1 . To produce the classic clothing, blue jeans, producers rely on indigo dye (靛蓝染料), the only molecule known to provide jeans’ unique, beloved color. While indigo itself naturally comes from a plant, growing demand for blue jeans throughout the 20th century gave rise to synthetic (合成的) indigo, which is now more commonly used.
Indigo is the dye that makes jeans blue, but it doesn’t mix with water. To dye clothes, usually, chemicals are needed to make the color stick to the cloth. But in Denmark, scientists have created a new way to dye clothes using an enzyme (酶), which is a kind of protein that can cause chemical reactions, instead of harmful chemicals. This new method is better for the environment and doesn’t use poisonous stuff.
The chemical process for dyeing blue jeans has persisted for the last century. Workers are exposed to the poisonous chemicals, which also pollute the environment near factories. Waste water from those factories often ends up in waterways, damaging local ecosystems and even dyeing rivers blue.
Ditte Hededam Welner, the study’s lead researcher, says their new enzyme works really well and is strong enough for making lots of jeans without breaking down. This enzyme makes dyeing with indican, which is like indigo, much less harmful to the planet — about 92% better than the old way.
However, the new method doesn’t fix all the environmental problems of making jeans. Making a single pair of jeans uses a lot of water — enough to fill many bathtubs — from growing the cotton to putting the final touches on the jeans.
Even though the new dyeing process is better for the environment, it’s not always easy or cheap to change to it. Welner’s team isn’t sure if jeans companies will find it easy or affordable to switch to this method. It costs a little bit more — just seven cents extra per pair of jeans — to use the enzyme for dyeing. But Welner believes it’s worth it because it’s much better for the environment.
1. Why was synthetic indigo created in the 20th century?| A．It made jeans’ color unique. | B．It was easy to dye cloth with it. |
| C．People liked jeans made from it. | D．People were in greater need of jeans. |
| A．The colour is more beautiful than the synthetic indigo. | B．The market can keep stable goods supplies. |
| C．The dye is more environmentally friendly. | D．Enzyme facilitates the advance of science. |
| A．Environmental benefits. | B．Production costs. |
| C．Water consumption. | D．Laborer shortage. |
| A．Eco-Friendly Innovation: Enzyme Dyeing For Jeans | B．Water Usage In Cotton And Jeans Manufacturing |
| C．The History Of Indigo Dye In Jeans Production | D．Challenges: New Styles Of Jeans |
2 . The famous magazine, Runner’s World, has chosen some of the best, most difficult and enjoyable UK races.
Top of the Wolds 10K Challenge
This 10-km countryside track in Yorkshire is all fun until you take the left turn at Nunburnholme. At this point, you enter a serious uphill part, but thankfully the uphill part only lasts for around 1.5km. You’ll have about a kilometre to enjoy the views before the way takes you downhill again, and back to where you started in Warter — a cute little village.
Scurry2Bridges Run
This 161-km relay race is divided into 16 parts, so you each run 4 separate parts. Over the course of this day-long adventure, you’ll each run about marathon distance while the workers will drive around for pick-ups and drop-off s at relay exchange points between the start in Dundee and the finish in Edinburgh.
Scafell Sky Race
Here’s a trail run (越野跑) that is not suitable for beginners. With a total of 3,500 m of ascent (上坡路), this is unquestionably one of the hardest events around. Good thing is that the views are beautiful, and that there’s hot food and a bottle of apple juice waiting for you in the end.
Offa’s Dyke 15
The traditional 15-mile distance begins at the Clock Tower in Hay-on-Wye and includes a few hard climbs before finishing in Kington. This year the hard event has added a challenging 10 km around Kington.
1. What do we know about Scurry2Bridges Run?| A．It has an uphill part about 16 km. | B．It is a relay race made up of 16 parts. |
| C．It is a relay race with 161 miles. | D．Runners are forbidden to throw items. |
| A．Scafell Sky Race. | B．Offa’s Dyke 15. |
| C．Top of the Wolds 10K Challenge. | D．Scurry2Bridges Run. |
| A．They are held in the countryside. | B．They ask runners to take part alone. |
| C．They are tough but exciting races. | D．They can provide the runners with food. |
1. What does the man want the woman to do?
| A．Do some cleaning. | B．Do some cooking. | C．Get a gift for his mother. |
| A．Angry. | B．Crazy. | C．Sorry. |
9 . Many of us have entertained the idea of learning a foreign language. Here are a few examples, ranked in order of the number of hours it takes the average English speakers to master them from lowest to highest:
●Easiest（about 600 hours of study）
Want to have no trouble fitting in on the streets of Paris? You will make it after just 600 hours of study. The popular Latin languages —Italian, French, Spanish and Portuguese —require about 600 hours of study to achieve “general professional proficiency” in speaking and reading. They share many words with English, but differ significantly in meanings.
●German（750 hours）
Interested in reading Karl May’s “Wild West” series in its original language? You’ll need to spend750 hours mastering German first. With nouns that are masculine, feminine and neutral, verbs that are given various different forms and an extremely strict sentence arrangement, German may appear impossible to start with. But pronunciation and spelling is straightforward and once you learn the —admittedly many —rules, that’s it. German teachers used to joke that it takes you a year to say, “I’m travelling on the bus,” but once you’re on that bus,it’s plain sailing.
●Greek（1,100 hours）
Modern Greek is maybe the easiest language to learn that uses a different alphabet. Because Greek is also a language that’s contributed numerous words to English. Indeed, in 1957,Xenophon Zolotas, the then governor of the Bank of Greece, gave two speeches to the IMF that contained just Greek loanwords apart from the unavoidable basic English.
●Arabic（2,200 hours）
There’s an interesting story about a pharmaceutical（制药）company that advertised painkiller with three pictures. The left picture depicted a woman with a headache. The middle one showed hers wallowing the pill and the right one had her smiling after the pain had disappeared. It worked everywhere except in the Arab world, which read it from right to left.
It takes the average native English speaker a whopping 2,200 hours to become proficient in Arabic. But who can resist a language with eleven words for love, five degrees of swearing and close to 100words describing a camel?
1. Who is this passage intended for?| A．German speakers. | B．Greek speakers. | C．English speakers. | D．Arabic speakers |
| A．Greek. | B．German | C．Spanish. | D．French. |
| A．The way it advertises. | B．The habit of reading. |
| C．The time to master it. | D．The expressions to say love. |
| A．She will prepare the food. |
| B．She dislikes going on a picnic. |
| C．She is worried about the weather. |
