.
Millions of people visit Yosemite National Park every year to see the tall waterfalls and mountains. The mountains are a splendid sight when viewed from the valley floor. Lots of stores, hotels, and restaurants are needed to handle the crowds. Also, water, roads, and other service systems are part of the infrastructure(基础设施)that must be maintained.
Unfortunately, these systems are starting to break down. It’s not just in Yosemite but in national parks around the nation.
Yosemite is thirty years old according to Dennis Galvin, a National Park Service worker. The park is not only old but worn out. Two or three times as many visitors come every year. That is too many visitors for the park to deal with.
Four years ago a storm washed out a water pipeline in the Grand Canyon. The National Park service had to send water trucks to provide water for the visitors. Last month pipes almost broke again and roads had to be closed for a while.
Why hasn’t the National Park Service kept up the park repairs? There is a lack of money. The United States has 378 monuments, parks, and wilderness areas. Between three and four billion dollars are needed for repairs.
Yosemite is one national park that does have money for repairs. It has two hundred million dollars but cannot spend it any way it chooses. When the park workers started widening the road, they were forced to stop by the Sierra Club. The club claimed that the road work was damaging the Merced River that runs through the park.
A Sierra Club lawyer, Julia Olson, feels that the infrastructure needs to be moved out of Yosemite. That way less pressure will be put on the already crowded park.
47. According to the text, the mountains in Yosemite look most splendid when they are appreciated from _______.
A. the bottom of the valleys B. the top of the mountains
C. the side of the mountains D. the edge of the valleys
48. National parks like Yosemite in the U.S. find it increasingly difficult to meet the need of visitors because ________.
A. the transport management needs improving
B. they spend too much on their service systems
C. their service systems frequently go out of order
D. they need help from environmental organizations
49. The main problem of Yosemite National Park is its _______.
A. rundown water pipes B. overcrowdedness C. lack of money D. narrow roads
50. According to the text, the Sierra Club is most likely to be ______.
A. an environmental group B. an information center
C. a travel service D. a law firm
China may be the world’s largest market for e-bikes, but Europe is fast catching up. The EU’s official statistics agency says the figure reached the one million e-bike mark two years ago, and sales have sharply increased since then.
When working errands (差事) around Berlin, Lutz, who usually works with horses, uses the company’s new e-bike that charges easily and has a range of 140 kilometers. “We found there was no parking spot problem or other worries. And on top of all this, we don’t pollute the environment. Petrol is also saved,” said Lutz Baddack, owner of Reitsport Baddack.
Unlike many other parts of the world, the EU does not require registration (登记) for e-bikes. Nearly half a million are expected to be sold in Germany this year, in all shapes and sizes.
It’s not just bike fans buying them. People who usually drive cars also use them occasionally,” said Stefan Gelbhaar.
Dealers say the elderly are also big customers. Sales of ordinary bicycles fell in Germany last year, but sales of e-bikes rose by eight percent. Sales figures are expected to keep rising. “In five years we will have the market share of 20 percent, maybe more,” said Marcus Kendler, owner of E-Motion. In the hillier parts, that figure has already been beyond it.
The sales of e-bikes in Germany have been much larger than those in any other country in Europe. But other countries are fast catching up. In Europe, with the various brands at the market and falling prices, e-bikes are here to stay and not just a repeated trend.In Germany the sales of e-bikes _________.
| A．have been the biggest in Europe |
| B．have been larger than in China |
| C．reached one million two years ago |
| D．have taken up 20% of the market |
Which of the following is NOT the benefit of using e-bikes?
| A．The users needn’t worry about parking spots. |
| B．It’s environmentally friendly and saves petrol. |
| C．The users are not required to register worldwide. |
| D．It charges easily and runs far without charging. |
From the passage we know that e-bikes are preferred by those _________.
| A．who work with horses |
| B．who usually drive cars |
| C．who are out on business |
| D．who live in the hillier parts |
It can be inferred from the passage that _________.
| A．the popularity of e-bikes in Europe will be lasting |
| B．in Europe there are various brands of e-bikes on sale |
| C．e-bikes will replace ordinary bicycles in only five years |
| D．Europe will become the world’s largest market of e-bikes |
San Francisco(People's Daily Online)-- Apple Inc. Tuesday introduced its mobile payment service Apple Pay alongside the company's iPhone 6 Plus and Apple Watch at the Flint Center in Cupertino, California.
What apple does is to replace consumers' wallet with its cell phone. Apple said it hopes to speed up the checkout process, make credit-card payments more secure and ultimately, to replace physical wallets.
With the near-field communication technology, Apple's gadgets like iPhone and Apple watch can transmit a radio signal between the device and a receiver when the two are in an inch apart. "To pay, just hold your iPhone near the contactless reader with your finger on Touch ID. You don’t even have to look at the screen to know your payment information was successfully sent," Apple says on its official website.
Apple said that each transaction (交易)would be authorized(授权) with a one-time, unique number, creating a security code that it said is more secure than the one on the back of your credit card because cashiers won’t see your name, card number or security code. The service will work with the three major payment networks — American Express, MasterCard and Visa — and Apple said that there are 220,000 merchant locations that accept these contactless payments.
When some applaud this disrupted service that will compete with Paypal and endanger other online payment companies, some others concern about its safety, especially when another retailer Home Depot confirmed a data opening yesterday and iCloud was reported exposing nude (裸体)pictures of celebrities (名人) a week ago.
Leo Zheng, a technology reporter in Silicon Valley said: "When Apple attracts consumers to put all their cards into one iPhone and promised the security, Jennifer Lawrence should say something."Which can be the best title for the passage?
| A．Apple announces mobile payment service to replace consumers' wallet. |
| B．Consumers can pay in cash through mobile phones. |
| C．Apple Inc. will introduce new models to the market. |
| D．Mobile payment will be popular soon. |
After reading the third paragraph, we know .
| A．Apple’s new products are popular |
| B．Apple can be used as an ID |
| C．Apple's gadgets can receive message easily |
| D．how Apple's gadgets work |
The attitude of the writer towards the mobile payment is .
| A．indifferent (冷漠的) | B．objective |
| C．skeptical | D．positive |
What could have happened to Jennifer Lawrence?
| A．She made great contributions to Apple. |
| B．She put all her cards into her iPhone. |
| C．Her nude pictures were spread online. |
| D．Her iPhone often broke down. |
A Bite of China, featuring delicious Chinese food, has attracted countless viewers, and moved many to tears.
A Bite of China is a serious documentary providing a unique view of Chinese as well as the relations between people and food and between people and society from the view of food. The touching documentary reminds some people of their mother, and makes some realize that every grain comes from hard and laborious work. Some people see patriotism(爱国精神) in the documentary, and some consider it a great cultural export.
How did this documentary achieve a great influence beyond its subject matter in such a short time?
“It is not empty propaganda(宣传) about China’s splendid food culture. Instead, it shows the techniques used in making food and their production process as well as the lives of ordinary people, thus striking a chord(共鸣) with the audience,” an Internet user said. The success of the documentary should be owed to sincerity and reality. Nowadays, many works of art that have high investment, high technology, and magnificent scenes lack nothing but sincerity and reality.
A Bite of China shows that a commercial documentary promoting patriotism can be full of touching details, that the emotions of ordinary Chinese people should be exhibited even in publicizing(宣传) China overseas, and that even a completely commercial program can achieve both artistic and commercial success.
“We made this documentary with our respect and love for food,” said director Chen Xiaoqing. Being sincere is the most important thing for artists because they cannot move others unless they themselves are first moved, and cannot convince others unless they themselves are first convinced. Sincerity is the “secret” for making this documentary so popular, and every cultural creator should learn from its success.According to the passage, A Bite of China is _______.
| A．a book | B．a film |
| C．a newspaper | D．a TV program |
What can you find in A Bite of China?
| A．Relations between people and food. |
| B．Real lives of all Chinese people. |
| C．Patriotic stories of Chinese people. |
| D．processes of preparing food. |
From the passage, it can be inferred that ________.
| A．The documentary is so successful that no one can surpass (超越) it. |
| B．Different people can get different messages from the documentary. |
| C．The documentary should have shown China’s splendid food culture. |
| D．Many art works fail to reflect (反映) reality and high technology. |
The main idea of the last paragraph is that ________.
| A．Director’s respect and love for food. |
| B．The secret of the documentary’s success. |
| C．The influence of the documentary. |
| D．The popularity of the documentary. |
Children who are brought up by two parents grow up to be cleverer than those raised by just one person, new research suggests. Being with both parents in the earliest years of life leads to a child developing more brain cells, the scientists believe. Being brought up by both parents causes boys to have better memory and learning functions. By contrast, it causes girls to develop improved co-ordination and sociability.
It is believed that babies with two parents tend to get more attention and more stability(稳定), and that they are less likely to suffer emotional distress(悲伤) in the first years of life. This leads to greater brain cell production ------ for boys it is grey matter brain cells that develop and for girls is white matter brain cells.
The researchers from Canada studied mice and experimented by creating one-parent and two-parent family groups. They then measured the offspring’s(后代的) brain cell development from birth to adulthood. Adult mice with the highest number of brain cells turned out to be those who had been brought up by two parents rather than one. As babies they had received more attention and more nursing as both parents took turns to lick and tend to their youngsters, said Dr Samuel Weiss.
As a result, the babies with two parents are less likely to suffer early life hurt which can have a massive impact on how their brains develop in later life, the research shows. However, what did surprise the researchers is that female babies who grew up with both parents turned out to be good single mothers, as if good parenting was passed on.
The researchers said,“ In the mouse model, parenting and the environment directly impacted adult brain cell production. It is possible that similar effects could be seen in other mammals, such as humans.”From the first paragraph we can draw a conclusion that ________.
| A．Girls have better memory and learning functions. |
| B．Boys are better at co-ordination and sociability. |
| C．The benefits vary between the sexes. |
| D．The benefits are the same between the sexes. |
The researchers proved their idea ________.
| A．by questionnaire on parents. |
| B．by experiment on mice. |
| C．by raising babies themselves. |
| D．by experiment on humans. |
The underlined word “impacted” means _________.
| A．destroyed | B．constructed |
| C．influenced | D．disagreed |
What does the passage mainly tell us?
| A．Children brought up by two parents are cleverer. |
| B．Children brought up by single parent are cleverer. |
| C．Children grow up themselves are cleverer. |
| D．Children grow up themselves are more self-confident. |
Right now in China, talks on the street have been about the strange weather and it's raising a lot of concerns. A heavy haze(雾霾) has blanketed many cities in the northern and southern parts of the country in part of an unusual weather system that’s descended on the nation.
The haze stretches over a vast area, from Hebei and Shan-dong Provinces in the north all the way to Zhejiang, Anhui, Jiangsu, Hunan and Fujian provinces in the south. At its worst, the smog is reducing visibility to less than 200 meters and disrupting traffic, both on the ground and in the air. The weather front has also led many to worry about the possible health impacts.
Many cities are waking up to another day covered by a dense haze. In Beijing, drivers have to keep their lights on even though it’s already past eight o’clock in the morning. Even driving at very slow speeds, the roads can still be very dangerous. In some of the worst hit areas, drivers can’t even tell the colors of traffic signals. Authorities have stepped in to close off many highways across the troubled region. In Shandong Province, the highways that are open are backed up for miles. And traffic police have stepped up their patrols.
In the region’s airports, flights information boards have gone red. A huge number of flights have been delayed or cancelled, nearly three hundred in Beijing alone, leaving thousands of passengers stranded. Some are more frustrated than impatient. Passenger from Jinan airport, Shangdong province, said: “I’ve been waiting for more than five hours. It’s Mother Nature, so there’s really nothing we can do.” The airport is urging passengers to confirm with their carrier whether their flight will still take off as scheduled.
Back on the city streets, people are wearing breathing masks to get free from any ill effects. Fog has cleared a little in Shanghai. But damage has already been done. Shanghai resident said: “I’ve been wearing the mask, but still, my throat feels sour and itchy. I think it’s because of the weather.”
The weather forecast predicts a cold front is about to sweep across central and eastern China tomorrow. Many are hoping that this will clear away the depressive haze as well as the harm it brings.The harm the smog caused didn’t include .
| A．reducing visibility to less than 200 meters |
| B．disrupting traffic |
| C．health problems |
| D．heavy fog |
Which of the following is true according to the passage?
| A．Only a small part of China suffered the haze. |
| B．Many highways were blocked up |
| C．All the flights were delayed or cancelled |
| D．The bad weather would last another few days |
When the passenger said “It is Mother Nature”, he had a feeling of .
| A．impatience | B．frustration |
| C．Anxiety | D．curiosity |
The passage is developed by .
| A．making comparisons |
| B．giving examples |
| C．following the time order |
| D．analyzing the causes |
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