2011年职称英语教材综合类A、B级完型填空word汇总
补全短文
Crop Circle Mysteries
They are giant geometric patterns, which appear over-night in a field of crops. Many people believe that they are made by aliens.(1) Others call them hoaxes. "Crop circle", as the mysterious patterns are called, became a hot phrase this month.
(2)A strange pattern 360 feet (110 meters) in diameter was discovered earlier this month in a wheat field in Oxfordshire, England. It's believed to be the world's first three-dimensional crop circle１.The giant crop circle gives an impression of looking down on skyscrapers from above. (3) The design's discovery immediately generated a new tide of public interest in this mysterious phenomenon. Crop circles were first widely noticed in the late 1970s as many mysterious circles began appearing-in crop fields throughout the English countryside. People were intrigued by these giant patterns. They were huge (at least tens of meters in diameters) and popped up over-night2. (4) No one knew how or by whom they were made.
Various scientific and pseudo-scientific explanations were put
forward to explain the phenomenon. Some hold that they were left by alien spaceships. Others say that they are simply an elaborate prank3. (5) But rather than discovering the truth, people saw increasingly complicated circles appear worldwide. To date, thousands of circles have been
discovered all over the globe, from the former Soviet Union to Japan to Canada.
第十二 Obesity Causes Global Warming
The list of ills attributable to obesity keeps growing: Last week, obese people were accused of causing global warming.
This conclusion comes from Sheldon Jacobson of the University of
Illinois, US, and a doctoral student, Laura McLay. Their study calculates how much extra gasoline is needed to haul fat Americans around. The answer, they say, is a billion gallons of gas per year. It means an extra 11 million
1tons of carbon dioxide.
There has been calls for taxes on junk food2 in recent years（2) US economist Martin Schmidt suggests a tax on fast food delivered to people's cars"We tax cigarettes partly because of their health cost," Schmidt said. "Similarly, leading a lazy lifestyle will end up costing taxpayers more."
US political scientist Eric Oliver said his first instinct was to laugh at these gas and fast food arguments. But such claims are getting attention.
At the US Obesity Society's annual meeting, one person correlated obesity with car accident deaths, and another correlated obesity with
2011年职称英语教材综合类A、B级完型填空word汇总
suicides.(3) No one asked whether there was really a cause-and-effect relationship3. "The funny thing was that everyone took it seriously," Oliver said.
In a 1960s study, children were shown drawings of children with disabilities and without them, and a drawing of an obese child. They were asked which they would want for a friend? (4) The obese child was picked last.
Three researchers recently repeated the study using college students. Once again, almost no one, not even obese people, liked the obese person. "Obesity was stigmatized," the researchers said.
But, researchers say, getting thin is not like quitting smoking. People struggle to stop smoking, and, in the end, many succeed. Obesity is different. But, not because obese people don't care. (5) Science has shown that they have limited personal control over their weight. Genes also play a part.
第十三篇 The Value of Motherhood
In shopping malls, the assistants try to push you into buying “a gift to thank her for her unselfish love”. When you log onto1a website, a small pop-up2 invites you to book a bouquet for her. Commercial warmth and gratitude are the atmosphere being spread around for this special Sunday in May.
(1) The American version of Mother's Day was thought up as early as 1905, by Anna Jarvis, as a way of recognizing the real value of motherhood.The popularity of Mother's Day around the world suggests that Jarvis got all she wanted. In fact, she got more - enough to make her horrified. (2) According to a research by the US card company Hallmark, 96 percent of Americanconsumers celebrate the holiday. They buy, among other things, 132 million cards. Mother's Day is the No 1 holiday for flower purchases. Then there are the various commodities, ranging from jewelry and clothes to cosmetics and washing powder, that take advantage of the promotion opportunities. Because of this, Jarvis spent the last 40 years of her life trying to stop Mother's Day. One protest against the commercialization of Mother's Day even got her arrested – for disturbing the peace, interestingly. (3) But what's more, commercialism changes young people's attitude towards motherhood. As Ralph Fevre, a reporter at the UK newspaper The Guardian, observe, traditionally "motherhood is something that we do because we think it's right." But in the logic of commercialism, people need something in exchange for their time and energy. A career serves this purpose better.