The Friends of the Amazon is a nonprofit association helping to preserve the forest, its wildlife and its native cultures in the Peruvian Amazon.  We are located 3 degrees south of the equator in the Region of Loreto, which is roughly the size of Montana and is one of the richest areas in the world in terms of flora(植物群) and fauna（動(dòng)物群）. Our team consists of lawyers, ecologists, sociologists, medical professionals and native Amazonians working together to protect the forest and its people from destruction. We use litigation（訴訟）, filing lawsuits against those who seek to destroy the forest and its native cultures. In addition to legal processes, we promote health, education, and the conservation of native plants and animals.

The Amazon Rainforest is commonly referred to as the "lungs of the planet" whose trees are essential for absorbing carbon dioxide (CO2, a greenhouse gas that causes global warming) and converting it into oxygen, thereby mitigating the rise of global temperatures and climate change.  An estimated 120 billion tons of carbon dioxide is absorbed in the Amazon Rainforest and global emissions of carbon dioxide increase with every tree of the rainforest that is cut down. That is why the survival of the Amazon Rainforest is vital for the survival of our planet, without which rising global temperatures could melt the polar icecaps and cause flooding of our coastal cities. 

Currently, the Amazon is under siege（圍攻）, with an estimated 1000 hectares being destroyed everyday.  After harvesting old growth forests, corporations are often replacing the native forest with palm oil plantations instead of reforesting with native tree species.  Palm oil trees are native to Africa, not the Amazon, and due to high profits, their promotion by international aid agencies and recent legislation in Peru, palm oil plantations represent perhaps the single greatest threat to the native Amazon Rainforest. 

In addition to conventional logging and deforesting to make room for crops such as palm oil and soybeans, the Amazon forest faces a new threat in the form of REDD projects and “Carbon Cowboys”.  REDD refers to Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation by using carbon offsets (“carbon credits”).  Under the guise of REDD projects, scammers are tricking native communities into signing unjust contracts in English without legal representation which essentially give these so called Carbon Cowboys the forest for free. These cheaters are making false promises of "billions of dollars in profits" from REDD and voluntary carbon offset （碳補(bǔ)償）projects by lying that they are representatives of the United Nations and World Bank in order to trick vulnerable indigenous Amazonians into ceding their land by signing unjust contracts with hidden clauses that give the Carbon Cowboys a power of attorney to do whatever they want with the forest for a period of 100 years.  Friends of the Amazon is actively filing lawsuits against these Carbon Cowboys and those who support them. 

For further information on our programs and to find out how you can help preserve the Amazon Rainforest, please contact:

Friends of the Amazon

153 Túpac Amaru Street

Iquitos, Peru

Phone: (+51) 985665374

For more specific information on supporting the goals of our nonprofit organization, please contact us using the email address listed below.

If you would like to learn how you can help preserve the Amazon Rainforest and its indigenous people, please contact us for more information at:

info(at)friendsoftheamazon.org

1.The Friends of the Amazon is the name of _________.

A．your best friend                        B．a(chǎn) non-profit organization

C．a(chǎn) historic hero                          D．a(chǎn) famous carbon cowboy

2.What does the underlined word “converting ” in the second paragraph mean?

A．changing          B．increasing         C．reducing          D．burning

3.Why is the survival of the Amazon Rainforest vital for the survival of our planet?

A．Because this forest absorbs a lot of carbon dioxide emitted by the world

B．Because people rely on this forest to get enough wood to build houses and furniture

C．Because people living here can get a large sum of compensation to offset carbon dioxide

D．Because the United Nations and the World Bank are helping preserving the land here

4.We can learn from the passage that palm oil trees _____________.

A．have produced much profit for the local people.

B．a(chǎn)re native to Amazon and fit in well with their surroundings

C．a(chǎn)re native to Africa and may do great harm to the native Amazon trees

D．a(chǎn)re used to replace the native forest because the local people can profit from them

5.The purpose of this article is _______.

A．introduce the largest rain forest in the world

B．to appeal to the government to take some measures to get rid of Carbon Cowboys

C．to advertise the rain forest as a favourite tourist destination

D．to arouse the awareness of the public to help conserve the “l(fā)ungs of our planet”

 

 The latest major disaster that occurred in Zhejiang paralyzed traffic, caused blackouts and ______ water supplies for days.

A. cut down        B. cut off       C. cut up        D. cut out

 

    British scientists have done something that，many people thought，was impossible: they created the first clone of an adult mammal（哺乳動(dòng)物）．The clone，named Dolly，is a seven-month-old sheep，grown from a cell of an adult female sheep.

    What is a clone? A clone is a copy—a genetic copy. Genes are the instructions for life. They tell a cell what to do and how to do it. Genes make each individual plant or animal different and unique. But a clone has the same genes as the original organism(生物體）．

    Cloning is not new. Plants have been cloned for centuries. New plants are often grown from cutting from another plant. Also，plants like pineapples，strawberries and carnations(康乃馨）are sometimes cloned. One benefit of cloning is that we can make many copies of the best and healthiest plants.

    It has been much more difficult to clone animals. Frogs have been cloned，but they died as tadpoles，never living long enough to become adult frogs，which made the scientists despondent. Mice，sheep and cattle have been cloned from embryos. But Dolly is the first healthy clone of an adult mammal. How did they do it?

    （1）An unfertilized egg was taken from a sheep.

    （2）The egg nucleus(細(xì)胞核）was removed.

    （3)A cell was taken from the udder(乳房）of a pregnant(懷孕的）sheep. It was“starved”，so that it stopped growing.

    （4）The two cells were combined into one，and then implanted in a third sheep，where it grew normally.

    （5）The clone was born. It was genetically identical to the pregnant sheep.

    This sounds much easier than it actually was. To end up with one clone，the scientists started with 277 udder cells. And they needed in a way to make the egg cell accept a new nucleus. They did that by starving the cell.

    It may soon be possible to clone many types of animals. Will we also be able to clone human organs，or even whole human beings? We have only begun to think about the morality of cloning technology. Maybe the question to ask is not whether we can clone humans，but instead，should we clone humans?

59. What can replace the underlined word“despondent” in the fourth paragraph?

A. calmed down          B. set down

C. cut down             D. cast down

60. Dolly is a sheep________because she is grown from a cell of an adult female sheep.

A. that has no father         B. that has no mother

C. that has no parents        D. that has no tail

61. According to the passage we can know that__________．

A. only plants can be cloned

B. only strawberries and carnations can sometimes be cloned

C. animals and plants have quite a long history of cloning

D. genes can tell a cell what to do and how to do it during cloning

62. From the fourth paragraph we can know that__________．

A. a tadpole is the early stage of a grown-up frog

B. a tadpole is a frog without a tail

C. a tadpole is a kind of animal

D. a tadpole is a clone of an adult mammal

BEIJING , March 9 --- The central government will require an additional three years of use for official vehicles for ministers and governors to reduce the costs of purchasing new cars, media have reported.

The new rule has been applied among all Party and government departments nationwide, the Beijing News reported on Tuesday. The new rule has not yet been made public, said Li, a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference National Committee.

Under the old rules, the cars used by minister-level officials could be replaced as often as every five years, Li said. These officials will also keep the same cars when they assume new posts, he added.

The new rule also reiterated(重申) that officials ranking below minister-or-governor-levels should not be allocated cars. The cars possessed by their departments should be used on demand.

“It violates the rules for lower-ranking --- even county-level-officials to be allocated cars,” Li said.

Purchases of vehicles for official use have been heavily investigated, as they account for a large expenditure (花費(fèi)) of public funds every year.

A survey on the Web news www.ifeng.com found 64 percent of respondents believed the new rule will be difficult to carry out because it is related to officials’ interests.

“Local government departments had halted(中斷) approvals for requests for such vehicles and had started to work on new quotas(指標(biāo)) under the new rules,” Li said. “The future reform of official vehicle use will introduce market mechanisms and monetization.”

Premier Wen Jiabao said in the annual government work report on Saturday that expenditures on such vehicles will not increase in 2011 compared with a year ago.

Beijing’s standing deputy mayor Ji Lin last week said the municipal (市政的) government will release the number of vehicles for official use in the capital as early as at the end of this month.

Earlier this month, the Minister of Finance had published a rule regulating the budgets for such vehicles.

1.What is the purpose of the new rule allocating vehicles among officials?

A．To promote a low-carbon lifestyle.

B．To cut down the present huge expenditures of purchasing cars.

C．To make good use of budgets for official cars.

D．To solve the problem of severe traffic jam.

2.How often could the cars used by minister-level officials be replaced according to the new rule?

A．Every 3 years.      B．Every 5 years.      C．Every 8 years.      D．Every 10 years.

3.What about the officials ranking below minister-or-governor levels in terms of official vehicles?

A．They can still possess special cars.

B．They can use their own private cars.

C．They can use cars whenever officially necessary.

D．They can be allocated second-hand cars.

4.What is the public’s attitude toward the new rule’s fulfillment?

A．Uncertain.         B．Optimistic.         C．Indifferent.        D．Passive

5.From the passage, we can infer that_________.

A．the government is determined to carry out the new rule

B．the new rule has not yet been made public

C．the new rule will benefit official’s interest

D．the new rule is applied to minister-level officials

 

You hear the comment all the time: the U.S. economy looks good by figures, but it doesn’t feel good. Why doesn’t ever-greater wealth promote ever-greater happiness? It is a question that dates at least to the appearance in 1958 of The Wealthy Society by John Kenneth Galbraith, who died recently at 97.

The Wealthy Society is a modern classic because it helped describe a new moment in the human condition. For most of history, “hunger, sickness, and cold” threatened nearly everyone, Galbraith wrote. “Poverty was found everywhere in that world. Obviously it is not of ours.” After World War II, the fear of another Great Depression gave way to an economic growth. By the 1930s unemployment had averaged 18.2 percent; in the 1950s it was 4.5 percent.

To Galbraith, materialism had gone mad and would cause discontent. Through advertising, companies conditioned consumers to buy things they didn’t really want or need. Because so much spending was artificial, it would be unsatisfying. Meanwhile, government spending that would make everyone better off was being cut down because people wrongly considered government only as “a necessary bad.”

It’s often said that only the rich are getting ahead; everyone else is standing still or falling behind. Well, there are many undeserving rich — overpaid chief managers, for instance. But over any meaningful period, most people’s incomes are increasing. From 1995 to 2004, people feel “squeezed” because their rising incomes often don’t satisfy their rising wants — for bigger homes, more health care, more education, and faster Internet connections.

The other great disappointment is that it has not got rid of insecurity. People regard job stability as part of their standard of living. As company unemployment increased, that part has gradually become weaker. More workers fear they’ve become “the disposable American,” as Louis Uchitelle puts it in his book by the same name.

Because so much previous suffering and social conflict resulted from poverty, the arrival of widespread wealth suggested utopian (烏托邦式的) possibilities. Up to a point, wealth succeeds. There is much less physical suffering than before. People are better off. Unfortunately, wealth also creates new complaints.

Advanced societies need economic growth to satisfy the multiplying wants of their citizens. But the search for growth cause new anxieties and economic conflicts that disturb the social order. Wealth sets free the individual, promising that everyone can choose a unique way to self-accomplishment. But the promise is so unreasonable that it leads to many disappointments and sometimes inspires choices that have anti-social consequences, including family breakdown. Figures indicate that happiness has not risen with incomes.

Should we be surprised? Not really. We’ve simply confirmed an old truth: the seeking of wealth does not always end with happiness.

1.The Wealthy Society is a book ______.

A．a(chǎn)bout previous suffering and social conflict in the past

B．written by Louis Uchitelle who died recently at 97

C．indicating that people are becoming worse off

D．a(chǎn)bout why happiness does not rise with wealth

2.According to Galbraith, people feel discontented because ______.

A．materialism has run wild in modern society

B．they are in fear of another Great Depression

C．public spending hasn’t been cut down as expected

D．the government has proved to be necessary but ugly

3.Why do people feel“squeezed”when their average income rises considerably?

A．They think there are too many overpaid rich.

B．There is more unemployment in modern society.

C．Their material demands go faster than their earnings.

D．Health care and educational cost have somehow gone out of control.

4.What does Louis Uchitelle mean by “the disposable American” ?  

A．People with a stable job.

B．Workers who no longer have secure jobs.

C．Those who see job stability as part of their living standard.

D．People who have a sense of security because of their rising incomes.

5.What has wealth brought to American society?

A．Stability and security.

B．Materialism and content.

C．A sense of self-accomplishment.

D．New anxiety, conflicts and complaints.