When policy experts debate climate change solutions, they often talk about "a price on carbon." They are arguing about whether companies should pay when they put carbon pollution in the air. Proponents say that it's simple economics -- if it's free to pollute, you'll get a lot of pollution. Opponents claim it will raise the cost of energy that's produced from high carbon sources, like coal. But here's the secret that most people seem to be missing: There already is a price on carbon, and it's paid by the taxpayers.
Carbon pollution, like every other form of pollution, has an impact on the environment. Throwing waste into a river will cause the fish to die and the people who drink the water to get sick. And when you produce carbon pollution, you get climate change -- sea level rise, stronger storms, severe droughts, damage to agriculture, and more.
All of those impacts cost money. Insurance rates go up when storms get more destructive. Taxes increase when cities have to rebuild bridges and roads. Military budgets go up when droughts and population changes cause conflicts. Not to mention impacts on agriculture and health care costs.
In other words, the price on carbon is what we all pay when there is no market force to limit the pollution that causes climate change. So the debate is really about who will pay that price -- the companies who are making a profit from the fossil fuels, or the taxpayers who pick up the cost now?
Right now, we have private profit and public cost. It's just like if we allowed every business to throw its garbage in the street because it's too expensive to have it moved away properly. Does it add a little bit to your dinner check to require that restaurants dispose of their trash properly? Sure. But it would be more expensive for you if the city had to clean the streets of their garbage every day. So just like we put a "price on garbage" we need a "price on carbon pollution."
Now, a "price on carbon pollution" can mean a lot of things. You could tax companies based on the amount of carbon pollution they produce, and return the money to taxpayers. You could put a limit on how much they can produce, thereby requiring them to invest in ways to conduct business in a less polluting way.
1.What do the policy experts argue about carbon pollution?
A. Whether the companies should pay for it.
B. Whether taxpayers could get profit from it.
C. Who have the ability to change it.
D. How much should be paid for it.
2.What’s the main idea of Paragraph 2 ?
A. Some other forms of pollution
B. The effects of carbon pollution
C. The signs of carbon pollution
D. The way to reduce carbon pollution
3.The author referred to restaurants in the passage mainly to________.
A.prove every business doesn’t perform its duty.
B. warn readers to protect the environment around.
C. explain the damage of no policy on carbon pollution.
D. show some restaurants throw away their trash randomly.
4.According to the passage, what does the “price on carbon pollution” means?
A. Telling the taxpayers to refuse to pay taxes on carbon pollution
B. Making the government invest to reduce carbon pollution
C. Increasing prices of the products from companies.
D.Taxing companies on carbon pollution they produce.
New research has shown that loneliness may affect ants to a greater extent than many other living creatures.
It has long been known that loneliness can lead to a shorter life. In humans, it has even been found to be a driver of high blood pressure, sleep disorder, and depression that’s independent of factors like age, race, gender, weight and economic status.
However, loneliness has never been identified as a factor that can cut human lifespan by more than a small part of the average. Ants, on the other hand, appear to be far more sensitive to this stress, with loneliness leading to a surprising 91 percent reduction in lifespan.
That’s at least according to a study that details how “lonely” ants only live up to six days on average. Ants living in a community, on the other hand, were found to live up to about 66 days.
In a series of experiments where ants were picked from their colonies (群体) and separated, they were found to continuously walk without rest,consuming far more energy than they could ever.
The reason for the behavior is that an isolated ant is simple trying to get back to its colony at all costs, and doesn’t know what to do without its nest mates. After all, many entomologists (昆虫学家) would argue that an ant colony is far more a single living entity (实体) than its members.
If you were to take a single part from a clock, it would simply move aimlessly as well, running without a purpose. However, while there is a difference between aimlessness and loneliness, the researchers found that the latter affects lonely ants more directly.
The study indicated that ants can’t even eat alone, as they normally collect some of the food they gather in the field in a specialized organ called a crop.This crop is normally shared with other ants back at a nest,but as for a single ant, it simply just sits there, undigested and useless.
1.How does loneliness influence a person?
A. It can make him very tired of himself.
B. It can leave him in conflict with others.
C. It can lead to him being very independent.
D. It can cause him to suffer from poor health
2.What can be learned from the experiments?
A. Most ants can live about 6 days on average.
B. Lonely ants can become very restless.
C. Human beings are similar to ants in some way.
D. Lonely ants seem to be violent and impatient.
3.Why does an isolated ant walk non-stop?
A. It attempts to return to its colony.
B. It wants to attract other ants to form a colony.
C. It hopes to make signals to its mates.
D. It has to find more food to survive.
4.The author mentioned a clock in the passage_________.
A. to show ants have a biological clock in the head.
B. to prove ants are a well-regulated community.
C. to stress ants are really highly social animals.
D.to compare aimlessness with loneliness.
Kids love animals, so children’s magazines about wildlife are a great way to plant a love of reading in young kids. If your kids love animals, check out these magazines.
National Geographic Kids
National Geographic Kids brings animals, nature, science, and fun to the little learners. Its animal stories develop pre-reading and reading skills. They also answer questions about kids’ favorite creatures. Features about different cultures bring the world to your child and inspire a sense of understanding. Interactive experiments introduce simple science, and fun puzzles and games teach logic, counting, and so much more! It is for children aged from 6 to 14.
Click
Click opens up a universe of wonder by introducing kids aged 3-7 to the world around them. Click is about science, nature, and the environment. From the publishers of Ladybug, Click is written so that children will love the challenge of new learning.
Wild Animal Baby
It helps a child develop a lifelong love of reading and learning. This sturdy (结实的), board format magazine is designed especially for babies and toddlers between the ages of 12 months and 3 years. Each issue (期) is filled with rhymes, stories and lovable baby animals. Wild Animal Baby is a fun, interactive reading experience for children and parents alike.
Zootles
It was created for children aged 2 to 6 years old. Each issue includes a featured animal, numbers, and phoneme (音素) sounds. Counting and sound recognition games are built into the content, along with read-aloud stories, poems and more! This magazine is so much fun that little kids won’t realize how much they are learning.
1.What do we know about National Geographic Kids?
a. It is mainly aimed at adults.
b. Its paper is heavier and of good quality.
c. It tells children about different cultures in the world.
d. It helps improve children’s pre-reading and reading skills.
A. ac B. bd C. cd D. ad
2.A mother would most probably choose _____ for her one-year-old baby.
A. Zootles B. Wild Animal Baby
C.National Geographic Kids D. Click
3.We know that the magazine Zootles _______.
A. tells about science, nature and the environment
B. involves many adventurous stories
C. mainly tells kids how to pronounce words
D. tells about a featured animal in each issue
4.What’s the author’s purpose in writing the text?
A. To encourage kids to read more books.
B. To introduce his / her favorite books to readers.
C. To recommend several children’s magazines about animals.
D. To tell parents several ways of entertaining and educating kids.
Certainly, a well-rounded education is the foundation from which all of us spring forth. I am grateful to the many incredible teachers who have inspired me to do greater things, and have fired my enthusiasm for everlasting learning!
I have also been honored to have the most amazing teachers in all of my children’ s lives. These are extraordinary people who not only teach our children, but love them, inspire them, and provide an environment where a child learns how to learn.
But, sometimes I wonder if the outline of our educational plan is lacking something. I watched the movie Easy A with my older daughter. The main character’ s parents were loving, supportive, and built great confidence in their daughter and developed her ability to handle her own problems.
There was a scene where the mother was speaking to the younger child and he announced that he received an “ A” on his spelling test. She replied, “ That’s great, honey, but everything has spell check these days. ”It was funny — but TRUE!I don’t mean that we shouldn’t teach our children how to spell, but maybe some of our time should be spent educating them about the dangers of posting things on Facebook.
Maybe we might want to spend time showing them how real life works— the credit card isn’t free money— you will have to pay it back at sometime. Oh, and get this—they charge you for borrowing that money. Perhaps, we should spend some time on interpersonal relationships. I worry that our kids do not know how to relate to one another.
Choosing a career is a daunting task. My daughter is in her second year in college and has changed her major twice. It’s not that she didn’t know what she wanted to do. What she “ wanted to do”and the degree she chose did not match.
I have learned many college students do not know what they want to do because they haven’t seen what it looks like in the real world. Being a journalist in the real world looks very different from writing stories. Maybe if we spent some time exposing them to real life experience— maybe two or three courses in areas of interest in high school that give them a “ feel ” for what that particular field would look like, they might be better prepared. I do not know the solution, but it seems that it should at least be a topic of discussion.
1.Why does the author mention the movie Easy A?
A. To prove the importance of book learning.
B. To lead to the topic he is going to talk about.
C. To show the parents’ ignorance of spelling.
D. To share with the readers his feeling about the movie.
2.The author believes that __________.
A. students need to focus on the skills in learning
B. parents and school should be consistent in education
C. his daughter is smart enough to make her own choice
D. courses in areas of interest in high schools will benefit students
3.The underlined word “ daunting” in Paragraph 6 probably means________.
A. specific B. rewarding
C. discouraging D. regular
4.What is mainly discussed in the passage?
A. Schools should prepare students for the real life.
B. What students learn in school should be practiced in life.
C. Life experience is of greater importance than school education.
D. Students should spend more time discussing practical problems
I was born and raised in Minnesota, the USA,but as an adult I have mostly lived in Europe and Africa. I teach cross-cultural management at the International Business School near Paris. For the last 15 years, I’ve studied how people in different parts of the world build trust,communicate, and make decisions especially in the workplace.
While traveling in Tokyo recently with Japanese colleague，I gave a short talk to a group of 20 managers. At the end, I asked whether there were any questions or comments.No hands went up,so I went to sit down.My colleague whispered to me,“I think there actually were some comments, Erin.Do you mind if I try?” I agreed, but I guessed it a waste of breath. He asked the group again, “Any comments or questions?”
Still, no one raised a hand, but this time he looked very carefully at each person in the silent audience. Gesturing to one of them, he said, “Do you have something to add?” To my amazement,she responded “Yes, thank you.” and asked me a very interesting question. My colleague repeated this several times,looking directly at the audience and asking for more questions or comments.
After the session, I asked my colleague, “how do you know that those people had questions?” He hesitated, not sure how to explain it, and then said, “It has to do with how bright their eyes are.”
He continued, “In Japan, we don’t make as much direct eye contact as you do in the West. So when you asked if there were any comments, most people were not looking directly at you. But a few people in the group were looking right at you, and their eyes were bright. That indicates that they would be happy to have you call on them.”
I thought to myself I would never have learned from my upbringing in Minnesota. Since then, I try to focus on understanding behavior in other cultures I encounter, and keep finding the bright eyes in the room.
1.What can we conclude from the first paragraph?
A. Life in Minnesota has made the author worn out.
B. The author enjoys traveling around the world.
C. Different cultures are kind of familiar to the author.
D.The author may start his own business in the future.
2.Hearing the colleague whispering, the author ________.
A. went back to his seat and got seated.
B. knew his colleague had some questions.
C. owed a big debt of gratitude to his colleague.
D. thought his colleague would get nowhere.
3.Where does the author’s colleague probably come from?
A. Japan. B. America. C. Africa. D. France
4.Which is the proper title for the passage?
A. Focusing on Behavior in Cultures.
B. Looking at Another Culture in the Eye.
C. Sharing Different Cultures in Tokyo
D. Admiring the Beauty in the Eye.
Have you ever not wanted to do something so badly? Well, that’s how I about joining Madcaps, a mothers and daughters’ club assisting philanthropies (慈善事业). , my feeling changed finally. Now I believe if you adopt an attitude, you might just enjoying it.
Six months ago, my mom told me the club asked us to work as at Saint Vincent de Paul Homeless shelter. That meant I had to in the dirty homeless shelter for at least 20 hours.
The first time we went there, a lady led us to the kitchen where we my five fellow Madcaps classmates — they also wore the same expression. Since I’m usually socially , I had never talked with any of them earlier. Worse still, my mom was asked to help outside the kitchen, leaving me totally to serve food with them. Soon large numbers of homeless families in like rushing river. A little girl, around 5 years old, walked up to me. I her a cold sandwich. She took it and joined her family quickly. As she walked away, I she was wearing a coat, clearly too big for her, hanging on her thin body, and couldn’t help thinking how much I had with her. It suddenly struck me that how I am.
After that moment I had a of heart. Now I love Madcaps and don’t miss one meeting. I have awkwardness when communicating and have many friends. And this year I am sure I will do more than the 20 hours of philanthropies.
So that is how I have made a by doing one thing I don’t want to do. If you have an open about things you can accomplish more and become a well-rounded (全面的) person.
1.A. felt B. worried C.heard D. brought
2.A. Otherwise B. Besides C. Therefore D. However
3.A.aggressive B. ordinary C. optimistic D. honest
4.A. end up B. give up C. keep on D. insist on
5.A. members B. clerks C. friends D. volunteers
6.A. wander B. serve C. teach D. walk
7.A. looked for B. cared about C.ran into D. passed by
8.A. excited B.fragile C. scared D. awkward
9.A.alone B. doubtful C. afraid D. patient
10.A. joined B. broke C. dropped D. poured
11.A. handed B. returned C. awarded D. bought
12.A.thought B. guessed C. discovered D. concluded
13.A. neatly B. loosely C. constantly D. carelessly
14.A.covered B. connected C. compared D. competed
15.A. eager B.strong C. proud D. lucky
16.A. relief B. change C. surprise D. loss
17.A.overcome B. realized C. remembered D. developed
18.A. allowed B.finished C. included D. required
19.A. sacrifice B. promise C. difference D. mistake
20.A.mind B. plan C. study D. question
