阅读理解

B

    Animals grow up in different ways. Some newborn animals are helpless but their mothers protect them. A newborn kangaroo is very small. It is only a few centimeters(cm) long. It closes its eyes and doesn't have hair. It stays safe in its mother' s pouch(育儿袋) for a long time.A newborn monkey can not walk. Its mother carries it everywhere.

Other baby animals can walk soon after they're born. They learn to run with their mothers when danger is near. A baby zebra can run, an hour after it is born.

    Some baby animals are born in a place that is safe. Baby wolves are usually born in big holes with little light. Other baby animals are born in the open. A baby elephant is often born on open land.

    Animals that drink their mothers' milk are called mammals. A mother bear's milk is rich. Baby bears have milk for a few months. This is the same with baby zebras. As baby animals grow, they need solid(固体) food. Baby lions eat what their mother can catch!

    A recent study found people's lives are made shorter in North China. It is showed the life expectancy(平均寿命) had been cut down by 5.5 years there. Researchers（研究者）think that the heavy air pollution in China should be to blame(承担责任). It's really the truth. Our government has already done something. However, it doesn't seem to work so well.

    “Air pollution in China is doing harm to people's health. The harm is much more serious than we can imagine,” said Chen Yuyu of Beijing University, one of researchers of this study.

    Dirty air brings serious problems in North China. In January this year, the air pollution was worse than that in other places. That was caused by rising temperature and waste gas（气体）from coal heating（燃煤）.

    Chinese government should strongly fight with air pollution. They should think of more proper ways to deal with the problem. People should be encouraged to take buses, ride bicycles or walk, instead of driving cars. The factories that pollute heavily should be closed.

    “We need to improve our environment, although it might be expensive. Protecting our environment means protecting ourselves,” Li Hongbin, another researcher of the study said.

    One day, Mr. Arnold was teaching a lesson, and things were going as normally as ever. He was explaining the story of human being to his pupils. He told them that, in the beginning, men were nomads (游牧); they never stayed in the same place for very long. Instead, they would travel about, here and there, in search of food, wherever it was to be found. And when the food ran out, they would move off somewhere else.

    He taught them about the invention of farming and keeping animals. This was an important discovery, because by learning to cultivate (耕作) the land, and care for animals, mankind would always have food steadily. It also meant that people could remain living in one place, and this made it easier to set about tasks that would take a long while to finish, like building towns, cities, and all that were in them. All the children were listening attracted by this story, until Lucy jumped up:

    "And if that was so important and improved everything so much, why are we nomads all over again, Mr. Arnold?"

    Mr. Arnold didn't know what to say. Lucy was a very clever girl. He knew that she lived with her parents in a house, so she must know that her family were not nomads; so what did she mean?

    "We have all become nomads again,” continued Lucy, " The other day, outside the city, they were cutting the forest down. A while ago a fisherman told me how they fish. It's the same with everyone: when there's no more forest left, the foresters go elsewhere, and when the fish run out, the fishermen move on. That's what the nomads did, isn't it?

    The teacher nodded, thoughtfully. Really, Lucy was right. Mankind had turned into nomads. Instead of looking after the land in a way that we could be sure it would keep supplying our needs, we kept developing it until the land was bare. And then off we would go to the next place! The class spent the rest of the afternoon talking about what they could do to show how to be more civilized (文明的).

    The next day everyone attended class wearing a green T-shirt, with a message that said "I am not a nomad!"

    And, from then on, they set about showing that indeed they were not. Every time they knew they needed something, they made sure that they would get it using care and control. If they needed wood or paper, they would make sure that they got the recycled kind. They ordered their fish from fish farms, making sure that the fish they received were not too young and too small. They only used animals that were well cared for, and brought up on farms.

    And so, from their little town, those children managed to give up being nomads again, just as prehistoric men had done, so many thousands of years ago.

    There is a lot of salt on the Earth, and it mixes very well with water.

There is some salt in all water. Water on the land runs into lakes and rivers. These rivers run into the seas and oceans. They carry a little salt with them. Some of the ocean water moves into the air and clouds. It evaporates. Salt cannot evaporate. It stays in the oceans.

    The water in the oceans has more salt than river water. There is about 3. 5% salt in the ocean water. Some seas have more salt than others.

    Some of the water leaves the lakes. It evaporates, but the salt cannot. These lakes are very salty. There are two famous lakes like this. They are the Dead Sea in the Middle East and the Great Salt Lake in Utah(犹他州）in the United States. They are much saltier than the Atlantic Ocean（大西洋）and the Pacific Ocean(太平洋）.

    How do you keep cool during summer? Air conditioners or electric fans are good 1 in modern society. But 2 that, people could only use fans.

    Over 3,000 years ago, fans began to 3 They were made of feathers (羽毛), bamboo or silk. They came in different 4 , including round and square.

    Later, with the invention of paper, folding(可折叠) paper fans became popular5 the Song Dynasty.  There are usually beautiful 6on fans. Some are landscapes (风景). Others are flowers and animals. Moreover, many great people including Su Dongpo, a poet of the Song Dynasty, and Tang Yin, a scholar (学者) and painter of the Ming Dynasty, once painted their masterpieces(杰作) on fans. This made fans not only 7 tools in daily life but also great artworks.

    So, with its value of beauty, people take fans as a 8 of status(地位). That's why in old China, emperors and scholars often held fans.

    Today, fans are also great collectors' items(藏品) and gifts. On the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, folding fans were9 to leaders and officials (官员) of other countries. While they were 10 fans to get cool, they were also experiencing Chinese culture.

    Carrots (胡萝卜) are grown on farms and in small family gardens all over the world. They are easy to plant and easy to harvest (收获). They have a good taste.

    When people think about carrots, a picture of a long, thin, orange-colored vegetable usually comes into their minds. But carrots come in many different sizes and shapes. And not all carrots are orange.

Carrots should be grown in sandy soil that does not hold water for a long time. The earth also should not be too hard. To prepare your carrot garden, dig up the earth and turn it over (翻土).

    Weather, soil, condition and time affect (影响) the taste of carrots. Warm days and cool nights are the best time to grow great delicious carrots.

    The best way to decide if a carrot is ready to be harvested is by its color. Usually, the brighter the color is, the better the taste is.

    Most people do not know that carrots can be grown during the winter months. If the winter is not cold enough to freeze the ground, you can grow and harvest carrots the same way as you do during the summer months.

Carrots are prepared and eaten in many different ways. They ate cut into thin pieces and cooked with other vegetables or meat. They are also washed and eaten just as they come out of the ground.