The Japanese Language Speech Contests are held every year to encourage people ______ Japanese to challenge themselves by using their Japanese skills to perform in front of an audience.（ ）

A. studied　 B. to study　　 C. studying　　　 D. having studied

It was_______ that thousands of people saw it.

A. such an exciting film　　　　 B. a very exciting film

C. too excited a film　　　　　 D. so excited an film

The final score of the basketball match was 93－94.We were only________beaten.

A．nearly　 B．slightly

C．narrowly D．lightly

The part she starred in i　　　 me a lot .

He is difficult to make friends with, but the friendship of his, ___ , is stronger and truer than anyone else’s.

　　A. when to gain B. once gained C. as gaining D. while gained

Kathy ____ a lot of Spanish by playing with the native boys and girls.

A. picked up　 　　 B. took up　 　　　　C. made up 　　　　D.　 turned up

　 Increasingly, over the past ten years, people—especially young people—have become aware of the need to change their eating habits, because much of the food they eat, particularly processed foods, is not good for the health. Consequently, there has been a growing interest in natural foods; foods which do not contain chemical additives(添加劑)and which have not been affected by chemical fertilizers, widely used in farming today.

　 Natural foods, for example, are vegetables, fruit and grain which have been grown in soil that is rich in organic matter. In simple terms, this means that the soil has been nourished by unused vegetable matter, which provides it with essential vitamins and minerals. This in itself is a natural process compared with the use of chemicals and fertilizers, the main purpose of which is to increase the amount—but not the quality—of foods grown in commercial farming area.

　 Natural foods also include animals which have been allowed to feed and move freely in healthy pastures(牧場). Compare this with what happens in the mass production of poultry farms, for example, where thousands of chickens live crowded together in one building and are fed on food which is little better than rubbish. Chickens kept in this way are not only tasteless as food; they also produce eggs which lack important vitamins.

　 There are other aspects of healthy eating which are now receiving increasing attention from experts on diet. Take, for example, the question of sugar. This is actually a nonessential food! Although a natural alternative, such as honey, can be used to sweeten food if this is necessary, we can in fact do without it. It is not that sugar is harmful in itself. But it does seem to be addictive, the quantity we used has grown steadily over the last two centuries and in Britain today each person consumes an average of 200 pounds a year! Yet all it does is provide us with energy, in the form of calories. There are no vitamins in it, no minerals, and no fibre.

　 It is significant that nowadays fibre is considered to be an important part of a healthy diet. In white bread, for example, the fibre has been removed. But it is present in unrefined flour and of course in vegetables. It is interesting to note that in countries where the national diet contains large quantities of unrefined flour and vegetables, certain diseases are comparatively rare. Hence the emphasis is placed on the eating of wholemeal(沒有去麩的面粉)bread and more vegetables by modern experts on “healthy eating”.

1. People have become more interested in natural foods because____.

　 A. they are more health conscious

　 B. they want to taste all kinds of foods

　 C. natural foods are more delicious than processed foods

　 D. they want to return t nature

2. Soil that is rich in organic matter____.

　 A. has had chemicals and fertilizers added to it

　 B. contains vegetable matter that has not been consumed

　 C. has been nourished by fertilizers

　 D. already contains large quantities of vitamins and minerals

3. Chickens raised in poultry farms are all of the following EXCEPT that ____.

　 A. they are fed on food which is little better than garbage

　 B. they live in very crowded condition

　 C. the eggs they produce lack vitamins

　 D. they are allowed to move about and eat freely

4. According to the passage, ___.

　 A. people need sugar to give them energy

　 B. sugar is bad for the health

　 C. the use of sugar is habit forming

　 D. sugar only sweetens food, but provides us with nothing useful

5. The best title for this passage is ____.

　 A. People’s Growing Interest in Natural Foods

　 B. Natural Foods and a Healthy Diet

　 C. Harmful Effects of Sugar

　 D. The Importance of Fibre in Foods

We produce 500 billion of plastic bags in a year worldwide and they are thrown away polluting oceans, killing wildlife and getting dumped in landfills where they take up to 1,000 years to decompose. Researchers have been unsuccessfully looking for a solution.

The 16-year-old Canadian high school student, Daniel Burd, from Waterloo Collegiate Institute, has-discovered a way to make plastic bags degrade(降解) in as few as 3 months, a finding that won him first prize at the Canada Wide Science Fair, a ＄10,000 prize, a ＄20,000 scholarship, and a chance to revolutionize a major environmental issue.

Burd’s strategy was simple: Since plastic does eventually degrade, it must be eaten by microorganisms (微生物). If those microorganisms could be identified, we could put them to work eating the plastic much faster than under normal conditions.

With this goal in mind, he grounded plastic bags into a powder and concocted(調(diào)制) a solution of household chemicals, yeast(酵母) and tap water to encourage microbes growth. Then he added the plastic powder and let the microbes work their magic for 3 months. Finally, he tested the resulting bacterial culture on plastic bags, exposing one plastic sample to dead bacteria as a control. Sure enough, the plastic exposed to the live bacteria was 17% lighter than the control after six weeks.

The inputs are cheap, maintaining the required temperature takes little energy because microbes produce heat as they work, and the only outputs are water and tiny levels of carbon dioxide.

“Almost every week I have to do chores and when I open the closet door, I have piles of plastic bags falling on top of me. One day, I got tired of it and I wanted to know what other people are doing with these plastic bags. The answer: not much. So I decided to do something myself.” Said Daniel Burd.

1. Daniel Burd won first prize at the Canada Wide Science Fair because 　　 .

A. he found a new kind of microorganism

B. he contributed much to environmental protection

C. he found a way to degrade plastics in shorter time

D. he could encourage microbe growth in an easier way

2. Daniel Burd exposed one plastic sample to dead bacteria to 　　 .

　 A. make the live bacteria work better　　 B. test how effective his method was

C. know which bacteria worked faster　 D. control the temperature in the process

3. Maintaining the required temperature takes little energy because 　　　.

A. plastics can get hot easily　 　　　 B. microbes can produce heat themselves

C. much carbon dioxide is produced　　 D. the temperature can be controlled

4. Daniel Burd got his idea from 　　　.

A. his school textbook　　　　 B. the failure of researchers

C. his everyday work 　　　　　D. the practice of other people

She is writing a letter to her friend,_____him to the party.

A. having invited　 B. inviting　　　 C. to inviting　　　 D. invited

The large grassland, reaching out far away, looks extremely beautiful __________ the blue and clean sky.

　 A. with　　　　 　 B. against　 　　 C. through　 　　 D. beyond