Mike McClure walked into Sarasota Bay for a little fishing on a beautiful day last April. This afternoon, the water was shallow enough at low tide that McClure could easily walk 100 yards offshore and cast his line in any direction. Near sunset, still without a fish, he decided to turn back. Rather than turn to his earlier course, he chose a more direct path toward shore, thinking the bay wouldn't get deeper along the way. Instead, he was trapped. He tried to walk in different directions, but shallower water eluded him. Finally, he decided his safest choice was to head straight for land. "Within about five steps, the water was coming in through the top of the waders ," says McClure. He felt the deadweight of the flooding waders pulling him down and knew that if he didn't get out of them, he would drown. But he failed to kick his way out of the waders. Instead, they pulled him completely below the surface. Back onshore, Eliza Cameron, 19, Loren Niurka Mora, 20, and Caitlin Petro, 20, had been watching McClure fish as they rested on the grass after a long week of classes. They saw McClure go under and then heard him cry, "Help!" The three friends kicked off their shoes and ran into the bay. They were all good swimmers, but all hid a fear that he might pull them down too because they'd have to dive to save him. When they reached him, he'd managed to kick himself out of the waders, but his eyes had partly rolled back. Cameron and Mora each hooked an arm under his shoulders, while Petro supported his back and held his hand. Then the three friends tried their best to tug him towards shore. Finally, they all returned to the shore safely. What directly trapped Mike McClure in the bay? A) His wrong decision. B) The coming high tide. C) His waders' being flooded. D) The depth of water.
C
(Question)
A French billionaire used to have a rough time when he was young. Later he carved out a career for himself in the field of drawing sales. Within ten years, he had become a young media tycoon in France. He died of cancer in 1998. A French newspaper published his will after his death, in which he claimed:"I was a poor guy. Before I reach the threshold of heaven, I leave my secret of how to become rich to the world. Anyone who can answer the question 'What is the most absent for the poor? ' will have discovered my secret of becoming rich. He will have my congratulations. My deposit of one million francs in the private safe of my bank will be the prize for his wisdom in uncovering the riddle of poverty." Many people responded to the publicized will. The answers, as one might imagine, were various. The majority of them thought the most absent for the poor was money. Some stated that what the poor most needed was opportunity. Still others thought that the poor needed skills to make money. The rest of the answers claimed that poverty could be attributed to the absence of help, love, attractiveness, name-brand clothes, and even a presidency of a state. On the first anniversary of the billionaire's passing, his lawyer and representative opened his private safe in the bank; the secret of getting rich was unfolded. The billionaire believed that the most absent of the poor was the ambition of getting rich. It was a nine-year-old girl who _ . Why did she regard "ambition" as the most absent for the poor? The day she was officially awarded the one million francs, she said: "Every time my elder sister brought her boyfriend home, she always warned me not to be ambitious. Not to be ambitious! So, I thought perhaps ambition was something that brought what you wanted." From the passage, we can infer that the little girl find the secret _ . A) with her sister's help B) just on purpose C) quite by accident D) not mentioned
(Answer)
C
Ques: Every time you go to the supermarket, you come away with your purchases in plastic bags. But wouldn't it be kinder to the environment if you asked for paper bags instead? The answer is not the easy as it might seem. Environmentalists say there are _ to using both plastic bags and paper bags. According to the American Plastics Council 80 percent of groceries in the US are packed in plastic bags. "The numbers are becoming huge," said Vincent Cobb, a businessman from Chicago who set up "reusable bags. com" on the Internet. He notes that consumers use between 500 billion and 1 trillion plastic bags per year worldwide. Some experts believe that all these bags harm the environment. Plastic takes hundreds of years to break down and, as it does so, poisonous materials are released into the water and soil. Further damage is caused if plastic bags enter the sea. For example, endangered sea turtles cannot tell the bags from jellyfish , their main source of food, and often choke on them. Floating plastic bags have been spotted as far north as the Arctic Ocean and as far south as the southern end of South America. One expert predicts that, within ten years, plastic bags will wash up in Antarctica! However, this kind of bag does have its advantages. "Plastic grocery bags are some of the most reused things around the house," explained Laurie Kusek of the American Plastics Council. According to the Film and Bag Federation, a trade group in the US plastics industry, paper bags use more energy and create more waste than plastic bags. Plastic bags require 40 per cent less energy to produce and cause 70 per cent less air pollution, the group explained. They also release as much as 94 percent less waste into the water than paper ones. But paper bags do break down more quickly than plastic bags. They don't endanger wildlife, either. So what should we do? One possible solution would be to use biodegradable plastic bags. But until biodegradable technology improves, it might be easier to pack things you buy in reusable cloth bags. Which of the following shows that paper bags are better than plastic ones? A) Paper bags take less time to rot. B) Paper bags cause less air pollution. C) Paper bags are more reusable. D) Paper bags cause less water pollution.
Ans: A
Question: If you look outside, you probably will see some kind of insect. If your first instinct is to kill it, take a moment to think about all of the benefits insects provide to the environment. Entomologists, scientists who study insects, estimate that there are more than 800,000 species of insects found throughout the world. Only a few hundred of these insects are considered harmful. Mosquitoes, for example, are considered harmful. They bite humans and other animals, and their bites can cause skin pain and spread disease. Desert locusts also are considered harmful because they destroy crops causing billions of dollars in damage each year. However, the number of helpful insect species far outweighs the number of harmful species. Some insects make up a vital part of the food chain. Many different birds, reptiles, fish and even plants eat insects. There are also about 500 insects that people in various parts of the world eat. These insects are considered delicious food and prized for their high protein, mineral, and vitamin content. Other insects produce valuable commercial products such as silk, wax, and honey. Of all the insects, perhaps the most important are those that travel from flower to flower and pollinate the plants they visit. Agriculture around the world would be very different without the bees, butterflies, moths, flies and wasps that pollinate many crops. In fact, nearly one-third of the food you eat depends on plants that are pollinated by insects! While it is true that some species of insects harm or annoy us, _ . You may be destroying one of the hundreds of thousands of insects that provides many benefits to human beings. According to the passage, the most important type of insects are _ . A) insects that are eaten by birds, reptiles and fish B) insects that travel around and pollinate plants C) insects that harm mosquitoes and stop the spread of disease D) insects that are eaten by people in many countries
Answer:
B