A NEW CRUISE SHIPOne of the biggest passenger ship...

A NEW CRUISE SHIP

One of the biggest passenger ships in history, the Island Princess, carries people on cruises around the Caribbean. More than double 【C1】______ weight of the Titanic (the large passenger ship which sank in 1912), it was 【C2】______ large to be built in 【C3】______ piece. Instead, forty-eight sections 【C4】______ total were made in different places. The ship was then put together 【C5】______ these sections at a shipbuilding yard in Italy.

The huge weight of the Island Princess is partly due to her enormous height, 【C6】______ is an incredible forty-one metres. When compared with the Titanic, she is also a much broader ship. As 【C7】______ as length is concerned, there's 【C8】______ a great difference, each ship 【C9】______ over two hundred and fifty metres long.

The Island Princess can carry 【C10】______ to 2,600 passengers and has 1,321 cabins, including twenty-five specially designed 【C11】______ use by disabled passengers. There is entertainment on board to suit 【C12】______ age and interest, from dancing to good drama. The Island Princess seems very likely to be a popular holiday choice for many years to 【C13】______ even though most people will 【C14】______ to save up in order to be 【C15】______ to afford the trip.

【C1】______

Stinking buses, their passengers pale and tired, jam the crowded streets. Drivers shout at one another and honk their horns. Smog smarts the eyes and chokes the senses. The scene is Athens at rush hour. The city of Plato and Pericles is in a sorry state of affairs, built without a plan, lacking even adequate sewerage facilities, hemmed in by mountains and the sea, its 135 square miles crammed with 3.7 million people. Even Athens' ruins are in ruin: sulfur dioxide eats away at the marble of the Parthenon and other treasures on the Acropolis. As Greek Premier Constantine Karamanlis has said, "The only solution for Athens would be to demolish half of it and start all over again".

So great has been the population flow toward the city that entire hinterland villages stand vacant or nearly so. About 120,000 people from outlying provinces move to Athens every year, with the result that 40% of Greece's citizenry are now packed into the capital. The migrants come for the few available jobs, which are usually no better than the ones they fled. At the current rate of migration, Athens by the year 2000 will have a population of 6.5 million, more than half the nation.

Aside from overcrowding and poor public transport, the biggest problems confronting Athenians are noise and pollution. A government study concluded that Athens was the noisiest city in the world. Smog is almost at killing levels: 180,300mg of sulfur dioxide per cubic meter of air, or up to four times the level that the World Health Organization considers safe. Nearly half the pollution comes from cars. Despite high prices for vehicles and fuel ($2.95 per gallon), nearly 100,000 automobiles are sold in Greece each year; 3,000 driver's licenses are issued in Athens monthly.

After decades of neglect, Athens is at last getting some attention. In March a committee of representatives from all major public service ministries met to discuss a plan to unclog the city, make it livable and clean up its environment. A save-Athens ministry, which will soon begin functioning, will propose heavy taxes to discourage in-migration, a minimum of $5 billion in public spending for Athens alone, and other projects for the countryside to encourage residents to stay out. A master plan that will move many government offices to the city's fringes is already in the works. Meanwhile, more Greeks keep moving into Athens. With few parks and precious few oxygen-producing plants, the city and its citizens are literally suffocating.

According to the passage, one of the biggest problems confronting Athenians is noise, which is mainly caused by ______.

A．buildings being demolished

B．highways being repaired

C．music being played

D．car horns being used

Cruise Seattle

The Port of Seattle is ready to set sail for a very busy 2007 cruise season.

Seattle will welcome (150) 200 cruise ship visits and around 735,000 passengers during the upcoming cruise season. Check out the 2007 sailing schedule. Seattle provides convenience and value to passengers sailing to Alaska. New ships and two downtown cruise terminals make sailing out of Seattle an extremely attractive travel option for passengers looking for the convenience of cruising from a U. S. based port. Norwegian Cruise Line and Celebrity Cruises will depart from the Bell Street Pier Cruise Terminal at Pier 66. Holland America Line, Princess Cruises and Royal Caribbean will homeport at the Terminal 30 Cruise Facility. Both terminals are (151) located on Seattle' s downtown waterfront with easy (152) to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

(50)

A．approximate

B．most

C．up

D．nearly

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Friendship is one of the greatest pleasure that people can (11) . A true friend does indeed find pleasure in our joy and share sorrow in our grief. In (12) of difficulty, he is always at our side to give us his help and comfort. Knowing how (13) friendship is, we should be very careful in our choice of a friend. We must choose someone who has a good character, whose (14) are good and who shows kindness of heart. We should avoid those people who are easily (15) difficulties.

The human population on Earth has grown to the point that it is having an effect on Earths atmosphere and ecosystems. Burning of fossil fuels, deforestation, urbanization, cultivation of rice and cattle, and the manufacture of chlorofluorocarbons(CFCs)for propellants and refrigerants are increasing the concentration of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen oxides, sulphur oxides, dust, and CFCs in the atmosphere. About 70 percent of the Suns energy passes through the atmosphere and strikes Earths surface. This radiation heats the surface of the land and ocean, and these surfaces then reradiate infrared radiation back into space. This allows Earth to avoid heating up too much. However, not all of the infrared radiation makes it into space; some is absorbed by gases in the atmosphere and is reradiated back to Earths surface. A greenhouse gas is one that absorbs infrared radiation and then reradiates some of this radiation back to Earth. Carbon dioxide, CFCs, methane, and nitrogen oxides are greenhouse gases. The natural greenhouse effect of our atmosphere is well established. In fact, without greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, scientists calculate that Earth would be about 33°C cooler than it currently is. The current concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is about 360 parts per million. Human activities are having a major influence on atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations, which are rising so fast that current predictions are that atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide will double in the next 50 to 100 years. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change(IPCC)report in 1992, which represents a consensus of most atmospheric scientists, predicts that a doubling of carbon dioxide concentration would raise global temperatures anywhere between 1.4°C and 4.5°C. The IPCC report issued in 2001 raised the temperature prediction almost twofold. The suggested rise in temperature is greater than the changes that occurred in the past between ice ages. The increase in temperatures would not be uniform, with the smallest changes at the equator and changes two or three times as great at the poles. The local effects of these global changes are difficult to predict, but it is generally agreed that they may include alterations in ocean currents, increased winter flooding in some areas of the Northern Hemisphere, a higher incidence of summer drought in some areas, and rising sea levels, which may flood low-lying countries. Scientists are actively investigating the feedback mechanism within the physical, chemical, and biological components of Earths climate system in order to make accurate predictions of the effects the rise in greenhouse gases will have on future global climates. Global circulation models are important tools in this process. These models incorporate current knowledge on atmospheric circulation patterns, ocean currents, the effect of landmasses, and the like to predict climate under changed conditions. There are several models, and all show agreement on a global scale. For example, all models show substantial changes in climate when carbon dioxide concentration is doubled. However, there are significant differences in the regional climates predicted by different models. Most models project greater temperature increases in mid-latitude regions and in mid-continental regions relative to the global average. Additionally, changes in precipitation patterns are predicted, with decreases in mid-latitude regions and increased rainfall in some tropical areas. Finally, most models predict that there will be increased occurrences of extreme events, such as extended periods without rain(drought), extreme heat waves, greater seasonal variation in temperatures, and increases in the frequency and magnitude of severe storms. Plants and animals have strong responses to virtually every aspect of these projected global changes. The challenge of predicting organismal responses to global climate change is difficult. Partly, this is due to the fact that there are more studies of short-term, individual organism responses than there are of long-term, systemwide studies. It is extremely difficult, both monetarily and physically, for scientists to conduct field studies at spatial and temporal scales that are large enough to include all the components of real-world systems, especially ecosystems with large, freely ranging organisms. One way paleobiologists try to get around this limitation is to attempt to reconstruct past climates by examining fossil life. The relative roles that abiotic and biotic factors play in the distribution of organisms is especially important now, when the world is confronted with the consequences of a growing human population. Changes in climate, land use, and habitat destruction are currently causing dramatic decreases in biodiversity throughout the world. An understanding of climate-organism relationships is essential to efforts to preserve and manage Earths biodiversity.

Look at the terms "greenhouse gas," "atmospheric circulation patterns," "global scale," and "biotic factors." Which of these terms is defined in the passage?

A．Greenhouse gas

B．Atmospheric circulation patterns

C．Global scale

D．Biotic factors