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The Horn of Plenty is one of the largest natural health food stores within the Greater Hamilton area. We are big supporters of buying locally and we are here to tell you why it is so important for your family, the community and the environment. The concept of buying locally is simple: buy food produced, grown, or raised as close to your home as possible. Not only will your food be fresher and tastier, but you are helping protect the environment and are supporting businesses within your community and reducing pollution.
Better for the environmentSustainabilityand global warming are such hot topics at the moment, and many people want to do their bit to help support a healthier environment. Small action carried out by many people can make a big difference. Most materials in an average North American meal have traveled about 1,500 miles to get from farm to plate. To cut out a big part of this travel would greatly reduce not only pollution from transportation and refrigeration but also customers’ expenses as well.
Taste and nutritional content Locally-grown fruits and vegetables are usually sold within 24 hours of being harvested. Because they are picked at the height of ripeness(成熟) and travel only a short distance to the market, their freshness, nutrition, and flavor are kept. Produce trucked in from far away may lose both taste and nutritional content. Community and home valueswhen you buy direct from a farmer or buy locally-grown foods, you are engaged in a time-honored tradition between a grower and an eater. You also help keep dollars within your community.
1.It can be inferred from the third paragraph that ___________.
A. global warming is the most serious problem now
B. North American food is rich in various kinds of materials
C. the increased cost of transporting food is passed on to the customers
D. most people support buying locally
2.Locally-grown fruits and vegetables taste good mostly because___________.
A. they are picked when they are fully grown
B. they are not polluted by chemical fertilizer
C. they can be harvested at any time
D. they are sent to the market at a high speed
3.According to the author, when you buy locally-grown foods ___________.
A. you can see how fruits and vegetables grow
B. you will contribute to protecting the environment
C. you will become much healthier and prettier
D. you are making money from your community
4.What does the passage mainly talk about?
A. The way to keep your food tasty and healthy.
B. The popularity of the Horn of Plenty.
C. The importance of protecting the environment.
D. The benefits of buying locally.
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Being able to count at least ten people as friends makes us happy, but those with five or fewer are likely to be miserable, researchers say. Their study of hundreds of men and women also found t hat people who feel satisfied with their lives always have lots of close friends and regularly make new ones. While it is not clear whether our friends make us happy or we make friends because we are happy, the researchers say it is clear that we should maintain our friendships. Psychologist RichardTunney said, “Whatever the reason is, actively working on friendships in the same way as to maintain a marriage is a prerequisite(必备条件) to happiness. ”Dr. Tunney, of Nottingham University, quizzed more than 1,700 people about their satisfaction with their lives and the state of their friendships. Those with five friends or fewer had just a 40 percent chance of being happy. In other words they were more likely to be unhappy than happy. Ten was the first number at which people were more likely to be happy than unhappy. The happiest people were those with dozens of friends, according to the study, which was carried out for the National Lottery(彩票).
For women, this meant having 33 friends;for men, the number was 49. Dr. Tunney said,“People who were extremely satisfied with their lives had twice the number of friends of people who were extremely dissatisfied. ” Women tended to have fewer friends than men but formed tighter relationships. Interestingly, the study found that childhood friends are no more likely to make us happy than people we become close to later in life. Lottery winners, however, have a differentopinion on life. They are always happier than others despite spending their time with asmall circle of old friends. This could be because they trust people they’ve known for along time.
1.What’s the best title for this passage?
A. The Secret to Happiness Is to Make New Friends
B. Having at Least 10 Good Friends Makes People Happy
C. Why Most People Like to Make Friends Regularly
D. Men’s and Women’s Friends Are Different
2.Which of the following opinions may Richard Tunney NOT agree with?
A. People with few friends are sure to be unhappy.
B. Our friends can make us happy.
C. Happiness may come from a good marriage life.
D. We may become happier if we have more friends.
3.According to the passage, lottery winners ________.
A. enjoy making new friends
B. make new friends easily
C. like staying with old friends
D. have no time to make friends
4.We can conclude from the passage that ________.
A. it’s enough for one person to have ten friends
B. unhappy people must have few friends
C. childhood friends make people happier than adulthood ones
D. friendships play a major role in people’s life
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Danielle Steel, America's sweetheart, is one of the hardest working woman in the book businessUnlike other productive authors who write one book at a time, she can work on up to five. Her research before writing takes at least three years. Once she has fully studied her subjects, ready to divide into a book, she can spend twenty hours nonstop at her desk. Danielle Steel comes from New York and was sent to France for her education. After graduation, s he worked in the public relations and advertising industries. Later she started a job as a writer which she was best fit for. Her achievements are unbelievable: 390 million copies of books in print, nearly fifty New York Times best-selling novels, and a series of “Max and Martha” picture books for children to help them deal with the real-life problem of death, new babies and new schools. Her 1998 book about the death of her was shot to the top of the New York Times best-selling list as soon as it came out. Twenty eight of her books have been made into films. She is listed in the Guinness Books of World Records for one of her books being the Times best-seller for 381 weeks straight.
Not content with a big house, a loving family, and a view of the Golden Gate Bridge, Danielle Steel considers her readers to be the most important resource and has kept in touch with them by e-mail. While she is often compared to the heroines of her own invention. Her life is undoubtedly much quieter. But if she does have anything in common with them, it is her strength of will and her inimitable style. There is only one Danielle Steel.
1.Children who have read “Max and Martha” picture books may know ________.
A. how to deal with affairs at school
B. what to do if Max and Martha die
C. what to do when new babies are born into their families
D. how to solve the difficult problems in their writing classes
2.One of Danielle Steel' a achievements is that ________.
A. some TV plays were based on her books
B. her picture books attracted a lot of young men
C. one of her books became a best-seller in 1998
D. she wrote the Guinness Book of World Records
3.We can learn from the passage that Danielle Steel ________.
A. lives an exciting life
B. values her readers a lot
C. writes about quiet women
D. is pleased with her achievements
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Having a great collection of books at home doesn’t really mean that you are a person who has a passion for literature and reading. It can be a family inheritance(承) or it can be just to impress people around you about the fact that you are a person of culture. On the other hand, there are many persons who cannot afford to buy books, because some of them are quite expensive, but they usually go to libraries and spend hours reading something that interests them a lot, or just borrow books to read at home. From my point of view, literature is very important in our lives from several points of view. For e xample, reading is a means of gaining culture and enriching our knowledge in different areas of activities. It can help us have a great imagination and it makes things easier when it comes to making compositions on different themes. It gives you the possibility to speak about science, even if you don’t work in this field, or you can express your opinion about a political aspect, just because you have read something conne cted to that.
Secondly, literature offers us the possibility to enter the world of imagination, and to leave apart the real one for a couple of hours. We come to meet kings and queens many years ago, dream in the world of the rich or imagine how life will be in the future. Sometimes, we identify ourselves with the characters in the stories we read and they can give us some clues to solve our problems and how to react in certain circumstances. To conclude, I would like to say that literature is the perfect means to enrich our culture, to express correctly and have a rich vocabulary, to be able to interfere(干涉) in conversations in different fields of interest and to really be considered an erudite person.
1. The people who are fond of literature are those that _________.
A. go to libraries on weekends
B. buy expensive books in the bookstore
C. keep many books in their studies
D. have much interest in reading
2. We can learn from the third paragraph that _________.
A. we can bring kings and queens back to life
B. what we read can be useful in our daily life
C. it is very good for us to stay alone for some hours
D. we can make friends with the people in the stories
3.The underlined word“erudite”in the last paragraph probably means_________.
A. hard-working B. enthusiastic
C. learned D. creative
4. What is the author’s purpose in writing the passage？
A. To advise readers to like reading.
B. To explain the true meaning of reading.
C. To tell readers how to read a book.
D. To tell readers who has the real passion for literature.
r’s _________ .
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