- Picture a "ghost ship" sinking into the sand, left to rot on dry land by a receding sea. Then imagine dust storms sweeping up toxic pesticides and chemical fertilizers from the dry seabed and spewing them across towns and villages.Seem like a scene from a movie about the end of the world? For people living near the Aral Sea in Central Asia, it's all too real. Thirty years ago, government planners diverted the rivers that flow into the sea in order to irrigate (provide water for) farmland. As a result, the sea has shrunk to half its original size, stranding ships on dry land. The seawater has tripled in salt content and become polluted, killing all 24 native species of fish.Similar large-scale efforts to redirect water in other parts of the world have also ended in ecological crisis, according to numerous environmental groups. But many countries continue to build massive dams and irrigation systems, even though such projects can create more problems than they fix. Why? People in many parts of the world are desperate for water, and more people will need more water in the next century."Growing populations will worsen problems with water," says Peter H. Gleick, an environmental scientist at the Pacific Institute for studies in Development, Environment, and Security, a research organization in California. He fears that by the year 2025, as many as one third of the world's projected 8.3 billion people will suffer from water shortages.Where Water GoesOnly 2.5 percent of all water on Earth is freshwater, water suitable for drinking and growing food, says Sandra Postel, director of the Global Water Policy Project in Amherst, Mass. Two-thirds of this freshwater is locked in glaciers and ice caps.In fact, only a tiny percentage of freshwater is part of the water cycle, in which water evaporates and rises into the atmosphere, then condenses and falls back to Earth as precipitation (rain or snow).Some precipitation runs off land to lakes and oceans, and some becomes groundwater, water that seeps into the earth. Much of this renewable freshwater ends up in remote places like the Amazon river basin in Brazil, where few people live.In fact, the world's population has access to only 12,500 cubic kilometers of freshwater—about the amount of water in Lake Superior. And people use half of this amount already. "If water demand continues to climb rapidly," says Postel, "there will be severe shortages and damage to the aquatic environment."Close to HomeWater woes may seem remote to people living in rich countries like the United States. But Americans could face serious water shortages, too especially in areas that rely on groundwater. Groundwater accumulates in aquifers, layers of sand and gravel that lie between soil and bedrock. (For every liter of surface water, more than 90 liters are hidden underground.)Although the United States has large aquifers, farmers, ranchers, and cities are tapping many of them for water faster than nature can replenish it. In northwest Texas, for example, over pumping has shrunk groundwater supplies by 25 percent, according to Postel.Americans may face even more urgent problems from pollution. Drinking water in the United States is generally safe and meets high standards. Nevertheless, one in five Americans every day unknowingly drinks tap water contaminated with bacteria and chemical wastes, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. In Milwaukee, 400,000 people fell ill in 1993 after drinking tap water tainted with cryptosporidium, a microbe that causes fever, diarrhea and vomiting.The SourceWhere do contaminants come from? In developing countries, people dump raw sewage into the same streams and rivers from which they draw water for drinking and cooking; about 250 million people a year get sick from water borne diseases.In developed countries, manufacturers use 100,000 chemical compounds to make a wide range of products. Toxic chemicals pollute water when released untreated into rivers and lakes. (Certain compounds, such as polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, have been banned in the United States.)But almost everyone contributes to water pollution. People often pour household cleaners, car antifreeze, and paint thinners down the drain; all of these contain hazardous chemicals. Scientists studying water in the San Francisco Bay reported in 1996 that 70 percent of the pollutants could be traced to household waste.Farmers have been criticized for overusing herbicides and pesticides, chemicals that kill weeds and insects but that pollute water as well. Farmers also use nitrates, nitrogen-rich fertilizer that help plants grow but that can wreak havoc on the environment. Nitrates are swept away by surface runoff to lakes and seas. Too many nitrates "over enrich" these bodies of water, encouraging the buildup of algae, or microscopic plants that live on the surface of the water. Algae deprive the water of oxygen that fish need to survive, at times choking off life in an entire body of water.What’s the Solution?Water expert Gleick advocates conservation and local solutions to water-related problems; governments, for instance, would be better off building small-scale dams rather than huge and disruptive projects like the one that ruined the Aral Sea. "More than 1 billion people worldwide don’t have access to basic clean drinking water," says Gleick. "There has to be a strong push on the part of everyone—governments and ordinary people—to make sure we have a resource so fundamental to life."What caused the Aral Sea to shrink?（ ）
- We each have a memory. That’s why we can still remember things after a long time. Some people have very good memories and they can easily learn many things by heart, but some people can only remember things when they say or do them again and again. Many of the great men of the world have got surprising memories.A good memory is a great help in learning a language. Everybody learns his mother language when he is a small child. He hears the sounds, remembers them and then he learns to speak. Some children are living with their parents in foreign countries. They can learn two languages as easily as one because they hear, remember and speak two languages every day. In school it is not so easy to learn a foreign language because the pupils have so little time for it, and they are busy with other subjects, too. But your memory will become better and better when you do more and more exercises.Everybody learns his mother language ________.（ ）
- Recycling has been one of the growth industries of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. Recycling is not a fad. （ ）
- During their sleep we noted an unexpected phenomenon that occurred sporadically.（ ）
- The power produced by a nuclear plant is unleashed when the nucleus of one of these atoms is hit by a neutron traveling at the right speed.（ ）
- With the abundance came an increasing tendency to discard and replace products after their initial use, rather than to reuse or recycle them.（ ）
- In England, along a stretch of the north-east coast which gently curves from Northum-berland to the estuary of the river Tees, there was a spot, typical of many on that coast, where sea-coal collected richly and effortlessly. This coal was a coarse powder, clean and brilliant. It seemed to bear little resemblance to the large, filthy lumps put onto the fire. Although it was coal, it was perfectly clean and it was silently deposited at high tide in a glittering carpet a kilometer long for the local community to gather up.The gear needed for sea-coaling expeditions was a curious and traditionally proven assortment, which never varied from community to community along the entire northeast coastline. Sacks were essential to put the coal in, and string to tie the neck of each sack when it was full. A wooden rake was used to serape the coal from the beach. The only alternative to the rake was a flat piece of hoard held in the hand. A flat, broad shovel to lift the raked coal into the bag, completed the portable hardware.But the most crucial item of equipment was a bicycle, a special kind of rusty, stripped down model, which was the symbol of the sea-coaling craft. A lady's bike was no good because it lacked a crossbar, and that was an essential element in transporting sea-coal. One full sack could be slung through the triangular frame of a man's bike, another over the crossbar and, sometimes, even a third on top of that. It not only enabled one to move the sea coal from place to place, but the pressure of the metal bar against the full, wet sacks forced excess water out of the coal while it was being wheeled home. On a good day, the path to the beach was generally a double snail track of water that had been forced from each end of a trail of coal sacks.By using the bicycle ________（ ）
- Driving a car at high speed along a highway seems to be fun. You need only to follow the bright traffic signs beside the highways and it will take you to where you wish.But to a London taxi driver, driving is not an easy job. A taxi driver has to have not only good driving skills but also a good knowledge of the city of a London, from the smallest lane to the most popular bar around. He has to be at the service of all kinds of passengers at all times.A certain London taxi driver told of his job as follows.During the night it is quite usual for him to stop two or three times for some refreshments. He said. “I never drink when I’m working ---- I would lose my license.”He normally goes home between 2 and 3 O’clock in the night. There are times he has to stay longer and try to make more runs. He said, “That’s the worst thing about working for yourself. If you don’t make the money, no one is going to give it to you.”London taxi drivers not only “take” but also “give”. Every summer hundreds of children from London will go for a day at the sea--- by taxi! Their rides are paid by the taxi drivers, and these fares all go to the “London Taxi Fund for Underprivileged Children”. At the sea, they are met by the mayor, and a lunch party is also held in honor of the taxi drivers and the children. After a happy day running around the sea beaches and visiting the market, the children go home again--- by taxi, and free of charge, of course!The London taxi drivers _______.（ ）
- Although English is not as old as Chinese, it is spoken by many people around the world every day. English speakers are always creating new words, and we are often able to know where most words come from.Sometimes, however, no one may really know where a word comes from. Did you ever think about why hamburgers are called hamburgers, especially when they are not made with ham? About a hundred years ago, some men went to America from Europe. They came from a big city in Germany called Hamburg. They did not speak good English, but they ate good food. When some Americans saw them eating round pieces of beef, they asked the Germans what it was. The Germans did not understand the question and answered, “We come from Hamburg.” One of these Americans owned a restaurant, and had an idea. He cooked some round pieces of beef like those which the men from Hamburg ate. Then he put each between two pieces of bread and started selling them. Such bread came to be called “hamburgers”. Today “hamburgers” are sold in many countries around the world.Whether this story is true or not, it certainly is interesting. Knowing why any word has a certain meaning is interesting, too. This reason, for most English words, can be found in any large English dictionary.According to the writer, English is_______.（ ）
- Through him I met other struggling artists like Joe Delaney, a veteran painter from Knoxville, Tenn.（ ）
- Some buildings were dilapidated.（ ）
- Marriage was not an affair of personal affection, but of family avarice, particularly in the “chivalrous” upper classes.（ ）
- Oh, Mr Knight is tied up in conference until noon.（ ）
- Helen Keller was a very bright and beautiful girl. At age of six months she could already say a few words. But before she was two years old, she was badly ill. She could not see or hear, and could not even talk.When she was six, her parents invited a teacher for her. With the help of the teacher, she began to see and hear the world around her through her hands. She learned to read the books for the blind. The teacher took Helen for long walks, and told her about all the beautiful sights. Helen touched flowers, climbed trees, and smelt a storm before it came. She also learned how to swim and ride a horse.After she grew up, she became a famous writer in America. Her first and most famous book was "The Story of My Life". Her story has brought new hope to many blind and deaf people. It gave light to those in darkness and encouraged them to live and work.Why couldn't Helen see or hear later?（ ）
- That principle can be extracted like venom from a snake and applied to solve a human problem.（ ）
- The fact that blind people can “see” things using other parts of their bodies apart from their eyes may help us to understand our feelings about color. If they can sense color differences then perhaps we, too, are affected by color unconsciously.Manufacturers have discovered by trail and error that sugar sells badly in green wrappings, that blue foods are considered unpleasant, and that cosmetics(化妆品) should never be packaged in brown. These discoveries have grown into a whole discipline of color psychology that now finds application in everything from fashion to interior decoration. Some of our preferences are clearly psychological. Dark blue is the color of the night sky and therefore associated with passivity and calm, while yellow is a day color with associations of energy and incentive(刺激). For primitive man, activity during the day meant hunting and attacking, while he soon saw as red, the color of blood and rage and the heat that came with effort. And green is associated with passive defense and self-preservation. Experiments have shown that colors, partly because of their physiological associations, also have a direct psychological effect. People exposed to bright red show an increase in heart beat, and blood pressure; red is exciting. Similar exposure to pure blue has exactly the opposite effect; it is a calming color. Because of its exciting connotations(涵义), red was chosen as the signal for danger, but closer analysis shows that a vivid yellow can produce a more basic state of alertness and alarm, so fire engines and ambulances in some advanced communities are now rushing around in bright yellow colors that stop the traffic dead.If people are exposed to bright red, which of the following things does NOT happen?（ ）
- Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy---ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness---that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it, finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and I thought it might seem too good for human life, this is what---at last---I have found.With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine…A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a hated burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.In the second paragraph, Russell thinks that he has found in his search for love all the following EXCEPT ?（ ）
- Studies have showed that cognitive skills and physical performance are impaired by sleep debt, but mood is affected more.（ ）
- Driving a car at high speed along a highway seems to be fun. You need only to follow the bright traffic signs beside the highways and it will take you to where you wish.But to a London taxi driver, driving is not an easy job. A taxi driver has to have not only good driving skills but also a good knowledge of the city of a London, from the smallest lane to the most popular bar around. He has to be at the service of all kinds of passengers at all times.A certain London taxi driver told of his job as follows.During the night it is quite usual for him to stop two or three times for some refreshments. He said. “I never drink when I’m working ---- I would lose my license.”He normally goes home between 2 and 3 O’clock in the night. There are times he has to stay longer and try to make more runs. He said, “That’s the worst thing about working for yourself. If you don’t make the money, no one is going to give it to you.”London taxi drivers not only “take” but also “give”. Every summer hundreds of children from London will go for a day at the sea--- by taxi! Their rides are paid by the taxi drivers, and these fares all go to the “London Taxi Fund for Underprivileged Children”. At the sea, they are met by the mayor, and a lunch party is also held in honor of the taxi drivers and the children. After a happy day running around the sea beaches and visiting the market, the children go home again--- by taxi, and free of charge, of course!London taxi drivers _______.（ ）
- The “ too cheap to meter” line has dogged the industry ever since. （ ）
- When we talk about intelligence, we do not mean the ability to get good scores on certain kinds of tests or even the ability to do well in school. By intelligence we mean a way of living and behaving, especially in a new or upsetting situation. If we want to test intelligence, we need to find out how a person acts instead of how much he knows what to do.For instance, when in a new situation, an intelligent person thinks about the situation, not about himself or what might happen to him. He tries to find out all he can, and then he acts immediately and tries to do something about it. He probably isn't sure how it will all work out, but at least he tries. And, if he can't make things work out right, he doesn't feel ashamed that he failed; he just tries to learn from his mistakes. An intelligent person, even if he is very young, has a special outlook on life, a special feeling about life, and knows how he fits into it.If you look at children, you'll see great difference between what we call "bright" children and "not-bright" children. They are actually two different kinds of people, not just the same kind with different amount of intelligence. For example, the bright child really wants to find out about life - he tries to get in touch with everything around him. But, the unintelligent child keeps more to himself and his own dream-world; he seems to have a wall between him and life in general.According to this passage, intelligence is __________. （ ）
- My favorite English teacher could draw humor out of the driest material. It wasn’t imposed either. He took Samuel Johnson’s dictionary, Addison’s essays, and many other literary wonders from the eighteenth century and made them hilarious, even at eight o’clock in the morning. The thing that amazed me most was that the first time I read these works on my own some of them seemed dead, but the second time, after his explanation, I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t seen the humor. The stories and poems and plays were suddenly filled with irony and allusions and hilarious moments. I learned more from him than from any other teacher.My least favorite English teacher also made people laugh. Some students found him to be wonderfully funny. Many others did not. He assigned journals over a six week period, to be written in every day. At the end of the six weeks I had notebook full of jotted ideas, short story fragments, reactions to what we had read, and so on. Our teacher announced that we would be grading each other’s journals. Mine was passed to Joe, the class clown, who saw it fit to quip at the end of it, “This writing isn’t fit to line the bottom of a birdcage.” Our teacher laughed at that. Funny stuff. It hurt me so much that the anger from it has driven my writing and teaching ever since.So what makes the difference? Humor is one of the most powerful tools teachers (or writers) have at their disposal. It can build up students and classes and make them excited about literature and writing, or it can rip them apart.With his favorite English teacher, the writer found it most amazing that ____.（ ）
- Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy---ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness---that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it, finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and I thought it might seem too good for human life, this is what---at last---I have found.With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine…A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a hated burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.Regarding knowledge, Russell thinks that ?（ ）
- In England, along a stretch of the north-east coast which gently curves from Northum-berland to the estuary of the river Tees, there was a spot, typical of many on that coast, where sea-coal collected richly and effortlessly. This coal was a coarse powder, clean and brilliant. It seemed to bear little resemblance to the large, filthy lumps put onto the fire. Although it was coal, it was perfectly clean and it was silently deposited at high tide in a glittering carpet a kilometer long for the local community to gather up.The gear needed for sea-coaling expeditions was a curious and traditionally proven assortment, which never varied from community to community along the entire northeast coastline. Sacks were essential to put the coal in, and string to tie the neck of each sack when it was full. A wooden rake was used to serape the coal from the beach. The only alternative to the rake was a flat piece of hoard held in the hand. A flat, broad shovel to lift the raked coal into the bag, completed the portable hardware.But the most crucial item of equipment was a bicycle, a special kind of rusty, stripped down model, which was the symbol of the sea-coaling craft. A lady's bike was no good because it lacked a crossbar, and that was an essential element in transporting sea-coal. One full sack could be slung through the triangular frame of a man's bike, another over the crossbar and, sometimes, even a third on top of that. It not only enabled one to move the sea coal from place to place, but the pressure of the metal bar against the full, wet sacks forced excess water out of the coal while it was being wheeled home. On a good day, the path to the beach was generally a double snail track of water that had been forced from each end of a trail of coal sacks.The difference between the two types of coal was that ___________（ ）
- But Ms. Martinez was undeterred.（ ）
- After tracking the group for six years, researchers found that short sleep time had a high correlation with mortality. （ ）
- My favorite English teacher could draw humor out of the driest material. It wasn’t imposed either. He took Samuel Johnson’s dictionary, Addison’s essays, and many other literary wonders from the eighteenth century and made them hilarious, even at eight o’clock in the morning. The thing that amazed me most was that the first time I read these works on my own some of them seemed dead, but the second time, after his explanation, I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t seen the humor. The stories and poems and plays were suddenly filled with irony and allusions and hilarious moments. I learned more from him than from any other teacher.My least favorite English teacher also made people laugh. Some students found him to be wonderfully funny. Many others did not. He assigned journals over a six week period, to be written in every day. At the end of the six weeks, I had notebook full of jotted ideas, short story fragments, reactions to what we had read, and so on. Our teacher announced that we would be grading each other’s journals. Mine was passed to Joe, the class clown, who saw it fit to quip at the end of it, “This writing isn’t fit to line the bottom of a birdcage.” Our teacher laughed at that. Funny stuff. It hurt me so much that the anger from it has driven my writing and teaching ever since.So what makes the difference? Humor is one of the most powerful tools teachers (or writers) have at their disposal. It can build up students and classes and make them excited about literature and writing, or it can rip them apart.The above passage discusses ____.（ ）
- If you’re the kind of weekend warrior who enjoys outdoor summer workouts, medical experts say you need to be wary of high heat and humidity.During strenuous activity, a person’s body can generate 15-20 times the amount of heat it normally produces. Add high outdoor temperatures and skyrocketing humidity, which slow the evaporation of sweat, and the combination could be deadly..“If you are feeling thirsty during exercise, you’re behind schedule in terms of drinking enough water,” says Richard Cotton, spokesperson for the American Council on Exercise and an exercise physiologist with First Fitness, Inc., in Salt Lake City, Utah. “Even at temperatures that don’t seem all that hot to some people, say 85 degrees (Fahrenheit), you still need to be careful to avoid lightheadedness, elevated heart rate, fatigue, nausea.”Cotton says during a workout that is hot and prolonged, you should drink at least four ounces of water every 15 minutes.“The heart works two to four times harder to move blood into the vessels, which dilate as the body heats up,” says Dr Janice Zimmerman, professor of medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. “Exercising in the heat places extra stress on the heart and this can be especially dangerous for those with cardiac conditions.”Hot weather workouts have also been shown to be less effective. Excessive heat keeps workouts from reaching maximum intensity, which results in less conditioning of the muscles. Overheated tissues are also at greater risk of injury. Pushing the body too far in extremely hot and humid conditions can lead to cramps, heat exhaustion, heart attack, or stroke.According to Cotton, one should _______ during a hot and long workout.（ ）
- . You will have added value to the synthesis, for a whole is more than the sum of its parts.（ ）
- Recently, one of my best friends Jennie, with whom I have shared just about everything since the first day of kindergarten, spent the weekend with me. Since I moved to a new town several years ago, we have both always looked forward to the few times a year when we can see each other.Over the weekend, we spent hours and hours, staying up late into the night, talking about the people she was hanging around with. She started telling me stories about her new boy friend, about how he experimented with drugs and was into other self-destructive behavior. I was blown away! She told me how she had been lying to her parents about where she was going and even stealing out to see this guy because they didn’t want her around him. No matter how hard I tried to tell her that she deserved better, she didn’t believe me. Her self-respect seemed to have disappeared.I tried to convince her that she was ruining her future and heading for big trouble. I felt like I was getting nowhere. I just couldn’t believe that she really thought it was acceptable to hang with a bunch of losers, especially her boy friend.By the time she left, I was really worried about her and exhausted by the experience. It had been so frustrating that I had come close to telling her several times during the weekend that maybe we had just grown too far apart to continue our friendship but I didn’t. I wanted to believe that our friendship could conquer anything.A few days later, she called to say that she had thought long and hard about our conversation, and then she told me that she had broken up with her boy friend. I just listened on the other end of the phone with tears of joy running down my face. It was one of the truly rewarding moments in my life. Never had I been so proud of a friend.What word best sums up Jennie’s boy friend?（ ）
- Picture a "ghost ship" sinking into the sand, left to rot on dry land by a receding sea. Then imagine dust storms sweeping up toxic pesticides and chemical fertilizers from the dry seabed and spewing them across towns and villages.Seem like a scene from a movie about the end of the world? For people living near the Aral Sea in Central Asia, it's all too real. Thirty years ago, government planners diverted the rivers that flow into the sea in order to irrigate (provide water for) farmland. As a result, the sea has shrunk to half its original size, stranding ships on dry land. The seawater has tripled in salt content and become polluted, killing all 24 native species of fish.Similar large-scale efforts to redirect water in other parts of the world have also ended in ecological crisis, according to numerous environmental groups. But many countries continue to build massive dams and irrigation systems, even though such projects can create more problems than they fix. Why? People in many parts of the world are desperate for water, and more people will need more water in the next century."Growing populations will worsen problems with water," says Peter H. Gleick, an environmental scientist at the Pacific Institute for studies in Development, Environment, and Security, a research organization in California. He fears that by the year 2025, as many as one third of the world's projected 8.3 billion people will suffer from water shortages.Where Water GoesOnly 2.5 percent of all water on Earth is freshwater, water suitable for drinking and growing food, says Sandra Postel, director of the Global Water Policy Project in Amherst, Mass. Two-thirds of this freshwater is locked in glaciers and ice caps.In fact, only a tiny percentage of freshwater is part of the water cycle, in which water evaporates and rises into the atmosphere, then condenses and falls back to Earth as precipitation (rain or snow).Some precipitation runs off land to lakes and oceans, and some becomes groundwater, water that seeps into the earth. Much of this renewable freshwater ends up in remote places like the Amazon river basin in Brazil, where few people live.In fact, the world's population has access to only 12,500 cubic kilometers of freshwater—about the amount of water in Lake Superior. And people use half of this amount already. "If water demand continues to climb rapidly," says Postel, "there will be severe shortages and damage to the aquatic environment."Close to HomeWater woes may seem remote to people living in rich countries like the United States. But Americans could face serious water shortages, too especially in areas that rely on groundwater. Groundwater accumulates in aquifers, layers of sand and gravel that lie between soil and bedrock. (For every liter of surface water, more than 90 liters are hidden underground.)Although the United States has large aquifers, farmers, ranchers, and cities are tapping many of them for water faster than nature can replenish it. In northwest Texas, for example, over pumping has shrunk groundwater supplies by 25 percent, according to Postel.Americans may face even more urgent problems from pollution. Drinking water in the United States is generally safe and meets high standards. Nevertheless, one in five Americans every day unknowingly drinks tap water contaminated with bacteria and chemical wastes, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. In Milwaukee, 400,000 people fell ill in 1993 after drinking tap water tainted with cryptosporidium, a microbe that causes fever, diarrhea and vomiting.The SourceWhere do contaminants come from? In developing countries, people dump raw sewage into the same streams and rivers from which they draw water for drinking and cooking; about 250 million people a year get sick from water borne diseases.In developed countries, manufacturers use 100,000 chemical compounds to make a wide range of products. Toxic chemicals pollute water when released untreated into rivers and lakes. (Certain compounds, such as polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, have been banned in the United States.)But almost everyone contributes to water pollution. People often pour household cleaners, car antifreeze, and paint thinners down the drain; all of these contain hazardous chemicals. Scientists studying water in the San Francisco Bay reported in 1996 that 70 percent of the pollutants could be traced to household waste.Farmers have been criticized for overusing herbicides and pesticides, chemicals that kill weeds and insects but that pollute water as well. Farmers also use nitrates, nitrogen-rich fertilizer that help plants grow but that can wreak havoc on the environment. Nitrates are swept away by surface runoff to lakes and seas. Too many nitrates "over enrich" these bodies of water, encouraging the buildup of algae, or microscopic plants that live on the surface of the water. Algae deprive the water of oxygen that fish need to survive, at times choking off life in an entire body of water.What’s the Solution?Water expert Gleick advocates conservation and local solutions to water-related problems; governments, for instance, would be better off building small-scale dams rather than huge and disruptive projects like the one that ruined the Aral Sea. "More than 1 billion people worldwide don’t have access to basic clean drinking water," says Gleick. "There has to be a strong push on the part of everyone—governments and ordinary people—to make sure we have a resource so fundamental to life."Americans _______ could suffer from greatly serious water shortages.（ ）
- Fear undermines thinking, fear drives us to the lowest levels of thought, fear makes us defensive.（ ）
- You may find this disconcerting at first.（ ）
- Picture a "ghost ship" sinking into the sand, left to rot on dry land by a receding sea. Then imagine dust storms sweeping up toxic pesticides and chemical fertilizers from the dry seabed and spewing them across towns and villages.Seem like a scene from a movie about the end of the world? For people living near the Aral Sea in Central Asia, it's all too real. Thirty years ago, government planners diverted the rivers that flow into the sea in order to irrigate (provide water for) farmland. As a result, the sea has shrunk to half its original size, stranding ships on dry land. The seawater has tripled in salt content and become polluted, killing all 24 native species of fish.Similar large-scale efforts to redirect water in other parts of the world have also ended in ecological crisis, according to numerous environmental groups. But many countries continue to build massive dams and irrigation systems, even though such projects can create more problems than they fix. Why? People in many parts of the world are desperate for water, and more people will need more water in the next century."Growing populations will worsen problems with water," says Peter H. Gleick, an environmental scientist at the Pacific Institute for studies in Development, Environment, and Security, a research organization in California. He fears that by the year 2025, as many as one third of the world's projected 8.3 billion people will suffer from water shortages.Where Water GoesOnly 2.5 percent of all water on Earth is freshwater, water suitable for drinking and growing food, says Sandra Postel, director of the Global Water Policy Project in Amherst, Mass. Two-thirds of this freshwater is locked in glaciers and ice caps.In fact, only a tiny percentage of freshwater is part of the water cycle, in which water evaporates and rises into the atmosphere, then condenses and falls back to Earth as precipitation (rain or snow).Some precipitation runs off land to lakes and oceans, and some becomes groundwater, water that seeps into the earth. Much of this renewable freshwater ends up in remote places like the Amazon river basin in Brazil, where few people live.In fact, the world's population has access to only 12,500 cubic kilometers of freshwater—about the amount of water in Lake Superior. And people use half of this amount already. "If water demand continues to climb rapidly," says Postel, "there will be severe shortages and damage to the aquatic environment."Close to HomeWater woes may seem remote to people living in rich countries like the United States. But Americans could face serious water shortages, too especially in areas that rely on groundwater. Groundwater accumulates in aquifers, layers of sand and gravel that lie between soil and bedrock. (For every liter of surface water, more than 90 liters are hidden underground.)Although the United States has large aquifers, farmers, ranchers, and cities are tapping many of them for water faster than nature can replenish it. In northwest Texas, for example, over pumping has shrunk groundwater supplies by 25 percent, according to Postel.Americans may face even more urgent problems from pollution. Drinking water in the United States is generally safe and meets high standards. Nevertheless, one in five Americans every day unknowingly drinks tap water contaminated with bacteria and chemical wastes, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. In Milwaukee, 400,000 people fell ill in 1993 after drinking tap water tainted with cryptosporidium, a microbe that causes fever, diarrhea and vomiting.The SourceWhere do contaminants come from? In developing countries, people dump raw sewage into the same streams and rivers from which they draw water for drinking and cooking; about 250 million people a year get sick from water borne diseases.In developed countries, manufacturers use 100,000 chemical compounds to make a wide range of products. Toxic chemicals pollute water when released untreated into rivers and lakes. (Certain compounds, such as polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, have been banned in the United States.)But almost everyone contributes to water pollution. People often pour household cleaners, car antifreeze, and paint thinners down the drain; all of these contain hazardous chemicals. Scientists studying water in the San Francisco Bay reported in 1996 that 70 percent of the pollutants could be traced to household waste.Farmers have been criticized for overusing herbicides and pesticides, chemicals that kill weeds and insects but that pollute water as well. Farmers also use nitrates, nitrogen-rich fertilizer that help plants grow but that can wreak havoc on the environment. Nitrates are swept away by surface runoff to lakes and seas. Too many nitrates "over enrich" these bodies of water, encouraging the buildup of algae, or microscopic plants that live on the surface of the water. Algae deprive the water of oxygen that fish need to survive, at times choking off life in an entire body of water.What’s the Solution?Water expert Gleick advocates conservation and local solutions to water-related problems; governments, for instance, would be better off building small-scale dams rather than huge and disruptive projects like the one that ruined the Aral Sea. "More than 1 billion people worldwide don’t have access to basic clean drinking water," says Gleick. "There has to be a strong push on the part of everyone—governments and ordinary people—to make sure we have a resource so fundamental to life."What is the main pollutant in developed countries?（ ）
- Macabre though Simonson’s quest is, it is not unique.（ ）
- For a few minutes he tapped the switch after each flash.（ ）
- . Yet her genius was for fiction and lusted to feed abundantly upon the lives of men and women and the study of their ways.（ ）
- “As a climber, to know what Mallory did was phenomenal.”（ ）
- Kensington Wade in London, Britain's first English-Mandarin primary school, recruited its first batch of 15 students from Europe, the United States and South America recently.The school, the first of its kind in Europe, is an epitome of the rising popularity of the Chinese language around the world. Mastering the Chinese language means advantages and opportunities in the job market and the business world, because the Chinese companies and projects related to China are on the rise around the world.Reading this passage and answer what is the significance of Kensington Wade?（ ）
- Culture shock is precipitated by the anxiety that results from losing all our familiar signs and symbols of social intercourse. Those signs or cues include the thousand and one ways in which we orient ourselves to the situation of daily life: when to shake hands and what to say when we meet people, when and how to give tips, how to make purchases, when to accept and when to refuse invitations, when to take statements seriously and when not. “Thousand and one” means（ ）
- Goodyear's words highlight the importance of having a wide focus of attention and keen powers of observation. His message is admirably summed up in Pasteur's famous words: "In the field of observation, chance favors only the prepared mind."Reading this passage and answer Charles Goodyear discovered the vulcanization of rubber（ ）
- For the italicized word, choose the best meaning below.When borrowers are in trouble, we give them respite from debt repayments.（ ）
- This may be true or it may be false-who can say?-but what is true in it, so it seemed to me, reviewing the story of Shakespeare's sister as I had made it, is that any woman born with a great gift in the sixteenth century would certainly have gone crazed, shot herself, or ended her days in some lonely cottage outside the village, half witch, half wizard, feared and mocked at. For it needs little skill in psychology to be sure that a highly gifted girl who had tried to use her gift for poetry would have been so thwarted and hindered by other people, so tortured and pulled asunder by her own contrary instincts, that she must have lost her health and sanity to a certainty. Reading this passage and answer according to Woolf, a sixteenth century woman born with a great gift like Shakespeare's would certainly（ ）
- This very palpable reality should bring us to focus in a timely way on building a sustainable future. The World Cities Summit 2018, July 9 through 11 in Singapore, a regular event, focuses this year on "Livable and Sustainable Cities: Embracing the Future through Innovation and Collaboration." I am speaking at the Springer Nature "'Science and the Sustainable City" summit, which is co-located with the World Cities event, on July 11, and has a special focus in connecting researchers with practitioners to help tackle the challenges faced by cities. I head a project on "The Future of Cities" in the Lee Kuan Yew Center for Innovative Cities and have worked on the topic of "Asia's Future Cities: Sustainable, Live able, Loveable?"Which one is the synonym of disparate?（ ）。
- Classify the italicised words in the following sentences according to how they are formed: affixation, conversion, compounding, shortening, acronyms or blending.We won't be able to run an EEG to evaluate her brain activity until she's a lot warmer.（ ）。
- Decide whether the following sentence is fact or opinion.Changing ocean chemistry thus has complex and unpredictable effects on global climate and even the air we breathe.（ ）
- The firm also employs adaptation in its marketing communication strategies through promotional attributes to challenge the differences in individual market. The elements commonly used are consumer's attitude towards its product, usage patterns, ethics, religious and moral consideration that justifies a consumer's purchasing power. This explains why in the United Kingdom, the firm uses Alan Shearer, the famous England Captain,to promote their hamburgers whereas in France, Fabian Barthez is used for promotions.McDonald's also ventures out with Walt Disney to produce toys in their happy meal sets based on movies produced by the film giant. Moreover, MeDonald's also portrays itself as champion in public welfare by advocating on behalf of under-privileged children by setting up Ronald McDonald's House Charities. By adding a human touch to its promotion agenda,McDonald's surely is a hit among all its consumers regardless of age, gender, or even location.This paragraph is mainly about（ ）
- This very palpable reality should bring us to focus in a timely way on building a sustainable future. The World Cities Summit 2018, July 9 through 11 in Singapore, a regular event, focuses this year on "Livable and Sustainable Cities: Embracing the Future through Innovation and Collaboration." I am speaking at the Springer Nature "'Science and the Sustainable City" summit, which is co-located with the World Cities event, on July 11, and has a special focus in connecting researchers with practitioners to help tackle the challenges faced by cities. I head a project on "The Future of Cities" in the Lee Kuan Yew Center for Innovative Cities and have worked on the topic of "Asia's Future Cities: Sustainable, Live able, Loveable?"In which city was The World Cities Summit 2018 held?（ ）。
- The even term is the second semester if there are only two terms in one school year.（ ）
- The odd term is the first semester if there are only two terms in one school year.（ ）
- The proportion of final grades is _____. （ ）
- The proportion of online grades in the usual points is _____. （ ）
- The proportion of offline grades in the usual points is _____. （ ）
答案:The rivers flowing into it have been diverted.
答案:when he is a small child
答案:fashion
答案:occasionally
答案:set free
答案:throw away
答案:excess liquid could be removed
答案:work hard because on one would give them money for doing nothing
答案:not so old as Chinese
答案:experienced
答案:Collapsing
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