Besides giving off gases and dusts into the air, humans produce waste that is poured on the environment. Often, this waste produced by major industries and people is harmful to both nature and human life. One of the main causes of the large amount of dangerous waste is that people do not realize how large a problem it is. Because it can be simply removed and sent to a landfill ,the problem is often believed to end there. In addition, industries have often shown an unwillingness to find ways to deal with dangerous waste because of the related expenses. Many industries and governments build simple landfills to store waste, and often just pour waste chemicals into nearby bodies of water. Often, chemicals used for industrial production cause dangerous forms of waste.The amount of these chemicals has increased greatly in the past, but it is often difficult and expensive to get rid of these chemicals or to store them in a way safe to human life and the environment. Every year, major health problems result from dangerous waste. Sadly, it is often only after someone has died or become seriously ill that governments will take measures to reduce levels of harmful waste. Some governments have realized how serious the dangerous waste problem is and are now trying to settle this problem. They are also trying to limit the amount of waste industries are allowed to produce. Not only governments but ordinary people as well must work together to solve the problem. They can choose not to buy those products which require the production of dangerous waste, and produce less harmful waste themselves. Many scientists think that waste production can be cut. The waste can be reduced by at least one third using existing technologies and methods. What would be the best title for the text? A) Measures of Reducing Dangerous Waste B) Danger of Harmful Waste to Mankind C) Dangerous Waste and Water Pollution D) Environmental Protection
B
A new study by the Pew Research Center shows that the number of dads who choose to stay home and care for their children and families has quadrupled over the past 25 years. Can social and economic factors explain the change? Make no mistake; _ . In fact, they are only 16% of all stay-at-home parents.but that number is up from 10% since 1989. When pew started analyzing data. The steady growth since then suggests that these numbers represent a growing trend. "It's up from 1.1 million to 2 million," says Gretchen Livingston, one of the study authors. " More significantly, the number of man who say they stay at home specially to take care of their home and children is at an all-time high, more than four times the rate of fathers who gave that same answer in 1989." As women have taken on more high-paying careers, the assumption that they'll stay home with the children has become less automatic. "My wife and I were earning about the same income at the time just after our daughter was born. We felt that if someone was going to raise our children it would have to be one of us," says Al Watts, the president of the national At-Home Dad Network. "My wife was promoted shortly after she got back from maternity leave and that rise in pay would allow us to live on one income." In 1989, 10% of fathers were stay-at-home parents. In 2014, 16% are. Fourteen percent of the fathers without a high school diploma stay at home, compared to 3% of those with a college degree. In 1989, more than half (56%) of dads who stayed at home cited illness or disability ass the top reason. Thirty-five percent cite that reason now. Only 5% of stay-at-home dads in 1989 said caring for family was the main reason for staying at home. Now, that number is 21%. The rise in stay-at-home dads coincides with a change in social and economic trends regarding women in the workforce, says Farnoosh Torabi, author of When She Makes More. "We know that before they even get married, women are out-earning and out-earning men," she says, noting that younger... What made Al Watts decide to become a stay-at-home dad? A) His being out of work. B) His making more money. C) His wife's wage increase. D) His wife's encouragement.
C
Q: I was blind, but I was ashamed of it if it was known. I refused to use a white stick and hated asking for help. After all, I was a teenager girl, and I couldn't bear people to look at me and think I was not like them. I must have been a terrible danger on the roads, coming across me wandering through the traffic, motorists probably would have to step rapidly on their brakes. Apart from that, there were all sorts of disasters that used to occur on the way to and from work. One evening, I got off the bus about halfway home where I had to change buses, and as usual I ran into something,"I'm awfully sorry,"I said and stepped forward only to run into it again. When it happened a third time, I realized I had been apologizing to a lamppost. This was just one of the stupid things that constantly happened to me. So I carried on and found the bus stop, which was a request stop, where the bus wouldn't stop unless passengers wanted to get on or off. No one else was there and I had to try to guess if the bus had arrived. Generally in this situation, because I hated showing I was blind by asking for help, I tried to guess at the sound. Sometimes I would stop a big lorry and stand there feeling stupid as it drew away. In the end, I usually managed to swallow my pride and ask someone at the stop for help. But on this particular evening no one joined me at the stop; It seemed that everyone had suddenly decided not to travel by bus. Of course I heard plenty of buses pass, or I thought I did. But because I had given up stopping them for fear of making a fool of myself, I let them all go by. I stood there alone for half an hour without stopping one. Then I gave up. I decided to walk on to the next stop. After the girl got off the bus that evening, she _ . A) began to run B) hit a person as usual C) hit a lamppost by accident D) was caught by something
A: C
The behaviour of a building's users may be at least as important as its design when it comes to energy use, according to new research from the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC). The UK promises to reduce its carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2050, part of which will be achieved by all new homes being zero-carbon by 2016. But this report shows that sustainable building design on its own -- though extremely important- is not enough to achieve such reductions: the behaviour of the people using the building has to change too. The study suggests that the ways that people use and live in their homes have been largely ignored by existing efforts to improve energy efficiency , _ instead focus on architectural and technological developments. 'Technology is going to assist but it is not going to do everything,'explains Katy Janda, a UKERC senior researcher,'consumption patterns of building users can defeat the most careful design. 'In other words,old habits die hard, even in the best-designed eco-home. Another part of the problem is information. Households and bill-payers don't have the knowledge they need to change their energy-use habits. Without specific information,it's hard to estimate the costs and benefits of making different choices. Feedback facilities, like smart meters and energy monitors,could help bridge this information gap by helping people see how changing their behaviour directly affects their energy use; some studies have shown that households can achieve up to 15 percent energy savings using smart meters. Social science research has added a further dimension ,suggesting that individuals'behaviour in the home can be personal and cannot be predicted whether people throw open their windows rather than turn down the thermostat , for example. Janda argues that education is the key. She calls for a focused programme to teach people about buildings and their own behaviour in them. What does the dimension added by social science research suggest? A) The social science research is to be furthered. B) The education programme is under discussion. C) The behaviour of building users is unpredictable. D) The behaviour preference of building users is similar.
C