Food sometimes gets poisoned with harmful things. A person who eats such food can get an illness called food poisoning. Food poisoning is usually not serious, but some types are deadly. The symptoms of food poisoning usually begin within hours of eating the poisoned food. Fever is one of the most common symptoms.

Certain microorganisms(微生物)cause most types of food poisoning. Bacteria and other microorganisms can poison eggs, meat, vegetables, and many other foods. After entering the body, these tiny living things release(释放)poisons that make people sick.

Some chemicals can also cause food poisoning. They are often added to food while it is being grown, processed, or prepared. For example, many farmers spray chemicals on crops to kill weeds and insects. Some people may have a bad reaction to those chemicals when they eat the crops.

Some plants and animals contain natural poisons that are harmful to people. These include certain kinds of seafood, grains, nuts, seeds, beans, and mushrooms.

When people handle food properly, the risk of food poisoning is very small. Microorganisms multiply rapidly in dirty places and in warm temperatures. This means that people should never touch food with dirty hands or put food on unwashed surfaces. Food should be kept in a refrigerator to stop microorganisms from growing. Meat needs to be cooked thoroughly to kill any dangerous microorganisms. People should also wash food covered with chemicals before eating it. Finally, people should not eat wild mushrooms or other foods that grow in the wild. Some of these foods may contain natural materials that are poisonous to humans. In addition, some types of fish can be poisonous.

Most people recover from food poisoning after a few days of resting and drinking extra water. If people eat natural poisons, they must go to the hospital right away to have their stomachs emptied.

Venice, one of the cities in Italy, was founded in A.D.811 by the people of Malamocco, fleeing（逃跑）from the Franks. It was said that they were guided by pigeons carrying little crosses, and settled where now Venice lies.

Venice is built on 117 islands. It has 150 canals and 400 bridges. The narrow streets, with their historic names, are covered with stones, but have no footpaths. They are dotted with flowershop signs and lanterns. Shops and palaces stand by side. The brick bridges are high enough to allow boats to pass freely under them.

The center of public life is St. Mark’s Square where tourists and citizens sit in the famous Florian and Quadri cafes to listen to music, enjoying themselves. The Quadri is more popular but the Florian, founded in 1720, is the best-known cafe because it has received such great persons as Byron (an English poet) and Goethe (a German poet).

Unfortunately the special position of Venice is threatening（威胁）its own existence. The terrain（地势）on which it is built began to sink while the level of the surrounding waters is constantly rising. However, many measures have already been taken to prevent the city from sinking.

In the second paragraph, the author _______.

Which of the following shows the right relationship?（○=Italy; △=Venice; □=St. Mark’s Square）

Why is the Florian the famous cafe? Because _________.

From the article we can see that _______.

  The Atlantic Ocean is one of the oceans that separate the Old World from the New. For centuries it kept the Americans from being discovered by the people of Europe.

       Many wrong ideas about the Atlantic made early sailors unwilling to sail far out into it. One idea was that it reached out to “the edge of the world.” Sailors were afraid that they might sail right off the earth. Another idea was that at the equator（赤道）the ocean would be boiling hot.

       The Atlantic Ocean is only half as big as the Pacific, but it is still very large. It is more than 4,000 miles (6,000km) wide where Columbus crossed it. Even at its narrowest it is about 2,000 miles (3,200km) wide.

       Two things make the Atlantic Ocean rather unusual. For so large an ocean it has very few islands. Also, it is the world’s saltiest ocean.

       There is so much water in the Atlantic that it is hard to imagine how much there is. But suppose no more rain fell into it and no more water was brought to it by rivers. It would take the ocean about 4,000 years to dry up. On the average the water is a little more than two miles (3.2km) deep, but in places it is much deeper. The deepest spot is near Puerto Rico. This “deep” measures 30,246 feet-almost six miles (9.6km).

       One of the longest mountain ranges of the world rises from the floor of the Atlantic. This mountain range runs north and south down the middle of the ocean. The tops of a few of the mountains reach up above the sea and make islands.

       Several hundred miles eastward from Florida there is a part of the ocean called the Sargasso Sea. Here the water is quiet, for there is little wind. In the days of sailing vessels（船）the crew were afraid they would be becalmed（停滞不前）here. Sometimes they were.

       Today the Atlantic is a great highway. It is not, however, always a smooth and safe one. Storms sweep across it and pile up great waves. Icebergs（冰山）float down from the Far North across the paths of ships.

       We now have such fast ways of traveling that this big ocean seems to have grown smaller. Columbus sailed for more than two months to cross it. A fast modern steamship can make the trip in less than four days. Airplanes fly from New York to London in only eight hours and from south America to Africa in four!

最近，联合国一个考察团来你市参观考察，请你根据下列所提供的信息，写一篇文章，宣传我国人民近几年来生活水平发生的巨大变化，生活质量的显著提高：1.家庭轿车拥有量成倍增长；2.住房条件有了很大改善，房屋变大了，变新了；3.旅游的人多了，走得更远了，然而，所有这些在二十年前是想象不到的。

注意：

1.文章的开头已为你写好，可适当发挥，使文章连贯，生动。

2.词数：100左右。

3.参考词语：小康：well-off 生活水平living standards

Great changes have taken place in our country in recent years.

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What do literary tourists look for when they visit the British Isles? Often it's the charmingly old-fashioned bookshops that provide the perfect excuse to read uninterruptedly and to disconnect from the world. Until recently, the trend for fine coffee and high-speed Wi-Fi was considered by some in the city's bookish crowd to be ruining London's centuries-old tradition of disconnected reading.

But a crop of bookshops is fighting against crazy online engagement and is creating environments where the real-life, Internet-free book reading is the most effective way to expand your social and professional networks. Leading the fighting is Libreria Books, which is in the company of Tenderbooks, Buchhandlung Wakther, Lutyens&Rubinstein etc., all independent bookshops without high-speed Wi-Fi and coffee.

Mr Silva of Libreria was inspired to open his shop after experiencing a common suffering for London's book-lovers—the repeated ringtones of smart phones ruining the peace of his bookshop experience. He wanted to get people reading without interruption. He said, “You can get Wi-Fi anywhere now, but it's not necessary in a bookshop.”

Their mantra(原则) has drawn a wise, brainy crowd. The bookshop should be an escape from an information overload. “ If someone gets a phone call, they leave the shop. It's the same with the Internet—people just know this isn't the space for being online,” said Tamsin Clark, owner of Tenderbooks. And in the face of the Internet overload, some stores are proving to be among London's hottest places.

Mr Silva said “an old-fashioned space” is clearly appealing to book-lovers. He said his shop has had twice as many customers as expected, with visitors from as far as Australia and China. Faced with a bookshelf recommended by the Queen or surrounded by first editions, who wants to download a morning full of e-mails? 

A book review tells not only what a book is about，but also how successful it is at what it is trying to do.Professors often assign book reviews as practice in careful analytical(分析的)reading.

As a reviewer，you bring together the two strands of accurate，analytical reading and strong，personal response when you indicate (指出)what the book is about and what it might mean to a reader (by explaining what it meant to you)．In other words，reviewers answer not only the WHAT but the SO WHAT question about a book.Thus，in writing a review，you combine the skills of describing what is on the page，analyzing how the book tried to achieve its purpose，and expressing your own reactions.

Most book reviews start with a heading that includes all the basic information about the book，like：

Title.

Author.

Place of publication，publisher，date of publication.

Number of pages.

Like most pieces of writing，the review usually begins with an introduction that lets your readers know what the review will say.The first paragraph usually includes the author and title again，so your readers donˈt have to look up to find this information.You should also include a very brief description of the contents of the book，the purpose or audience for the book，and your reaction and evaluation.

Then you move into a section of background information that helps place the book in context and discusses how to judge the book.Next，you should give a summary of the main points，quoting (引用)and explaining key phrases from the author.Finally，you get to the heart of your review—your evaluation of the book.In this section，you might discuss some of the following issues：

•How well the book has achieved its goal.

•What possibilities are suggested by the book.

•What the book has left out.

•How the book compares with others on the subject.

•What specific points are not convincing.

•What personal experiences youˈve had related to the subject.

It is important to use labels to carefully distinguish your views from the authorˈs，so that you donˈt confuse your reader.^①

Then，like other essays，you can end with a direct comment on the book，and tie together issues raised in the review in a conclusion.

There is，of course，no set form，but a general rule is that the first one-half to two-thirds of the review should summarize the authorˈs main ideas and at least one-third should evaluate the book.

Patients in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease often struggle to remember recently learned information, meaning they forget things like important appointments or where they left their keys. But it seems that these memories are not lost. They are still filed away in the brain somewhere; they just can’t be easily accessed.

Now, researchers at MIT have developed a means of getting back memories in mice suffering from Alzheimer’s. The method relies on a technique that uses light to control genetically modified neurons (转基因神经元). Currently it is too early to be used in human trials as it involves inserting light emitting (发光) equipment into the subjects’ brains, but the same principles still apply, the researchers said.

“The important point is that this is evidence of concept. That is, even if a memory seems to be gone, it is still there. It’s a matter of how to get it back,” said senior researcher Susumu Tonegawa.

The team took two groups of mice, one genetically engineered to develop Alzheimer’s and one healthy. They then placed them into a room and gave them a mild electric shock. All of the mice showed fear when put back in an hour later. When placed in the room a third time several days later, the Alzheimer’s mice acted normally. They had forgotten the shock.

The researchers were then able to bring back the memory of the shock by activating (激活) the cells in which the memories were stored. Even when the mice were put into an unfamiliar room, they showed fear when the cells associated with the shock were activated.

“Short-term memory seems to be normal, on the order of hours. But for long-term memory, these early-Alzheimer’s mice seem to be damaged,” said lead researcher Dheeraj Roy. “Directly activating the cells that we believe are holding the memory helps them get it back. This suggests that it is indeed an access problem to the information, not that they’re unable to learn or store this memory.”

Not since World War II have so many Americans spoken a foreign language at home. Today, one in seven U.S. residents speak a language other than English. Spanish is the leading tongue, spoken by 17 million Americans. All told, 31.8 million American residents speak 329 foreign languages in their households. This represents an increase of 34%in foreign language usage since 1980.

  Asian languages accounts for 14% of foreign language speakers, reflecting the new wave of immigration. European languages have declined the most, as the descendants of the old immigrants abandon such languages as German, Yiddish, Polish, and Italian.

  This list represents the 20 most common foreign language in use in the home and states with the highest percentage of speakers.

  Spanish      7,339,172     New Mexico    French       1,702,176    Marine

  German       1.547,099    North Dakota   Italian        1,308,648    New York

  Chinese       1,249,213    Hawaii        Tagalog 843,251 Hawaii

  Polish         723,483     Illinois         Korean       626,478     Hawaii

  Vietnamese     507,069    California       Portuguese    429,860     Rhode Island

  Japanese       427,657     Hawaii        Greek       388,260       Massachusetts 

  Arabic         355,150    Michigan       Hindi        331,484      New Jersey 

  Russian       241,798     New York      Yiddish       213,o64      New York

  Thai/Lao      206,266     California       Persian      201,865      California

  Creole        187,658     California       Armenian    149,694      California 

  Other languages spoken by more than 100,000 American residents and the states in which thay

are chiefly used are :Navajo (New Mexico), Hungarian (New Jersey), Hebrew(New York), Dutch

(Utah),Mon-Khmer(Rhode Island), and Gujarathi ( New Jersey)

  On the next part are the five states that have the most and the fewer foreign language speakers in the home.

Most Foreign Speakers Fewest Foreign Speakers

New Mexico 35.5% Kentucky 2.5%

Texas 25.4% Arkansas 2.8%

Hawaii 24.8% Alabama 2.9%

New York 23.3% Tennessee 2.9%