Man’s best friend could be one of the environment’s worst enemies, according to a new study that says that your pet dog’s carbon pawprint(碳足迹) is more than double that of a sports car.

         Yet this point of view, made by New Zealanders Robert and Brenda Vale, has angered pet owners who feel they are being picked out as troublemakers.

         The Vales, researchers in sustainable(可持续的) living, looked at popular brands of pet food and calculated that a medium-sized dog eats about 164 kilos of meat and 95 kilos of grain a year.

         Combining that with the energy needed to produce that food, it means a medium-sized dog has an annual footprint of 0.84 hectares(公顷), about twice the 0.41 hectares required by a sports car driving 10,000 kilometers a year, including energy to build the car.

         “Owning a dog really is quite an extravagance(奢侈), mainly because of the carbon footprint of mean. Other animals aren’t better for the environment,” the Vales say.

         Cats have an eco-footprint of about 0.15 hectares a year, while two hamsters(仓鼠) are the same as a television and even the goldfish burns energy equal to two cellphones.

         However, Reha Huttin, president of France’s 30 Million Friends animal rights foundation says pets are too important to human life to be got rid of.

         “Everyone should work out their own environmental effect,” Huttin argude. “I should be allowed to say that I walk instead of using my car and that I don’t eat meat, so why souldn’t I be allowed to have a little cat to reduce my loneliness?”

         The Vales give some solutions to reduce pets’ environmental effect, including reducing pets’ meat intake. But they said that, as with buying a car ,humans should take the environmental effect of their future compainon into account.

71．The best title of the article is "______"．

         A．Work out our carbon emissions         B．Reduce our pets’ meat intake

         C．Be careful of keeping our pets          D．Mind our pets’ carbon footprint

72．Reha Huttin’s remark really means that ______．

         A．pets should not be kept as a result of consuming much food

         B pets are doing no harm to the environment at all

         C．people can keep pets by reducing their environmental effect

         D．he prefers walking to driving to reduce his loneliness

73．We know from the article that ______．

         A．a medium-sized dog eats around 95 kilos of grain and meat a year

         B．a medium-sized dog has an annual footprint 5．6 times that of a cat

         C．two hamsters burn the same energy as two televisions

         D．a sports car running 10,000 kilometers requires 0.41 hectares of footprint

74．Which of the following is NOT true according to the article?

         A．The Vales insist that pets should be got rid of．

         B．Some pet owners are against the Vales’ point of view．

         C．Keeping pets does have a bad effect on the environment．

         D．Pets’ carbon footprint should not be neglected．

75．Which of the following can help reduce pets’ environmental effect based on the text?

         A．Feeding pets on less meat．

       B．Working out eco-footprints of pets．

         C．Keeping the goldfish instead of dogs．

         D．Getting rid of pets from human life．

What’s A Real Friend?

You can have the same neighbors for years．You love them or you think you love them．And you hope that they love you．But do you ever really understand them?

    Charlie Kemp and his family lived next door to me for 15 years．We were good friends all the time．I enjoy friendship．I think it's the best thing in the world．And friendship with the Kemps was easy because they seemed to welcome it．

    They were interesting and clever people．Their house caught fire twice, and twice the whole family slept in mine．They are always losing things like money, keys and watches．Pictures fell off the walls, the children fell out of bed …

    I was their neighbor and their friend．Life was always interesting, never dull．Best of all, I liked the whole family．

    One day, I lit a fire in the garden to burn some rubbish．After some time Charlie Kemp came out of his house and walked up the road．

    “Morning, Charlie,” I said, “lovely day, isn’t it?” He smiled at me and nodded．I went on with my work．

Twenty minutes later, a policeman arrived．He walked into my garden and said, “You’ll have to put out that fire．Your neighbor has complained (抱怨) to us．He doesn't like the smell．”

“My neighbor …?” I asked．

    “Yes,” the policeman took out his notebook and read, “Charlie Kemp．He lives next door, doesn’t he?”

How many years did Charlie kemp and his family live next door to the writer?

A.5 years       B.10 years        C.15 years       D.20 years

What things do the Charlie kemp’s family lose?

    A.pen        B.book       C.money and keys      D.clothes

According to the passage, ________．

A．Charlie Kemp is the author's neighbor and his real good friend

B．Charlie Kemp is the author's neighbor but not his real good friend

C．Charlie Kemp treats the author as his real good friend

D．the author doesn't treat Charlie Kemp as his real good friend

The author was blamed by the policeman because ________．

A．he was found burning the rubbish by the policeman

B．he was found polluting the environment by burning the rubbish

C．his neighbor Charlie Kemp complained(抱怨) about his action and called the policeman

D．he burnt something of his neighbors

The author's experience tells us that ________．

A．a friend in need is a friend indeed

B．it is difficult to understand a person, even your friend

C．anyone is sure to be friendly to you if you are friendly to him

D．friendship is the best thing in the world

Ever wonder how this season’s celebrations affect the environment? Guest blogger Krista Fairles takes an amusing look at this very topic:

The holidays are a wonderful, cheerful time when most people wait for Santa to bring them presents. But I’m not like most people. I spend my time wondering just what the environmental impacts of Santa Claus and his reindeer are, and more importantly, how I can calculate those impacts.

Lately I’ve been particularly curious as to whether Santa’s old sled is a clean green flying machine, or if he should be replacing his 8 reindeer with an environmentally-friendly car.

I should mention that, surprisingly, I was unable to find statistics specific to Santa’s magical flying reindeer, so these calculations use numbers from various sources and may not represent actual pollution caused by Santa and his animals. In other words, don’t complain to the government about the damage Santa is causing the environment based on this article.

Santa’s yearly trip around the globe is 44,000km long, twice the average of a North American driver. If we assume that the magic provides the altitude for this trip, then reindeer power only needs to push Santa’s sled forward. To complete the trip in 12 hours, I estimate they must travel at a speed of about 3100km/h. To travel at this speed, for this length of time, the reindeer need to eat an incredible 980 million calories each!!

So the next question is: how much food is in 980 million calories? Well, if they’re eating corn, they’d need to eat 16,500 lbs each — or 1.6 acres of food. Growing 12.8 acres of corn has its own implications for the environment that we’ll leave for another calculation.

We now need to consider that during the global trip the reindeer are “letting out” some of that corn in the form of methane (甲烷，沼气). A resting cow produces 110 kg of methane per year, so flying reindeer would each let out about 4.8 tons. With methane causing 20 times the global warming damage of CO₂, and the altitude increasing that damage by 1000% that another 20 times, we can put Santa’s round-trip emissions at 15,488 tons. This is much more than the 100 tons an environmentally-friendly car would release on the same trip!

Bad Santa.

1. Which aspect does the writer NOT include in her analyses about reindeer’s influence on environment?

A. Distance covered.                                      B. Calories consumed.

C. Tons of waste let out.                       D. Money spent on food.

2. According to Paragraph 6, how many acres of corn would Santa need to feed 10 reindeer?

A. 1.6.                 B. 16.                           C. 12.8.                        D. 128.

3. Which of the following statements would the writer most probably agree with?

A. Christmas celebrations are really a waste of money.

B. Vegetarians are more likely to survive than meat-eaters.

C. Raising animals has a negative influence on environment.

D. The car industry does less harm to environment than farming.

4. Which of the following words best describes the language style of the passage?

A. Humourous and concerned.                    B. Cheerful and friendly.

C. Academic and formal.                               D. Serious and boring.

5. Which of the following is the best title for this passage?

A. Is Santa driving clean and green?

B. Santa, watch where you’re going!

C. Santa Claus is coming to town!

D. Let’s reduce waste on Christmas celebrations!

 

I shall never forget the night, a few years ago, when Marion J. Douglas was a student in one of my adult-education classes. He told us how tragedy had struck at his home, not once, but twice. The first time he had lost his five-year-old daughter. He and his wife thought they couldn’t bear that first loss; but, as he said, “Ten months later, God gave us another little girl and she died in five days.”

This double bereavement was almost too much to bear. “I couldn’t take it,” this father told us. “I couldn’t sleep, eat, rest or relax. My nerves were entirely shaken and my confidence gone.” At last he went to the doctors: one recommended sleeping pills and another recommended a trip, but neither helped. He said, “My body felt as if it was surrounded in a vice(大钳子), and the jaws of the vice were being drawn tighter and tighter.” The tension of grief(悲伤) --- if you have ever been paralyzed(使瘫痪) by sorrow, you know what the meant.

“But thank God, I had one child left --- a four-year-old son. He gave me the solution to the problem. One afternoon as I sat around feeling sorry for myself, he asked, ‘Daddy, will you build a boat for me?’ I was in no mood to build a boat; in fact, I was in no mood to do anything. But my son is a persistent fellow! I had to give in. Building that toy boat took me about three hours. By the time it was finished, I realized that those three hours spent building that boat were first hours of mental relaxation and peace that I had had in months! I realized that it is difficult to worry while you are busy doing something that requires planning and thinking. In my case, building the boat had knocked worry out of the ring. So I determined to keep busy.”

“The following night, I made a list of jobs that ought to be done. Scores of items needed to be repaired. Amazingly, I had made a list of 242 items that needed attention. During the last two years I have completed most of them. I am so busy now that I have no time for worry.”

No time for worry! That is exactly what Winston Churchill said when he was working eighteen hours a day at the height of the war. When he was asked if he worried about his huge responsibilities, he said, “I am too busy. I have no time for worry.”

The underlined word “bereavement” in the second paragraph refers to _________.

A. having lost a loved one	B. having lost a valuable article
C. having lost a profit-making business	D. having lost a well-paid job

Marion felt his body as if it was caught in a vice because _________.

A. he couldn’t earn enough money to support his family

B. he was suffering from sleeplessness disease

C. he couldn’t get out of mental pressure

D. he felt tired of adult-education classes

Marion made a list of over 200 items that needed to be repaired because _________.

A. he hadn’t been able to spare time to mend them

B. he wanted to kill his free time by repairing them

C. the items had actually been broken and needed attention

D. repairing the items helped crowd worry out of his mind

At the end of the passage, the author wrote about Winston Churchill in order to ________.

A. prove that he followed Churchill’s example

B. support his student’s solution to his problem

C. show that he was successful in his career

D. make it clear how his conclusion was reached

The scientists observed that the more junk food the rats ate, the more they wanted to eat – a behavior very similar to that of rats addicted(上了瘾的) to heroin, a dangerous drug. Johnson said the experiment shows that the brain chemistry of obesity(肥胖) and drug addiction may be quite similar.

In their experiment, Johnson and his team studied the “pleasure center” of rats’ brains. The pleasure center is a complicated network of nerve cells. If the animal exercises or eats, the cells reward the animal by releasing chemicals into the body that make it feel good. And when the body feels good, the animal – or person – will want to do the behavior again.

For the experiment, Johnson fed foods like cheesecake to one group of rats. Food like this is high in calories and fat. Another group of rats got a regular diet. The rats that ate junk food started to eat more and more.

“They’re taking in twice the amount of calories as the control rats,” says Paul Kenny, one of Johnson’s colleagues.

Kenny and Johnson wanted to know what was going on in the brains of these rats. They first designed a way to deliver a small electrical charge to the rats’ brains. This electrical charge would stimulate the pleasure centers to release pleasure-causing chemicals. The rats could control how much stimulation – and how much pleasure – they received by running on a wheel. The more the rat ran, the more pleasure it received.

The rats that had been eating junk food started running more and more. This behavior suggested that the junk-food-eating rats needed more brain stimulation to feel good compared with rats on a normal diet. In other words, their pleasure centers were becoming less sensitive and the junk food didn’t make them feel good unless they ate more and more.

Experiments like this one could help scientists understand how chemicals in the brain contribute to obesity. With that information, they may be able to help people avoid obesity in the first place.

 

(Note: Answer the questions or complete the statements in NO MORE THAN TEN WORDS.)

 

1. The scientists suggested it was actually ___________________ that made the rats feel good.

2. How did the scientist know what was happening in the brains of the junk-food-eating rats?

3.What was the purpose of the experiment mentioned in the article?