During the SARS period,it is especially important to ventilate the room. dust clean remove air

That student is discourteous; he grumbles no matter how one tries to please him. giggles scolds complains sneers

This kind of animals are on the verge of extinction, because so many are being killed for their fur. drying up dying out being exported being transplanted

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The index is the government’s chief gauge of future economic activity. method measure way manner

She is slender,with delicate wrists and ankles. sick weak slim pale

US Blacks Hard-hit by Cancer Death rates for cancer are falling for all Americans, but black Americans are still more likely to-die of cancer than whites, the American Cancer Society said Monday. In a special report on cancer and blacks, the organization said blacks are usually diagnosed with cancer later than whites, and they are more likely to die of the disease. This could be because of unequal access to medical care, because blacks are more likely to have other diseases like diabetes as well, and perhaps because of differences in the biology of the cancer itself, the report added. “ In general, African Americans have less likelihood of surviving five years after diagnosis than whites for all cancer sites and all stages of diagnosis,“ the report said. “In describing cancer statistics for African Americans, this report recognizes that socioeconomic disparities and unequal access to medical care may underlie many of the differences associated with race.“ The Cancer Society said blacks should be encouraged to get check-ups earlier, when cancer was more treatable, and it said more research is needed to see if biological differences play a role.“The new statistics emphasize the continuing importance of eliminating these social disparities through public policy and education efforts,“ the organization said in a statement.But it also noted a drop in cancer death rates. “ Cancer death rates in both sexes for all sites combined have declined substantially among black Americans since 1992, as have incidence rates,“ said the report. “Increased efforts to improve economic conditions in combination with education about the relationship of lifestyle choices to cancer could further reduce the burden of cancer among African Americans.“ About 36 million Americans describe themselves as black, representing about 12 percent of the population.

Why So Many Children In many of the developing countries in Africa and Asia, the population is growing fast.The reason for this is simple: Women in these countries have a high birth rate—from 3.0 to 7.0 children per woman.The majority of these women are poor, without the food or resources to care for their families.Why do they have so many children? Why don’t they limit the size of their families? The answer may be that they often have no choice.There are several reasons for this. One reason is economic.In a traditional agricultural economy, large families are helpful.Having more children means having more workers in the fields and someone to take care of the parents in old age.In an industrial economy, the situation is different.Many children do not help a family; instead, they are an expense. Thus, industrialization has generally brought down the birth rate.This was the case in Italy, which was industrialized quite recently and rapidly.In the early part of the twentieth century, Italy was a poor, largely agricultural country with a high birth rate.After World War Ⅱ , Italy’s economy was rapidly modernized and industrialized.By the end of the century, the birth rate had dropped to 1.3 children per woman, the world’s lowest. However, the economy is not the only important factor that influences birth rate.Saudi Arabia , for example, does not have an agriculture-based economy, and it has one of the highest per capita incomes in the world.Nevertheless, it also has a very high birth rate(7.0).Mexico and Indonesia, on the other hand, are poor countries, with largely agricultural economies, but they have recently reduced their population growth. Clearly, other factors are involved.The most important of these is the condition of women.A high birth rate almost always goes together with lack of education and low status for women.This would explain the high birth rate of Saudi Arabia.There, the traditional culture gives women little education or independence and few possibilities outside the home.On the other hand, the improved condition of women in Mexico, Thailand, and Indonesia explains the decline in birth rates in these countries.Their governments have taken measures to provide more education and opportunities for women. Another key factor in the birth rate is birth control.Women may want to limit their families but have no way to do so.In countries where governments have made birth control easily available and inexpensive, birth rates have gone down.This is the case in Singapore, Sri Lanka, and India, as well as in Indonesia, Thailand, Mexico, and Brazil.In these countries, women have also been provided with health care and help in planning their families. These trends show that an effective program to reduce population growth does not have to depend on better economic conditions.It can be effective if it aims to help women and meet their needs. Only then, in fact, does it have any real chance of success.

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The First Settlement in North America It is very difficult to say that when colonization began.The first hundred years after Christopher Columbus’s journey of discovery in 1492 did not produce any settlement on the North American continent but rather some Spanish trading posts further south, a great interest in gold and adventure, and some colorful crimes in which the English had their part.John Cabot, originally from Genoa but a citizen of Venice, was established as a trader in Bristol, England, when he made a journey in 1497.But his ship, the Matthew, with its crew of eighteen, did no more than see an island (probably off the New England coast) and return home.He and his son made further voyages across the north Atlantic, which enabled the English Crown to claim a “legal“ title to North America.But for a long time afterwards the Europeans’ interest in America was mainly confined to the Spanish activities further south. The first beginning of permanent settlement in North America was nearly a hundred years after Columbus’s first voyage.The Englishman Sir Walter Raleigh claimed the whole of North America for England, calling it Virginia.In 1585 he sent a small group of people who landed in Roanoke Island, but they stayed only for a year and then went back to England with another expedition, led by Drake, in 1587.A second group who landed in 1587 had all disappeared when a further expedition arrived in 1590. The first permanent settlement in North America was in 1607.English capitalists founded two Virginia companies, a southern one based in London and a northern one based in Bristol.It was decided to give the name New England to the northern area.The first settlers in Virginia were little more than wage slaves to the company.All were men and the experiment was not very successful.Many died.Those who survived lived in miserable conditions.By 1619 the colony had only a thousand people.

Travelling Is My Life 1.I am very fortunate.I am now a much-travelled woman, but until I was 20 I had never been anywhere more remote than Londan.And coming from a country village in the far south I was struck by the architectural beauty of the capital.I understood immediately why foreign tourists descend on it in their thousands. 2.The first time I traveled abroad was when I went over to France on a cross Channel ferry.It was a school trip to Paris for a week,and I thought it was wonderful.The sights, the sounds,the smells,the language—they were all wonderful.I had never experienced anything like it, and the week had a profound effect on me. It gave me the travel bug! 3.As a young girl I was always shy of strangers.I certainly had no plans to travel a lot.I left school and trained as a journalist on a local paper, and somehow slowly began to concentrate on travel. I had a procession of jobs before I got this one with the magazine.Although I still write ar- ticles on other subjects,my main occupation now is writing travel and tourism. 4.I can appreciate now why tourists go halfway across the world to visit a place.I was brought up in the vicinity of a major British tourist attraction, but never went there myself and couldn’t understand foreign visitors.You read about something halfway across the world and want to see it for yourself.I remember that was just why I went walking in the Himalayas and looked up at Everest, and why I went on a strange but wonderful cruise in the Antarctic.You can read about a place,but it is totally different to be there, to see, feel, smell and hear everything yourself. 5.Perhaps not surprisingly I have been to a lot of popular tourist resorts in Europe, Africa, the Far East and the West Indies,for example.But I like to try and find those unknown,inaccessible places—not only for myself, but also for people who want something different.Sometimes it’s frightening.I remember visiting a village on the side of a steep hill in Bolivia where the inhabitants stood motionless as I walked in and didn’t move until I walked out. 6.The career of the previous travel writer on the magazine I work for now came to an abrupt end when he quite simply disappeared somewhere in South America.He was on a special journey and had told someone at his hotel that he had found a native to ferry him up a river to some remote villages in the jungle.Nothing has been heard from him since then.One day I’d like to try and find out what happened to him. A.The Tourist Mentality B.Always Looking For the Unexpected C.A Late Developer D.The Road to Being A Travel Writer E.A Sudden End to A Career F.The First Taste of Travel

A Ride in a Cable-car A ride in a cable-car is one of the exciting and enjoyable experiences a child can have.In Switzerland, which is the home of the cable-car, it is used mostly to take tourists up the slope of a mountain, to a restaurant from which one can have a bird-eye view of the surrounding country, or to a top of a ski-run, from which, in winter, skiers glide down the snow covered the slope on skis.In Singapore, however, the cable-car takes one from the summit of a hill on the main island to a low hill on Sentosa, a resort island just off the southern coast. The cable-car is really a carriage which hangs from a strong steel cable suspended in the air.It moves along the cable with other cars on pulleys, the wheels of which are turned by electric motors. The cars are painted in eye-catching colours and spaced at regular intervals. Each car can seat up six persons. After the passengers have entered a car, they are locked in from outside by an attendant, they have no control over the movement of the car. Before long, the passengers get a breath-taking view through the glass windows of the modern city, the bustling harbour, and the several islands off the coast.The car is suspended so high in the air that slips on the sea look like small boats, and boats like toys.On a clear day, both the sky above and the sea below look beautifully blue. In contrast to the fast-moving traffic on the ground, the cars in the air move in a leisurely manner, allowing passengers more than enough time to take in the scenery during the brief trip to the island of Sentosa.After a few hours on Sentosa, it will be time again to take a cable-car back to Mount Faber.The return journey is no less exciting than the outward trip.

Stars in Their Eyes The Scientific American Book of the Cosmos edited by David Levy, Macmillan, ￡20, ISBN 0333782933 Previous generations of scientists would have killed to know what we know.For the first time in history, we have a pretty good idea of the material content of the Universe, our position within it and how the whole thing came into being. In these times of exploding knowledge there is a definite need to take stock and assemble what we know in a palatable (受欢迎的) form.【B1】______ The essays in The Scientific American Book of the Cosmos have been selected by David Levy, co-discoverer of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, which in 1994 struck Jupiter with the violence of several full-scale nuclear wars.【B2】______This is certainly a great collection of essays, but it is not, as the book promises, a seamless (完美的，无缝隙的) synthesis of our current knowledge. Nobody can fault the range of articles Levy has included.There are essays on the planets, moons and assorted debris (碎片) in the Solar System, and on our Galaxy, the Milky Way.【B3】______ The contributors, too, are stars in their own fields.Not many books can boast chapters written by such giants as Erwin Schrodinger and Francis Crick.My personal favorites are a piercingly clear essay by Albert Einstein on general relativity and an article by Alan Guth and Paul Stein-hardt on the inflationary (膨胀的) Universe. So much for the book’s content.But Levy has not succeeded in providing an accurate synthesis of our current knowledge of the cosmos, which the book jacket promises. Gathering together previously published articles inevitably leaves subject gaps, missing explanations and so on.【B4】______But there isn’t one. In fact, surprisingly for a book so densely packed with information, there is no index. Collecting essays in this way is clearly a good publishing wheeze (巧妙的主意). But this approach shortchanges the public, who would be better served by an account moulded into a seamless whole.【B5】______However, for the next edition, please, please can we have an index? A.Tegmark fears he may hold the record for the longest time taken to read one book. B.In a more positive vein, this is a wonderful collection of essays to dip in and out of if you already have a good overview (概述) of current cosmic understanding. C.Levy is an active astronomer and an accomplished writer, so you’d expect him to provide a broad and accurate picture of our current understanding of the cosmos. D.Scientific American has attempted to cater to this need by bringing together essays that have appeared in the magazine.E.To some extent, these could have been plugged with a glossary (词表) of terms.F.Also included are contributions on the world of subatomic particles, the origin of life on the Earth and the possibility of its existence elsewhere.

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