Today, February twenty-ninth, is leap day(闰日). This date only appears on the calendar once every four years. But why?

Everyone knows the Earth takes three hundred sixty-five days to travel around the sun. Well, that is not exactly correct. The Earth really takes three hundred sixty-five days, five hours, forty-eight minutes and forty-six seconds to complete its orbit around the sun.

The problem for people developing calendars was what to do with the extra five hours, forty-eight minutes and forty-six seconds.

People needed calendars to help them know when to plant crops and when to celebrate religious holidays. The ancient Greeks and Chinese had a solution. They produced calendars that included extra months every nineteen years.

The ancient Romans had a different solution. In the year forty-six, the Roman ruler Julius Caesar made a new calendar. The Julian calendar included an extra day every four years. But there was a problem. The Julian year was just over eleven minutes longer than the cycle of the seasons. In 1582, Pope Gregory the Thirteenth established a new calendar to keep a better recorder of the days. Pole Gregory was the religious leader of most of Europe. He decided that years that could be divided by four would add a day. However, years that ended in two zeros and that could not be evenly divided by four hundred would not be leap years. For example, the years 1700, 1800and 1900 were not leap years. But the years 1600 and 2000 were leap years

 So leap years are years with three hundred sixty –six days , instead of the usual three hundred sixty –five.This extra days is added to the calendar on February twenty –ninth , sometimes known as leap day .People born on leap day may be called “leapings ”.They usually celebrate their birthday on February twenty –eight or March first .

Title:     1.    

Reasons	The Earth really takes 356days, 5hours,48minutes and 46seconds to complete its orbit around the sun.
__2.___is needed to benefit people’s daily life and work
__3.____	How to deal with the extra 5hours,48minutes and 46seconds
___4._____	__5._____	Ways
Ancient Greeks and Chinese	Producing ­   6.___every 19years
__7.______	Producing an extra day_8.__
The Pop Gregory VIII	Producing a leap day if the year could be divided _9.____.No leap day when the year ended in two zeros but could not be divided by 400.
Result	Leap day ___10.___and February twenty –ninth was added to the calendar

 

阅读下面的短文，然后按照要求写一篇150词左右的英语短文。

【阅读材料】

  A Thirsty World

Three-fourths of the earth’s surface is covered by water, some of which is frozen and most of which is salty. In fact, less than one percent left for all the living things.

Now fresh water is becoming scare, but more and more is needed because of the increasing number of people. Some industries also use amounts of fresh water in the production of things such as steel, paper, and rubber. These factories have polluted water flow into rivers without making it clean. What’s more, people in the city have much dirtied water piped into ditches after cooking every day.

Scientists estimate that the need for fresh water will have doubled by the year 2003. This means that we must find new ways of saving it or producing it. Some nations have worked on the problem and are already sharing their information with others. They are trying to keep their rivers from being polluted. Deep wells are also being dug, and rainwater is being collected in huge artificial lakes. In one way or another, they hope to provide enough water to satisfy the needs of their people. For example, one important way of producing water is to distill(用蒸馏法提取) it from sea water. After the salt has been removed, sea water can be used not only for drinking but also for industry and irrigation. However, the equipment for distillation process is very expensive. Distilled water might be as dear as gold if pollution goes on.

[写作内容]

概括短文的内容要点，该部分的字数大约30；

就”环境污染的原因与控制”这个主题发表你的看法，至少包括以下的内容要点，该部分的字数大约120；

环境污染是由什么原因引起的？简单地举例子说明。

为了解决污染问题，国家政府部门应该做些什么？

为了解决污染问题，公民做些什么？

为了解决污染问题，我们学生应该做些什么？

【写作要求】

  可以利用实例或其他论述方法支持你的论点，也可以参照阅读材料的内容，但不得直接引用阅读材料中的句子。

Advertising can be a service to the customer. This is true when advertisements give reliable infor??mation about the goods advertised. Such information is needed if the customer is to make a sensible choice when he buys. It is useful in that it lets him know of the kinds of goods in the shops. Printed advertisements do this job best. Customers can collect them and compare them. They can be taken along to shops and their claims can be checked against the actual goods in the shops.

however, some advertisements are not very useful to the customer. Instead of helping him to sat??isfy his real needs, they set out to make him want things. They set out to create a need. These adver??tisements are cleverly done. The people who produce them understand our weaknesses. They set out to make us believe that what they advertise will make us cleverer, prettier and more handsome, if only we use it. Actually, it is our money they are after and we should be on guard.

Some advertisements mislead customers by using part of the truth to suggest something false, and it is skillfully made to give that idea to the careless reader, listener or viewer.

At its best advertising can be useful to the customer. At its worst it can mislead him. Many newspapers check on the goods for which the advertisements made claims. Most newspapers are very careful about the small advertisements, which try to sell goods directly to the readers by post. Many newspapers print information about this on their small advertisement pages. Advertising has become a very big business, and good firms in it do all they can to make sure it is conducted with some attention to truth. This is a help to the customer. But the best way is for customers to be on the lookout.

It can be inferred from the passage that advertisements can be useful if they ________.

A. how a long list of the goods advertised

B. give true information about goods          

       C. tell customers what to buy

D. appear on TV and in newspapers at the same time

Advertisements that play on our weaknesses make us ________.

A. desire things we do not need    B. purchase the goods we need

C. attracted by them       D. become loyal reader, listener or viewer

according to the text, which of the following is TRUE?

A. All advertising firms do not care to tell the truth about the goods they advertise.

B. All advertising firms only care to make money, as advertising is a big business.

C. Most advertising firms make sure that advertisements do not purposely cheat.

D. The advertised goods are often of poor quality.

The underlined word "They" refers to ________.

A. Goods       B. Customers               C. Shops               D. Advertisements

— Oh, life is so boring!

—Please don’t think so . I suppose you’ve come to the point _______ a change is needed.

A. where                      B. when                       C. which               D.as  

A new report said scientists may not be far from giving apes the ability to think and talk like humans. The report is about experiments which transplant human cells into animals for medical purposes.
It claimed that concerns about the creation of talking apes should be taken seriously. It should also draw people’s attention to the possibility that the medical research about creating “humanised” animals is going to generate monsters.
A regulatory（监管的）body is needed to closely monitor any experiments that many risk creating animals with human-like consciousness or giving them any appearance or behavioural traits that too closely resemble humans, the report said.
Scientists would, for example, be prevented from replacing a large number of an ape’s brain cells with human brain cells until more is known about the potential risks. This has already been done in simpler animals like mice, which is judged to be less risky.
Under the new UK guidelines, the power to regulate tests on animals containing human material would be transferred to a body with wider responsibility for animal testing in the Home Office.
While there is no risk from experiments currently being carried out in Britain, it is possible that ethical (道德的) boundaries could be crossed within the next few years if scientists are not careful, the experts said.
Professor Thomas Baldwin, a member of the Academy of Medical Sciences working group that produced the report, said the possibility of humanised apes should be taken seriously.
He said, “The fear is that if you start putting very large numbers of human brain cells into the brains of primates（灵长类动物）you might transform the primates into something that has some of the abilities that we regard as distinctly human, such as speech, or other ways of being able to manipulate or relate to us.”
Professor Martin Bobrow, chair of the academy working group that produced the report, said, “The very great majority of experiments present no issues beyond the general use of animals in research and these should continue to proceed under the current regulations.”
Lord Willis, chair of the Association of Medical Research Charities, said, “AMRC only supports research that is absolutely necessary and where no suitable alternative methods are available.”
【小题1】What is the passage mainly about?

A．Ethical rules to limit humanised animals.

B．The potential results of humanised apes.

C．The possibility of humanised animals.

D．The danger of human-like animals.

【小题2】The underlined word “manipulate” in the passage probably means “_______”.

A．appeal

B．possess

C．control

D．associate

【小题3】Which of the following statements might Professor Thomas Baldwin agree with?

A．It is necessary to do some experiments about humanised animals.

B．Experiments about humanised animals should be done within the law.

C．It would be dangerous to do experiments about humanised animals.

D．It is urgent to ban experiment about humanised animals.

【小题4】It can be inferred that _______.

A．people should be careful when creating talking apes

B．Thomas Baldwin and Lord Willis are from the same organization

C．creating humanised animals is difficult in Britain now

D．scientists must be cautious not to cross ethical boundaries