Researchers find that1.large amount of African dust can blow all the way across the Atlantic Ocean and fall on North and South Americas.
African dust storms can harm air quality2. the ocean. But new research by scientists from some countries 3. (show) the storms also can do some good. 4.is found that an average of 28 million metric tons of Saharan dust falls in South America’s Amazon River basin each year. Scientists say the dust is an important5.(provide) of fertilizer. “Yes, it’s6.(surprise) because of the huge amount of dust and phosphorous(磷), 7. is a nutrient that plants need8.(grow),” one of them says.
In fact, the phosphorous9.(fall) from the sky is about the same as the amount that rivers carry out each year. The thick rainforest and the desert dust 10.(join) together on one small planet.
In 1994 I was in the midst of a depression (抑郁症). When I was depressed, I _________. One day I was clearing up the rooms and found a CD covered with _________. I wiped it off, put it in the___________and started washing dishes. A man’s voice, reading poetry,___________my house. The sound of the speaker’s voice and the words of the poems reached something deep inside me. I stopped and_______.
I began to take poems into my _________, not simply reading them, but developing rich relationships with the_______I learned many by heart. They became my therapy (治疗）and_________. Those poems made me wiser and healthier.
_______, in the fall of 2008, poetry__________me in a way I had never expected. I had put all my__________in a small, local fund (基金). Two months later, the leader of the fund left me a message: “The financial crisis__________our fund particularly hard. We' ve lost everything.”
I stood there, ____________.
Suddenly I heard a poem, __________, called Kindness in my mind. It felt like the poem had been written for me________, for this exact moment, like the perfect helper__________on the scene at the instant of an accident. Kindness became my ________I read it before going to bed, and at breakfast every morning. It reminded me that this was not a __________, but a path to sympathy, and I was not walking alone. Even now, I __________Kindness several times a week to carry me ________ the heart of what really matters to me.
1.A. ran B. slept C. cleaned D. sang
2.A. dust B. paper C. clothes D. bedding
3.A. drawer B. player C. washer D. fridge
4.A. swept B. occupied C. decorated D. filled
5.A. wept B. left C. laughed D. listened
6.A. home B. life C. class D. mind
7.A. tunes B. rhymes C. words D. CDs
8.A. medicine B. food C. assistance D. attention
9.A. Still B. Yet C. Then D. Soon
10.A. surprised B. impressed C. warned D. rescued
11.A. faith B. savings C. hope D. expenses
12.A. hit B. blew C. pushed D. pressed
13.A. fearless B. thankless C. breathless D. defenseless
14.A. by coincidence B. out of nowhere C. in the distance D. by accident
15.A. immediately B. sincerely C. casually D. personally
16.A. reading B. arriving C. walking D. escaping
17.A. homework B. religion C. prayer D. memory
18.A. mistake B. lesson C. comfort D. tragedy
19.A. reach for B. dream of C. refer to D. meet with
20.A. for B. with C. off D. into
Some people get pleasure from picnics and tours. Others like to discuss various topics and find pleasure in it. But the reading of books provides us with such pleasure as we do not get from any other activity.
Books are written by learned people. They contain the best experiences and thoughts of their writers. Writers put in their books not only their own ideas and feelings, but also what they observe and find in society.1.
If we are in a cheerful mood, our joy is increased by reading.2.They provide us with the best advice and guidance in our difficulties. Indeed, books are our best friends as they help us in our hour of need.
3.They entertain us in our spare moments. Good novels, books on poetry and short stories, give us great enjoyment. At times we become so absorbed in our books that we forget even our important arrangements. Loneliness is no trouble for a reader.
4.They give us sound moral advice. It is through the reading of books that we learn what to love and what to hate. The reading of good books develops and improves our character.
It was the English author Bacon who said that reading makes a full man. No one can question the truth of this saying. 5.Some books are such that instead of doing any good, they do harm to the readers. So it is the reading of good books alone that presents us the greatest benefit.
A. Books keep us well-informed.
B. Books contain grains of wisdom.
C. When we are alone, books are our best friends.
D. Books enable us to know the best of the colorful world.
E. When we are in a depressed mood, books comfort our troubled minds.
F. But we cannot get full advantage from reading, if our choice is not good.
G. By reading books written by great thinkers, we come in contact with their minds.
There was a time when a trip to the supermarket in the United States often ended with a seemingly simple question from the cashier: “Paper or plastic?” Well, which type of bag would you choose?
While all types of bags have some influence on the environment, it has long been supposed that paper bags are kinder. They are made from a renewable source, break down easily, burn without giving off thick smoke and can be recycled. However, the producing process behind paper bags uses more energy than that of plastic ones. How can this be true?
Studies show that paper bag production requires four times as much energy as plastic bag production. And the amount of water used to make them is twenty times higher. Besides, the influence on forests is very serious. It takes about fourteen million trees to produce ten billion paper bags, which happens to be the number of bags used in the United States yearly. In terms of recycling, the idea that paper bags are more environment-friendly than plastic ones can be quickly discarded. Research shows it requires about 98% less energy to recycle plastic than it does paper.
Even though paper bags might be more harmful than plastic ones, plastic still seems to be considered by governments as the more harmful of the two. In Ireland, for example, a tax has been introduced to discourage the use of plastic bags. People have to pay 22 cents for every plastic bag, and as a result, their use has dropped quickly.
There’s no doubt that it makes more sense to reuse these bags. However, we don’t seem to be doing that at present. That may be because they fall apart quickly. If so, cloth bags are a better choice, but still, their production also has a bad influence on the environment. So what to do? How should we answer the question of “Paper or plastic?” It seems that we first need to ask ourselves one more general question: “What can I do to help the environment?”
1.The questions in Paragraph 1 are used to ________.
A. express the author’s doubts
B. tell readers how to save money
C. introduce points for discussion
D. show the kindness of the cashier
2.Compared with plastic bags, paper bags ________.
A. need more water to produce
B. require less energy to recycle
C. take more time to break down
D. have less influence on forests
3.The underlined word “discarded” in Paragraph 3 probably means “________”.
A. shared
B. given up
C. discussed
D. put forward
4.Which question does the author probably hope the cashier will ask?
A. Paper or cloth?
B. Paper or plastic?
C. A small bag or big one?
D. A new bag or your own one?
Forest are amazing and so are the animals that live in them. We enjoy watching TV shows about bears, bats or monkeys. We know a lot about their lives: how they find food or what they do at different times of the year. But what about smaller animals that are more difficult to see or film?
Many small animals that live in forests are very important for the soil. A French scientist, Francois Xavier Joly, is studying one of them — the millipede(千足虫).
The importance of leaves
When the leaves begin to die in fall, they turn from green to yellow and fall from the trees. As they decompose on the ground, nutrients(营养物质) are returned to the soil and carbon dioxide to the air. Life in the forest needs these nutrients. Without them, plants could not grow and there would be no food for animals such as the millipede.
Food on the forest floor
Some living things, like mushrooms, break the leaves into smaller pieces and eat them. In a few months there is nothing left of them. But for mushrooms, not all trees are the same. Mushrooms prefer some types of leaves to others. This means that some leaves take much longer to be broken down than others. Sometimes it takes years. So what happens to these? This is where the millipede can help.
More on the menu
The millipede also likes leaves and it eats any type. But when it has finished, it produces waste. This waste then becomes the food of mushrooms. When mushrooms eat leaves they choose only certain types but when they eat waste, they will eat any kind. This is how the millipede turns dead leaves into food for others and helps life continue.
So next time you are walking through a forest, remember that something may be having a meal right under your feet.
1.According to the passage, what can we learn about the millipede?
A. It can often be seen on TV shows.
B. It mostly feeds on the nutrients in the soil.
C. It is too small to be noticed by people.
D. It lives under mushrooms in the forest.
2.What does the underlined word "decompose" in Paragraph 3 mean?
A. Break down.
B. Dry up.
C. Dig in.
D. Make out.
3.What does the author want to tell us by mentioning mushrooms?
A. The millipede eats mushrooms in the forest.
B. The millipede helps to provide food for mushrooms.
C. Mushrooms play an important part in helping millipedes out.
D. Mushrooms decide what types of leaves the millipede will eat.
4.According to the author, the millipede is ________.
A. poisonous
B. rare
C. unimportant
D. amazing
On the day of college graduation, I told my friends and family the news:I was leaving the country I had lived in since childhood. “I just need a change,”I told them, but there was more. I was running from heartbreak. My relationship with the United States is the toughest one I have ever had, as a country I loved and believed in did not love me back.
Back in the 90’s, my mother brought me from our home in the Caribbean islands to the U.S.when I was 4 years old. She worked as a live-in nanny(保姆)for two years, playing mommy for white kids whose parents had better things to do. She didn’t believe that nanny meant maid, and did whatever was asked of her. She was thirsty to embrace her American dream, hoping that her children would be educated and she might have nannies of her own.
Those were our path to get a “good education.”When the neighborhoods with quality schools became too expensive for my mom to afford as a single parent, we went across the United States with Great Schools. net as our compass: New Jersey, elementary school; Texas, middle school; Florida, high school; New York City, private university
For a long time I survived by covering myself in all kinds of labels so that people would ignore the color of my skin, yet I existed on the edge of ugly, ignorant and uncultured. “Black people don’t really know how to swim, “a white lady told me when I worked as a swim instructor at my neighborhood’s pool. “The black children don’t like to read very much, “I overheard one librarian discussing with another while l sat down reading a book a couple feet away.
I was never able to make America my home. When I stripped myself of the labels painfully one by one, beneath them there is a wounded colored woman who refuses to be faceless anymore. My face may be disgusting to some since it bears proof that race continues to be a problem. My hope is that it will force Americans to re-examine their “post-racial” beliefs.
1.What was the real reason that made the author leave the United States?
A. It couldn’t provide her with good education.
B. She just needed a challenge in her way of life.
C. The way she was treated there broke her heart.
D. She was tired of living in a strange country.
2.What can we infer about the author’s mother from Paragraphs 2 and 3 ?
A. She sacrificed a lot to live a better life in America.
B. She was quite content to work as a live-in nanny.
C. She was particular about the schools her daughter attended.
D. She liked visiting all kinds of schools with the author.
3.The author gives two examples in Paragraph 4 to show that_____ .
A. how ignorant and uncultured many people are in US
B. she needed to cover herself in all kinds of labels
C. the race problem is still serious in the United States
D. black children often have no interest in reading books
4.The author’s attitude towards the United States on race problem is_____ .
A. supportive
B. positive
C. neutral
D. negative
