Ask someone what they have done to help the environment recently and they will almost certainly mention recycling. Recycling in the home is very important of course. However, being forced to recycle often means we already have more material than we need. We are dealing with the results of that over-consumption in the greenest way possible, but it would be far better if we did not bring so much material home in the first place.

The total amount of packaging increased by 12% between 1999 and 2005. It now makes up a third of a typical household’s waste in the UK. In many supermarkets nowadays food items are packaged twice with plastic and cardboard.

Too much packaging is doing serious damage to the environment. The UK, for example, is running out of it for carrying this unnecessary waste. If such packaging is burnt, it gives off greenhouse gases which go on to cause the greenhouse effect. Recycling helps, but the process itself uses energy. The solution is not to produce such items in the first place. Food waste is a serious problem, too. Too many supermarkets encourage customers to buy more than they need. However, a few of them are coming round to the idea that this cannot continue, encouraging customers to reuse their plastic bags, for example.

But this is not just about supermarkets. It is about all of us. We have learned to associate packaging with quality. We have learned to think that something unpackaged is of poor quality. This is especially true of food. But it also applies to a wide range of consumer products, which often have far more packaging than necessary.

There are signs of hope. As more of us recycle, we are beginning to realize just how much unnecessary material we are collecting. We need to face the wastefulness of our consumer culture, but we have a mountain to climb.

【小题1】What does the underlined word “over-consumption” refer to?

A．Using too much packaging.

B．Recycling too much waste.

C．Making more products than necessary.

D．Having more material than is needed.

【小题2】The author uses figures in Paragraph 2 to show ________.

A．the tendency of cutting household waste

B．the increase of packaging recycling

C．the rapid growth of supermarkets

D．the fact of packaging overuse

【小题3】What can be inferred from Paragraph 4?

A．Unpackaged products are of bad quality.

B．Supermarkets care more about packaging.

C．It is improper to judge quality by packaging.

D．Other products are better packaged than food.

【小题4】What can we learn from the last paragraph?

A．Fighting wastefulness is difficult.

B．Needless material is mostly recycled.

C．People like collecting recyclable waste.

D．The author is proud of his consumer culture.

以下表格是对几个国家的孩子在一天内做家务的时间的统计，请你简要描述表格内容，对时间不同的原因加以简要评析，并就此发表你的看法并提出建议。

国家	时间（分钟）	你的建议
America	70	……
South Korea	40
the UK	35
France	30
Japan	20
China	14

 
注意：1.词数100左右；
2.可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。
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   During all kinds of holidays, millions of people will buy gifts for loved ones, which is great - except that tons of those people will make the same glaring mistake, and buy the wrong gift.
Roughly 10 percent of gifts are returned each year and the percentage of unwanted gifts is surely higher given that nice people may not want to return presents.
What's going on?
Gift buying has become a tricky selfish action. We don't actually look for things people want to receive. Instead, we tend to look for things that we want to give. It's a subtle(微妙的), but pretty important problem. The research says so.
"Gift givers want to prove how well they know a person by choosing a thoughtful gift," said Mary Steffel, an assistant professor at the University of Cincinnati whose research has focused on gift-giving. "But people aren't very good at dealing with what others want ahead of time."
Research has shown that givers tend to value the gifts they buy considerably more than recipients. Gifts are valued roughly 10 to 33 percent less by recipients than what givers paid for them, Joel Waldfogel noted in a book on gift-giving.
The difference seems to come from a simple wrong belief that thoughtful presents are the best presents. They are not. In fact, they might just be the worst presents. The more thought you put into a present, the more likely you are to turn aside from buying what the person you' re buying the present for actually wants.
''Gift givers tend to focus on what people are like instead of what people actually would like," said Steffel.
In other words, people let their gift-giving minds get in the way of great presents, especially when the recipient is someone they want to show they know really well.
Fortunately, the answer to our common insistence on guessing what people want is simple: stop it.
"People want whatever it is they happen to want in the moment, which can be very specific,"Steffel said." You' re much better off asking people what they want."
"People tend to prefer gift cards to actual gifts," Steffel said. Steffel's latest research, which focuses on giving gift cards, points to exactly this point-that variety of gift's functions is the key to better gift-giving.
【小题1】The reason for masses of unwanted gifts is that ______.

A．givers don't spend enough time picking them out

B．givers take it for granted that receivers will like the gifts best

C．the gifts tend to be out of date

D．the gifts are mostly impractical

【小题2】In Joel Waldfogel's opinion, givers would think ______.

A．the gifts can be refused by recipients if they' re cheap

B．the gifts' value can't be recognized as expected

C．a thoughtful gift can say its value

D．the more carefully they choose the gifts, the less valuable the gifts will be

【小题3】The underlined sentence means you ______.

A．had better ask the recipients about their preference

B．will be rich if you ask people for some advice

C．will be proud of what you give to people

D．will feel better if you send the recipients some gifts

【小题4】In the latest research by Steffel, givers had better pay more attention to ______.

A．the gift card's value

B．the gift's functions

C．giving gift cards and money

D．the actual gifts

【小题5】The best title of the passage is ______.

A．Why Thoughtful Gifts Are Available

B．How Thoughtful Gifts Steal People's Heart

C．How Thoughtful Gifts Have a Great Effect

D．Why Thoughtful Gifts Are the Worst Gifts

语法填空

Due to better equipment，training and diet，the records in many sports have been broken，but recently，improvements 【小题1】 (begin）to slow down. Thus some experts predict a ceiling for many events.

In order to enhance 【小题2】 (perform), some athletes take the drugs which can get people more excited and 【小题3】 (energy) than in a normal situation and which are originally developed 【小题4】 (help) people with illnesses.  Taking these drugs is known as“doping”and 【小题5】 they improve performance, they also cause serious health problems in later life for those who abuse them.

The Olympic spirit — the spirit of competition which 【小题6】 (emphasise) taking part rather than winning — 【小题7】 (violate) by the desire to succeed at all costs so far. So the sports world does not tolerate doping as it is 【小题8】 fundamental form of cheating. However, it appears as if all efforts are 【小题9】 vain to athletes.

Anyway，the fight will and must 【小题10】 (fierce) go on and we all hope the word“hero”won't lose its meaning.

It was once common to regard Britain as a society with class distinction. Each class had unique characteristics.
In recent years, many writers have begun to speak of the ‘decline of class ’ and ‘classless society ’ in Britain. And in modern day consumer society everyone is considered to be middle class.
But pronouncing the death of class is too early. A recent wide-ranging study of pubic opinion found 90 percent of people still placing themselves in a particular class; 73 percent agreeed that class was still a vital part of British society.; and 52 percent thought there were still sharp class differences. Thus, class may not be culturally and politically obvious, yet it remains an imprtant part of British society. Britain seems to have a love of stratification.
One unchanging aspect of a British person’s class position is accent. The words a person speaks tell her or his class. A study of British accents during the 1970s found that a voice sounding like a BBC newsreader was viewed as the most attractive voice. Most people said this accent sounds ‘educated ’ and ‘soft ’. The accents placed at the bottom in this study, on the other hand, were regional(地区的) city accents. These accents were seen as ‘common ’ and ‘ugly ’. However, a similar study of British accents in the US turned these results upside down and placed some regional accents as the most attractive and BBC English as the least. This suggests that British attitudes towards accent have deep roots and are based on class prejudice.
In recent years, however, young upper midder-class people in London, have begun to adopt some regional accents, in order to hide their class origins. This is an indication of class becoming unnoticed. However, the 1995 pop song ‘ Common People ’ puts forward the view that though a middle-class person may ‘ want to live like common people ’ they can never appreciate the reality of a working class life.
【小题1】A recent study of pubic opinion shows that in modern Britain_________.

A．it is time to end class distinction

B．most people belong to middle class

C．it is easy to recognize a person’s class

D．people regard themselves socially different

【小题2】The word stratification in Paragraph 3 is closest in meaning to_________.

A．variety	B．division
C．authority	D．qualification

【小题3】The study in the US showed that BBC English was regarded as _________.

A．regional	B．educated
C．prejudiced	D．unattractive

【小题4】British attitudes towards accent_________.

A．have a long tradition

B．are based on regional status

C．are shared by the Americans

D．have changed in recent years

【小题5】What is the main idea of the passage?

A．The middle class is expanding.

B．A person’s accent reflects his class.

C．Class is a key part of British society.

D．Each class has unique characteristics.