Chicken feathers are useful, and not just to a chicken. Some go into pillows, co
题型：不详难度：来源：
Chicken feathers are useful, and not just to a chicken. Some go into pillows, coats and other products. But countless chicken feathers go to waste.
In the United States, billions of chickens are produced yearly. Most of their feathers are thrown away.
But instead of being buried in land, some feathers could find a future in plastics（塑料）.
One of the products they have developed is a flowerpot（花盆）. It may look like other flowerpots. But the container breaks down in the earth within one to five years. And as it breaks down, it naturally becomes nutrient（营养物） in the soil.
The environmentally friendly flowerpot is the work of two researchers. Walter Schmidt is with the Agricultural Research Service, part of the United States Agriculture Department. Masud Huda is with the Horticultural Research Institute, a private（私人） organization（组织）.
Walter Schmidt has been working to find uses for chicken feathers since the 1990s. Progress in 2002 showed that plastic made from feathers could be formed like other plastics.
He says feathers are much stronger and last（持续） longer than another plant material. "Feathers are stronger. By design, feathers are also more durable（耐用的）. And the other part about it is if feathers were twice as heavy, or half as strong, then birds couldn"t fly."
He points out that traditional flowerpots made from other plastics can last much longer. But he wonders if there is really a need. He says most flowerpots are never re-used.
"Why would you want a plastic that you use for a year to last for two hundred years? It makes no sense. You want to match the product with the use." said Walter Schmidt.
Walter Schmidt and Masud Huda are now adding another chicken product to their flowerpots -- chicken waste. The waste will add more nutrients to the soil as the pot breaks down. The scientists say they hope their flowerpot will be on the market in a year or two.
小题1:What do people mainly deal with feathers?| A．Feathers are used to make pillows, coats and other products. | | B．Most feathers are paid no attention to. | | C．Most feathers are used as nutrient | | D．Most feathers are used to make flowerpots |
小题2:What’s the advantage of the flowerpots?| A．They won’t last long. | B．They can’t break | | C．They are environmentally friendly | D．They can be reused |
小题3:What does Walter Schmidt think of traditional flowerpots?| A．Too heavy | B．Too old | | C．Never re-used | D．lasting longer but unnecessary |
小题4:What do you think is the main idea of the passage?| A．Chicken and its feathers | B．How to deal with feathers | | C．feathers made into flowerpot | D．New flowerpots |
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答案
小题1:B
小题2:C
小题3:D
小题4:C |
解析
试题分析：这篇文章讲的很多羽毛被扔了，科学家是如何用羽毛做花盆，这种花盆可以在使用后分解，可以给泥土带来营养也不会造成污染。
小题1:细节题：从第一段的句子：But countless chicken feathers go to waste.可知很多羽毛都被浪费了。选B。
小题2:细节题：从第五段的句子：The environmentally friendly flowerpot is the work of two researchers.可知这种花盆是环保的。选C
小题3:细节题：从第八段的句子：He points out that traditional flowerpots made from other plastics can last much longer. But he wonders if there is really a need.可知传统的花盆可以用很长时间，但这不是很必要的。选D
小题4:主旨题：从文章第二段和第三段的内容，可知这篇文章讲的是如何用羽毛做花盆。选C
点评：本文属于环保类文章，细节题居多，答题时在文章找到对应的地方，用笔进行标记，这有利于后期有时间检查时可以立刻找到答案的位置。仔细理解作者所讲的意思，再结合选项，通过排除法和自己对全文的把握，选出正确答案。 |
举一反三
To me, the ocean is our greatest wilderness. I love swimming in it , surfing its waves, watching it from shore and thinking about all the life living unseen under the surface.
When I take my little kids to check out tide pools, we’re overjoyed when we find a sea star or some shellfish. Lately, though, I"ve noticed a change in my favorite pools: there are more sea grasses and fewer animals with shells.
I can"t help feeling these small changes portend something more troubling about our oceans. It matches what scientists are telling us: our oceans are being troubled by carbon dioxide that threatens corals, colorful fish, salmon, sea otters, even whales. Our oceans are facing a major change.
Every hour, a million tons of carbon dioxide from cars, factories and power plants rain down on the world’s oceans. Carbon pollution brings about a chemical reaction that turns sea water more acidic (酸的) and takes away things important for sea animals .
Some of us are already feeling the effects of this growing crisis（危机）. Shellfish farmers in the Pacific Northwest have reported a decrease in natural and farmed oysters(牡蛎). Just this week, a new studyproved the link between the huge reduction in the numbers of oysters and ocean acidification. As polar waters become more acidic, Alaskan fishermen are troubled by the future of smaller fish.
Without action, ocean acidification will have a disastrous influence on the food chain, affecting not only sea life but the people who depend on it for food and their living. Already, our oceans have become 30 percent more acidic since preindustrial times, and it gets worse every day. We can stop this frightening dream, but only if we act now.
That"s why the Center for Biological Diversity has started a petition (请愿书) requesting President Obama and the Environmental Protection Agency to develop a plan to deal with ocean acidification. Decisive action can save sea life as we know it.
Now it isn’t too late to save our oceans and sea life. With immediate action to reduce carbon dioxide release we can start taking important steps today to deal with this disastrous situation. Join me in our petition calling for a national plan to save our oceans.
小题1:The author’s recent visits to the tide pool brought her ___ .| A．happiness | B．anger | C．concern | D．comfort |
小题2:The underlined word “portend” in Paragraph 3 probably means ___ .| A．predict | B．prevent | C．replace | D．reduce |
小题3:What the author worries about most is ____ .| A．the harm of sea grasses | | B．carbon pollution in the sea | | C．that the petition may be turned down | | D．how fishermen can make a living in the future |
小题4:What is the main purpose of the text ?| A．To inform. | B．To educate. | C．To persuade . | D．To instruct. |
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Do you want to live another 100 years or more? Do you want to live never to die? Some experts say, it will be not a dream one day. Modern technology will make it come true. Man will live more years beyond what is now seen as the natural limit of the human life.
“ I think we are knocking at the door of immortality,” said Michael, a professor and author of two books on human life expectancy. “I think by 2075 we will see it and it’s no longer a dream. Human’s life expectancy may have not limit.”
At the meeting in San Francisco, Donald Louria, a professor at New Jersey Medical School said advances in using genes as well as other technology make it likely that humans will live in the future beyond what has been possible in the past. “There is a great push so that people can live from 120 to 180 years,” he said. “Some have suggested that there is no limit and that people could live to 300 or 500 years.”
However, many scientists are doubtful about it and say the human body is just not designed to last more than about 120 years. Even with healthier lifestyles and less disease, they say failure of the brain and other parts of the body will finally lead all humans to death.
Scientists also hold different opinions on what kind of life man might live. “If you pass 120, you know; could you be healthy enough to have good quality of life? It’s a big question.” said Leonard Poon, director of the university center. “At present people who could get to that point are not in good health at all.”
小题1:The underlined word in the second paragraph probably means _____.| A．dying slowly | B．living longer | C．living forever | D．dying quickly |
小题2:Donald’s attitude is that______.| A．human beings may never die in the future | | B．it is not certain how long humans can live | | C．the human body can last about 120 years | | D．it is possible for man to live longer in the future |
小题3:What would be the best title for this text?| A．Living longer or not | B．Science and long living | | C．No limit for human life | D．Healthy lifestyle and living |
小题4:In the last sentence “get to that point” means ____.| A．get that idea | B．get to 120 years old | | C．know how to live forever | D．have good quality of life |
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When prehistoric man arrived in new parts of the world, something strong happened to the large animals; they suddenly became extinct. Smaller species survived; the large, slow-growing animals were easy game, and were quickly hunted to extinction.
Now something similar could be happening in the oceans. That the seas are being over-fished has been known for years and researchers such as Ransom Myers and Boris Worm have shown how fast things are changing. They have looked at half a century of data from fisheries around the world. Their methods do not attempt to estimate the actual biomass (the amount of living biological matter) of fish species in particular parts of the ocean, but rather changes in that biomass over time. According to their latest paper published in Nature, the biomass of large predators (animals that kill and eat other animals) inanes fishery is reduced on average by 80% within 15 years of the start of exploitation. In some long-fished areas, it has halved again since then.
Dr. Worm acknowledges that these figures are conservative (保守的). One reason for this is that fishing technology has improved. Today’s vessels can find their prey using satellites and sonar, which were not available 50 years ago. That means a higher proportion of what is in the sea is being caught, so the real difference between present and past is likely to be worse than the one recorded by changes in catch sizes. In the early days, too, longlines would have been more saturated with fish. Some individuals would therefore not have been caught, since baited hooks would have been available to trap them, leading to an underestimate of fish stocks in the past. Furthermore, in the early days of longline fishing, a lot of fish were lost to sharks after they had been hooked. That is no longer a problem, because there are fewer sharks around noise.
Dr. Myers and Dr. Worm argue that their work gives a correct baseline, which future management efforts must take into account. They believe the date support an idea current among marine biologists, that of the “shifting baseline”. The notion is that people have failed to detect the massive changes which have happened in the ocean because they have been looking back only a relatively short time into the past. That matters because theory suggests that the maximum sustainable yield that can be cropped from a fishery comes when the biomass of a target species is about 50% of its original levels. Most fisheries are well below that, which is a bad way to do business.
小题1:The aim of the extinction of large prehistoric animals is to suggest that _______. | A．large animal were not easy to survive in the changing environment | | B．small species survived as large animals disappeared | | C．large sea animals may face the same threat today. | | D．Slow-growing fish outlive fast-growing ones |
小题2:We can infer from Dr Myers and Dr. Worm’s paper that _______. | A．the stock of large predators in some old fisheries has reduced by 90% | | B．there are only half as many fisheries are there were 15 years ago | | C．the catch sizes in new fisheries are only 20% of the original amount | | D．the number of larger predators dropped faster in new fisheries than in the old |
小题3:By saying these figures are conservative (line 1, paragraph 3), Dr worm means that_______. | A．fishing technology has improved rapidly | | B．then catch-sizes are actually smaller then recorded | | C．the marine biomass has suffered a greater loss | | D．the date collected so far are out of date. |
小题4:Dr Myers and other researchers hold that _______. | A．people should look for a baseline that can’t work for a longer time | | B．fisheries should keep the yield below 50% of the biomass | | C．the ocean biomass should restore its original level. | | D．people should adjust the fishing baseline to changing situation. |
小题5:The author seems to be mainly concerned with most fisheries’ _______. | A．management efficiency | | B．biomass level | | C．catch-size limits | | D．technological application. |
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EAT YOUR VEGETABLES.Wash your hands. Always say “please” and “thank you”. We are full of advice for our children, but when it comes to money, we often have little to say. As a result, our children may grow up with clean hands and good manners, but without any idea how tomanage their money.
Here are some basics that will help guide them their entire lives:
Show them the future. If your 13-year-old girl were to save $1.000,invest(投资)it at 8% and add $100 every month, by the time she’s 65,she would have $980,983!
Be careful of credit(信用).Credit cards can help you buy necessary things and build a credit history, but they must be used responsibly, which means paying off your debt in time. Explain to your children that when you buy something using a credit card, you can easily end up paying two or three times what you would have paid if you used cash.
Teach patience. Suppose your child wants a new bicycle that costs $150.Rather than paying the cash, give him some regular pocket money and explain that by putting aside,say,$15 each week, he will be able to buy it for himself in only ten weeks.
Provide incentive. Tell your children the importance of saving. “For every dollar he or she agrees to save and invest rather than spend, you agree to add another dollar to the pot,” says Cathy Pareto, expert in money planning.
Explain your values. Values and money are deeply intertwined, says Eilleen Gallo,co-author of The Financially Intelligent Parent. When your child demands that you buy something, explain why you really don’t want to buy it.“You might say, ‘I’d rather save that money for your education,’” advises Gallo. Every time you spend or don’t spend money, you have a chance to share your values.
小题1:The writer gives some basics to help________ in a proper way.| A．parents teach their children how to deal with money | | B．children follow their parents’ instructions | | C．children manage their money | | D．parents save their money |
小题2:The writer thinks that, if a child wants to buy something, his parents should________. .| A．give him some regular pocket money | | B．encourage him to put money away for it | | C．explain to him the importance of investment | | D．tell him to save some money by using a credit card |
小题3:The underlined word “incentive” in paragraph 6 means_________. .| A．honor | B．praise | C．excitement | D．encouragement |
小题4:What leads the writer to write this article?_________| A．Parents want to know how to educate their children. | | B．He wants to share his good ideas about money matters. | | C．He thinks money management the most important for children. | | D．Parents care Little about their children’s management of money. |
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The students at Sandy"s high school were badly shaken by the news that a classmate had __36 himself．The suicide note read: “It’s hard to 37 when nobody cares.”
Glen, a teacher, realized this was a 38 moment about the importance of making people feel _39 ． He asked his class to imagine they were about to _40 and to write a note "telling someone how and why you _ 41 him or her."
Sandy, who had a 42_ relationship with her mother, decided to write her _43 . Her letter read: "We"ve had some 44_ times and I haven"t always been a very good _ 45 , but I know I"m lucky to have you in my life． You"re the _ 46_ person I"ve ever known．And even when I disagree with you, I never _ 47 _you love me and want what"s best for me．Thanks for not 48 up me.”
When her mom read the note, she cried and hugged Sandy 49 but said little．
The next morning, Sandy found a 50 on her mirror: "Dearest Sandy, I want you to know being your mother is, by far, the most important thing in my life． 51_ I got your note , I thought I had lost your love and 52 . I felt like such a failure．I intended to 53 it all last night．Your note saved my 54 .”
Be careful not to underestimate(低估) the 55 of expressed appreciation. It won"t always save a life, but it will always make someone"s life better．
| 小题1: | | A．sacrificed | B．defeated | C．abandoned | D．killed |
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| 小题2: | | A．live | B．imagine | C．struggle | D．think |
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| 小题3: | | A．sad | B．final | C．teachable | D．great |
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| 小题4: | | A．ashamed | B．valued | C．excited | D．scared |
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| 小题5: | | A．die | B．fail | C．retire | D．survive |
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| 小题6: | | A．miss | B．hate | C．admire | D．appreciate |
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| 小题7: | | A．close | B．casual | C．bad | D．personal |
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| 小题8: | | A．classmate | B．mom | C．father | D．teacher |
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| 小题9: | | A．free | B．delightful | C．pleasant | D．rough |
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| 小题10: | | A．daughter | B．student | C．friend | D．trainer |
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| 小题11: | | A．best | B．wisest | C．luckiest | D．bravest |
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| 小题12: | | A．trust | B．doubt | C．consider | D．predict |
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| 小题13: | | A．taking | B．going | C．giving | D．looking |
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| 小题14: | | A．coldly | B．hesitantly | C．shyly | D．tightly |
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| 小题15: | | A．note | B．gift | C．notice | D．reminder |
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| 小题16: | | A．Since | B．Until | C．Though | D．When |
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| 小题17: | | A．confidence | B．courage | C．respect | D．heart |
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| 小题19: | | A．life | B．time | C．money | D．honor |
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| 小题20: | | A．push | B．price | C．meaning | D．power |
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