【文章內(nèi)容簡(jiǎn)介】 es were put forward: Dutch, English, German, Italians from rival cities. A fake memorial was erected last century in a church in Florence to honor a man as the true inventor of spectacles － but he never even existed! (308 words) 6. The invention of spectacles appeared in the ________ century in Europe. ( B ) (a) 12th (b) 13th (c) 14th (d) 15th 7. The first record of the spectacles is to be found in ________. ( B ) (a) newspapers (b) church sermons (c) trade reports (d) praises of Jordan 8. The first spectacles were made for ________. ( B ) (a) any one who had an eye trouble (b) the farsighted (c) the shortsighted (d) both the farsighted and the shortsighted 9. Which of the following is true? ( D ) (a) The inventor made known his method of making spectacles.(b) Florence was the center of Europe’s glass industry in the 14th century. (c) In the 14th century shortsighted people could read books with the help of spectacles. (d) Early craftsmen used lenses for farsighted people. 10. The final paragraph discusses ________. ( D ) (a) the function of spectacles (b) the fake memorial (c) the invention of spectacles (d) the identity of the inventor 3 Europeans have been using the wheelbarrow for about eight hundred years. But the Chinese invented it at least ten centuries before that. Ancient Chinese gave the wheelbarrow nice names －Wooden Ox and Gliding Horse. In the time taken by a man (with a similar burden) to go six feet, the Wooden Ox could get twenty feet, wrote an admiring historian in AD 430. It could carry the food supply (of one man) for a whole year, and yet after twenty miles the porter would not feel tired. A famous general called Chuke Liang developed wheelbarrows two hundred years before this historian was writing, to help carry supplies for his army. But, very recently, pictures have been discovered on ancient tombs, and bricks, of even earlier wheelbarrows. So perhaps they were invented in the first century AD. No one knows how people in Europe found out about the wheelbarrow － or, for that matter, about many other Chinese inventions. Perhaps the idea came overland across the steppes, with nomadic (游牧的) tribes. Or perhaps traders using the famous silkroute to the great city of Constantinople, on the eastern edge of the Mediterranean, talked about things seen in faroff China. Probably someone who heard the talk worked out his own version, because the wheelbarrow used in Europe is a different design from the Chinese. It has the wheel out in front, so that the load is supported both by the wheel and the man pushing it. The wheelbarrow in China has the wheel in the middle, right under the load, and the pusher only has to steer and balance it. At all events, some time in the twelfth or thirteenth century, workmen building the great castles and cathedrals of Europe had, to their great relief, a new simple device to help them. One man with a wheelbarrow could carry the same load as two men and much more easily and quickly. The wheel took the place of a man. (330 words) 11. The Chinese began to use the wheelbarrow at least ________.( C ) (a) eight centuries ago (b) ten centuries ago (c) eighteen centuries ago (d) two centuries earlier than the Europeans 12. The historian admired the wheelbarrow because it could move faster and ________.( D )(a) carry the food supply of one man (b) carry the food supply for a whole year (c) carry a heavy load for twenty miles (d) carry a much heavier load and save energy 13. The Chinese invention of the wheelbarrow might have reached Europe with the help of any of the following except ________.( D ) (a) nomadic tribes (b) traders using the silkroute (c) Mediterranean (d) ancient Greeks 14. The European design of the wheelbarrow ________.( D ) (a) has the wheel in the middle under the load (b) is similar to that of the Chinese (c) needs less pushing force (d) is less scientific than the Chinese one 15. The final paragraph discusses ________. ( A ) (a) the European wheelbarrow (b) the difference between the European wheelbarrow and the Chinese wheelbarrow (c) how the idea of the wheelbarrow came to Europe (d) the invention of the wheelbarrowUnit 3 P441Imagine you go to the beach and find a sign: Water Polluted － No Swimming Allowed. That39。s what happened to actor Ted Danson in 1984. The experience changed his life. Worried that his daughters (then aged 5 and 10) couldn39。t plunge into the ocean the way he had as a teen, Danson founded the American Oceans Campaign, an organization aimed at protecting Earth’s oceans and coastal waters. Our oceans feed the world, cool our planet, regulate (調(diào)節(jié)) climate, and create nearly onehalf of the global oxygen supply, Danson says. He39。s not joking. Fish are the main source of dietary protein (營(yíng)養(yǎng)蛋白質(zhì)) for nearly 1 billion people － most of them in developing nations. Oceans absorb and radiate the Sun39。s heat to help keep Earth39。s temperature in balance. Microscopic plants (微生物) that live on the ocean’s surface take in carbon dioxide to make food － and the precious oxygen we need to breathe. Yet each day, billions of gallons of sewage (污水), pesticides (殺蟲劑，農(nóng)藥), and industrial chemicals flow into the sea, Danson says. According to a United Nations report on the marine environment, about 80 percent of all marine pollution es from human activities (like farming and driving) on land. Even if you live hundreds of miles from the nearest seashore, Danson adds, each day, Earth39。s atmosphere recycles (回收利用) billions of kiloliters of salty seawater and turns it into fresh water. Ocean water evaporates (蒸發(fā)) and rises into the atmosphere. There it condenses (冷凝聚) and falls to Earth as rain or snow. This fresh water collects in rivers, streams, and lakes or goes deep into the earth. These are the main sources of our drinking water