题型:任务型阅读 题类:常考题 难易度:困难
黑龙江省哈尔滨第六中学2015-2016学年高一下学期期末英语考试试卷
Most people buy a lot of gifts just before Christmas. But some people think we buy too much. They have started a special day called Buy Nothing Day.
Buy Nothing Day is November 29. It's 25 days before Christmas. It's after Thanksgiving and often the first day of Christmas shopping.
The idea for Buy Nothing Day started in Vancouver, British Columbia.In California, parents and children get together to read stories, sing songs, and paint pictures. The children talk about why they don't need a lot of toys. This year, in Manchester, England, people dressed up in costumes to tell people that we buy too much.
In Albuquerque, New Mexico, high school students wanted to tell other students about Buy Nothing Day. They organized a spaghetti dinner to give people information about Buy Nothing Day. They made posters and talked to other students about it. The students at high schools liked the idea of this new tradition. Next year, they want to have another dinner to tell more people about Buy Nothing Day.
A. They asked restaurants in the neighborhood to donate the food.
B. At this time, we see ads in Newspapers and, on TV telling us to “buy, buy, buy!”
C. Buy Nothing Day has successfully persuaded people not buy anything.
D. Many people think highly of the idea of Buy Nothing Day.
E. They don't want anyone to go shopping on that day.
F. Now people all over the world celebrate Buy Nothing Day.
G. The dinner was a big success, and many students agreed not to buy anything on November 29.
Lindsay Renwick, the mayor of Deniliquin, a country town in New South Wales, misses the constant whir(嗡嗡声)of the rice mill whose giant fans dried the rice. The Deniliquin mill, the largest rice mill in the Southern Hemisphere (南半球), once processed enough grain to meet the needs of 20 million people globally. But six years of drought have had a destructive effect, reducing Australia's rice crop by 98 percent and leading to the mothballing of the mill last December.
Drought affects every agriculture industry based in Australia, not just rice – from sheep farming, the country's other backbone, to the cultivation of grapes for wine, the fastest-growing crop there, with that expansion often coming at the expense of rice. The drought's effect on rice has produced the greatest impact on the rest of the world, so far. It is one factor contributing to skyrocketing prices, and many scientists believe it is among the earliest signs that a warming planet is starting to affect food production.
Researchers are looking for solutions to global rice shortages – for example, rice that blooms earlier in the day, when it is cooler, to fight against global warming. Rice plants that happen to bloom on hot days are less likely to produce grains of rice, a difficulty that is already starting to emerge in inland areas of China and other Asian countries as temperatures begin to climb. 'there will be problems very soon unless we have new varieties of rice in place,” said Reiner Wassmann, climate change director at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). The recent reports on climate change carried a warning that could make the news even worse: that existing models for the effects of climate change on agriculture did not yet include newer findings that global warming could reduce rainfall and make it more variable.
Yet the effects of climate change are not uniformly bad for rice. Rising concentrations (浓度) of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, can actually help rice – although the effect reduces or disappears if the plants face unnecessary heat, inadequate water, severe pollution or other stresses. Still, the flexibility of farmers here has persuaded some climate experts that, particularly in developed countries, the effects of climate change may be relieved, if not completely avoided. “I'm not as negative as most people,” said Will Steffen, director of the Fenner School of Environment and Society at Australian National University. “Farmers are learning how to do things differently.”
Meanwhile, changes like the use of water to grow wine grapes instead of rice carry their own costs, as the developing world is discovering. “Rice is an essential food,” said Graeme Haley, the general manager of the town of Deniliquin. “Wine is not.”
Phenomenon | Six years of drought reduced Australia's rice crop by 98%, leaving the rice mill{#blank#}1{#/blank#} |
{#blank#}2{#/blank#}of drought and climate change | Every Australian agriculture industry is affected,{#blank#}3{#/blank#}from sheep farming to the cultivation of grapes for wine. The whole world is in{#blank#}4{#/blank#}of rice. Prices rise{#blank#}5{#/blank#} . Temperatures begin to climb, causing{#blank#}6{#/blank#}rice production. |
{#blank#}7{#/blank#}to global rice shortages | Seek a new variety of rice that blooms earlier when it is cooler as a{#blank#}8{#/blank#} |
Some good news | Unless faced with unnecessary heat, inadequate water or other stress, the main green house gas can actually do{#blank#}9{#/blank#}to rice. Farmers are flexible and they can do things{#blank#}10{#/blank#}. |
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