A few degrees can make a big difference when it comes to food storage. Foods can go bad if they get too warm. But for many of the world’s poor, finding a good way to keep food cool is difficult. Refrigerators are costly and they need electricity.

   Yet spoiled food not only creates health risks but also economic losses. Farmers lose money when they have to throw away products that they cannot sell quickly.

    But in nineteen ninety-five a teacher in northern Nigeria named Mohammed Bah Abba found a solution. He developed the “Pot-in-Pot Preservation/Cooling System.” It uses two round containers made of clay. A smaller pot is placed inside a larger one. The space between the two pots is filled with wet sand. The inner pot can be filled with fruit, vegetables or drinks. A wet cloth covers the whole cooling system.

    Food stored in the smaller pot is kept from spoiling through a simple evaporation(蒸发) process. Water in the sand between the two pots evaporates through the surface of the larger pot, where drier outside air is moving.

    The evaporation process creates a drop in temperature of several degrees. This cools the inner pot and helps keep food safe from harmful bacteria. Some foods can be kept fresh this way for several weeks.

    People throughout Nigeria began using the invention. And it became popular with farmers in other African countries. Mohammed Bah Abba personally financed the first five thousand pot-in-pot systems for his own community and five villages nearby.

    In two thousand, the Rolex Watch Company of Switzerland honored him with the Rolex Award for Enterprise. This award recognizes people trying to develop projects aimed at improving human knowledge and well-being. A committee considers projects in science and medicine, technology, exploration and discovery, the environment and cultural history. Winners receive financial assistance to help develop and extend their projects.

1.Which is the best title of the passage?

A.  A Few Degrees can Make a Big Difference for Storage

B.  A Cool Way to Keep Food from Spoiling

C.  Spoiled Food Creates Health Risks and Economic Losses

D.  The Evaporation Process Creates a Drop in Temperature

2.What does the third paragraph mainly talk about?

A. the structure of the invention

B. the usage of the invention

C. the cost of the invention

D. the inspiration of the invention

3.What is it that essentially keeps the food in the container from spoiling?

A. the wet cloth covering the cooling system.

B. the moving drier air outside the container

C. the wet sand between the containers

D. a drop in temperature by evaporation

4.According to the passage, where can we possibly see the invention?

A. rich and advanced families

B. scientific experiment laboratory

C. poor and underdeveloped area

D. supermarket needing to store goods

5.We can know from the passage that Mohammed Bah Abba ____________.

A. invented the controversial cooling system

B. financed the systems in all communities

C. received financial assistance for his invention

D. invented more complicated cooling system later

 

Trees are useful to man in three important ways: they give him wood and other useful things, they give him cool places, and they help to stop drought and flood.

Unluckily, in many parts of the world, man has not found that the third of these points is the most important. Man wants to make money from trees, so he has cut them down in large numbers, only to find that without them he has lost the best friends he had. And also, he is usually too careless to plant and look after new trees. So the forests slowly disappear.

This does not only mean that man will have fewer trees. The results are even worse: for where there are trees, their roots break up soil-make the rain in-and also bind the soil, thus stopping it from being washed away easily; but where there are no trees, the rain falls on hard ground and flows away, causing floods and carrying away the rich top-soil. When all the top-soil is gone, nothing is left but useless desert.

40.The most important points of trees to man is ________.

A. they help him to make money

B. they give him cool

C. they give him wood and other things

D. they help him to stop drought and floods

41.In many places forests slowly disappear because ________ .

A. many trees have been cut down by man

B. new trees are not well looked after

C. man has not paid enough attention to planting trees

D. all the above

42.Land becomes desert after all trees are cut down because ________ .

A. roots of trees break up the soil

B. there are too many rainfalls

C. strong winds bring a lot of sand

D. there are no longer trees to keep the rain and protect the top-soil.

43.Which title best fits the passage?

A. Trees and Man    

 B. The Function of Tree Wood

C. How do People do with Trees?

 D. The Usage of Tree Roots

D

41—45 DD

 

Only three local students won Chinese Blog（博客）Competition. And 15 of the 18 awards went to students from China. 
170 students’ task: to get a fully-designed blog up and running, complete with many posting based on a theme of choice—all written in Chinese. 
Themes ranged from local opinions－such as the usage of Singlish, education and whether Singapore can be a cultural centre－to food blogs. 
The entries were judged on Language proficiency（熟练程度）and the quality of writing, as well as the design and level of exchanging ideas with readers. 
Academics from the National University of Singapore and the SIM University IT experts, and a journalist from Chinese newspaper Lianhe Zaobao in Singapore made up the judges. 
In the end, only three Singaporean students made it to the award list—the rest of the awards were swept up by students from China. 
“No surprise.” said Mr. Chow Yaw Long, 37, teachers in charge from Ianova Junior College, which organized the event. “Although the topics were local subjects, the foreign students were generally better in terms of the content of the posts and their grasp of the Chinese language.”
One of the three local students winning the first prize in the Best Language Award was blogger Christina Gao，19, from the Saint Andrew’s Junior College, who spared no effort in researching for and writing her blog. Each entry took her between five and seven days to produce, complete with pictures and even podcasts（播客）.Her advice for bloggers is: Be responsible. “Some bloggers out there only seek to blame the authorities and other bloggers.” Said Miss Gao. “I think they lack responsibilities and there is no value to their posts.”
【小题1】The competition was organized by _______

A．the National University of Singapore

B．Chinese newspaper Lianhe Zaobao

C．Ianova Junior College

D．the Saint Andrew’s Junior College

【小题2】 Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?

A．Chinese students won most of the awards.

B．Not all the themes were about local subjects

C．The blogs could be written in Chinese or Singlish.

D．The judges were from university in Singapore and China.

【小题3】What Miss Gao said suggests that _____________

A．she likes to blame the authorities

B．she has a sense of responsibility

C．she thinks highly of the others’ blogs

D．she loves to read valuable posts

Microblogging is a broadcast medium in the form of blogging. A microblog differs from a traditional blog in that its content is typically much smaller, in both actual size and aggregate file size. Microblogs “allow users to exchange small elements of content such as short sentences, individual images, or video links”.

As with traditional blogging, microbloggers post about topics ranging from the simple, such as "what I'm doing right now," to the thematic(主题的), such as "sports cars.” Commercial microblogs also exist, to promote (促进) websites, services and/or products, and to promote collaboration within an organization.

Some microblogging services offer features such as privacy settings, which allow users to control who can read their microblogs, or other ways of publishing rights besides entering the web-based interface.(界面) These may include text messaging, E-mail, or digital audio.

The first microblogs were known as tumblelogs. The term was invented in a blog post on April 12, 2005. However, by 2006 and 2007, the term microblog came into greater usage for such services provided by Tumbler and Twitter. Other leading social networking websites Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, and XING also have their own microblogging features, better known as status updates.

Several studies, especially by Harvard Business School have tried to analyze the usage behavior of Microblogging services. Many of these studies show that for services such as Twitter, there is a small group of active users contributing to most of the activity.

Twitter, Facebook and other microblogging services are also becoming a platform for marketing and public relations, with a sharp growth in the number of social media marketers. The Sysomos study shows that this specific group of marketers on Twitter is much more active than general user population, with 15% following more than 2,000 people.

1.Why is a microblog different from a traditional blog?

   A. Because a microblog doesn’t include pictures, but a traditional blog does.

   B. Because a microblog doesn’t include videos, but a traditional blog does.

   C. Because a microblog has smaller contents than a traditional blog in actual and total file size.

   D. Because a microblog can only be written on the cell-phones.

2.Microblogging can protect the following privacy EXCEPT_______.

   A. deciding the readers of the microblogs

   B. allowing readers to publish their views

   C. readers’ deleting what a microblog says

   D. deciding whether readers can enter it

3.We can infer from the passage that______.

   A. microbloggers always post about the thematic topics instead of the simple ones

   B. microblogging has developed so quickly and brought the owners more and more benefits.

   C. microblogging protects both the owners’ and the readers’ privacy

   D. the studies by Harvard Business School have analyzed the usage of microblogging services

 

London has become a cycle friendly zone after the launch of a new bike hire scheme．It has been designed to encourage more people to cycle in and around central London．
So how does it work？First you have to sign up to the scheme to be sent a key．The key will unlock one of the bikes，which are kept at docking stations in and around central London．You have to pay an access fee for the key and then you pay as you go，for the length of time you use the bike．
Transport for London, which runs the scheme，are hoping to have 6，000 bikes and 400 docking stations in place by the end of the year．The new hire system is hoping to ease congestion in London and is expected to generate up to 40，000 extra cycle trips a day into the city centre. London Mayor Boris Johnston launched the scheme and said London had been “filled with thousands of gleaming machines that will transform the look and feel of our streets and become as common place on our roads as black cabs and red buses”.
However，there have been a few problems since the scheme was launched last Friday．On the first day some people found they couldn’t dock their bike properly and their usage of the bike had not registered．Transport for London did admit they had been expecting a few “teething problems” and have said they wouldn’t charge for the first day as a“gesture of goodwill”．Some other people have criticized the lack of docking stations and locks for the bikes as well as the price it costs to hire the bicycles．
Despite the comments，the green-thinking London Mayor still seems very positive about things，saying，“My campaign for the capital to become the greatest big cycling city in the world has taken a gigantic pedal-powered push forwards．”
【小题1】Which is the correct order of a bike hire？
a．pay a usage charge according to the time    b．pay for the key
c．cycle in and around central London  d．sign up as a member to get a key

A．b-d-c-a

B．b-c-a-d

C．d-c-b-a

D．d-b-c-a

【小题2】．Which of the following is NOT the “teething problems” of the scheme？

A．People were unable to lock properly．

B．People could not dock the bikes properly．

C．People had no enthusiasm about the scheme．

D．It’s too expensive for some people to hire a bike．

【小题3】．From the passage we know __________．

A．the ‘cycling revolution’ failed once started

B．the scheme will be put off due to the problems

C．all the citizens in London are in favor of the scheme

D．the London Mayor has great confidence in the scheme