In the 13th century, the famous Italian traveler, Marco Polo, traveled a long way to China. During his stay in China, he saw many wonderful things. One of the things he discovered was that the Chinese used paper money. In western countries, people did not use paper money until the 15th century. (1)____
A Chinese man called Cai Lun invented paper almost 2,000 years ago. He made it from wood. (2)____ He then put these pieces of paper together and made them into a book.
(3)____ We use a lot of paper every day. If we keep on wasting so much paper, there will not be any trees left on the earth.If there are no trees, there will be no paper. Every day, people throw away about 2,800tons of paper. It takes 17 trees to make one ton of paper. This means that we are cutting nearly 48,000 trees every day.
Since it takes more than 10years for a tree to grow, we must start using less paper now. If we don't, we will not have enough time to grow more trees to take the place of those we use for paper.
(4)____ We can use both sides of every piece of paper, especially when we are making notes. We can choose drinks in bottles instead of those in paper packets. We can also use cotton handkerchiefs(手帕)and not paper ones. When we go shopping, we can use fewer paper bags. If the shop assistant does give us a paper bag, we can save it and reuse it later.
(5)____ If we all think carefully, we can help protect trees. But we should do it now, before it is too late.
A. Now paper still comes from trees. B. Everyone can help to save paper.
C. However, people in China began to use paper money in the 7th century.
D. He took the wood from trees and made it into paper.
E. So how can we save paper？
【答案与解析】
这篇阅读材料时间跨度较大，内容较为复杂。短文先从马可·波罗发现中国使用纸币谈起，然后说到蔡伦发明造纸术。第三自然段谈到现在中国存在着严重浪费纸张的现状，并对中国森林资源的日益匮乏深感忧虑。第四自然段则说到了一些节约用纸的具体做法。短文最后呼吁大家认真反思，从现在做起，保护有限的森林资源。
1.C 根据上文的意思，二者之间显然是一种转折关系。故选C。
2.D 上一句"He made it from wood."和下文的"He then put these pieces of paper..."是解答本题的关键。
3.A 选项D承接上文，另外下面的"...there will not be any trees left on the earth."也对本题的解答起一定的暗示作用。
4.E 第一张纸的两面都要使用，这显然是谈节约用纸的方法。故答案为E。
5.B 由上面一段说的意思，再联系下面的几句话，即可得出答案。
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