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Remember the drinking fountain, that once ubiquitous (到处存在的), and free, source of H2O? It seems quaint now. Instead, bottled water is everywhere, in offices, airplanes, stores, homes and restaurants across the country. We consumed over eight billion gallons of the stuff in 2006, a 10% increase from 2005. It’s refreshing, calorie-free, convenient to carry around, tastier than some tap water and a heck of a lot healthier than sugary sodas. But more and more, people are questioning whether the water, and the package it comes in, is safe, or at least safer than tap water — and if the convenience is worth the environmental impact.

Evocative names and labels depicting pastoral scenes have convinced us that the liquid is the purest drink around. “But no o ne should think that bottled water is better regulated, better protected or safer than tap,” says Eric Goldstein, co-director of the urban program at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a nonprofit organization devoted to protecting health and the environment.

Yes, some bottled water comes from sparkling springs and other pristine (纯净的) sources. But more than 25% of it comes from a municipal supply. The water is treated, purified and sold to us, often at a thousandfold increase in price. Most people are surprise d to learn that they’re drinking glorified tap water, but bottlers aren’t required to list the source on the label. This year Aquafina will begin stating on labels that its H20 comes from public water sources. And Nestle Pure Life bottles will indicate whether the water comes from public, private or deep well sources. Dasani acknowledges on its website, but not on the label itself, that it draws from local water.

Labels can be misleading at best, deceptive at worst. In one notorious case, water coming from a well located near a hazardous waste site was sold to many bottlers. At least one of these companies labeled its product “spring water”. In another case, H2O sold as “pure glacier water” came from a public water system in Alaska.

Lisa Ledwidge, 38, of Minneapolis, stopped drinking bottled water a couple of years ago, partly because she found out that many brands come from a municipal supply. “You’re spending more per gallon than you would on gasoline for this thing that you can get out of the tap virtually for free,” she says. “I wondered, why am I spending this money while complaining about how much gas costs? But you don’t ever hear anyone complain about the price of bottled water.” Ledwidge says she now drinks only filtered tap water.

(Reader’s Digest 2008)

1.Which of the following is CORRECT as to bottled water?

A.It’s tastier than sugary sodas.

B.It’s healthier than tap water.

C.It’s easier to access and take.

D.It’s more expensive for its package.

2.How does Eric Goldstein think about bottled water?

A.It’s the pu rest drink around us.

B.Its names and labels are out of date.

C.It’s better protected and safer than tap water.

D.Its quality may not fit to its advertisement.

3.It can be inferred from the third paragraph that ________.

A.municipal supply is the main source of bottled water

B.whether to lable the source depend on the bottlers

C.bottlers must lable their bottled water supply source

D.bottled water from Aquafina is safer than Dasani’s

4.The two cases were mentioned by the author to ________.

A.reveal the source of spring water

B.show the danger of waste sites

C.unveil the deception of labels

D.introduce the pure glacier water

5.According to Lisa Ledwidge, ________.

A.gas costs are higher than bottled water costs

B.tap water is more economical than bottled water

C.bottled water has a price advantage over tap water

D.she prefers bottled water to the municipal supply

Researchers are trying to tell parents something about what kinds of video games children should be playing and how much time they should spend doing it. A new study concludes what you’ve already suspected: Young boys who play video games do worse on tests than children who don’t. Researchers who followed 64 boys from the ages of 6 to 9 for four months discovered that those who received a new PlayStation II gaming system earned lower reading and writing test scores than children who did not get the video game player. This comes on the heels of another recently reported study about video games, which concluded that kids who play violent video game become more aggressive and less caring — regardless of age, sex or culture — than young people who don’t play these games.

The study on the effects of video games on schoolwork was conducted by Denison University Associate Professor Robert Weis and Brittany Cerankosky, who graduated from Denison in 2008. It is called “Effects of Video-Game Ownership on Young Boys’ Academic and Behavioral Functioning”, and will be published in Psychological Science.

Boys who received the system also showed greater teacher-reported academic problems at follow-up than children in the comparison group. The researchers followed 64 young boys over four months. Parents of the 64 were promised a PlayStation II gaming system in exchange for their participation, plus three E rated games. But half the families were given the video gaming system immediately and half were promised if after four months. The children underwent a battery of tests before and after the four months and parents and teachers answered questions about how the boys behaved in school and at home.

The conclusion show that, boys who were he first to get the PlayStations spent more time playing video games than the boys who didn’t get it immediately —39.3 minutes versus 9.3

minutes. (The boys who didn’t get the gaming system right away played at a friend’s house). Boys who were given the PlayStation right away spent 18.2 minutes a day in after-school academic activities versus 31.6 minutes for the kids who weren’t. The boys who had the video games immediately achieved lower reading and writing tes t scores than those who didn’t. But the PlayStations seemed to have no effect on the boys’ math and problem solving skills.

Cerankosky said in a statement on the Denison University Web site that there isn’t necessarily something inherent in video games tha t negatively affects kids. “It’s an activity that detracts from time that could be spent on schoolwork,” she said. If you are wondering why we needed a study to tell us that, the researchers say that conventional wisdom is not always accurate, and it is important to prove such beliefs through experimentation.

(Washington Post 2010)

6.Which of the following is CORRECT according to the first paragraph?

A.The researchers call for a ban on children video games.

B.Video games have less influence on girl’s performance.

C.Evaluation is needed before buying children video games.

D.The new PlayStation II gaming system is too violent to children.

7.What can we learn from the follow-up study?

A.All the 64 boys got a PlayStation II gaming system at start.

B.Parents and teachers’ partic ipation contributed to the result.

C.Children in the study were allowed to play games at class.

D.Parents of the 64 boys were asked to buy their children video games.

8.The study’s conclusions show that the PlayStations ________.

A.are helpful in after-school academic activities

B.have no direct influence on the boys’ math skills

C.can decrease the participants’ problem-solving skills

D.have no effect on the boys who didn’t get them firstly

9.How does Cerankosky think about the video games?

A.They negatively affect the child ren’s nature.

B.They have no inherent influence on schoolwork.

C.They can cause inaccurate conventional wisdom.

D.They disorder the children’s time arrangement.

10.What does this passage mainly talk about?

A.The new PlayStation II gaming system.

B.The academic performance of young boys.

C.The study on video games and schoolwork.

D.The negative effect of violent video games.

Forget Black Friday. The real bargains this year are showing up on Cyber Monday, the first work day following Thanksgiving when people return to their offices, ignore the tasks at hand, and begin to surf the Internet in earnest for this year’s holiday gifts. Roughly 45% of online retailers expect their holiday sales to increase this year by at least 15% compared with 2008, according to the ind ustry group Shop. org. “People view the Internet as the place to save money and find the best prices through comparison shopping,” says Scott Silverman, Shop. org’s executive director.

Online sales may be the lone sweet spot for retailers in this otherwise dismal economy. With double-digit unemployment and a foreclosure crisis that just won’t quit, consumers are expected to spend even less this season. Overall, the National Retail Federation expects consumers to spend an average of $682.74 on holiday-related gear, food, and gifts, compared with an average of $705.01 in 2008.

While traditional retailers have had their ups and downs over the last decade, online sales have risen steadily since 1999. That’s when companies such as https://www.wendangku.net/doc/d718804800.html,, Priceline, and eBay first rose to prominence, prompting Newsweek to proclaim that these three businesses had set out to “change the way you shop”. Since then, the sector has grown from a $4.6 billion industry to a $31.5 billion industry. “The story of the last decade is that there has been consistent 20% growth,”says Ken Casear, vice president of industry insights for the Nielsen Co., about online shopping.

That growth may have something to do with online retailers’ willingness and ability to pass on their reduced overhead costs in the form of discounts to consumers. Roughly nine out of 10 online businesses recently surveyed by Shop. org planned to offer some type of promotion for Cyber Monday in the form of one-day sales, free shipping, and “deal of the hour” sales. Roughly 57% plan to offer free shipping this year; Target started waiving (推迟) shipping and handling fees on Nov. 1, a full two weeks before the promotion normally starts. This year, about 15% of all retailers will no longer require consumers to spend a certain amount of money to qualify for free shipping.

F orm the retailers’ perspective, the best part about online holiday shopping is that its success is not measured on a single day. The results from Black Friday are often used to forecast consumers’ moods about the entire holiday season or, worse, the first quarter of the following year. By comparison, online holiday shopping remains steady throughout the month of December, says Andrew Lipsman, director of industry analysis for ComScore, a research firm. If there is a peak with holiday online sales, it happens over an entire workweek, usually between Dec. 10 and 15, he says.

Even with this cheerleading over online sales, retail researchers acknowledge that e-commerce will never really usurp (取代) Black Friday. Online retail spending year-round —including spending on food, cars, and gas — still accounts for just 8% of retail sales overall, says Lipsman. “People like to get out into a store,” he says. “Black Friday is still a cultural phenomenon.”(Newsweek 2009)

11.It can be concluded from the first paragraph that ________.

A.Black Friday has lost its traditional meaning

B.Cyber Monday means Thanksgiving day

C.online retailers may offer good bargains

D.Internet goes against firm’s routine tasks

12.One cause for the National R etail Federation’s expectation of a consumer expenditure decline

is ________.

A.the online sales

B.the quit of retailers

C.the prosperous economy

D.the high unemployment

https://www.wendangku.net/doc/d718804800.html,panies like Amazon. Com and eBay were mentioned to indicate ________.

A.the ups and downs of traditional retailers

B.the consistent rise of online shopping

C.the steadily growth of traditional retailers

D.the retailers’ ad promotion on Newsweek

14.For this year’s Cyber Monday, most online retailers will of fer the following EXCEPT ______.

A.consumer discounts

B.free shopping

C.one-day sales

D.goods promotion

15.We can infer from the retail researchers that ________.

A.online sales will lead the retail market

B.online retail had no cultural meaning

C.e-commerce is identical with Black Friday

D.traditional shopping still holds the market

Consumers around the world want governments to stop haggling (争辩) and start acting on climate change, according to a survey carried out in 12 countries by a coalition of climate groups.

Despite the looming prospect of a deep global recession, 43% of the 12,000 respondents of the survey chose climate change ahead of the global economy when asked about their current concerns. Worldwide, 77% of respondents wanted to see their governments cutting carbon by their fair share or more, in order to allow developing countries to grow their economies.

The survey was carried out for the HSBC Climate Partnership, a collaboration between the international bank and climate NGOs including WWF, the Climate Group, Earthwatch Institute and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.

Lord Stern, and adviser to HSBC on economic development and climate change and former adviser to the UK government, said: “This research demonstrates the need for decisive action on climate change. The urgent challenge is to build a framework for a global deal so that consensus can be reached in Copenhagen and the discussions in Poznan are a critical stepping stone to achieving this. Now is the time to lay the foundations of a new form of growth that can transform our economies and societies.”

The r esults of the group’s climate confidence monitor are based on an internet questionnaire presented to 1,000 people each in 12 countries: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, Mexico, UK and the US. The survey was conducted between mid-September and early October.

Even in many emerging countries, people said their governments must reduce greenhouse gases — 62% of respondents in China said they should reduce emissions and only 4% said the country’s emissions should be a llowed to increase. In Mexico and Brazil, more than 80% wanted emissions cuts that tallied with (符合，吻合) their fair share of global targets — as high a level as in developed countries. In the US, 72% of people said their country should reduce emissions by at least as much as other countries.

David Nussbaum, the chief executive of WWF-UK, said: “The current global economic crisis is a stark reminder of the consequences of living beyond our means. As the world looks to restore its economies we must build in long-term environmental as well as economic sustainability.”

Steve Howard, chief executive of the Climate Group, a coalition of businesses and governments aimed at moving towards a low-carbon economy, said the survey showed that “politicians have the political will of the people behind them to come to an agreement on climate change. Politicians now have the support they need to seize this historic opportunity and secure a global deal on climate change.”

(The Guardian 2008)

16.According to Lord Stern, which form of growth is in need?

https://www.wendangku.net/doc/d718804800.html,prehensive growth.

B.Balanced development.

C.Sustainable development.

D.Accelerated growth.

17.What can we infer from Paragraph 6?

A.The developing countries are not expected to be so active in emission cut.

B.The developing countries shall cut as much emissions as the developed countries.

C.The majority of the world population are in favor of the emission cut policy.

D.People from the US are less active than those from the emerging countries.

18.In Paragraph 7, the current economic crisis rings alarm for the following deeds EXCEPT ___.

A.excessive consumption of energy

B.development at the expense of nature

C.excessive emission of carbon dioxide

D.pre-mature consumption of goods

19.The survey suggests that it’s time to make an agreement on climate change, because ______.

A.there is a historic opportunity

B.people’s support is in place

C.politicians have such kind of will

D.delay may lead to serious result

20.Which off the followings is the theme of the passage?

A.It is more important to tackle climate changes than to develop economy.

B.People call for a long-term environmental strategy to help restore our economy.

C.Both developing and developed countries should cut down carbon emission.

D.Politicians should reach an agreement on climate change issue as soon as possible.