In 1993, New York State ordered stores to charge money on beverage (饮料) containers. Within a year, consumers had returned millions of aluminum cans and glass and plastic bottles. Plenty of companies were eager to accept the aluminum and glass as raw material for new products, but because few could figure out what to do with the plastic, much of it wound end up buried in landfills (垃圾填埋场). The problem was not limited to New York. Unfortunately, there were too few uses for second-hand plastic.
Today, one out of five plastic soda bottles is recycled in the United States. The reason for the change is that now there are dozens of companies across the country buying discarded (被丢弃的) plastic soda bottles and turning them into fence post, paint brushes, etc.
As the New York experience shows, recycling involves more than simply separating valuable materials from the rest of the rubbish. A discard remains a discard until somebody figures out how to give it a second life — and until economic arrangements exist to give that second life value. Without enough markets to take in materials collected for recycling, throwaways actually reduce prices for used materials.
Fewer landfill space and rising costs for burying and burning rubbish are forcing local governments to look more closely at recycling. In many areas, the East Coast especially, recycling is already the least expensive waste-management choice. For every ton of waste recycled, a city avoids paying for its disposal (清除，处理), which, in parts of New York, amounts to savings of more than $100 per ton. Recycling also stimulates the local economy by creating jobs and reduces the pollution control and energy costs of industries that make recycled products by giving them a better raw material.What regulation was issued by New York State concerning beverage containers?
| A．A fee should be charged on used containers for recycling. |
| B．Throwaways should be collected by the state for recycling. |
| C．Consumers had to pay for beverage containers and could get their money back on returning them. |
| D．Beverage companies should be responsible for collecting and reusing discarded plastic soda bottles. |
The returned plastic bottles in New York used to .
| A． be turned into raw materials |
| B． be separated from other rubbish |
| C． have a second-life value |
| D． end up somewhere underground |
The key problem in dealing with returned plastic beverage containers is .
| A． how to reduce their recycling costs |
| B． to sell them at a profitable price |
| C． how to turn them into useful things |
| D． to lower the prices for used materials |
Recycling has become the first choice for the disposal of rubbish because .
| A． recycling causes little pollution |
| B． other methods are more expensive |
| C． recycling has great appeal for the jobless |
| D． local governments find it easy to manage |
It can be concluded from the passage that .
| A． recycling is to be suggested both economically and environmentally |
| B． local governments in the U. S. can expect big profits from recycling |
| C． rubbish is a potential remedy for the shortage of raw materials |
| D． landfills will still be widely used for waste disposal |
Snapshots, the new fashion for an artistic portrait (肖像) photo: Take it underwater. Zhang Xiaomei, a 20 something Shanghai native who works in the media industry, tried it out twice.
"It was a completely different experience," says Zhang of her first such experience last May. "You get the feeling that you're cut off from the rest of the world. But also it s romantic and like a fairy tale."
She then successfully convinced her husband to be to have their wedding photos taken underwater a couple of months after her first try. "Can you imagine a 1.87-meter-tall man trying out something like a fishtail under the water?" Zhang says, laughing.
A commercial underwater photo portrait is perfect for post 80 and post 90 generations who adore taking snapshots, but are looking for new ways to be artistic, says Ai Cheng, owner and photographer of No.55 Underwater Photography in Shanghai.
Ai opened a studio in Shanghai's suburb of Songjiang two years ago, building a 5-meter- deep, fan-shaped pool equipped with heating facilities to start up the business. A 30-minute training on how to smile under the water so that you won't drink too much water and how to open your eyes underwater is offered in his studio for those who don't know how to swim.
Ai says most of his customers are female—half of them coming for an artistic portrait photo and the rest for wedding pictures. "Some of them drag their boyfriends or husband-to-be, who are unwilling to go down to the water, to shoot as well," he says.What would be the best title for the text?
| A．The Best Smiles May Be All Wet. |
| B．The Sweetest Smile in the World. |
| C．Smiling, a Universal Language. |
| D．A New Challenge, a New Trend. |
What does Zhang Xiaomei think of underwater snapshot?
| A．Funny. | B．Dangerous. | C．Fantastic. | D．Strange. |
Who are most likely to take photos underwater?
| A．Young people eager to be special. |
| B．Senior people to recall their old days. |
| C．Couples to celebrate their anniversary. |
| D．Artists to create new styles. |
It can be inferred from the last two paragraphs that ______.
| A．young people are in for this fashion |
| B．fewer men would show interest in this fashion |
| C．men are more romantic than women |
| D．women would like to take more adventures |
Over the past century, all kinds of unfairness and discrimination have been made illegal. But one popular form continues to exist, that is alphabetism (字母排序法). This, for those as yet unaware of such a disadvantage, refers to discrimination against those whose surnames(姓氏)begin with a letter in the lower half of the alphabet.
It has long been known that the cars of a taxi firm called AAAA have a big advantage over Zodiac cars when customers look through their phone directories. Less well known is the advantage that Adam Abbot has in life over Zoe Zysman. English names are fairly spread between the halves of the alphabet. Yet a quite large number of top people have surnames beginning with letters between A and K.
Thus the American presidents and vice-presidents have surnames starting with B and C separately and 26 of those before George Bush took office (including his father ) had surnames in the first half of the alphabet against just 16 in the second half. Even more striking, six of the seven heads of government of the G7 rich countries are alphabetically advantaged (Berlusconi, Blair, Bush, Chirac, Chretien and Koizumi). The world's three top central bankers ( Greenspan, Duisenberg and Hayami)are all close to the top of the alphabet, even if one of them really uses Japanese characters. The same case are the world's five richest men ( Gates, Buffet and so on) .
Can this merely happen by chance? At the start of the first year in primary school, teachers seat pupils, alphabetically from the front, to make it easier to remember their names. So shortsighted and small-sized Zysman junior gets stuck in the back row, and is seldom asked the improving questions by those teachers. At that time the alphabetically disadvantaged may think they have had a lucky escape. Yet the result may be worse qualifications, because they get less attention, as well as less confidence in speaking publicly.
The unfairness continues. At university graduation parties, the ABCs proudly get their awards first. However, by the time they reach the Zysmans most people are a little tired. Lists of job interviews and conference speakers and attendees all tend to be drawn up alphabetically, and their readers lose interest as they plough through them.What does the author intend to show with AAAA cars and Zodiac cars?
| A．An example of competition of two kinds of cars. |
| B．Some advantages of AAAA cars in the taxi firm. |
| C．An example of unfairness caused by alphabetism. |
| D．Some disadvantages of Zodiac cars in the taxi firm. |
What can we infer from the first three paragraphs?
| A．The alphabet is to blame for the failure of Zoe Zysman. |
| B．In both East and West, names are important to success. |
| C．Customers often pay a lot of attention to companies' names. |
| D．The discrimination in alphabetism can be found in many areas. |
The fourth paragraph suggests that .
| A．alphabetically disadvantaged often escape from class |
| B．teachers should pay equal attention to all their students |
| C．questions are often put to the more intelligent students |
| D．students should be seated according to their eyesight |
Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?
| A．VIPs in the western world gain a great deal from alphabetism. |
| B．People with surnames beginning with N to Z are often misunderstood. |
| C．Putting things alphabetically may lead to unintentional unfairness. |
| D．The movement to get rid of alphabetism still has a long way to go. |
A report brought back by most visitors to the US is how friendly, polite, and helpful most Americans were to them. To be fair, this observation is also frequently made of Canada and Canadians, and should best be considered North American. There are, of course, exceptions. Small-minded officials, rude waiters, and ill-mannered taxi drivers are hardly unknown in the US. Yet American’s friendliness and helpfulness is an observation made so frequently that it deserves comment.
For a long period of time and in many parts of the country, a traveler was a welcome break in an otherwise dull existence. Dullness and loneliness were common problems of the families who generally lived distant from one another. Strangers and travelers were welcome sources of distraction, and brought news of the outside world．
The tough realities of the border also shaped this tradition of hospitality. Someone traveling alone, if hungry, injured, or ill, often had nowhere to turn except to the nearest settler agent. It was not a matter of choice for the traveler or only a charitable impulse (冲动） on the part of the settlers. It reflected the hardship of daily life: if you didn't take in the stranger and take care of him, there was no one else who would. And someday, remember, you might be in the same situation．
Today there are many charitable organizations which specialize in helping the exhausted traveler. Yet, the old tradition of hospitality to strangers is still very strong in the US, especially in the smaller cities and towns away from the busy tourist routes. "I was just traveling through, got talking with this American, and pretty soon he invited me home for dinner, amazing." Such observations reported by visitors to the US are not uncommon, but are not always understood properly. The casual friendliness of many Americans should be understood neither as superficial（表面的）nor as artificial（虚伪的）, but as the result of a historically developed cultural tradition.
As is true of any developed society, in America a complex set of cultural signals and customs is the basis of all social inter-relationships. And, of course, speaking a language does not necessarily mean that someone understands social and cultural patterns. Visitors who fail to "translate" cultural meanings properly often draw wrong conclusions. For example when an American uses the word "friend", the cultural meanings of the word may be quite different from those it has in the visitor's language and culture. It takes more than a brief encounter on a bus to tell polite customs from individual interest. Yet, being friendly is a virtue （美德） that many Americans value highly and expect from both neighbors and strangers.In the eyes of visitors from the outside world, ________．
| A．rude taxi drivers are hardly seen in the US |
| B．small-minded officials deserve a serious comment |
| C．Canadians are not so friendly as their neighbors |
| D．most Americans are ready to offer help |
We can know from the last paragraph that _______．
| A．culture has an influence over social inter-relationship |
| B．polite customs and individual interest are inter-related |
| C．various virtues shows themselves only among friends |
| D．social inter-relationships equal the complex set of cultural customs |
Families who lived far from one another used to entertain strangers _______．
| A．to improve their hard life | B．in view of their long-distance travel |
| C．to add some taste to their own daily life | D．out of a charitable impulse |
The tradition of hospitality to strangers _______．
| A．tends to be superficial and artificial |
| B．is generally well kept up in the United States |
| C．is always understood properly |
| D．has something to do with the busy tourist route |
When Jean Calment entered the world in 1875, telephones and automobiles still lay in the future. Albert Einstein and Pablo Picasso were not yet born. The Eiffel Tower was 14 years from being built. As a teenager, she met Vincent Van Gogh, near her home in Arles, in the south of France. He was “very ugly, ungracious, impolite, sick—I forgive him, they called him loco.” She recalled. When she died last week at age 122, she was the world’s oldest person. (There were others who claimed to the title, but only Calment had the official documents to prove her age)
Each February 21, her birthday, she would share the secrets of long life. Some years it was “a sense of humor”, others it was “keeping busy”. “God may have forgotten me,” she once explained. The truth probably was that she had good genes. Her mother reportedly lived to be 86 and her father 94.
Her life had its sadness: she outlived her husband, her only daughter and her grandson. According to a friend, she was imperturbable. “If you can’t do anything about it,” she reportedly said, “don’t worry about it.”
In her last years she was nearly blind and deaf, but her health remained good. She ate a few bars of chocolate each week and continued smoking until a few years ago, when she could no longer light her own cigarettes. She never lost her sense of humor. On her 110th birthday, she commented, “I have only ever had one wrinkle, and I am sitting on it.” Her longevity made her famous. Her spirits made her eternal(永恒的)Why does the author mention Albert Einstein, Pablo Picasso and the Eiffel Tower?
| A．To show that Calment had seen famous people and things. |
| B．To emphasize that Calement was born a long time ago. |
| C．To indicate that Calement is just as famous. |
| D．To admire the knowledge that Calement had. |
The author believes that Calment’s longevity is mainly due to _____.
| A．a sense of humor | B．being kept busy | C．belief in God | D．good genes |
The underlined word imperturbable means ______.
| A．calm | B．humorous | C．friendly | D．healthy |
Toward the end of the story, the author seems to be impressed by Calment’s _____.
| A．attitude | B．religious belief | C．knowledge | D．lifestyle |
Are you feeling stressed out? Anxious? Is your mind racing in circles? Are you worried about all the things you have to get done? Here’s a quick—acting trick that can make you feel better.
If you are sitting at a desk, place the palm of your hand on the desk, and take a moment to focus on what the surface of the desk feels like. Is it hot or cold, rough or smooth? Put all of your attention on the sensations in your palm, on how the desk feels underneath your hand. If you are not at a desk, do the same exercise by placing your palm on any nearby object—a wall, a chair, even your opposite arm.
When you are feeling stressed, your thoughts tend to take on a life of their own. You may be thinking about things you wish you had done differently in the past or worrying about things that you have to do in the future. These thoughts will make you feel anxious. The anxiety, in turn, increases the number of anxious thoughts.
If you can ground yourself even for a moment in the present, you will break the cycle and feel instant relief. Paying attention to what objects in your environment feel like forces you to pay more attention to the present moment than to negative, anxiety—provoking (刺激的，诱发的)thoughts about the past or about the future.
Try using your other senses too:
Try closing your eyes for a second(don’t try this while driving!) and breathe deeply through your nose. What do you smell?
When eating, put all your attention on how your food tastes.
What do you hear? What little noises are there around you that you didn’t notice before?
Look closely at an ordinary object. Do you see anything you haven’t noticed before?By saying “Is your mind racing in circles”, the author intends to mean that______.
| A．you did something wrong in the past and wouldn’t forgive yourself |
| B．your mind is quick and bright when in a state of anxiety |
| C．you are thinking in a stupid way when anxious thoughts worries you a lot |
| D．you worried a lot and the anxious thoughts will increase your anxiety |
The author advises to put your palm on the desk or any things nearby in order to ____
| A．play a small trick | B．feel the surface of the object |
| C．do some exercises | D．reduce your anxiety |
The writer mentioned some senses that could be used to reduce stress except the _____.
| A．sense of touching | B．sense of smell | C．sense of humour | D．sense of listening |
Which of the following can be served as a title for the article?
| A．Frist Aid to Anxiety----Senses |
| B．How Anxiety Works |
| C．The Cause of Anxiety—Senses |
| D．How to Deal with Anxiety |
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