1 . The tradition of giving gifts didn’t start with the modern holidays we celebrate. Many ancient cultures celebrated holidays with the exchange of gifts. People who love to give gifts often can’t wait until it’s time for the recipients to open their gifts. If you’ve ever been given a gift, you know that part of the fun is the curiosity that builds as you wonder what the gift is.
The wish to hide the identity of a gift until just the right moment led people to wrap gifts long, long ago. Historians believed wrapping gifts in paper probably started not long after paper was invented thousands of years ago.
Wrapping paper like what we use today, though, is a much more recent invention. More than 100 years ago, gifts were usually wrapped in heavy brown paper. Before that, cloth was often used. The technology to mass-produce wrapping paper didn’t come along until the early 1900s. The first American gift wrap company— Hy-Sill Manufacturing Inc. — was founded by Eli Hyman and Morris Silverman in 1903. It wasn’t as easy to wrap presents back then as it is today, though, because adhesive tape (胶带) wasn’t invented until 1930.
Over the years, wrapping paper has developed into what we see in stores each holiday season. But scientists say that the United States alone produces an extra 5 million tons of waste over the holidays, most of which is from wrapping paper and shopping bags. To cut down on this waste, some people carefully unwrap presents, so that the wrapping paper can be reused. Others have started to use reusable gift bags instead of wrapping paper.
1. What is the interesting part of people giving a gift?A.Hiding their gifts and their feelings. |
B.Giving the recipients a surprise. |
C.Letting the recipients open gifts at once. |
D.Following a century-old tradition. |
A.People didn’t know wrapping paper until 1903. |
B.Heavy brown paper has been used to wrap gifts for 100 years. |
C.Technology made wrapping paper widely available. |
D.Adhesive tape was first created by gift wrap companies. |
A.The future of reusable gift bags. |
B.The waste produced by Americans. |
C.Wrapping paper’s influence on the environment. |
D.People’s admiration for wrapping paper. |
A.The popularity of wrapping gifts. |
B.The start of wrapping gifts in paper. |
C.The problems caused by wrapping paper. |
D.The story behind wrapping paper. |
2 . Buses take about 24 million children to school in some countries each year. Some parents think they’re the safest way to get the children to school — eight times safer than riding in a passenger car. But what parents don’t expect is that most school buses also pollute the air with tail gas, and that’s bad news for the kids on the bus.
The problem is that children are breathing in tail gas when they play near idling (空转的) school buses or while they ride the bus. Studies show that over time, breathing in tail gas can cause serious health problems — one concern is that the particulate (微小的) matter in tail gas can contribute to many illnesses, plus it’s been linked to increased risk of lung cancer.
There are several different ways to clean up school buses.
A simple change that can make a big difference is to reduce idling by turning off the engine as soon as the bus is parked. Some communities have carried out voluntary “no idling” zones, which help keep the air cleaner for bus riders and everyone else.
Another choice is to switch to cleaner burning fuels. One popular choice is B20. According to the EPA, it reduces particulate matter by about 10 percent. Another clean fuel being used in school buses is natural gas.
One of the best choices for clean buses is to replace older buses with newer, cleaner running buses. Because emission (排放) standards have changed obviously over the last 30 years, you can tell a lot about how much a bus pollutes simply by finding out how old it is. Buses produced after 1990 produce much lower particulate levels than older buses, and those produced in 1994 and later are even cleaner.
1. What is beyond parents’ expectation about school buses?A.Being safer than passenger cars. | B.Lower risk of suffering cancer. |
C.Being faster than passenger cars. | D.The air pollution caused by them. |
A.To save money. | B.To reduce pollution. |
C.To increase bus life. | D.To avoid making noise. |
A.By looking at its production date. | B.By examining its size of tank. |
C.By checking its running distance. | D.By counting its times of idling. |
A.Suitable Ways to Handle Old School Buses |
B.Illnesses Students Get From School Buses |
C.School Bus Pollution and Ways to Reduce It |
D.Serious Results Old School Buses Bring |
1. Where did the speaker get the news?
A.On TV. |
B.In the newspaper. |
C.Through the Internet. |
A.China’s traffic development. |
B.China’s car problems. |
C.China’s pollution. |
A.About 20 million. |
B.Almost 140 million. |
C.Nearly 1,000 million. |
A.Fewer road accidents than in other countries. |
B.A faster traffic system which costs less. |
C.More road blocking than now. |
A.A new plan. | B.Air pollution. | C.Water pollution. |
A.The fish in it has died out. |
B.It has stopped flowing. |
C.It’s got badly polluted. |
6 . Millions of tons of electronic waste, known as e-waste, is produced ever year. In 2016, the world’s population make 49 million tons of electronic waste. It has been calculated that there will be more than 60 million tons by 2021. The amount of electronic waste is growing so rapidly that it has become a global problem that needs to be addressed.
What is causing the upsurge(激增)in e-waste? Technology is becoming more and more widespread, covering almost every aspect of our lives. Meanwhile, the lifespan of devices is getting shorter— many products will be thrown away once their batteries(电池)die, to be replaced by new devices. Companies update the design or software so quickly and it is usually cheaper and easier to buy a new product than to repair an old one. Since prices are falling, electronic devices are in demand around the world.
As more people buy electronic equipment, manufacturers(制造商)are beginning to face shortages of the raw material needed to make their products, so recycling and reusing materials from discarded(废弃的)products and waste makes economic and environmental sense. Recycling e-waste is practiced both formally and informally. Formal e-waste recycling usually involves taking apart the electronics, separating and sorting through the materials and cleaning them. Companies must obey health and safety rules to reduce the health and environmental harm of handling e-waste by using pollution-control technologies. All this makes formal recycling expensive.
With the amount of e-waste growing around the world, recycling alone will not be enough to handle the problem. In order to reduce e-waste, manufacturers need to design electronics that are safer, and more durable (耐用的)repairable. As a customer, you’d better get our old product repaired if possible and buy a new device only when you really need.
1. The underlined word “addressed” in paragraph 1 can be replaced by _________.A.reduced | B.changed |
C.controlled | D.solved |
A.The problems caused by the upsurge in e-waste. |
B.The reasons for e-waste’s sharp increasing. |
C.The bad effect of updating devices. |
D.The causes of devices’ price dropping. |
A.Improving the quality of e-devices. |
B.Lowering the costs of technology innovation. |
C.Relieving companies’ lacking raw materials. |
D.Increasing the variety of electronic products. |
A.Recycling is the only way to reduce e-waste. |
B.Companies should be mainly responsible for reducing e-waste. |
C.Repairing a device is better than buying a new one. |
D.Everyone should take action to reduce e-waste. |
7 . Scientists say they have found high levels of small plastic particles(颗粒) in Arctic snow. A German-Swiss research team collected snow samples(样本)from the Arctic and other areas. They included northern Germany, the Bavarian and Swiss Alps, and the North Sea island of Heligoland.When the researchers examined the samples in a laboratory, they were surprised to find very high levels of microplastics.
Microplastics are very small pieces of plastic. These plastic particles are generally smaller than 5 millimeters in length. They come from the breakdown of man-made plastic products and industrial waste.
The study found the highest levels of microplastics came from the Bavarian Alps. One snow sample from the area had 154,000 microplastic particles per liter. Samples collected from the Arctic had much lower levels. However, even samples from the Arctic contained up to 14,000 particles per liter.
The study also attempted to explore how some of the material could have been carried in the atmosphere. A limited number of earlier studies did find microplastics in the air of some cities, including Paris, Tehran and Dongguan, China.
Bergmann Melanie co-wrote the report on the new study. She believes the new study clearly shows that “the majority of the microplastic in the snow comes from the air.” The new study suggests that much of the microplastic found in Europe and the Arctic comes from the atmosphere and snow.
While there is growing concern about the effect of microplastics on the environment, scientists are still studying their possible harmful effects on humans and animals. “I hope the new study will lead to more research on this issue. I think microscopic plastic particles should be included in worldwide observations of air pollution levels.We really need to know what effects microplastics have on humans, especially if inhaled with the air that we breathe.” Bergmann said.
1. Why did scientists collect samples from so many places in paragragh 1?A.To make the research convincing. |
B.To attract people to explore there. |
C.To measure the length of microplastics . |
D.To examine the samples easily in the lab. |
A.The risks of microplastics. |
B.The transport of microplastics. |
C.The breakdown of plastic products. |
D.The description of microplastics. |
A.Many people threw them away at the Alps. |
B.They were delivered to remote areas through air. |
C.They could be caught sight of in the air. |
D.They had no great effect on the environment. |
A.Scientists are worried about the the influence of microplastics. |
B.We have found a practical solution to the environment problem. |
C.The effect of microplastics on human must be urgently researched. |
D.There is no need to change observations of air pollution levels. |