The National Trust in Britainplays an increasingly important part in the preservation for public enjoyment of the best that is left unspoiled of the British countryside. Although the Trust has received practical and moral support from the Government, it is not a rich Government department. It is a voluntary association of people who care for the unspoiled countryside and historic buildings ofBritain. It is charity which depends for its existence on voluntary support from members of the public ¹. Its primary duty is to protect places of great natural beauty and places of historical interest.

    The attention of the public was first drawn to the dangers threatening the great old houses and castles of Britain by the death of Lord Lothian, who left his great seventeenth-century house to the Trust together with the 4, 500-acre park and estate surrounding it. This gift attracted wide publicity and started the Trust"s “Country House Scheme”. Under this scheme, with the help of the Government and the general public, the Trust has been able to save and make accessible to the public about one hundred and fifty of these old houses ². Last year about one and three quarters of a million people paid to visit these historic houses, usually at a very small charge.

    In addition to country houses and open spaces the Trust now owns some examples of ancient wind and water mills ³, nature reserves ⁴, five hundred and forty farms and nearly two thousand five hundred cottages or small village houses, as well as some complete villages. In these villages no one is allowed to build, develop or disturb the old village environment in any way and all the houses are maintained in their original sixteenth-century style. Over four hundred thousand acres of coastline, woodland, and hill country are protected by the Trust and no development or disturbances of any kind are permitted. The public has free access to these areas and is only asked to respect the peace, beauty and wildlife.

    So it is that over the past eighty years the Trust has become a big and important organization and an essential and respected part of national life, preserving all that is of great natural beauty and of historical significance not only for future generations of Britons but also for the millions of tourists who each year invade Britain in search of a great historic and cultural heritage.

词汇：

preservation /prizə"veiʃən/ n．维护，保留

unspoiled /ʌn"spɔild/ adj．没有毁坏的

charity /"tʃæriti/ n．慈善团体

acre/"eikə/ n．英亩

castle /"ka: sl/ n．城堡

accessible /ək"sesibl/ adj．可以到达的，可以得到的

注释：

1．It is a charity which depends for its existence on voluntary support from members of the public.它是个慈善机构，靠公众中的会员自愿支持它才得以生存。depend on someone for something：在某事上依靠某人。又如：We depend on John for news supplies．在消息来源方面我们依靠约翰。原句中由于depend on的宾语voluntary support from members of the public较长，因此，将for its existence提前。这种现象本文中还有另外两处。第一句中的for public enjoyment和第二段倒数第二句中的accessible to the public都分别被提前。

2．…the Trust has been able to save and make accessible to the public about one hundred and fifty of these old houses. ……托管委员会拯救了大约150座这样的老房子，并使大众能参观这些老房子。make something accessible to someone：使某人能接触（或使用）某物。又如：The school has decided to make sports facilities more readily accessible to students．学校决定让学生能更方便地使用体育设施。

3．wind and water mills：靠风力和水流驱动的磨坊

4．nature reserves：自然保护区

British people"s dependence on the National Trust to protect places of great natural beauty and places of historical interest has been increasing.

A:Right B:Wrong C:Not mentioned

public\protect\private\internal修饰符的区别

A key reason the news media exists with special privileges is to be our watchdogs. Reporters’ charge is to alert us when something is wrong, when human or natural disasters are about to threaten our welfare. When it comes to natural disasters, the news media do a praisable job of reporting the obvious, but not a very good one of preparing the public for what might happen, for alerting us to potential difficulties. When it comes to human disasters, especially problems in government and economic matters, the press has failed miserably. For example, Time magazine finally told the public in a recent cover story what only the most quick observers already knew: "The Great Retirement Ripoff (偷窃): Millions of Americans who think they will retire with benefits are going be shocked. How corporations are picking people’s pockets—with the help of Congress...How can this legal"
Where was the media when each piece of corporate-biased legislation was being passed Why wasn’t Congress afraid to pass such legislation Because the media has decided that news concerning Congress is of little interest to its audience.
TV news managers have believed that economic and social issues are too complicated for the public to grasp. Newspaper editors occasionally print such stories, but mostly they concentrate on human-interest features, consumer health sections and entertainment. Hard news holes are shrinking and investigative journalism is carried out only on occasion. It is too difficult and costly. Besides, it antagonizes advertisers while seldom increasing circulation. Magazines that would look into such subjects seem to be dying out.
The result is that no one is watching the rich and powerful so they can do almost anything with impunity (不受惩罚). Millions of Americans have been robbed in broad daylight while the news media has busied itself with celebrity trials and sensational crime stories. Corporations steal the public blind under legislation authorized by government officials. Companies file for bankruptcy protection, cutting off medical and life-insurance benefits for retirees. It isn’t a new phenomenon. For the most part, today’s press has let down the American public time and time again.
If it seems to be getting worse, it’s because there are so many segments of the media that should be telling us, in an accurate and fair manner, what our elected officials are doing before it’s too late to take action. It’s harder to blame corporations because they make no bones about their mission: make as much money as possible at all costs. Those in Congress are supposed to protect us and look out for our interests. Yet, it appears they constantly help their powerful supporters who often buy their offices for them. No one is doing the right thing. The joke apparently is on all of us—the old and the sick who will have no help in the future and the young burdened with the debt of caring for their impoverished elders for the rest of their lives.
It can be inferred from the last two paragraph that ______

A:the media’s irresponsibility will make all people suffer. B:the congressmen protect and represent the public’s interests. C:the congressmen are not doing what they should do. D:the corporations should not be blamed because of their nature.

A key reason the news media exists with special privileges is to be our watchdogs. Reporters’ charge is to alert us when something is wrong, when human or natural disasters are about to threaten our welfare. When it comes to natural disasters, the news media do a praisable job of reporting the obvious, but not a very good one of preparing the public for what might happen, for alerting us to potential difficulties. When it comes to human disasters, especially problems in government and economic matters, the press has failed miserably. For example, Time magazine finally told the public in a recent cover story what only the most quick observers already knew: "The Great Retirement Ripoff (偷窃): Millions of Americans who think they will retire with benefits are going be shocked. How corporations are picking people’s pockets—with the help of Congress...How can this legal"
Where was the media when each piece of corporate-biased legislation was being passed Why wasn’t Congress afraid to pass such legislation Because the media has decided that news concerning Congress is of little interest to its audience.
TV news managers have believed that economic and social issues are too complicated for the public to grasp. Newspaper editors occasionally print such stories, but mostly they concentrate on human-interest features, consumer health sections and entertainment. Hard news holes are shrinking and investigative journalism is carried out only on occasion. It is too difficult and costly. Besides, it antagonizes advertisers while seldom increasing circulation. Magazines that would look into such subjects seem to be dying out.
The result is that no one is watching the rich and powerful so they can do almost anything with impunity (不受惩罚). Millions of Americans have been robbed in broad daylight while the news media has busied itself with celebrity trials and sensational crime stories. Corporations steal the public blind under legislation authorized by government officials. Companies file for bankruptcy protection, cutting off medical and life-insurance benefits for retirees. It isn’t a new phenomenon. For the most part, today’s press has let down the American public time and time again.
If it seems to be getting worse, it’s because there are so many segments of the media that should be telling us, in an accurate and fair manner, what our elected officials are doing before it’s too late to take action. It’s harder to blame corporations because they make no bones about their mission: make as much money as possible at all costs. Those in Congress are supposed to protect us and look out for our interests. Yet, it appears they constantly help their powerful supporters who often buy their offices for them. No one is doing the right thing. The joke apparently is on all of us—the old and the sick who will have no help in the future and the young burdened with the debt of caring for their impoverished elders for the rest of their lives.

A:the media’s irresponsibility will make all people suffer. B:the congressmen protect and represent the public’s interests. C:the congressmen are not doing what they should do. D:the corporations should not be blamed because of their nature.

Fate has not been kind to the western grey whale. Its numbers have dwindled to 130 or so, leaving it “critically endangered” in the eyes of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. Fishing-nets, speeding ships, pollution and coastal development threaten the few that remain. Most recently, drilling for oil and gas in their main summer feeding grounds, near Sakhalin island off Russia’s Pacific coast, has brought fresh risks for the luckless creatures. Yet the rush to develop Sakhalin’s offshore fields may yet be the saviour of the species.
When drilling was first discussed in the 1990s, there were muted complaints. When a consortium called Sakhalin. Energy, led by Royal Dutch Shell, announced plans to build an oil platform and lay pipelines in the only bay where the whales were known to congregate, these protests proliferated.
In response, the consortium established an independent panel to advise it on how best to protect the whales and promised to fund its work. It subsequently agreed to change the route of the pipeline at the panel’s suggestion, although it refused to move the platform, as other critics had demanded. It also agreed either to follow the panel’s recommendations in future or to explain publicly why it was rejecting them.
The platforms and pipelines are now complete. Sakhalin Energy exported its first cargo of liquefied natural gas last week. The project, says Shell, is an engineering triumph and a commercial success despite all the controversy.
But has it been a success for the whales Sakhalin Energy says their number seems to be growing by 2.5% a year, although Ian Craig, the firm’s boss, admits that the cause might be greater scrutiny rather than population growth. The scientists on the panel still seem worried. They complain that the firm has not always provided the information they need to assess the threat to the whales. It also has not always followed advice, the scientists’ advice about how noisy construction might scare the animals away, for example, or the speed that boats should travel to minimize the risk of hitting the whales. The scientists warn that the loss of just a few fertile females would be enough to tip the population into irrevocable decline. Last summer, there seemed to be far fewer whales around than normal.
On the other hand, the panel knows this only because Sakhalin Energy funds lots of research on the whales. As a result, it has discovered that they have a wider range than originally thought, which might explain why so few of them showed up off Sakhalin island last year.
Therefore, it is hard to escape the conclusion that, for creatures with a lot as sorry as the western grey whale, a nearby oil project is something of a blessing.

A:moved its platform from the bay where the whales congregate B:established a panel to be in charge of its public relationship C:rejected its program near Sakhalin’s offshore D:organized some experts to study and protect the whales

Face Masks May Not Protect from Super-Flu If a super-flu strikes, face masks may not protect you. Whether widespread use of masks will help, or harm,during the next worldwide flu outbreak is a question that researchers are studying furiously. No results have come from their mask research yet. However, the government says people should consider wearing them certain stations anyway, just in case. But it’s a question the public keeps asking while the government is makingpreparations for the next flu pandemic （大流行）.So the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention （CDC） came up with preliminary guidelines. "We don’t want People wearing them everywhere," said the CDC. The overall recommendation really is to avoid exposure.” When that is not possible, the guidelines say you should consider wearing a simple surgical mask if you are in one of the three following situations. First, you’re healthy and can’t avoid going to a crowded place. Second, you’re sick and think you may have close contact with the healthy, such as a family member checking on you. Third, you live with someone who’s sick and thus might be in the early stages of infection, but still need to go out. Influenza pandemics can strike when the easy-to-mutate （变异）flu virus shifts to a strain（菌株）that people never have experienced. Scientists cannot predict when the next pandemic will arrive, although concern is rising that the Asian bird flu might trigger one if it starts spreading easily from person to person. During the flu pandemic, you should protect yourself. Avoid crowds, and avoid close contact with the sick unless you must care for someone. Why aren’t masks added to this self-protection list? Because they can help trap virus-laden droplets flying through the air with a cough or sneeze. Simple surgical masks only filter the larger droplets （飞沫）. Besides, the CDC is afraid masks may create a false sense of security. Perhaps someone who should have stayed home would don（戴）an ill-fitting mask and hop on the subway instead. Nor does flu only spread through the air. Say someone covers a sneeze with his or her hand, then touches a doorknob or subway pole. If you touch that spot next and then put germy hands on your nose or mouth, you’ve been exposed. It’s harder to rub your nose while wearing a mask, so your face may get pretty sweaty under masks. You reach under to wipe that sweat, and may transfer germs caught on the outside of the mask straight to the nose. These are the problems face masks may create for their users. Whether people should or should not use face masks still remains a question. The general public has to wait patiently for the results of the mask research scientists are still doing. One of the concerns the CDC has is that

A:masks may give people a wrong assumption of being safe. B:the sick may not wear masks and go out. C:flu virus may spread via public transportation. D:healthy people may not know how to protect themselves.

（） is the first line of protect between your computer and the public Internet.

A:The Internet protocol B:The firewall C:The anti-virus software D:The intrusion-detection systems

（）is the first line of protect between your computer and the public Internet.

A:The Internet protocol B:The firewall C:The anti-virus software D:The intrusion-detection systems