reacts to climate change.

1. What does the underlined phrase “mopping up” in the second paragraph mean?

A．Giving up.	B．Giving out.
C．Wiping out.	D．Taking in.

2. How will the Amazon rainforest react to future climate change?

A．It’ll get drier and continue to remove CO2 .

B．There is no exact answer up to present.

C．It’ll get warmer and then colder and drier.

D．It’ll remain steamy, warm, damp and thick.

3. What’s the main idea of the last paragraph?

A．It’s important to drill deep down into lake sediments to collect information.

B．It’s impossible to prove how climate changes in the Amazon rainforest.

C．It’s hard to collect information for studies of the past climate in the Amazon rainforest.

D．It’s necessary to have specialized equipment and machinery to study the past climate.

4. What is the best title for this passage?

A．Studies of the Rainforests

B．Climates of the Amazon

C．Secrets of the Ice Age

D．Changes of the Rainforests