Land, unlike labor and capital, has a special feature: It is in strictly fixed supply in total. Be??cause of this, we say that its price is demand-determined. In other words, the price of land is determined completely by what families and firms are willing to pay for it. But not all the land is the same. Some land is more valuable than other land. The value of land to a potential user may depend upon the characteristics of the land itself or upon its location.

Consider the potential uses of a piece of land in a suburb of Kansas City, Allan wants to build a clothing store in that place. He estimates that he can earn economic profits of $ 10,000 per year there because of the land’s excellent location. Bella, another person interested in buying the comer, believes that she can earn $ 35,000 in economic profits if she builds a drug store there. Clearly, Bella will be more likely to get the land.

Because location is often the key to profits, ‘landowners are frequently able to squeeze their renters. One of the most popular locations in the Boston area, for example, is Harvard Square. There are dozens of restaurants in and around the square, and most of them are full most of the time. Despite this seeming success, most Harvard Square restaurant owners are not getting rich, because they must pay very high rents for the locations of their restaurants. A large part of the restaurant’s revenues goes to rent the land. 

Although the supply of land is generally perfectly fixed, the supply of land in a given use may not be so. As the population of a city grows, housing developers find themselves willing to pay more and more for land. As land becomes more valuable for development, some farmers sell out, and the supply of land that can be used for development increases.

5. What’s the difference between land and other resources?

A. Land’s supply is strictly fixed.  B. The prices of other resources are lower.

C. Land can’t be used up.        D. Land is more useful.

6. Which of the following can’t determine the price of a piece of land?

A. Its location.                               B. Its purchasers’ purpose.

C. The total amount of its supply for general use.   D. Its features.

7. Which of the following is wrong according to the passage?

A. The price of a piece of land is changeable.

B. The profit of a shop is often determined by its location.

C. Most Harvard Square restaurant owners would be getting rich, if they paid lower rents for the locations of their restaurants.

D. The supply of land for development might fall down.

8. Which of the following can be the best title of the passage?

A. The Use of Land                B. The Natural Resources 

C. The Land Market                D. The Land Development

根据短文内容, 从下框A~F选项中选出能概括每段主题的最佳选项，并在答题卡上将该选项涂黑。选项中有一项为多余项。

 

A. Control of respiration

B. Basic tips for preserving cut flowers

C. Role of respiration

D. Most important aspect of flower care

E. Need for clean water

F. Ways of stopping respiration

 

1.______________

While everybody enjoys fresh cut flowers around his house, few people know how to keep them for as long as possible. This may be done by keeping in mind a few simple facts. The key to keeping fresh cut flower for a week or more without preservatives ( which contain biocides (杀虫剂) that kill bacterial and fungus) is to keep the water fresh and the stems free of air pockets so they can continue to draw up water.

2._____________

  An important thing to remember about cut flowers is that they are sensitive to temperature. For example, studies have shown that cut carnations retain their freshness eight times longer when kept at 12℃ than when kept at 26℃. Keeping freshly harvested flowered at the right temperatures is probably the most important aspect of flower care.

3._____________

  The process by which flowers consume oxygen and produce carbon dioxide, called respiration (呼吸), supplies the energy the flower needs to give the flower its shape and color. The making of seeds also depends on this energy. While all living things respire, flowers have a high level of respiration. A result of all this respiration is heat, and for flowers the level of heat relative to the mass of the flower is very high. Respiration also brings about the eventual death of the flower. Thus the greater the level of respiration, the sooner the flower dies.

4.______________

  How, then, to control the speed at which flowers die? By controlling respiration. How is respiration controlled? By controlling temperature, we know that respiration produces heat, but the reverse ( 反面 ) is also true. Thus by keeping low temperatures, respiration is reduced and the cut flower will age more slowly.

5._____________

  Another vital factor in keeping cut flowers is the quality of the water in which they are placed. Flowers find it difficult to “drink” water that is dirty or otherwise polluted. Even when water looks and smells clean, it almost certainly contains harmful substances that can endanger the flowers. To rid the water of these unwanted substances, chlorine bleach ( 含氯漂白剂 ) can be used in small quantities. It is recommended that 15 drops of chlorine bleach be added to each liter of water. The water and solution （ 溶液 ）should also be replaced each day.

 

A new study has found that it may be possible to train people to be more intelligent, increasing the brainpower they had at birth．

Until now，it has been widely assumed that the kind of mental ability that allows us to solve new problems without having any relevant previous experience—what psychologists call fluid intelligence—is innate and cannot be taught（though people can raise their grades on tests of it by practicing）．

But in the new study，researchers describe a method for improving this skill，along with experiments to prove it works．

The key, researchers found, was carefully structured training in working memory—the kind that allows memorization of a telephone number just long enough to dial it．This type of memory is closely related to fluid intelligence，so the researchers reasoned that improving it might lead to improvements in fluid intelligence．

First they measured fluid intelligence of volunteers using standard tests．Then they trained each in a complicated memory task—the child’s card game，in which they had to recall a card they saw and heard．During the course, they needed to ignore irrelevant items, monitor ongoing performance，manage two tasks at the same time and connect related items to one another in space and time．

The four groups experienced a half-hour of training daily for 8, 12, 17 and 19 days, respectively．To make sure they were not just improving their test-taking skills，the researchers compared them with control groups that took the tests without the training．

The results, published Monday in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences，were striking．Improvement in the trained groups was a lot greater．Moreover，the longer they trained, the higher their scores were．All performers，from the weakest to the strongest，showed significant improvement．

“Our results show you can increase your intelligence with proper training．” said Dr Jaeggi, a co-author of the paper．“No one knows how long the gains will last after training stops,” he added, “and the experiment’s design did not allow the researchers to determine whether more training would continue to produce further gains．”

The researchers thought the key to improving the intelligence was ______________．

       A．memorizing telephone numbers         B．improving working memory

       C．training in concentration              D．recalling a card

The following aspects of the training help increase intelligence EXCEPT___________．

       A．ignoring irrelevant items                  

       B．monitoring ongoing performance

       C．managing two tasks at the same time         

       D．using previous experience

When the experiment was conducted, the researchers______________．

       A．trained the four groups for the same period of time

       B．only made comparisons between the four groups

       C．compared the four groups with control groups

       D．trained the four groups together

By writing the article，the writer intends to ______________．

       A．inform the readers of a new study

       B．call on people to be trained to increase intelligence

       C．prove one’s born brainpower can be improved

       D．tell people the improved intelligence will last forever

----Why ? Where’s the key to the meeting room?

----Dear me! You ______it in the taxi!

had never left       B.didn’t leave      C.never left    D.haven’t left

One thing the tour books don’t tell you about London is that 2,000 of its residents are foxes. As native as the royal family, they fled the city about centuries ago after developers and pollution moved in. But now that the environment is cleaner, the foxes have come home, one of the many wild animals that have moved into urban areas around the world.

Several changes have brought wild animals to the cities. Foremost is that air and water quality in many cities has improved as a result of the 1970s pollution-control efforts. Meanwhile, rural areas have been built up, leaving many animals on the edges of suburbs. In addition, urban wildlife refuges (避难处) have been created. The Greater London Council last year spent $750, 000 to buy land and build 10 permanent wildlife refuges in the city. Over 1,000 volunteers have donated money and cleared rubble from abandoned spots. One evening last year a fox was seen on Westminster Bridge looking up at Big Ben.

　　For peregrine falcons (游隼), cities are actually safer than rural cliff dwellings (悬崖栖息地). By 1970 the birds had died out east of the Mississippi because the DDT had made their eggs too thin to support life. That year, scientist Tom Cade of Cornell University began raising the birds for release in cities, for cities afforded abundant food.

　　Cities can attract wild animals without turning them harmful. The trick is to create habitats where they can be self-sufficient but still be seen and appreciated. Such habitats can even be functional. In San Francisco, the local government is testing different kinds of rainwater control basins to see not only which ones retain (保持) the cleanest water but which will attract the most birds.

1.The first paragraph suggests that ________.

A．environment is the key to wildlife

B．tour books are not always a reliable source of information

C．London is a city of fox

D．foxes are highly adaptable to environment

2.Which of the following is NOT a reason that wildlife is returning to the cities?

A．Food is plentiful in the cities.

B．Wildlife is appreciated in the cities.

C．Wildlife refuges have been built in the cities.

D．Air and water quality has improved in the cities.

3.It can be inferred from the passage that ________.

A．Londoners are putting more and more wild animals into their zoos

B．Londoners are happy to see wild animals return to their city

C．Londoners are trying to move wild animals back to the countryside

D．Londoners have welcomed the wild birds, but found foxes a problem

4.What is the passage mainly about?

A．Wildlife returning to large cities.

B．Foxes returning to London.

C．Wild animals living in zoos.

D．A survey of wildlife in New York.