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20 years ago, a couple of ecologists, Daniel Janzen and Winnie Hallwachs, convinced Del Oro, a large orange juice producer, to donate part of their forestland to a national park in exchange for the right to dump (倾倒) massive amounts of orange peels on a 3-hectare piece of land within the national park, at no cost. Dealing with tons of waste peels usually involved burning them or paying to have them dumped at a landfill, so the proposal was very attractive.

A year after the contract was signed, Del Oro dumped around 12,000 tons of sticky orange waste in the land. However, another juice company and rival of Del Oro challenged the deal in court, arguing that their competitor was “polluting the national park”. They ended up winning, and the deal between Del Oro and the national park fell through. The 3-hectare piece of land virtually covered with fruit waste was completely forgotten.

Then, in 2013, Timothy Treuer, a scientist at Princeton University visited that piece of land 15 years earlier. What he found shocked him. “It was completely overgrown with trees and vines,” Timothy Treuer recently said, “the difference between fertilized and unfertilized areas was visually surprised us a lot! We needed to come up with some really good standards to evaluate exactly what was happening there.”

To confirm that the fruit waste was responsible for the revival of plant life, Treuer and his team spent months picking up samples, analyzing and comparing them. They found “dramatic differences between the areas covered in orange peels and those that were not. The area fertilized by orange waste had richer soil, greater tree-species richness and greater forest coverage. In a sense, it’s not just a win-win between the company and the local park—it’s a win for everyone.”

The effect the orange peels had on the land is probably not that surprising to people familiar with composting (堆肥), but what is shocking is that a judge actually called this particular example polluting the national park and stopped it from going forward. Now that Timothy Treuer’s study has received worldwide attention, this type of polluting is being seriously considered as a way of bringing tropical forests back to life.

1.Why was the deal proposed by the ecologists attractive to Del Oro?

A. It would make farmers produce more oranges.

B. It would help deal with the orange peel waste for free.

C. It would increase the production of orange juice.

D. It would save much space for the orange juice producer.

2.What does the underlined phrase ‘‘fell through” in the second paragraph?

A. became unbelievable   B. failed to happen

C. made something possible   D. changed the course of an event

3.What did Treuer find when he visited the land covered with orange waste?

A. The peel waste was hard to break down there.

B. Del Oro continued dumping peel waste there.

C. The peel waste enriched the soil of the land.

D. The whole national park was polluted.

4.What’s the best title of the passage?

A. Orange peel waste found its way to reshape the national park.

B. A couple of ecologists devoted themselves to restoring the forest.

C. A casual attempt led to a series of expected magic results.

D. Orange peel waste brought a forest back to life.

高三英语阅读理解中等难度题

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