?Passage Five

For most architects, moss (苔藓) and lichen (地衣) growing up the side of a structure is a bad sign. Building materials are designed specifically to resist growth, and much research has been done to develop paint treatments and biocides that make sure the concrete and wood and bricks that sheathe a building aren't colonized by living things. But a new group is trying to change all that. Instead of developing surfaces resistant to moss and lichen, the BiotA lab wants to build [facades] that are“bioreceptive”. 

BiotA lab, based in University College London's Bartlett School of Architecture, was founded last year. The lab's architects and engineers are working on making materials that can foster the growth of organisms like lichens and mosses. The idea is that ultimately they'll be able to build buildings onto which a variety of these plants can grow. Right now, they re particularly focused on designing a type of bioreceptive concrete. 

Marcos Cruz, one of the directors of the BiotA lab, says that he has long been interested in what he sees as a conflicted way of thinking about buildings and beauty:“We admire mosses growing on old buildings, we identify them with our romantic past, but we don't like them on contemporary buildings," he says. Cruz says that he wants the BiotA project to push back against the idea that cleanliness is the ideal that buildings should strive for. “Architects were wearing a straightjacket, that only in the last 20 years architects started shredding off." 

Richard Beckett, another director of the BiotA lab, says that he's interested in the project flipping the usual way that buildings are designed, at least in a small way. "Traditionally architecture is a top-down process, you decide what the building will look like, and then you build it. Here we' re designing for a specific species or group of species, the material and geometry we' re using is so specific that it only allows certain species to grow." It's controlled chaos. 

Both Cruz and Beckett talked about a particular way of thinking about their buildings. “Every architect you speak to talks about the skin of the building," says Beckett. But they want to propose a different way of seeing things. Instead of skin, the lab wants people to think of the exterior of a building as bark. “'Not just a protective thing, a host; it allows other things to grow on it, it integrates as well," says Beckett. 

But these living systems can be expensive and hard to maintain. Sometimes all the plants die, and have to be replaced. Cruz tells a story of a plant nursery in East London that had a green wall.“When 1 saw it for the first time, I thought it was wonderful!" he says. But six months later when he passed the nursery again, he noticed that the plants were all dead and falling off the wall. “A year later, much to my surprise, they were putting up steel panels with photographs of a forest on them," he says, laughing.   

Questions 21-25 are based on Passage Five.

In paragraph I, the word“facades”means _____.

Paragraph Ten

Lack of interest can also lead to absent mindedness. A man who can recite sports statistics from 30 years ago may not remember to drop a litter in the mailbox. Women are slightly better than men in this respect, possibly because they pay more attention to their environment.

The influence of interest on m_____.

It's early August and the countryside appears peaceful. Planting has long been finished and the fields are alive with strong, healthy crops. Soybeans and wheat are flourishing under the hot summer sun, and the com is now well over six feet tall. (46. Herds of dairy and beef cattle are grazing peacefully in rolling pastures which surround big. red barns and neat. white farmhouses. Everything as far as the eye can see radiates a sense of prosperity.)

The tranquility of the above scene is misleading. Farmers in the Midwest put in some of the longest workdays of any profession in the United States. In addition to caring for their crops and livestock, they have to keep up with new farming techniques, such as those for combining soil erosion and increasing livestock production.It is essential that farmers adopt these advances in technology if they want to continue to meet the growing demands of a hungry world.

(47.Agriculture is the number one industry in the United States and agricultural products are the country's leading export.Com and soybean exports alone account for approximately 75 percent of the amount sold in world markets.)

This productivity,however,has its price.Intensive cultivation exposes the earth to the damaging forces of nature.Every year wind and water remove tons of rich soil from the nation's croplands,with the result that soil erosion has become a national problem concerning everyone from the farmer to the consumer.

Each field is covered by a limited amount of topsoil,the upper layer of earth which is richest in the nutrient and minerals necessary for growing crops.In the 1830s,nearly two feet of rich,black top soil covered the Midwest.Today the average depth is only eight inches,and every decade another inch is blown or washed away. (48.A United States Agricultural Department survey states that if erosion continues at its present rate,corn and soybean yields in the Midwest may drop as much as 30 percent over the next 50 years.)

So far, farmers have been able to compensate for the loss of fertile topsoil by applying more chemical fertilizers to their fields;however,while this practice has increased crop yields, it has been devastating for ecology. (49.Agriculture has become one of the biggest polluters of the nation's precious water supply. River, lakes,and underground reserves of water are being filled in and poisoned by soil and chemicals carried by drainage from eroding fields. )Furthermore, fertilizers only replenish the soil; they do not prevent its loss.

Clearly something else has to be done in order to avoid an eventual ecological disaster.Conservationists insist that the solution to the problem lies in new and better farming techniques. (50.Concerned farmers are building terraces on hilly fields,rotating their crops,and using new plowing methods to cut soil losses significantly.Substantial progress has been made.but soil erosion is far from being under control.)

The problems and innovations of the agricultural industry in the Midwest are not restricted to growing crops.Livestock raising,which is a big business in the central region of the United States, is also undergoing many changes.

Paragraph Eight

A control box fitted to the car contains a mini-cellphone, a micro-processor and memory, and a GPS satellite positioning receiver. If the car is stolen, a coded cellphone signal will tell the control center to block the vehicle's engine management system and prevent the engine from being restarted.

A t___ device to protect the car.

Paragraph Seven

Most scientists start an investigation by finding out what other scientists have learned about a particular problem. After known facts have been gathered, the scientist comes to the part of the investigation that requires considerable imagination. Possible solutions to the problem are formulated. These possible solutions are called hypotheses. Any hypothesis is a leap into the unknown.

The process of doing scientific r___.

Paragraph Nine

Parents in low. income countries fail to invest in their daughters because they do not expect them to make an economic contribution to the family: girls grow up only to marry into somebody else's family and bear children. Girls are thus seen as less valuable than boys and are kept at home to do housework while their brothers are sent to school.

Girls are n____ in poor countries.

Paragraph Six

A report concluded that normal children aged between 9 and 17 exhibit a higher level of anxiety today than children who were treated for mental illness 60 years ago. The report cited two main reasons: increasing physical isolation brought on by high divorce rates and less involvement in community—and a growing perception that the world is a more dangerous place.

The c____ of a higher level of anxiety today.

Paragraph Five

As we go about our everyday lives, we mentally attempt to place people in terms of their status. For example, we must judge whether the person in the library is a reader or a librarian, whether the telephone caller is a friend or a salesman, whether the unfamiliar person on our property is a thief or a meter reader, and so on.

A tendency to i____ a person.

Paragraph Four

Exercise's supporting role in weight reduction is vital. A study at the Boston University Medical Center of overweight police officers and other public employees confirmed that those who dieted without exercise regained almost all their old weight, while those who worked exercise into their daily routine. maintained their new weight.

Exercise to k____ fit

Paragraph Two

Inside your nose, there are hundreds of tiny hairs. These hairs filter the air you breathe. Sometimes dust and pollen find their way through these hairs and bother your nasal passages. The nerves in the lining of your nose tell your brain that something is invading your body. At this moment you usually sneeze.

An automatic r____ of our body.

Paragraph Three

The meanings of time differ in different parts of the world. Thus,misunderstandings arise between people from cultures that treat time differently. Time is valued highly in American life. If people do not show up on time when they have an appointment, they may be regarded as impolite or not responsible.

Being p_____, a virtue in American culture.