The best place to start, of course, is the home. Every day, people all over the world are hurting the environment without even knowing it. For example, busy families buy paper napkins and plastic food at the supermarket. This helps them save time on housework, but after these things have been used, what happens to them? They go in the trash. In many places, especially in the North America, big cities are running out of places to throw their trash, what can we do about it?
How can we cut down on garbage? Well, we can start using cloth napkins and cloth towels instead of paper towels. When we go grocery shopping, we can choose products that are not" over-packaged". For example, last week I bought a package of Cookies. The cookies were in a bag, there was a plastic tray inside the bag, and then each cookie was in its own little package on the tray in the bag! That's over-packaging! We should also take our own bags to the grocery store to carry things home.
Cleaning products are another danger. Dangerous cleaning products enter our water supply every day. Of course, everyone wants a clean house, so what's the answer? For one thing, we could make our own cleaning solution from baking soda, lemon, and vinegar.
Now, what about in the community? At work and school, we use one very valuable item every day. Paper, of course, we need paper to do our work, but how much do we waste? Get your school or office to recycle paper. Learn to make notepads from unused side of old pieces of paper.
Perhaps the most important thing we do is to ask our schools to teach recycling to young children. We should teach them to be careful; we should teach them not to litter. We should also teach them by being good role models and recycling as much as we can every day! Finally, plant a tree. Better yet, plant two trees.
What's the talk mainly about?
A. Green house effect.
B. Garbage treatment.
C. Environment protection.
D. Over-packaging problem.
Auctions are public sales of goods, conducted by an officially approved auctioneer. He asks the crowd assembled in the auction-room to make offers, or" bids", for the various items on sale. He encourages buyers to bid higher figures, and finally names the highest bidder as the buyer of the goods. This is called "knocking down" the goods, for the bidding ends when the auctioneer bangs a small hammer on a table at which he stands. This is often set on a raised platform. called a rostrum.
The ancient Romans probably invented sales by auction, and the English word comes from the Latin auction, meaning" increase". The Romans usually sold in this way the spoils taken in war; these sales were called sub hasta, meaning "under the spear", a spear being stuck in the ground as a signal for a crowd to gather. In England in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries goods were often sold" by the candle": a short candle was lit by the auctioneer, and bids could be made while it stayed alight.
Practically all goods whose qualities vary are sold by auction. Among these are coffee, hides, skins, wool, tea, cocoa, furs, spices, fruit and vegetables and wines. Auction sales are also usual for land and property, antique furniture, pictures, rare books, old china and similar works of art. The auction-rooms at Christie's and Sotheby's in London and New York are world-famous.
An auction is usually advertised beforehand with full particulars of the articles to be sold and where and when they can be viewed by prospective buyers. If the advertisement cannot give full details, catalogues are printed, and each group of goods to be sold together, called a "lot", is usually given a number. The auctioneer need not begin with Lot 1 and continues in numerical order; he may wait until he registers the fact that certain dealers are in the room and then produce the lots they are likely to be interested in. The auctioneer's services are paid for in the form. of a percentage of the price the goods are sold for. The auctioneer therefore has a direct interest in pushing up the bidding as high as possible.
The auctioneer must know fairly accurately the current market values of the goods he is selling, and he should be acquainted with regular buyers of such goods. He will not waste time by starting the bidding too low. He will also play in the rivalries among his buyers and succeed in getting a high price by encouraging two business competitors to bid against each other. It is largely on his advice that a seller will fix a "reserve" price, that is a rise below which the goods cannot be sold. Even the best auctioneers, however, find it difficuh to stop a "knock-out", whereby dealers illegally arrange beforehand got to bid against each other, but nominate one of themselves as the only bidder, in the hope of buying goods at extremely low prices. If such a "knock-out" comes off, the real auction sale takes place privately afterward among the dealers.
The end of the bidding is called "knocking down" because______.
A. the person who offers the highest price wins
B. all the buyers win except one fail
C. the goods are knocked down on to the table
D. the auctioneer bangs the table with a hammer
How many men college graduates are there in the USA?
About 3 million.
B. About 7.3 million.
C. Nearly 5 million.
D. About 2.3 million.
What is the report about?
A. The weather tonight in the northern part of the country.
B. The weather yesterday in the whole country.
C. Tomorrow's weather in two parts of the country.
D. Tomorrow's weather in the southern part of the country.