The population of the Earth is growing faster. It is important that we look after the Earth. We need it!
The Earth gives us a lot of things. We also give the Earth a lot, but some of the things are not good.
In nature, when something dies, other animals and plants get food from it. Every animal or plant gives food for other animals or plants. However, animals can’t get food from many of the things that we ‘give’ the Earth. Animals and plants can’t eat metal, plastic and glass. These things will stay in the ground for many, many years.

Some rubbish is very dangerous for plants and animals. In some places, many animals live together. One animal makes food for many more animals. If we put rubbish and chemicals in the water, the plankton(浮游生物) can die. If there isn’t any plankton, many animals have nothing to eat.
So what can we do? Don’t leave any rubbish in the countryside! Don’t make so much rubbish!
【小題1】 The Earth gives us ___________.

No Car Day was first started by 34 cities in France on September 22, 1998. It was started to protect the environment. By now, more than 1,000 cities around the world have had a No Car Day.
The first No Car Day in China was in Chengdu in 2001. Other cities including Taipei, Shanghai and Wuhan, also support the day.
In Beijing, more and more people are taking part in the activity. It asks drivers to leave their cars at home for one day each month and walk or ride a bike to work. It also calls on Beijingers not to use cars on June 5th (World Environment Day). The slogan(口號) for the day is, “ If we drive for one less day, we can have one more nice day.”
So far, more than 200,000 drivers have shown their support. “We can’t control the weather, but we can choose not to drive,” said Wu Zhonghua, a car club chairman. Beijing is trying to have 238 blue sky days this year. In the first quarter of 2007, Beijing only had 52 blue sky days. This was 11 days less than the number for the same period last year. Much of the dust comes from the desert, but cars cause most of the air pollution. We must do more for No Car Day.
【小題1】No Car Day was started _______.

Today there are 6.4 billion people on the earth. By the year 2050 there may be 12.5 billion . There are a lot of people to feed. We need more  and more food.
One way to produce more food is growing stronger plants. For thousands of years, farmers have made plants better. Every season, they pick the best plants for the next season. It works very slowly. Since 1983, scientists have been able to change plants more quickly by changing their genetic（遺傳的） material. Foods from plants grown in this way are called genetically modified(改變的) foods, or GM foods.
By changing the genetic material of a plant, it is possible to make new plants. They make plants which are strong against plant diseases. They can also help in our diseases; a kind of rice is being prepared , for example , which stops people becoming blind.
Rich countries produce GM foods because they are easy to grow and bring in more money. Poor countries are interested in them because they help produce more food.
GM plants are not natural. No one knows how good or bad they are,. Making GM foods is only one way of feeding people in 2050. There are strong feelings against them, because they are unnatural. They may feed people , then hurt them or their children later. But both rich and poor countries are interested in their use, and they are not going to go away. In 2050, we may think differently about them.
【小題1】GM foods are made by                 
A. farmers            B. workers      C. scientists          D plants
【小題2】What are the good things about GM foods  ?
A. They make plants strong against diseases.   B. They are unnatural.
C. They can help in human diseases.            D  Both A and  C.
【小題3】GM foods        .
A. are a quick way to produce food    B. grow in the wild 
C. are safe                           D are grown only in rich countries
【小題4】Why do some people not like GM foods?
A. They are not useful.       B. They are not helpful.
C. They are not natural.      D  They are not cheap.
【小題5】From the passage we know that      .

Do you know that women’s brains are smaller than men’s? Normally the women’s brain weighs 10% less than men’s. Since research has shown that the bigger the brain, the cleverer the animal, men must be more intelligent（聰明的） than women. Right? Wrong. Men and women always score similarly on intelligence tests, despite the difference in brain size. Why? After years of study, researchers have concluded that it’s what’s inside that matters, not just the size of the brain. The brain is made up of “grey matter” and “white matter”. While men have more of the white matter, the amount（數(shù)量）of “thinking” brain is almost the same in both men and women.
It has been suggested that smaller brain appears to work faster, perhaps because the two sides of the brain are better connected in women. This means that little girls may learn to speak earlier, and that women can understand sorts of different information at the same time. When it comes to talking to the boss on the phone, cooking dinner and keeping an eye on the baby all at the same time, it’s women who come out on top every time.
There are other important differences between two sexes（性別）. As white matter is the key to spatial（空間的）tasks, men know better where things are in relation to other things. “A great footballer always knows where he is in relation to the other players, and he knows where to go,” says one researcher. That may explain one of life’s great mysteries: why men refuse to ask for directions … and women often need to!
The differences begin when fetuses（胎兒）are about nine weeks old, which can be seen in the action of children when they are very young. A boy would try to climb a barrier before him or push it down while a girl would ask for help from others. These brain differences also explain the fact that more men take up jobs that require good spatial skills, while more women speech skills. It may all go back to our ancestors, among whom women needed speech skills to take care of their babies and men needed spatial skills to hunt, according to one research.
【小題1】Which of the following is TRUE according to Paragraph 1?

People cannot reach an agreement on the use of science and technology. For example, will radiation from electronic equipment destroy the environment? Should medical scientists change gene structures to prevent genetic disease or to create “more perfect” human beings? While people are arguing about these and others, technology continues to influence our everyday lives—the home, health and education, entertainment and communication, and so on.
Some people carry on active social lives with computers —their own or the ones in public places like cafes, social centers, libraries, and so on. Communicating with others in chat rooms,  computer users can get to know people they might never meet in traditional ways. With live online video connections, two people with cameras in their computers can see and talk to each other from separate places.
With modern telephone technology, most people stopped writing lettters—especially personal letters and notes. But now, writing to communicate has returned in electronic form, or e-mail, which is a way of sending messages from one computer to another. For some computer users, the wish to communicate intelligently or creatively with others makes them want to write better.
Computer technology has also made it possible to run a house electronically. From turning lights on and off to starting the coffee and cooking the hot meal, computers are taking care of people at home. Many modern machines have computer chips that allow their owners to program them. For instance, you can “instruct” a microwave oven how to cook a dish. Most entertainment equipment operates with computer technology too. Computers can even start cars automatically so that on cold winter mornings you can get into a warmed-up vehicle and drive off.
Although much of the technology in our everyday lives has good effects, there are some uses that raise questions. For example, are interactive media ( i.e., a combination of television, telephone, and computer) going to control minds, cause people to forget about family life and personal relationships? What effects will the genentic engineering of food have on people’s health? High-tech medical treatments can make a person live a much longer life, but can they improve the health and happiness of human beings? Only time will tell, but, in the meantime, science and technology will continue to move forward. 
【小題1】 What does the underlined word “ chips” mean?

Oriole’s Nest
Picky, Picky
Scientists have no idea exactly why birds choose certain objects to build their nests. But scientists know that the main reason birds build nests is to keep their babies safe, warm and healthy.
Baby birds grow faster and are healthier when they are warm. They also learn to fly and leave the nests sooner than birds without warm homes.
What A Yarn (紗)
Yarn is big on an oriole’s shopping list during nest building. Scientists are still trying to work out why so many birds choose white yarn over other colors for nest building.
Scientists think that the white objects remind birds of cotton fluff (絨毛) they find in the wild.
Do It Naturally  
Even though birds can help us recycle some of our junk by using it to build nests, they also need to use lots of natural things. Long grass, dried sticks, spider’s silk and mud are some of the natural ingredients that are good for nests, too.
You can make a collection box of things to leave for birds so they can help themselves. Hang a small plastic box with holes on a tree branch. Fill the box freely with nest building goodies. Hang the box on a tree and watch birds climb on board to pick through the junk to find their treasures.
Warning: Don’t let the birds turn into a tasty treat. Keep your bird station away from places where cats hang out.
For The Birds!
Stop! Don’t throw all that garbage out! Give some to the birds. Look and see how your old junk can help beautify and warm a bird’s new home.
【小題1】The baby birds with warm homes are able to _____.

Hundreds of years ago, life was harder than it is today. People didn’t have modern machines. There was no medicine, either.
Life today brings new problems. One of the biggest is pollution. Water pollution has made our rivers and lakes dirty. It kills our fish and pollutes our drinking water. Noise pollution makes us talk louder and we become angry more easily. Air pollution is the most serious kind of pollution to all living things in the world.
Cars, planes and factories all pollute our air every day. Sometimes the polluted air is very thick. People cannot see the sky clearly.
Many countries are making rules to fight against pollution. Factories now must clean their water before they throw it away. And they mustn’t let dirty smoke go into the air.
There are many things we can do to fight against pollution. We should put waste things in dustbins and do not throw them on the ground. We should go to work by bike or on foot instead of taking a car or a bus. If there are fewer people driving, there will be less pollution.
Rules are not enough. We should do our best to fight against pollution.
【小題1】Which of the following is NOT true about life in the past?

The world is not only hungry but also thirsty for water. This may seem strange to you, since nearly 70% of the earth’s surface is covered with water. But about 97% of that is sea water or salt water. Man can only drink and use the other 3% of fresh water from rivers, lakes, underground and so on. And we can not even use all of that because some of it has been made dirty.
Earth Day is April 22. But on all other days, we must also remember how important water is. The water that we use is the most important natural resource on the earth. Today we face serious water problems. One of them is water pollution. All kinds of things from cars, factories, farms and homes make our rivers, lakes and oceans dirty. Polluted water is very bad for people to drink. And dirty water is bad for fish, too.
How do cars and factories make our water dirty? First they pollute the air. Then when it rains, the rain water makes our drinking water dirty. Dirty rain, called acid rain is also bad for plants, animals and buildings. Scientists say that in 30 years, more than half of the people in the world won’t have enough clean water. We have to learn how to stop wasting water. One of the first steps is to develop ways of reusing it. Today in most large cities, water is used only once and then sent out into a sewer system (下水道). From there it returns to the sea or goes underground.
But even though every large city reused its water, we would still not have enough. So we should make use of sea water by removing the salt in it. If we can take these steps, fresh water won’t be used up.
【小題1】The world is thirsty for water because _______.

Right in the middle of the town are some long ponds(水池). They are only about half a foot deep. The men of Symi dug out the earth to make the ponds.
Over each pond is a low cover. It is made of glass that you can see through.
At night, sea water is taken into the ponds. The next day, the hot sun shines through the covers. The sun light turns the water into vapor(水蒸氣) and the vapor goes up from the ponds. The salt is left behind.
As it goes, the vapor became mist. On the inside of each cover, the little drops of mist run together to make big drops. These drops run down the sides of the cover, filling other ponds with fresh water.
The salt left in the ponds is washed out each night. Then more sea water is taken in. The factory is ready for the next day’s work. The covers and other parts of the factory cost very little. Sea water and sun cost nothing. Most people of Symi are poor. So to them this new way of getting fresh water seems wonderful.
【小題1】 Where are the little drops made into big drops?

Weather has a strong effect(影響) on people. It influences health, intelligence (智力) and feelings. In August, it is very hot and wet in the southern part of the United States. People there easily have heart trouble and other kinds of health problems during this month. In the Northeast and the Middle West, it is hot at some times and very cold at other times. People in those states will have heart trouble after the weather changes in February or March.
The weather can also influence intelligence. For example, in a 1983 study by scientists, the IQ scores of some college students were very high during storm, but after the storm, their scores were low. Storms can increase intelligence. Very hot weather, on the other hand, can decrease(減少) it. Students in many schools of the United States often do badly in exams in the hot months of the year(July and August).
Weather also has a strong effect on people’s feeling. Winter may be a bad time for thin people. They usually feel cold during these months. They might feel depressed during cold weather. In hot summer weather, on the other hand, fat people may feel unhappy. At about 65F, people become stronger.
Low air pressure(氣壓) makes people feel free, but it also increases forgetful- ness. People leave more bags and umbrellas on buses and in stores on low pressure days. There is a“perfect weather”for work and health. People feel best at a tempera- ture of about 64F with 65 percent humidity(濕度).
Are you feeling sick, sad, tired, forgetful, or very intelligent today? The weather may be the reason.
【小題1】Intelligence may be lower______.