oods, is not good for the heath. Consequently, there has been a growing interest in natural foods: foods which do not contain chemical additives and which have not been affected by chemical fertilizers widely used in farming today.
Natural foods, for example, are vegetables, fruits and grains which have been grown in soil that is rich in organic matter. In simple terms, this means that the soil has been nourished by unused vegetable matters, which provides it with essential vitamins and minerals. This in itself is a natural process compared with the use of chemicals and fertilizers, the main purpose of which is to increase the amount--but not the quality-- of foods grown in commercial farming areas.
Natural foods also include animals which have been allowed to feed and move freely in healthy pastures. Compare this with what happens in the mass production of poultry: there are battery farms, for example, where thousands of chickens live crowded together in one building and are fed on food which is little better than rubbish. Chickens kept in this way are not only tasteless as food; they also produce eggs which lack important vitamins.
There are other aspects of healthy eating which are now receiving increasing attention from experts on diet. Take, for example, the question of sugar. This is actually a non-essential food! Although a natural alternative, such as honey, can be used to sweeten food if this is necessary, we can in fact do without it. It is not that sugar is harmful in itself. But it dose seem to be an additive: the quantity we use has grown steadily over the last two centuries and in Britain today each person consumes an average of 200 pounds a year! Yet all it does is to provide us with energy, in the form of calories. There are no vitamins in it, no minerals and no fiber.
It is significant that nowadays fiber is considered to be an important part of a healthy diet. In white bread, for example, the fiber has been removed. But it is present in unrefined flour and of course in vegetables. It is interesting to note that in countries where the national diet contains large quantities of unrefined flour band vegetables, certain diseases are comparatively rate. Hence the emphasis placed on the eating of whole meal bread and more vegetables by modern experts on healthy eating.
1. Recently, some people are interested in natural foods because
____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ___ ____ ____ ____
2. To use chemicals and fertilizers means
____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ___ ____ ____ ____
3. In the battery farm the chicken are fed on food which
____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ___ ____ ____ ____
4. It can be inferred from the passage that
____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ___ ____ ____ ____
5. What’s the best title for this passage?
____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ___ ____ ____ ____
Ⅴ.Error Correction ( 10 minutes; 10 points )
Directions: The passage contains TEN errors, one in each numbered line. You may have to change a word, add a word or delete a word. If you change a word, cross it out and write the correct word in the corresponding blank. If you add a word, put an insertion mark ( ^ ) in the correct place and write the missing word in the blank. If you delete a word, cross it out and be sure to put a slash ( / ) in the blank.
Britain was a wealthy country a hundred and fifty
years ago. There were a few very rich people who received
money from land or investments, and did not need to work.
They used to have large amounts of servants to look after (1) ______
them. There were also many middle class people, who
worked as businessmen or as doctors or lawyer. They usually (2) _____
had several servants to clear their houses and cook their meals. (3) _____
But there were also many poor people, there was a big (4) _____
gap between the rich and the poor. The poor had very
different lives. Many worked as servants. They used to
pay little, and they had to work long hours. But at least ( 5 ) _____
they lived in a warm house and were well fed.
Those who worked in factories were often less
fortunate. They used to work many hours a day, in
dangerous and unhealthy conditions. But, even so, they
did not use to earn enough to feed his families. They ( 6 ) _____
often lived in slums which were built cheaply by the
factory owners.
The worst paid people were those who worked on
the farms. At certain times of the year, they did not use
to learn nothing because there was no work for them to ( 7 ) _____
do. Life for poor was not always bad. There were kind ( 8 ) _____
