[10-20 18:10:12] 来源：http://www.67xuexi.com 高二英语 阅读：85563次
POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS All countries of the world need to work together to share ocean resources fairly. Laws are to be made and regulations are to be enforced to prevent overfishing and pollution. It is also hard to make people obey laws when our oceans are so vast and difficult to patrol. However, we should all learn to understand how important it is to manage the world’s oceans now and in the future.
12. What is forestry?
Anyone who travels across the US sees so many forests everywhere that he might well wonder why the Americans have to worry about protecting them. Don’t they have too many forests with so many trees right now?
Actually, about a third of all the land area in the US is forestland. Yet, one of the most important things Americans can do for the future of their country is to see that these forests are properly cared for! This is being done in Britain and elsewhere.
First, just imagine all the products we obtain from trees. Fruits, nuts, and sugar are only some of the foods. Buildings, tables, and boats come from trees. Also coming from trees are paper and toys---the list is almost endless.
Second, forests reduce the danger of damaging floods and help control our water supplies. It is believed that the floods in China in the 1990s were closely related to the illegal cutting down of trees along the banks of the rivers. Under a good forest, there is rich soil, which easily absorbs heavy rains or melting snow. And, of course, our forests provide wonderful vacation spots for millions of people.
Having benefited from all that forests provide, mankind has started to take good care of forests. The care of forests is called forestry, which is considered to be one of the many new sciences of our time. In fact, forestry has been practised in some European countries for hundreds of years.
In most forests, it is important to harvest trees when they are mature. Otherwise, the old trees would take up space that could be better used for fast-growing younger trees. A large area of mature trees, having been cleared, is replanted by hand or nature. Great care and skill are needed in harvesting and replanting trees to make sure that there will be a good new growth of the right kinds of trees. This is why forestry has now become a science.
The country with the largest forest area is Russia. Brazil ranks second, Canada third and the United States fourth. Did you know that despite all the efforts to prevent them, about 200,000 forest fires occur each year in the US? And in Australia forest fires break out simply because the weather is too dry. Thus there is still a lot more for us to learn about our forests and our nature.
13. Shopping in the States
I love shopping, even if it is just window-shopping. Shopping in the States is always a pleasant experience. There are different types of shops catering to your particular needs. To buy groceries, you can go to the convenience store, the supermarket or the mass merchandiser (such as Wal-Mart). To buy some clothes and big-ticket items, you can go to the mall or factory outlets. I go to two places most often, the supermarket and the mall.
In almost every city or large town, you can find several big chain supermarkets, each with a good number of checkouts. They are one-stop shops since you can buy almost everything there: food, clothes, and medicine---you name it.
Installed with automatic checkout lanes, some of these supermarkets have brought real convenience to the customers. Most packaged goods have barcodes and you just scan them on the scanning machine when you check out. Some items, such as vegetables and fruits, do not have barcodes on them. You need to input their label numbers, which can be found on the list glued to the scanning machine. These automatic checkout lanes help the stores reduce their labour cost and increase their efficiency. I was really thrilled the first time I used the automatic checkout lane.
Shopping in the supermarket gave me other surprises as well. Once, I picked up two bags of salad at a supermarket. When I scanned them, the screen showed a different price from what was advertised. Out of curiosity, I went to the customer service counter and asked why. The lady who helped me went to the shelf to double-check the price. When she came back, she apologized to me, saying that the supermarket had not scanned the price properly. According to their policy, if the customer discovered a scanning problem, he would get the product for free as a reward for him or a penalty for the supermarket. When I left with the two bags of free salad, I couldn’t help marveling at the honesty of the clerk.
A shopping mall in the States is composed of many individual specialty shops and nationwide chain stores. What impresses me most when shopping at the mall is its return policy. No matter what you buy, shoes, pants or big-ticket items such as a TV or a washing machine, if you find some problems with them or simply do not like them any longer, you can return them within 30 days. You won’t be challenged at the customer service counter as long as you have your receipt. Of course there are some people who might take advantage of this return policy, especially when they need something for momentary use. That’s why you can always find a long line of people waiting to return their goods right after Christmas.
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