What are the advantages and disadvantages of eating fast food?
Many people do not have time to eat home-cooked food. 1.There’re more than 13,000 McDonald’s restaurants in the 
United States itself, and over 8,000 KFCs in 80 countries. In most cities, it is not difficult to find hamburgers and pizza.
Advantages of fast food
2.Eating fast food helps working people and students to get back to work as quickly as possible. Besides, many love the look, smell and taste of it. Perhaps the greatest advantage is the price. 3. If one lives alone, then it is cheaper to buy a meal at the supermarket than cook it at home.
Disadvantages of fast food
The greatest disadvantage of fast food is the bad effect that it has on one’s health. Many people feel that fast food is unhealthy because it contains a lot of artificial ingredients (人造成分). Some even think that it is addictive (上瘾的) because of these ingredients. 4.Fast food may lead to obesity in the American population.
5. I believe that it can be a good thing, as long as people do not eat it too often, eat plenty of fruit and vegetables, and also do plenty of exercise to keep in shape.
A. Fast food does raise health concerns.
B. It is often cheaper than other kinds of restaurant food.
C. In short, fast food has both advantages and disadvantages.
D. Fast food probably makes people much fatter than before.
E. More and more fruit and vegetables are offered in fast food.
F. The most evident advantage of fast food is that it saves time.
G. Because of our non-stop modern lifestyle, fast food is popular almost everywhere.
To whom it may concern,
My husband Jim and I got married in 1965. For the first ten years of our marriage, I was very happy to stay home and raise our three children. Then about four years ago, our youngest child went to school, and I thought I might go back to work.
Jim was very supportive and helped me to make my decision. He started to do all the things I used to do around the house, and said he thought I could be a great success in business.
After several weeks of job hunting, I found my present job, which is working for a small public relation firm. At first, my husband was proud of me and would tell his friends, “My clever little wife can run that company she’s working for.”
But, as his joking words were becoming reality, Jim stopped talking to me about my job. I have received several promotions and pay increases, and I am now making more money than he is. I can buy my own clothes and a new car. Because of our combined incomes, Jim can do things that we had always dreamed of doing, but we don’t do these things because he is unhappy.
We fought about little things, and Jim is very critical of me in front of our friends. For the first time in our marriage, I think there is a possibility that our marriage may come to an end.
I love Jim very much, and I don’t want him to feel inferior(较差的), but I also love my job. I think I can be a good wife and a working woman, but I don’t know how. Can you give me some advice? Will I have to choo
se one or the other or can I keep both my husband and my new career?
Please help.
Yours,
Mary
1.When was the letter most probably written?
A. In 1975. B. Around 1980.
C. Four years ago. D. In 1965.
2.What shows her husband was supportive?
A. He helped look after babies.
B. He told her his experience.
C. He worked much harder.
D. He encouraged her a lot.
3.How did her husband feel when she first found her job?
A. Nervous. B. Disappointed.
C. Proud. D. Curious.
4.Jim stopped talking about her job when ___________.
A. Jim failed to do what he liked
B. she made more money than he
C. she received her boss’ praise
D. Jim had to do housework
5.What happened as her income increased?
A. She found a gap(分歧) between Jim and her.
B. She did what she had dreamed of.
C. She felt proud of herself.
D. She bought a house.
In late summer or early fall the large, yellow seed heads of sunflowers will be ripening. If gardeners can keep off the birds and other wildlife trying to eat the seeds, they can have a large harvest. The bright yellow blooms will make a rainbow garden, brightening up any space.
However, planting the sunflower seeds is a skilled job. Plant seeds no deeper than the full length of itself. Smaller sized sunflowers can be spaced a foot apart. Larger varieties will nee
d to be spaced as far apart as three feet. This allows ripe plants enough space for the seed heads to ripen without knocking the ripe seeds off before gardeners have a chance to harvest them.
Most sunflower seeds, especially those with eatable seeds, are large enough to handle without the need for seed sorters. This is why sunflowers make an excellent choice for a children's garden as well. Gardeners will want to mix plenty of soil fertilizers into the ground as sunflowers tend to be heavy feeders.
Sunflowers can be slow starters and the tiny new plants don't seem to grow very rapidly. Gardeners should protect the new plants as they begin to grow. Once they get going, sunflowers are able to out-grow many weeds, making them easier to grow in the home vegetable garden than many other plants.
Most pests and diseases are not a bother to the sunflower, however, more than one gardener has said that their lovely looking plants were destroyed overnight by hungry squirrels, mice or birds. To preserve their harvest, gardeners can cover the ripening seed head with stockings or net cloth to help keep the destroyers off the seeds.
Planting sunflower seeds is easy and can help even the smallest gardener feel successful in their gardening attempts.
1.What is the passage mainly about?
A. How to plant sunflowers.
B. Different kinds of sunflowers.
C. Ways to preserve sunflowers.
D. Tips on making your garden bright.
2.Why should enough space be left between sunflowers?
A. To prevent birds from eating sunflower seeds.
B. To offer the sunflowers enough sunlight.
C. To protect the ripe seed heads before harvest.
D. To help the sunflowers grow stronger.
3.Why do children love to grow sunflowers in their garden?
A. They want to decorate their garden with sunflowers.
B. The seeds are easy to plant and unnecessary to sort.
C. They want to share their own harvest with their parents.
D. Sunflowers don’t need too much soil fertilizer.
The sharing economy, represented by companies like Airbnb or Uber, is the latest fashion craze. But many supporters have overlooked the reality that this new business model is largely based on escaping regulations and breaking the law.
Airbnb is an Internet-based service that allows people to rent out spare rooms to strangers for short stays. Uber is an Internet taxi service that allows thousands of people to answer ride requests with their own cars. There are hundreds of other such services.
The good thing about the sharing economy is that it promotes the use of underused resources. Millions of people have houses or apartments with empty rooms, and Airbnb allows them to profit from these rooms while allowing guests a place to stay at prices that are often far less than those charged by hotels. Uber offers prices that are competitive with standard taxi prices and their drivers are often much quicker and more trustworthy.
But the downside of the sharing economy has gotten much less attention. Most cities and states both tax and regulate hotels, and the tourists who stay in hotels are usually an important source of tax income. But many of Airbnb’s customers are not paying the taxes required under the law.
Airbnb can also raise issues of safety for its customers and trouble for hosts’ neighbors. Hotels are regularly inspected to ensure that they are not fire traps and that they don’t form other risks for visitors. Airbnb hosts face no such inspections.
Since Airbnb is allowing people to escape taxes and regulations, the company is simply promoting thefts. Others in the economy will lose by bearing an additional tax burden or being forced to live next to an apartment unit with a never-ending series of noisy visitors.
The same story may apply with Uber. Uber is currently in disputes over whether its cars meet the safety and insurance requirements imposed on standard taxis. Also, if Uber and related services flood the market, they could harm all taxi drivers’ ability to earn a minimum wage.
This downside of the sharing needs to be taken seriously, but that doesn’t mean the current tax and regulatory structure is perfect.
1.What is the positive thing about the sharing economy?
A. It is a global trend.
B. It is beyond regulations.
C. It draws on spare resources.
D. It brings in modest profits.
2.What is the problem with Airbnb customers according to the passage?
A. They are not regularly inspected.
B. They are likely to commit thefts.
C. They are allowed not to pay taxes.
D. They can be noisy to hosts’ neighbours.
3.What is the argument over Uber according to the passage?
A. Whether it guarantees customers’ safety.
B. Whether it provides reliable services.
C. Whether it lowers customers’ expenses.
D. Whether it can compete with standard taxis.
4.What will be talked about in the following paragraphs?
A. Existing regulations and laws.
B. Necessary improvements of current laws.
C. Further development of Airbnb and Uber.
D. More downsides of Airbnb and Uber.
There is no doubt that many parents want to mold (塑造)their child to be better, faster, smarter and more skilled. Even though human parents can’t do that, a robot that builds its own children can. Scientists at the University of Cambridge in England have created a mother robot that not only creates its own children, but tests out their performance.
The mother robot analyzes(分析)the performance of each of the “children” it creates, and passes down good characters to the next generation. For example, as the mother creates them and puts them to work, she measures how they’re behaving, and she uses data from this behavior to create the next generation of robots.
The mother robot can actually build hundreds of child robots and see the performance of these child robots. And if their performance is good, keep their design for the next generation. And if bad, just let it go.
“We program the robots based on some functions that define(规定)the reward the robots are going to get, depending on the construction that they make. They cannot change their own reward. For the child robot, the longer the distance the robot walks, the better the reward it receives,” said Fumiya Iida, the lead researcher.
After several generations, the “children” were
running twice as fast.
“The mother robot produced 500 robots to see which one is good and which one is bad,” said Iida.
The researchers believe that the machines can be used in a car factory, for example, where robot cameras examine each ear in production line, find out any mistakes, and then design a better car.
1.What is special about the mother robot?
A. It can analyze data
B. It can create child robots
C. It’s smarter than human mothers
D. It can build and improve its own children.
2.How does the mother robot mold her own children to be better?
A. It teachers them how to behave better.
B. It reprograms the bad ones after analyzing their performance
C. It copies hundreds of child robots and then chooses the best ones.
D. It keeps the good characters for the next generation to create a better robot.
3.What is the key point in influencing the child robot to receive a reward?
A. Size B. Distance.
C. Behavior D. Speed.
假如你是李华，是金鼎中学校刊记者，请你为校刊写一篇英语短文，介绍最近在我国很多城市发生的雾霭（haze）天气。请参考以下要点：
危害；
原因；
如何自我防护；
注意：
1、词数100左右；
2、开头已给出，不计入总词数。
Recently haze pollution has happened in cities of China
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