A new factory that turns used wine bottles into green sand could revolutionize the recycling industry and help to filter(过滤) the nation's drinking water.
For the last 100 years special high grade white sand quarried(开采) at Leighton Buzzard in Bedfordshire has been used to filter tap water to remove bacteria and impurities—but this may no longer be necessary.
The green sand has already been successfully tested by water companies and is being used in 50 swimming pools in Scotland to keep the water clean.
Backed by one million pounds from the European Union and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs(Defar), a company based in Scotland is building a factory to turn beverage bottles back into the sand from which they were made.
The idea is not only to avoid using up increasingly scarce sand in Scotland and avoid any further quarrying but also to solve a crisis in the recycles only 750 000 tones of it.
Howard Dryden, the scientist and managing director of the company has spent six years working on what he calls Active Filtration Meadia, or AFM, the recycled glass. He says he needs bottles that have already contained drinkable liquids to be sure that drinking water would not be polluted.
"The fact is that tests show that AFM does the job better than glass, it is easier to clean and reuse and has all sorts of properties that make it ideal for other applications, "he claimed. He also thinks the market will be able to take 250 000 tones of green sand a year. The plan is to build five or six factories in cites in UK where the bottles come from to cut down on transport.
The factory will be completed this month and is expected to go into full production on January 14 next year. Once it is providing a "regular" product, the government's drinking water inspectorate will be asked to perform tests and approve it for general use by water companies.It may no longer be necessary to use high-grade white sand to keep water clean because____.
| A．the green sand has been used to keep the water clean |
| B．there is no need to keep water clean |
| C．a new factory has been set up |
| D．white sand is being use up |
According to the passage, the new idea can do the following except ______.
| A．cutting down the cost on transport |
| B．avoiding using up increasingly scarce sand |
| C．avoiding further quarrying of white sand |
| D．solving the crisis in the recycling industry |
Tests show that ______ in keeping the water clean.
A. AFM is more efficient than white sand
B. white sand is more efficient than green sand
C. AFM is more efficient than glass
D, glass is more efficient than AFMThe underlined word "Backed" in the fourth paragraph can best be replaced by "______".
| A．Allowed | B．Opposed |
| C．Supported | D．Forbidden |
I was in a strange city I didn’t know at all, and what’s more, I could not speak a word of the language. On my second day I got on the first bus that passed, rode on it for several stops, then got off and walked on. The first two hours passed pleasantly enough, then I decided to turn back to my hotel for lunch. After walking about for some time, I decided I had better ask the way. The trouble was that the only word I knew of the language was the name of the street in which I lived, and even that I pronounced badly. I stopped to ask a newspaper-seller. He handed me a paper. I shook my head and repeated the name of the street and he put the paper into my hands. I had to give him some money and went on my way. The next person.I asked was a policeman. He listened to me carefully, nodded and gently took me by the arm. There was a strange look in his eyes as he pointed left and right and left again. I nodded politely and began walking in the direction he pointed.
About an hour passed and I noticed that the houses were getting fewer and fewer and green fields were appearing on either side of me. I had come all the way into the countryside. The only thing left for me to do was find the nearest railway station.The writer preferred to walk back to his hotel because.
| A．he had no money to buy a ticket |
| B．he wanted to lose himself in the city |
| C．he tried to know the city in this way |
| D．it was late and there were no buses passing by |
From the story we know that the policeman______.
| A．was kind but didn’t understand the writer |
| B．told the writer where to take a train |
| C．knew what the writer really meant |
| D．was cold-hearted and didn’t help the writer |
What can we learn from the last paragraph?
| A．The writer got close to the hotel where he stayed. |
| B．The writer got to the hotel with the policeman’s help. |
| C．The writer found he was much farther away from the hotel. |
| D．The writer found the hotel in the direction the policeman pointed. |
In your opinion, what was the writer’s real trouble?
| A．He didn’t know the city at all. | B．He couldn’t speak the language. |
| C．He went too far in the wrong bus. | D．He followed the policeman’s direction. |
The French Revolution broke out in 1789. At the time France was in a crisis. The government was badly run and people's lives were miserable. King Louis XIV tried to control the national parliament and raise more taxes. But his effort failed. He ordered his troops to Versailles. The people thought that Louis intended to put down the Revolution by force. On July 14, 1789, they stormed and took the Bastille, where political prisoners were kept. Ever since that day, July 14 has been the French National Day. Louis tried to flee the country in 1792, to get support from Austria and Prussia. However, he was caught and put in prison. In September 1792, the monarchy(君主制) was abolished_. In the same year, Louis was executed. A few months later his wife, Marie also had her head cut off. The Revolution of France had frightened the other kings of Europe. Armies from Austria and Prussia began to march against France. The French raised republican armies to defend the nation. The Revolution went through a period of terror. Thousands of people lost their lives. In the end, power passed to Napoleon Bonaparte.What's this passage about?
| A．France. | B．King Louis. |
| C．The French Revolution. | D．Europe. |
Which did not happen in 1789?
| A．The French Revolution broke out. |
| B．The national economy was developing rapidly. |
| C．The government wasn't well run. |
| D．King Louis XIV was in power. |
What does the underlined word "abolished" mean?
| A．Put off. |
| B．Established. |
| C．United. |
| D．Ended. |
What was NOT the effect of the Revolution?
| A．July 14 has become the French National Day. |
| B．It brought some impact on the other European kings. |
| C．Louis's wife, Marie was killed. |
| D．The king tried to control the national parliament. |
Background music may seem harmless, but it can have a powerful effect on those who hear it. Recorded background music first found its way into factories, shops and restaurants in the USA. Very soon it spread to other parts of the world. Now it is becoming difficult to go shopping or eat a meal without listening to background music.
To begin with, background music was intended simply to create a soothing (舒适的) atmosphere. Recently, however, it's becoming a big business. An American marketing expert has shown that music can boost(提升) sales or increase factory production by as much as a third.
But it has to be the light music. Lively music has no effect at all on sales. Slow music can increase receipts(收入) by 34%. This is probably because shoppers slow down and have more opportunity to spot items they would like to buy. Yet, slow music isn't always the answer. The expert found that in restaurants slow music meant customers took longer to eat their meals, which reduced overall sales. So restaurant owners might be well advised to play faster music to keep the customers moving-unless, of course, the resulting indigestion(消化不良) leads to complaints.Background music was first used ________.
| A．in the cinemas and theatres in the USA |
| B．in the offices and hospitals in the USA |
| C．in the schools and churches in the USA |
| D．in the factories, shops and restaurants in the USA |
An American marketing expert has found background music can __________.
| A．increase sales or factory production |
| B．create a soothing atmosphere |
| C．make people slow down |
| D．make people forget their worries |
Slow music is useless in ________ in increasing sales.
| A．shops |
| B．restaurants |
| C．factories |
| D．cinemas |
Restaurant owners are advised to play ________ to increase overall sales.
| A．lively music |
| B．loud music |
| C．slower music |
| D．faster music |
People have been talking about health for a long time because people know the importance of it. People's understanding of health also becomes deeper with the progress in scientific research. Recently the term "health" has come to have a wider meaning than it used to. It no longer means just the absence of illness. Today, health means the well-being of your body, your mind and your relationship with other people. This new concept of health is closely related to another term-quality of life. Quality of life is the degree of overall satisfaction that a person gets from life.
Why has the emphasis of health shifted from the absence of disease to a broader focus on the quality of a person's life? One reason for this has to do with the length and conditions of life that people can now expect. Medical advances have made it possible for people today to live longer, healthier lives. Imagine for a moment that you were born in the year 1900. You could have expected on average to live until about the age of 47. In contrast, if you were born in the year 1999, you could expect to live to the age of 75.________ leads to people's deeper understanding of health.
| A．Common knowledge |
| B．Progress in scientific research |
| C．Better conditions of living |
| D．Quality of life |
The emphasis of health has shifted nowadays because _________.
| A．people enjoy better conditions of living and they can live longer |
| B．people pay more attention to their physical health, not their mental health |
| C．people have realized the importance of mental well-being |
| D．people are inspired by medical advances |
We can infer from the passage __________.
| A．nowadays the emphasis of health has a broader focus because of improvements in the quality of food |
| B．the overall quality of people's lives improved greatly in the 20th century |
| C．those who never fall ill are the truly healthy people |
| D．those who were born before 1900 could not have lived until now |
This passage is mainly about __________.
| A．different understandings of the term "health" |
| B．improving the quality of life |
| C．the importance of quality living |
| D．people's expectations of a long and healthy life |
Anyone who ever wondered why a dying plant, say, a freshly-cut red rose may appeal to a lady friend, might take some comfort in science, which once again offers us a reasonable answer to one of the world’ s great mysteries.
Beyond a common preference in people for blue, “the long history of color preference studies has been described as ‘confusing and contradictory,” write scientists Anya Hurlbert and Yazhu Ling of England’ s Newcastle University, authors of a new study in the journal Current Biology. “This fact is perhaps surprising,” they said, “though the popularity of the concept that little girls differ from boys in preferring pink.”.
But the scientists believe they have an answer to this scientific mystery, discovering women’s preference for red, hidden above the average liking for blue.
In their study, the pair quickly flashed color cards, displaying many different aspects, at 208 volunteers, mostly Britishers but with a number of Han Chinese, who moved to the United Kingdom recently. Tested in three different experiments, the researchers found out a small but significant preference for reddish colors in the female volunteers.
Puzzled, the authors realized that most of the difference between men and women came in the form of a preference for green VS red in the color cards, regardless of the other slight differences such as the slightly blue ones that everyone liked. Why might this be?
Evolution might offer an answer, they reason. Human color perception（感知）, the assessment of three separate color types-red-green-blue-in our vision is a relatively recent addition to our line of mammals.
Adding weight to their argument, they found the women who are most typically feminine（女性的）on a psychological survey also had the biggest preference for reddish colors. “My love is like a red, red rose,” wrote the Scottish poet Rober Burns in 1794.The scientists discovered the colour mystery that exists between men and women by _____..
| A．giving examples | B．doing experiments. |
| C．stating causes and effects | D．interviewing volunteers. |
The word “pair” in Para.4 refers to _____.
| A．man and woman | B．science and evolution . |
| C．Anya Hurlbert and Yazhu Ling | D．red and green |
According to the study the scientists have carried out in the passage, _____.
| A．men like blue most. |
| B．women have preference for red besides blue. |
| C．generally speaking boys prefer slight pink to blue. |
| D．girls also love slight green. |
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