1 . Since the first Earth Day in 1970, Americans have gotten a lot “greener” toward the environment. “We didn’t know at that time there even was an environment, let alone that there was a problem with it,” says Bruce Anderson, president of Earth Day USA.
But what began as nothing important in public affairs has grown into a social movement .Business people, political leaders, university professors, and especially millions of grass-roots Americans are taking part in the movement. “The understanding has increased many， many times,” says Gaylord Nelson, the former governor from Wisconsin, who thought up the first. According to US government reports, emissions (排放)from cars and trucks have dropped from 10.3 million tons a year to 5.5 tons .The number of cities producing CO beyond the standard has been reduced from 40 to 9. Although serious problems still remain and need to be dealt with, the world is a safer and healthier place. A kind of “Green thinking” has become part of practices.
Great improvement has been achieved. In 1988 there were only 600 recycling programs; today in 1995 there are about 6,600. Advanced lights, motors, and building designs have helped save a lot of energy and therefore prevented pollution.
Twenty –five years ago, there were hardly any education programs for environment. Today, it’s hard to find a public school, university, or law school that does not have such a kind of program. “Until we do that, nothing else will change!” says Bruce Anderson.
1. According to Anderson, before 1970, Americans had little idea about ___.| A．the social movement | B．recycling techniques |
| C．environmental problems | D．the importance of Earth Day |
| A．The grass –roots level. | B．The business circle. |
| C．Government officials. | D．University professors. |
| A．They have cut car emissions to the lowest. |
| B．They have settled their environmental problems. |
| C．They have lowered their CO levels in forty cities. |
| D．They have reduced pollution through effective measures. |
| A．Education. | B．Planning |
| C．Green living | D．CO reduction |
2 . You wake up in the morning, the day is beautiful and the plans for the day are what you have been looking forward to for a long time. Then the telephone rings,you say hello,and the drama starts.The person on the other end has a depressing tone in his voice as he starts to tell you how terrible his morning is and that there is nothing to look forward to.You are still in a wonderful mood?Impossible!
Communicating with negative people can wash out your happiness. It may not change what you think, but communicating long enough with them will make you feel depressed for a moment or a long time.
Life brings ups and downs,but some people are stuck in the wrong idea that life has no happiness to offer. They only feel glad when they make others feel bad. No wonder they can hardly win others' pity or respect.
When you communicate with positive people, your spirit stays happy and therefore more positive things are attracted. When the dagger（匕首）of a negative person is put in you, you feel the heavy feeling that all in all, brings you down.
Sometimes we have no choice but to communicate with negative people. This could be a coworker, or a relative. In this case, say what needs to be said as little as possible. Sometimes it feels good to let out your anger back to the negative person, but all this does is to lower you to that same negative level and they won’t feel ashamed of themselves about that.
Negativity often affects happiness without even being realized. The negative words of another at the start of the day can cling to（附着）you throughout the rest of your day, which makes you feel bad and steals your happiness. Life is too short to feel negative. Stay positive and avoid negativity as much as possible.
1. The purpose of the first paragraph is to______.| A．make a comparison |
| B．offer an evidence |
| C．introduce a topic |
| D．describe a daily scene |
| A．By influencing our emotion. |
| B．By telling us the nature of life. |
| C．By changing our way of thinking. |
| D．By comparing their attitude to life with ours. |
| A．other people's pity for them |
| B．making other people unhappy |
| C．building up a positive attitude |
| D．other people’s respect for them |
| A．to change negative people’s attitude to life |
| B．to show our dissatisfaction to negative people |
| C．to make negative people feel ashamed of themselves |
| D．to communicate with negative people as little as possible |
3 . Parties and social gatherings no longer excite us the same way they once did. This is not due to a lack of desire to socialize, but the smartphone.
At parties, more people are on their smartphones than on their drinks. According to a recent International Data Corporation study, well over half of all Americans have a smartphone and reach for it the moment they wake up, keeping it in hand all day. In addition, too many people in society are using smartphones while driving and as a result, they get into car crashes. 34 percent of teenagers admit to texting while driving, and they confirm that text messaging is their number one driving interruption. People’s attachment to their smartphones is unbelievably becoming more important than the lives of themselves and others.
Just as drivers dismiss the importance of focusing while on the road, many people also fail to recognize the significance of human interaction. When with their friends, some people pointlessly check or send text messages in the presence of a friend, which sends a message to that friend: the person I am texting is more important than you. In addition, relying on our smartphones to make friends does not give us the same advantage as being able to make new friendships in the real world. Face-to-face conversations will give us much stronger communication skills in the long run.
As many people risk their lives and the lives of people around them just to send a text or mindlessly check their messages, smartphones are in many ways more dangerous to people. The quality of this technology is hindering(阻碍) social achievements and weakening the value of communication. Not only is the smartphone affecting our desire to interact (交流) face-to-face, but it is also lowering society’s ability to communicate.
1. The purpose of this text is to ___________.| A．call for an end to use the smartphone while driving |
| B．appeal to us to pay attention to communication skills |
| C．express a concern about the overuse of the smartphone |
| D．advise us to be cautious about the addiction to the smartphone |
| A．giving examples |
| B．listing figures |
| C．comparing facts |
| D．analyzing the effects |
| A．by using smartphones |
| B．in a face-to-face way |
| C．in different ways |
| D．under a free circumstance |
| A．parties and gatherings limit their social circle |
| B．people are more and more narrow-minded |
| C．people’s communication skills are weakened |
| D．face-to-face communication becomes less important |
4 . It happened to me recently. I was telling someone how much I had enjoyed reading Barack Obama’s Dreams From My Father and how it had changed my views of our President. A friend I was talking to agreed with me that it was, in his words, “a brilliantly written book”. However, he then went on to talk about Mr. Obama in a way which suggested he had no idea of his background at ail. I sensed that I was talking to a book liar.
And it seems that my friend is not the only one. Approximately two thirds of people have lied about reading a book which they haven’t. In the World Book Day’s “Report on Guilty Secrets”, Dreams From My Father is at number 9. The report lists ten books, and various authors, which people have lied about reading, and as I’m not one to lie too often (I’d hate to be caught out), I will admit here and now that I haven’t read the entire top ten. But I’m pleased to say that, unlike 42 percent of people, I have read the book at number one, Gorge Orwell’s 1984. I think it’s really brilliant.
The World Book Day report also has some other interesting information in it. It says that many people lie about having read Jane Austin Austen, Charles Dickens, Fyodor Dostoevsky (I haven't read him, but haven’t lied about it either) and Herman Melville.
Asked why they lied, the most common reason was to “impress” someone they are speaking to. This could be tricky if the conversation became more in-depth!
But when asked which authors they actually enjoy, people named J.K. Rowling, John Grisham, Sophie Kinsella (ah, the big sellers, in other words). Forty-two percent of people asked admitted they turned to the back of the book to read the end before finishing this story (I will come clean: I do this and am astonished that 58 percent said they had never done so.).
1. How did the author find his friend a book liar?| A．By judging his manner of speaking. |
| B．By looking into his background. |
| C．By mentioning a famous name. |
| D．By discussing the book itself. |
| A．Charles Dickens is very low on the top-ten list. |
| B．42% of people pretended to have read 1984. |
| C．The author admitted having read 9 books. |
| D．Dreams From My Father is hardly read. |
| A．control the conversation |
| B．appear knowledgeable |
| C．learn about the book |
| D．make more friends |
| A．Favorable. | B．Uncaring. |
| C．Doubtful. | D．Friendly. |
University tuition fees (学费) are currently capped at £3,000 annually, but this will be reviewed next year and the Government is under enormous pressure to raise the ceiling.
In the researeh, the teenagers were presented with die terms of four different loans but 76 per cent failed to identify the cheapest. The young people also predicted that they would be earning on average £ 31.000 by the age of 25, although the average salary for those aged 22 to 29 is just £ 17,815. The teenagers expected to be in debt when they finished university or training, although half said that they assumed the debts would be less than £ 10.000. Average debts for graduates are £ 12，363.
Stephen Moir, head of community investment at the Royal Bank of Scotland Group which owns NatWest, said. "The more exposed young people are to financial issues, and the younger they become aware of them, the more likely they are to become responsible, forward-planning adults who manage their finances confidently and effectively."
Ministers are deeply concerned about the financial pressures on teenagers and young people because of student loans and rising housing costs. They have just introduced new lessons in how to manage debts. Nikki Fairweathcr. aged 15. from St Helens, said that she had benefited from lessons on personal finance, but admitted that she still had a lot to learn about money.
1. Which of the following can be found from the five-year researeh project?
| A．Students understand personal finances differently. |
| B．University tuition fees in England have been rising. |
| C．Teenagers tend to overestimate their future earnings. |
| D．The students' payback ability has become a major issue. |
| A．to raise the student loans | B．to improve the school facilities |
| C．to increase the upper limit of the tuition | D．to lift the school building roofs |
| A．are too young 10 be exposed 10 financial issues |
| B．should learn 10 manage their finances wellC- should maintain a positive attitude when facing loans |
| C．benefit a lot from lessons on personal finance |
| A．Many British teenagers do not know money matters well |
| B．Teenagers in Britain are heavily burdened with debts. |
| C．Financial planning is a required course at college. |
| D．Young people should become responsible adults. |
However, the scale and speed of this growth seem set to destroy the very things tourists want to enjoy. In those countries where there was a rush to make quick money out of seaside holidays, overcrowded beaches and the concrete jungles of endless hotels have begun to lose their appeal.
Those countries with little experience of tourism can suffer most. In recent years, Nepal set out to attract foreign visitors to fund developments in health and education. Its forests, full of wildlife and rare flowers, were offered to tourists as one more untouched paradise. In fact, the nature all too soon felt the effects of thousands of holidaymakers traveling through the forest land. Ancient tracks became major routes for the walkers, with the consequent exploitation of precious trees and plants.
Not only can the environment of a country suffer from the sudden growth of tourism. The people as well rapidly feel its effects. Farmland makes way for hotels, roads and airports; the old way of life goes. The onetime farmer is now the servant of some multinational organization; he is no longer his own master. Once it was his back that bore the pain; now it is his smile that is exploited. No doubt he wonders whether he wasn't happier in his village working his own land.
Thankfully, the tourist industry is waking up to the responsibilities it has towards those countries that receive its customers. The protection of wildlife and the creation of national parks go hand in hand with tourist development and in fact obtain financial support from tourist companies. At the same time, tourists are being encouraged to respect not only the countryside they visit but also its people.
The way tourism is handled in the next ten years will decide its fate and that of the countries we all want to visit. Their needs and problems are more important than those of the tourist companies. Increased understanding in planning worldwide tourism can preserve the market for these companies. If not, in a few years' time the very things that attract tourists now may well have been destroyed.
1. What does the author indicate in the last sentence of Paragraph 1?
| A．The Pacific island is a paradise. |
| B．The Pacific island is worth visiting. |
| C．The advertisement is not convincing. |
| D．The advertisement is not impressive. |
| A．its natural resources are untouched |
| B．its forests are exploited for farmland |
| C．it develops well in health and education |
| D．it suffers from the heavy flow of tourists |
| A．They are happy to work their own lands. |
| B．They have to please the tourists for a living. |
| C．They have to struggle for their independence. |
| D．They are proud of working in multinational organizations. |
| A．The number of tourists. |
| B．The improvement of services. |
| C．The promotion of new products. |
| D．The management of tourism. |
| A．optimistic | B．doubtful |
| C．objective | D．negative |
