单选题 Can you believe it? There's a world paper shortage. There's a national bottle shortage, and we're running out of raw materials like timber and tin -- or so the papers say. Well, I've just emptied my shopping basket after my weekly shopping trip and it was full of things made from these scarce materials. Half of what I'd bought I threw away at once; all those unnecessary paper bags, plastic bags, fresh wrapping paper and old newspapers they put the food in nowadays.
Modern packaging makes shopping cleaner and more convenient, but at what cost? Every time you throw away a paper bag you're throwing away part of a tree -- and trees don't grow overnight! At this rate there soon won't be any trees left, and then what shall we do?
Perhaps we'll learn to do what my mother did. She used to keep a store of paper bags in a kitchen drawer and use them again and again for her shopping. Most goods were sold loose in those days. And the shopkeeper weighed out the amount you wanted. Of course, liquid goods have always been sold in bottles or cans, but why can't we use these containers more than once? If we re-use all our bottles we would save on the raw materials and energy needed to make new ones. At the moment 90% of our rubbish is just dumped. It's time we started to think seriously about the growing shortage of raw materials in the world today.

单选题 What problem does the author find from the newspapers?
[A] There's paper shortage. [B] There's timber shortage.
[C] There's raw material shortage. [D] There's tin shortage.
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】[解析] 本题为概括题。作者首先提出纸张匮乏,瓶子匮乏,木材和锡匮乏,从 而得出原材料匮乏的问题。因此[C]更为概括,是正确答案:
单选题 What does the author mean by saying "you are throwing part of a tree" (line 2, para 2)?
[A] We are tired of the part of a tree.
[B] We are throwing away paper bags.
[C] We are using too much wrapper paper.
[D] We are wasting our precious materials.
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】[解析] 本题为细节题。文章第七行“Every time you throw away a paper bag you're throwing away part of a tree”作者将扔纸和扔树木等同起来,说 明浪费纸张就是浪费树木资源。因此[D]选项为正确答案。
单选题 What does the author want us to do?
[A] He asks for an awareness of the shortage of raw materials.
[B] He wants us to use paper bags again and again.
[C] He wants us to buy liquid goods.
[D] He wants us to re-use all our bottles.
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】[解析] 本题为概括题。文章最后一句“It's time we started to think seriously about the growing shortage of raw materials in the world today”清楚地 说明作者对读者的希望,就是认真对待日益严重的原材料匮乏的问题, 避免浪费。因此[A]选项为正确答案。