exposed to virus and bacteria and not so likely to be infected by other children. Another reason may be that, since stress has been shown to have a negative effect on the immune system, high stress levels may be weakening the city children. The Forest School children, on the other hand, are in a pleasant, natural, fun and less stressful environment.

　　　4．Why is there a primitive hut in the forest?

　　　A．To let children have fun.

　　　B．To store daily necessities.

　　　C．To enrich the children's imagination.

　　　D．To protect the children from bad weather.

　　　5．What kind of activities do the Forest School children have?

　　　A．Activities to improve grades.

　　　B．Activities designed for adults.

　　　C．Activities usually played by braver kids.

　　　D．Fun activities but with a certain level of danger.

　　　6．The Forest School children are more able to concentrate because ______.

　　　A．they have more interesting things to do B．they are accompanied by adults

　　　C．they are not disturbed so often D．they are playing in small groups

　　　7．Which of the following best describes the Forest School children?

　　　A．Free and wild. B．Confident and happy.

　　　C．Polite and calm. D．Strong and adventurous.

　　　Environmentalists said our planet was bound to die. Now one man says they are wrong. "Everyone knows the planet is in bad shape," thundered a magazine article last year. "Species are being driven to die out at record rates, and the rivers are so poisonous that fish are floating on the surface, dead."

　　　But there's growing belief that what everyone takes for granted is wrong: Things are actually getting better. A new book is about to overturn our most basic assumptions about the world's environment. Rivers, seas, rain and the atmosphere are all getting better.

　　　The total amount of forests in the world is not declining. The Skeptical Environmentalist by Bjorn Lomborg, professor of statistics at the University of Aarhus in Denmark, is an attack on the misleading claims of environmental groups, and the "bad news" culture that makes people believe everything is getting worse.

　　　Now the attacks are increasingly coming from left-wing environmentalists such as Lomborg, a former member of Greenpeace. The accusation is that, although the environment is improving, green groups - with profits of hundreds of millions of pounds a year - are using scare tactics (战术) to gain donations. Lomborg's book doesn't deny global warming - probably the biggest environmental threat - but destroys almost every other environmental claim with many official statistics.

　　　The Worldwatch Institute claims that deforestation(采伐森林) has been speeding over the last 30 years. Buy Lomborg says that is simply rubbish. Since the dawn of agriculture the world has lost about 20% of its forest cover, but in recent decades the forest area's depleting has come to a stop. According to UN figures, the area of forests has remained almost steady, at about 30% of total land area, since 1940s. Forests in countries such as the US, UK and Canada have actually been expanding over the past 40 years. Despite all the warnings the Amazon rainforest has only shrunk by about 15%.

　　　Nor are all our species dying out. Some campaigners claim that 50% of all species will have died out within 50 years. But other studies show only 0.08% of species are dying out each year. Conservation efforts have been successful. Whales are no longer threatened and the bald eagle is off the endangered list.

　　　Environmental groups claim that many of the improvements are the results of their campaigns. Stephen Tindale, director of Greenpeace UK, said, "There are important examples, such as acid rain and ozone, where things weren't as bad as predicted, and that's because our behavior changed."

　　　8．What is Lomborg's main argument in The Skeptical Environmentalist?

　　　A．Our planet is in bad shape.

　　　B．The world's environment is improving.

　　　C．The total amount of forests is declining.

　　　D．Conservation efforts have been successful.

　　　9．What is Lomborg's main accusation of environmentalists?

　　　A．They changed their behavior toward the environment.

　　　B．They only told people bad news about the environment.

　　　C．They scared people into making donations.

　　　D．They overturned our basic assumption about the world's environment.

　　　10．The underlined word "depleting" is close in meaning to "_______".

　　　A．speeding B．limiting

　　　C．expanding D．reducing

　　　11．Which of the following can be the best title for the passage?

A．Are all species dying out? B．Isn't conservation powerful?