--- Join a small group bike tour for an evening of exploration in the heart of Washington, D.C. Get up close to the monuments and memorials as you bike the sites of Capitol Hill and the National Mall. Frequent stops are made for photo taking as your guide offers unique facts and history. Tour includes bike, helmet, and bottled water. All riders are equipped with reflective vests and safety lights.

21. Which tour do you need to book in advance? A. Cherry Blossom Bike Tour in Washington, D.C. B. Washington Capital Monuments Bicycle Tour. C. Capital City Bike Tour in Washington, D.C. D. Washington Capital Sites at Night Bicycle Tour. 22. What will you do on the Capital City Bike Tour? A. Meet famous people.

B. Go to a national park.

C. Visit well-known museums. D. Enjoy interesting stories.

23. Which of the following does the bicycle tour at night provide? A. City maps. lights.

B

B. Cameras.

C. Meals.

D.

Safety

Good Morning Britain’s Susanna Reid is used to grilling guests on the sofa every morning, but she is cooking up a storm in her latest role — showing families how to prepare delicious and nutritious meals on a tight budget.

In Save Money: Good Food, she visits a different home each week and with the help of chef Matt Tebbutt offers top tips on how to reduce food waste, while preparing recipes for under ￡5 per family a day. And the Good Morning Britain presenter says she’s been able to put a lot of what she’s learnt into practice in her own home, preparing meals for sons, Sam, 14, Finn, 13, and Jack, 11.

“We love Mexican churros, so I buy them on my phone from my local Mexican takeaway restaurant,” she explains. “I pay ￡5 for a portion (一份), bur Matt makes them for 26p a portion, because they are flour, water,

----- --- sugar and oil. Everybody can buy takeaway food, but sometimes we’re not aware how cheaply we can make this food ourselves.”

The eight-part series (系列节目), Save Money: Good Food, follows in the footsteps of ITV’s Save Money: Good Health, which gave viewers advice on how to get value from the vast range of health products on the market.

With food our biggest weekly household expense, Susanna and Matt spend time with a different family each week. In tonight’s Easter special they come to the aid of a family in need of some delicious inspiration on a budget. The team transforms the family’s long weekend of celebration with less expensive but still tasty recipes. 24. What do we know about Susanna Reid?

A. She enjoys embarrassing her guests. B. She has started a new programme.

C. She dislikes working early in the morning. D. She has had a tight budget for her family. 25. How does Matt Tebbutt help Susanna?

A. He buys cooking materials for her. B. He prepares food for her kids. C. He assists her in cooking matters. D. He invites guest families for her.

26. What does the author intend to do in paragraph 4?

A. Summarize the previous paragraphs. B. Provide some advice for the readers. C. Add some background information.

D. Introduce a new topic for discussion. 27. What can be a suitable title for the text?

A. Keeping Fit by Eating Smart B. Balancing Our Daily Diet C. Making Yourself a Perfect Chef D. Cooking Well for Less

-----

--- C

Languages have been coming and going for thousands of years, but in recent times there has been less coming and a lot more going. When the world was still populated by hunter-gatherers, small, tightly knit (联系) groups developed their own patterns of speech independent of each other. Some language experts believe that 10,000 years ago, when the world had just five to ten million people, they spoke perhaps 12,000 languages between them.

Soon afterwards, many of those people started settling down to become farmers, and their languages too became more settled and fewer in number. In recent centuries, trade, industrialisation, the development of the nation-state and the spread of universal compulsory education, especially globalisation and better communications in the past few decades, all have caused many languages to disappear, and dominant languages such as English, Spanish and Chinese are increasingly taking over.

At present, the world has about 6,800 languages. The distribution of these languages is hugely uneven. The general rule is that mild zones have relatively few languages, often spoken by many people, while hot, wet zones have lots, often spoken by small numbers. Europe has only around 200 languages; the Americas about 1,000; Africa 2,400; and Asia and the Pacific perhaps 3,200, of which Papua New Guinea alone accounts for well over 800. The median number (中位数) of speakers is a mere 6,000, which means that half the world’s languages are spoken by fewer people than that.

Already well over 400 of the total of 6,800 languages are close to extinction (消亡), with only a few elderly speakers left. Pick, at random, Busuu in Cameroon (eight remaining speakers), Chiapaneco in Mexico (150), Lipan Apache in the United States (two or three) or Wadjigu in Australia (one, with a question-mark): none of these seems to have much chance of survival.

28. What can we infer about languages in hunter-gatherer times?

----- --- A. They developed very fast. B. They were large in number.

D.

They

were

closely

C. They had similar patterns. connected.

29. Which of the following best explains “dominant” underlined in paragraph 2?

A. Complex. C. Powerful.

B. Advanced. D. Modern.

30. How many languages are spoken by less than 6,000 people at present?

A. About 6,800. C. About 2,400.

B. About 3,400. D. About 1,200.

31. What is the main idea of the text?

A. New languages will be created.

B. People’s lifestyles are reflected in languages. C. Human development results in fewer languages. D. Geography determines language evolution.

D

We may think we’re a culture that gets rid of our worn technology at the first sight of something shiny and new, but a new study shows that we keep using our old devices (装置) well after they go out of style. That’s bad news for the environment—and our wallets—as these outdated devices consume much more energy than the newer ones that do the same things.

To figure out how much power these devices are using, Callie Babbitt and her colleagues at the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York tracked the environmental costs for each product throughout its life—from when its minerals are mined to when we stop using the device. This method provided a readout for how home energy use has evolved since the early 1990s. Devices were grouped by generation. Desktop computers, basic mobile phones, and box-set TVs defined 1992. Digital cameras arrived on the scene in 1997. And MP3 players, smart phones, and LCD TVs entered

-----