Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: In the atmosphere, carbon dioxide acts rather like a one-way mirror or the glass in the roof of a greenhouse which allows the sun's rays to enter but prevents the heat from escaping According to a weather expert's prediction , the atmosphere will be 3degC warmer in the year 2050 than it is today, if man continues to burn fuels at the present rate.If this warming up took place.the ice caps in the poles would begin to inch,thus raising sea level several meters and severely flooding coastal cities.Also.the increase in atmospheric temperature would lead to great changes in the climate of the northern hemisphere ,possibly resulting in an alteration of the earth's chief food growing zones. In the past,concern about a man-made warming of the earth has concentrated on the Arctic because the Antarctic is much colder and has a much thicker ice sheet.But the weather experts are now paying more attention to West Antarctic.which may be affected by only a few degrees of warming,in other words,by a warming on the scale that will possibly take place in the next fifty years from the burning of fuels. Satellite pictures show that large areas of Antarctic ice are already disappearing.The evidence available suggests that a warming has taken place.This fits the theory that carbon dioxide warms the earth. However, most of the fuel is burnt in the northern hemisphere,where temperatures seem to be falling.Scientists conclude,therefore ,that up to now natural influences on the weather have gone beyond those caused by man.The question is:Which natural cause has most effect on the weather? One possibility is the variable behavior of the sun.Astronomers at one research station have studied the hot spots and 'cold' spots (that is, the ly less hot spots)on the sun.As the sun rotates ,every 27.5 days,it presents hotter or colder faces to the earth,and different aspects to different parts of the earth.This seems to have a considerable effect on the distribution of the earth atmospheric pressure,and consequently on wind... Question: The article was written to explain_. - the green house effect - the solar effects on the earth - the causes affecting weather - the models of solar weather interactions
the causes affecting weather

Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: STARBUCKS China yesterday renamed a newlyopened outlet near one of Buddhism's most famous temples after a wave of controversy over what critics called a "cultural invasion". The coffee shop in Hangzhou had opened as the Lingyin Temple Starbucks, leading some people to believe it was located inside the renowned temple. However, the company said in a statement yesterday that the coffee shop was actually in the Lingyin scenic area, about 20 minutes' walk from the temple's entrance.It was said the outlet would now be known as the Lingyin Starbucks. Wang Shan, deputy director of the Lingyin office of the West Lake Administration in Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang Province, said, "Actually, the coffee house is a long distance from the temple.It is located in the tourist service area on Lingyin Road outside of the temple, as part of the supporting facilities." The temple's administration urged the cafe to change its name to make it clear that it was not located inside the temple. In a heated online debate, critics said the U.S.chain's commercial style would spoil the serenity that an oriental Buddhism temple should embrace. Supporters, however, said that the talk of an "invasion" was misplaced as the outlet was not inside the temple but on a nearby commercial street where a KFC restaurant and a shopping mall had been open for more than six months. The incident follows calls in 2009 to stop an earlier "cultural invasion" when the Seattlebased coffee chain had to move its outlet out of Beijing's Forbidden City seven years after it opened. Critics urged closure of the outlet, which they said was a "humiliation" for a culture exemplified by the ancient buildings. Question: Why did the temple's administration urge the cafe to change its name? - To attract the tourists. - To tell the public the coffee outlet doesn't lie inside the temple. - To obey the government. - To do something to protect the temple.
To tell the public the coffee outlet doesn't lie inside the temple.

Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: Many families in the prefix = st1 /United Stateshave a larger income now than ever before, but people are finding it difficult to make ends meet anyway. Almost everyone is wondering, "What happens to all my money? I never seem to have anything left to put away." Why isn't a dollar worth as much as it used to be? One dollar is always worth the same amount, that is, 100 cents. But the value of a dollar is how much it can buy. The value of money depends on the cost of living. Economists say that the cost of living is the money that a family must pay for the necessities of life such as food, housing or rent, clothes and medical expenses. For many years now the cost of living has increased greatly, so the value of the dollar has decreased. When a dollar has a low value, you cannot buy as many things with it. No one fully understands why the cost of living keeps increasing, but economists believe that workers and producers can make prices go up. As workers earn more money, they have more money to spend, so they demand more goods. If there is a great demand for certain goods, the prices of these goods go up. At the same time, if there's a shortage of goods, the price also goes up. For example, if everyone wants to buy more and more gas, the price of gas goes up. When companies withhold gas from buyers, they can also make the price of gas go up. Families need to know what happens to their money. They need to make their income meet the cost of living, so many people plan a family budget. A budget is a list of monthly expenses. If your expenses add up to more than your income, you must find ways to save money. Maybe you're spending too much on entertainment. Or if you're spending too much on clothes, you may want to sew your own clothes. Budgeting helps you spend your money wisely as the cost of living increases. Question: According to the passage, when people find it hard to make ends meet, they need to _ . - find ways to save money - do extra work to earn more money - try some other means of making money - raise a protest against the high cost of living
find ways to save money

Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: All too often, a choice that seems sustainable turns out on closer examination to be problematic. Probably the best example is the rush to produce ethanol for fuel from corn. Corn is a renewable resource --you can harvest it and grow more, almost limitlessly. So replacing gas with corn ethanol seems like a great idea. One might get a bit more energy out of the ethanol than that used to make it, which could still make ethanol more sustainable than gas generally, but that's not the end of the problem. Using corn to make ethanol means less corn is left to feed animals and people, which drives up the cost of food. That result leads to turning the fallow land -including, in some cases, rain forest in places such as Brazil--into farmland, which in turn gives off lots of carbon dioxide (CO) into the air. Finally, over many years, the energy benefit from burning ethanol would make up for the forest loss. But by then, climate change would have progressed so far that _ might not help. You cannot really declare any practice "sustainable" until you have done a complete life-cycle analysis of its environmental costs. Even then, technology and public keep developing, and that development can lead to unforeseen and undesired results. The admirable goal of living sustainably requires plenty of thought on an ongoing basis. Question: The author thinks that replacing gas with corn ethanol is _ - impractical - acceptable - admirable - useless
impractical