1 . Priscilla Ouchida’s “energy efficient” house turned out to be a horrible dream. When she and her engineer husband married a few years ago, they built a $100,000 three-bedroom home in California. Tightly sealed to prevent air leaks, the house was equipped with small double-paned windows and several other energy-saving features. Problems began as soon as the couple moved in, however. Priscilla’s eyes burned. Her throat was constantly dry. She suffered from headaches and could hardly sleep. It was as though she had suddenly developed a strange illness.
Experts finally traced the cause of her illness. The level of formaldehyde gas in her kitchen was twice the maximum allowed by federal standards for chemical workers. The source of the gas? Her new kitchen cabinets and wall-to-wall carpeting.
The Ouchidas are victims of indoor air pollution, which is not given sufficient attention partly because of the nation’s drive to save energy. The problem itself isn’t new. “The indoor environment was dirty long before energy conservation came along,” says Moschandreas, a pollution scientist at Geomet Technologies in Maryland. “Energy conservation has tended to accentuate the situation in some cases.”
The problem appears to be more troublesome in newly constructed homes rather than old ones. Back in the days when energy was cheap, home builders didn’t worry much about unsealed cracks. Because of such leaks, the air in an average home was replaced by fresh outdoor air about once an hour. As a result, the pollutants generated in most households seldom built up to dangerous levels.
1. It can be learned from the passage that the Ouchidas’ house ________.| A．is well worth the money spent on its construction |
| B．is almost faultless from the point of energy conservation |
| C．failed to meet energy conservation standards |
| D．was designed and constructed in a scientific way |
| A．Poor quality of the air inside. | B．Poor quality of the construction. |
| C．Gas leakage in the kitchen. | D．The newly painted walls. |
| A．relieve | B．accelerate | C．worsen | D．improve |
| A．Because indoor cleanliness was not emphasized. |
| B．Because energy used to be inexpensive. |
| C．Because environmental protection was given top priority. |
| D．Because they were technically unavoidable. |
| A．Energy Conservation | B．House Building Crisis |
| C．Air Pollution Indoors | D．Traps in Building Construction |
Kevin Randall, a biology teacher at Grandville High School, runs the environmental club at the high school, which has around 2,000 students. The club is known as the GHS Green Team, and it aims to raise awareness among students. It also works on projects to reduce the environmental footprint of the building itself.
One of the club's recent projects focused on reducing waste in the school cafeteria. Randall said their cafeteria supervisor told them that the school went through 54,000 plastic forks every year. The club applied for a financial help, built recycling centers for the cafeteria, and purchased metal silverware.
And now every student uses a durable metal for kora spoon instead of disposables(一次性用品) , “and that's just one way we're trying to capture the low-hanging fruit, if you will,” Randall said.
The efforts of Randall and his students have earned Grandville High School the Michigan Green School certification from the state. In addition to their work reducing waste in the cafeteria, the GHS Green Team has also built a garden with flowers and vegetables on campus, and leads cleanups on site and out in the community. Over the years, Randall and his students have also been working on raising money to install solar panels(太阳能板) on the roof of the high school.
Randall said he was motivated to take the lead on environmental issues for his school because he wanted his students to have someone to turn to in the building who understands what's at stake(利害攸关) when it comes to climate change.
“And I also felt like I needed to do more in my life for my own two children at home,” Randall added, “They need to know that their dad is working as hard a she can to reduce the effects of climate change, and to spread the word, and to make sure that other students out there are leaning about this just the way they are at home.”
1. What is the purpose of the GHS Green Team club?(No more than 10 words)2. How did the club help the school cafeteria reduce waste?(No more than 15 words)
3. How do you understand the underlined part the low-hanging fruit in Para 3?(No more than 5 words)
4. What’s the fourth paragraph mainly about?(No more than 10 words)
5. Suppose you are in charge of a similar Green Club, what activity will you organize? And why?(no more than 20 words)
3 . Two things I really believe in --- saving money and saving the planet, and it’s even better when I can do something that accomplishes both at the same time. Rainwater harvesting is just such a thing. In the near future, rainwater harvesting will be as common as twelve-year-old girls carrying cell phones.
Many countries already rely heavily on rainwater. Every building in these countries collects the rainwater from its roof and stores it for later use. However, America is just slightly slow to take action.
There are many ways to harvest rainwater and most of them are easy and inexpensive. For example, use rain barrels（桶）to collect the water that would run off your roof. You’d be surprised at how fast a fifty-gallon（加仑）barrel will be filled with free, usable water. New building construction offers some good ways to gather rainwater, and the cost of set-up is usually made up by reduced usage very quickly. Rainwater can be conveyed by roof pipes into underground containers, where a pump can draw water up as needed.
The rainwater can even be treated to make it drinkable. If that rainwater were not collected, but allowed to run over your lawn（草坪）, into the street and eventually to a storm water treatment facility, it would pick up all sorts of pollutants on its journey --- chemical compositions and agricultural poisons from the grass, motor oil, waste water and such from the roads, and who knows what else. That is to say, the shorter distance it covers the more drinkable it will be.
Depending on where you live, the rainwater may be piped to a treatment plant or it may run in natural channels to allow nature to remove the pollutants. Either way, the treatment of rainwater is high priced. If you reduce the amount of rainwater run-off from your home or office, you reduce the need for treatment.
Water is rapidly becoming one of our most precious resources and it is not as abundant as you may think. In the year 2015, the United States used generally 479 billion gallons of fresh water per day.
1. According to the passage, harvesting rainwater can ______.| A．help us save money and be good for the environment |
| B．help us realize the importance of water |
| C．promote the development of economy and peace |
| D．make us live a better life in the near future |
| A．Little girls can save money by carrying cell phones. |
| B．Many countries can’t afford to harvest rainwater. |
| C．Harvesting rainwater in America is not that common. |
| D．Rainwater harvesting is mainly adopted by developed countries. |
| A．How to take advantage of rainwater. |
| B．How to fix the equipment under the ground. |
| C．How to reduce the cost of the equipment. |
| D．How to harvest rainwater. |
| A．Before it is piped to a treatment plant. |
| B．After it runs over your lawn. |
| C．After it runs into the street. |
| D．Before it drops from the roof. |
| A．it is easy to make rainwater drinkable |
| B．the author calls on people to harvest rainwater |
| C．many countries ignore to harvest rainwater |
| D．it is easy to deal with the pollutants from rainwater |
