Reading Comprehension

     The old idea that child prodigies “burn themselves” or “overtax their brains” in the early years, therefore, suffer from failure and (at worst) mental illness is just a myth. As a matter of fact, the outstanding thing that happens to bright children is that they are very likely to grow into bright adults.
     To find this out, 1,500 gifted persons were followed up to their thirty-fifth years with these results:
     On adult intelligence tests, they scored as high as they did as children. They were, as a group, in good health, physically and mentally. Eighty-four percent of their group were married and seemed content with their life.
     About 70 percent had graduated from colleges, though only 30 percent had graduated with honors. A few had even flunked out (退学), but nearly half of these had returned to graduate.
     Of the men, 80 percent were in one of the professions or in business, managerial or semiprofessional jobs. The women who had remained single had offices, business, or professional occupations.
     The group had published 90 books and 1,500 articles in scientific, scholarly, and literary magazines and had collected more than 100 patents.
     In a material way they didn’t do badly either. Average income was considerably higher among the gifted people, especially the men, than for the country as a whole, despite their comparative youth when last surveyed.
     In fact, far from being strange, maladjusted (难以适应) people locked in an ivory tower, most of the gifted were turning their early promises into practical reality.

Reading Comprehension

     Newspapers are not nearly as popular today as they were in the past. There are not very manypeople who seriously read a newspaper every day. Most people read only the sports pages, the advice orthe gossip columns, the comics, and perhaps the classified advertisements. Most people dont take thetime to read the real news. Newspaper editors say that their readers are lazy. They say they have totrick people into reading the news. They attempt to catch the readers interest with pictures and excit-ing headlines. These techniques are used on the front page because it is the first thing you see whenyou pick up the paper. The first page attracts attention and encourages the reader to look through therest of the paper. This is why editors always look for a good first page story and headline to make themstop and look. If the headline is horrible enough or frightening enough or wild enough, perhaps theywill go on to read the front page. However, they may just read the headlines, but that is all, then theytttrn to the sports page, or comics, or advertisements. 

     It seems that people do not want the news from anewspaper anymore. They say they get the news on the television now. More people watch television news because it is easier and more interesting than reading a news-paper. What about you? Do you read news from a newspaper? Do you think it is easier to get the newsfx~m television? Or do you care about news at all? Would you mind if there was no news?

Reading Comprehension

     It was a cold winter day. A woman drove up to the Rainbow Bridge tollbooth (收费站). “I’m paying for myself, and for the six cars behind me,” she said with a smile, handing over seven tickets. One after another, the next six drivers arriving at the tollbooth were informed, “Some lady up ahead already paid your fare.”
     It turned out that the woman, Natalie Smith, had read something on a friend’s refrigerator: “Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty.” The phrase impressed her so much that she copied it down.
     Judy Foreman spotted the same phrase on a warehouse wall far away from home. When it stayed on her mind for days, she gave up and drove all the way back to copy it down. “I thought it was beautiful,” she said, explaining why she’d taken to writing it at the bottom of all her letters, “like a message from above.” Her husband, Frank, liked the phrase so much that he put it up on the classroom wall for his students, one of whom was the daughter of Alice Johnson, a local news reporter. Alice put it in the newspaper, admitting that though she liked it, she didn’t know where it came from or what it really meant.
     Two days later, Alice got a call from Anne Herbert, a woman living in Marin. It was in a restaurant that Anne wrote the phrase down on a piece of paper, after turning it around in her mind for days.
     “Here’s the idea,” Anne says. “Anything you think there should be more of, do it randomly.” Her fantasies include painting the classrooms of shabby schools, leaving hot meals on kitchen tables in the poor part of town, and giving money secretly to a proud old lady. Anne says, “Kindness can build on itself as much as violence can.”
     The acts of random kindness spread. If you were one of those drivers who found your fare paid, who knows what you might have been inspired to do for someone else later. Like all great events, kindness begins slowly, with every single act. Let it be yours!

Reading Comprehension

     There was one thought that air pollution affected only the area immediately around large cities with factories and heavy automobile traffic. At present, we realize that although these are the areas with the worst air pollution, the problem is literally worldwide. On several occasions over the past decade, a heavy cloud of air pollution has covered the east of the United States and brought health warnings in rural areas away from any major concentration of manufacturing and automobile traffic. In fact, the very climate of the entire earth may be infected by air pollution. Some scientists consider that the increasing concentration of carbon dioxide in the air resulting from the burning of fossil fuels (coal and oil) is creating a “greenhouse effect”— conserving heat reflected from the earth and raising the world’s average temperature. If this view is correct and the world’s temperature is raised only a few degrees, much of the polar ice cap will melt and cities such as New York, Boston, Miami, and New Orleans will be in water.
     Another view, less widely held, is that increasing particular matter in the atmosphere is blocking sunlight and lowering the earth’s temperature — a result that would be equally disastrous. A drop of just a few degrees could create something close to a new ice age, and would make agriculture difficult or impossible in many of our top farming areas. Today we do not know for sure that either of these conditions will happen (though one recent government report drafted by experts in the field concluded that the greenhouse effect is very possible). Perhaps, if we are lucky enough, the two tendencies will offset each other and the world’s temperature will stay about the same as it is now. 

Reading Comprehension

     Imagine a school that expected its students to become literate without any formal instruction. Most parents would be alarmed by such an approach, which would leave their children confused and with gaps in their understanding. This however has been the philosophy on character development in many of our schools. Why is the development of character seen as somehow different from the other skills that we teach?

     Of course there will always be learning by osmosis(耳濡目染) in any school, but as a teacher and primary school head I have found that a child’s moral literacy is strengthened when they acquire the building blocks of good character such as consideration, courage and honor: qualities which are commonly known as virtue. 

     I personally find that exploring a virtue over a two-week period provides a simple and effective program that allows for the creative input of both teacher and student and a chance for the virtue to embed itself. Once a lesson on a virtue such as honesty has been completed we need to allow time for children to practice this concept just as would be the case with fractions or verbs. Allowing children to role play a situation such as making up excuses to cover a mistake can be enormously interesting, and the drama can be frozen allowing the characters to be questioned about their feelings and motives. It’s also a safe way for children to experience for themselves how a lie usually goes out of control.

     Our role as educators is also to look for opportunities to help our students as they attempt to strengthen their characters. When something goes wrong we guide the young person to the virtue that will prevent it from happening again. For instance, when am student thoughtlessly disturbs the calm atmosphere of the library, instead of a response such as, "that was really disrespectful and selfish of you!" we draw out from them the required virtue: "When you’re walking through the library, what virtues do you need to use?"

Reading Comprehension

     We all know that it is possible for ordinary people to make their homes on the equator, although often they may feel uncomfortably hot there. Millions do it, but as for the North Pole --- we know that it is not only a dangerously cold place, but that people like you and me would find it quite impossible to live there. At the present time only the scientists and explorers can do so, and they use special equipment. Men have been traveling across and around the equator on wheels, on their feet or in ships for thousands of years; but only a few men, with great difficulty and in very recent time, have ever crossed the ice to the North Pole. So it may surprise you to learn that, when traveling by air, it is really safer to fly over the North Pole than over the equator. Of course, this is not true about landings in the polar region (which passenger aeroplanes do not make), but the weather, if we are flying at a height of 5,000 meters above the Pole, is a delight. At 4,000 meters and more above the earth you can always be sure that you will not see a cloud in the sky as far as the eye can reach. In the tropics, on the other hand, you are not certain to keep clear of bad weather, even at such heights as 18,000 or 20,000 meters.
     Aeroplanes can’t climb as high or as quickly in cold air as in warm. Nor can clouds. In practice, this is an advantage to the aeroplane, which is already at a good height when it reaches the polar region and so does not need to climb, while at the same time cold air keeps the clouds down low.

Reading Comprehension  

     How fit are your teeth? Are you lazy about brushing them? Never fear: An inventor is on the case. An electric toothbrush senses how long and how well you brush, and it lets you track your performance on your phone.
     The Kolibree toothbrush was exhibited at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week. It senses how it is moved and can send the information to an Android phone or iPhone via a Bluetooth wireless connection.
     The toothbrush will be able to teach you to brush right (don’t forget the insides of the teeth!) and make sure you’re brushing long enough. “It’s kind of like having a dentist actually watch your brushing on a day-to-day basis,” says Thomas Serval, the French inventor.
     The toothbrush will also be able to talk to other applications on your phone, so developers could, for instance, create a game controlled by your toothbrush. You could score points for beating monsters among your teeth. “We try to make it smart but also fun,” Several says.
     Serval says he was inspired by his experience as a father. He would come home from work and ask his kids if they had brushed their teeth. They said “yes,” but Serval would find their toothbrush heads dry. He decided he needed a brush that really told him how well his children brushed.
     The company says the Kolibree will go on sale this summer, for $99 to $199, developing on features. The U.S. is the first target market.
     Serval says that one day, it’ll be possible to replace the brush on the handle with a brushing unit that also has a camera. The camera can even examine holes in your teeth while you brush. 

Reading Comprehension

     Over the years, college students have stood together for what they believe in, from civil rights to anti-war policies to the more recent protests against the unequal distribution of wealth. But nowhere in history have students banned bottled water. Until now.
     The bottled water ban, which Parted on just a few campuses, has now spread nationwide to more than 20 universities. The colleges have cither completely banned the use of plastic bottles altogether, or some have taken a more limited approach with partial bans.
     Many people believe that producing and bottled water wastes money and harms the environment. They say that bottled water is unnecessary because public water supplies in the U.S. arc among the best in the world. Water fountains and reusable bottles with easy access to filling stations are a better choice.
     An organization called Ban the Bottle raises awareness about the economic and environmental costs of using plastic bottles. The group claims that eight glasses of water a day costs each person 49 cents annually, while drinking from plastic containers costs $I,400 per year. Plastic bottles contain antimony—a chemical that in low doses causes depression, but in large doses can even lead to death.
     The controversy over bottled or tap is not limited to the students and college administrations. The makers of bottled water see the movement as a threat. They argue that plastic bottles make UP a small portion of the nation’s total waste. It's unfair to single out （单独挑出） their product when so many other items are packaged in plastic containers. Plus, water is a healthy choice compared to some sodas and juices that arc also sold at school.

Reading Comprehension

     By education, I mean the influence of the environment upon the individual to produce a permanent change in the habits of behavior, of thought and of attitude．It is in being thus susceptible to the environment that man differs from the animals, and the higher animals from the lower．The lower animals are influenced by the environment but not in the direction of changing their habits．Their instinctive responses are few and fixed by heredity．When transferred to an unnatural situation, such an animal is led astray by its instincts．Thus the "ant-lion"whose instinct implies it to bore into loose sand by pushing backwards with abdomen, goes backwards on a plate of glass as soon as danger threatens, and endeavors, with the utmost exertions to bore into it．It knows no other mode of flight, "or if such a lonely animal is engaged upon a chain of actions and is interrupted, it either goes on vainly with the remaining actions(as useless as cultivating an unsown field)or dies in helpless inactivity"． Thus a net-making spider which digs a burrow and rims it with a bastion of gravel and bits of wood, when removed from a half finished home, will not begin again, though it will continue another burrow, even one made with a pencil．
     Advance in the scale of evolution along such lines as these could only be made by the emergence of creatures with more and more complicated instincts．Such beings we know in the ants and spiders．But another line of advance was destined to open out a much more far-reaching possibility of which we do not see the end perhaps even in man．Habits, instead of being born ready-made(when they are called instincts and not habits at all), were left more and more to the formative influence of the environment, of which the most important factor was the parent who nOW cared for the young animal during a period of infancy in which vaguer instincts than those of the insects were molded to suit surroundings which might be considerably changed without harm．
     This means, one might at first imagine, that gradually heredity becomes less and environment more important．But this is hardly the truth and certainly not the whole truth．For although fixed automatic responses like those of the insect-like creatures are no longer inherited, although selection for purification of that sort is no longer going on, yet selection for educability is very definitely still of importance．The ability to acquire habits can be conceivably inherited just as much as can definite responses to narrow situations．Besides, since a mechanism--is now,for the first time, created by which the individual(in contradiction to the species)can be fitted to the environment, the latter becomes, in another sense, less not more important．And finally,less not the higher animals who possess the power of changing their environment by engineering feats and the like, a power possessed to some extent even by the beaver,and preeminently by man．Environment and heredity are in no case exclusive but always―supplementary factors．

Reading Comprehension

     “Helicopter parenting”describes a style. of raising children where parents are over-protective and do too much. The term was used for the first time in the late 1960s. It describesparents who hover (悬停) over their kids like a helicopter.Today,modern technology allows these helicopter parents to hover from even far away. They can give their children directions at any moment from anywhere.
     Author Julie Lythcott-Haims wrote a book titled How to Raise an Adull. In her book, she gives readers a closer look at this parenting style.
     “Over-parenting”, she says,“comes in three types: the first is the over-protective parents who think the world is scary and unsafe and unpredictable.And therefore,I must protect and prevent.The second type is the over-directive type—the parent who says, I know best what leads to success and you will do as I say. You’ll study these topics, do these activies and you will be highly achieving at all of it. The third type is the concierge (看门人) —the parent who just wants to make life smoother—from waking their kid up,to keeping track of their deadlines, to making sure they haven&39;t forgotten anything, to even doing the homework for the kid. ”
      Julie Lythcott-Haims says she experienced the effects of helicopter parenting firsthand when she worked as dean of first-year students at Stanford University.The incoming students were very smart and accomplished on paper. But many were unable to take care of themselves.
      “They were turning to parents constantly for guidance, for problem solving,to have them make the choice about something. ” Often times,Lythcott-Haims had toremind those parents that their kids were old enough to take care of themselves.

Reading Comprehension

     In what now seems like the prehistoric times of computer history, the early postwar era, there was a quite widespread concern that computers would take over the world from man one day. Already today, less than forty years later, as computers are relieving us of more and more of the routine tasks in business and in our personal lives, we are facing with a less dramatic but also less foreseen problem. People tend to be over trusting of computers and are reluctant to challenge their authority. Indeed, they behave as if they were hardly aware that wrong buttons maybe pushed, or that a computer may simply malfunction(失灵).
     Obviously, there would be no point in investing in a computer if you had to check all its answers, but people should also rely on their own internal computers and check the machine when they have the feeling that something has gone wrong. Questioning and routine double checks must continue to be as much a part of good business as they were in pre computer days. Maybe each computer should come with the following warning: for all the help this computer may provide, it should not be seen as a substitute for fundamental thinking and reasoning skills.

Reading Comprehension​

       Chokwe Selassie is on a mission to help drivers avoid potholes( 路面坑洼). The eighth-grader was inspired to kick off his mission on a recent morning, when his mother was driving him to school. Their car was damaged as it went over a huge pothole in the middle of the street in their hometown of Jackson, Mississippi. "I decided I was going to do something about the pothole prob-lem in my city," Chokwe says. His solution: an app(手机应用) that warns drivers when there is a pothole ahead.
　　Chokwe developed the app with his friends Rodriguez Ratliff and Emmanuel Brooks. "When the app detects a potheole, it is highlighted(突出显示) in red," Chokwe says. "And if you get close to the pothole, your phone will warn you. " Drivers can also use the app to report any pot-holes" they encounter, and to look for other routes they can take to avoid roads that have them.
　　The app relies on Current available information about the streets of Jackson. "It works by u-sing the city' s 311 call system, so it uses information already stored in a database," Chokwe says.
　　Through the call system, citizens dial 3-1-1 to report non-emergency problems--whiCh in-clude potholes. Chokwe and his friends determined that focusing on the 10 busiest streets in Jack-son would give them a large enough sample size to test the prototype(原型).
　　Although the app isn' t yet available for sale, Chokwe is already looking for ways to im-prove it. The prototype remains limited'to 10 streets in Jackson, but he hopes to add more, so that it includes every street in the city. And then he wants to go even farther. "I want to keep working on the app until it' s nationwide," Chokwe says.

Reading Comprehension

     Scientists said they have found evidence of a giant planet far out in our solar system.In a statement, the California Institute of Technology—Caltech—said this planet travels a very strange “longandthin orbit in the distant solar system.”The discovery was made by two researchers at Caltech: Konstantin Batygin and Mike Brown. They used mathematical modeling and computer simulations (模拟) to find the planet.So far, there have not been any direct observations of the planet. 

     “My jaw hit the floor, ” said astronomer Mike Brown, the moment he realized there might be a ninth planet.
     The scientists said it would take this planet 10,000 to 20, 000 years just to make one full orbit around the sun. The new planet, called “Planet Nine ” , has a mass about 10 times the size of Earth.If they are right, the newly found planet would be the ninth planet in our solar system. Pluto (冥王星) had been called the ninth planet until 2006, when it was renamed a “dwarf planet.”
     Actual confirmation of a ninth planet would be very big news. “This would be a real ninth planet,” Brown said in the statement. “There have only been two true planets discovered since ancient times, and this would be a third. It's a pretty substantial chunk of our solar system that's still out there to be found, which is pretty exciting.”
     While they did not get a picture of “Planet Nine ” yet, the scientists say they are using the biggest—and best—telescopes on Earth to try to find “Planet Nine. ” They are also working on improving their computer simulations. They want to find out more about “Planet Nine’s” orbit, and its impact on the outer part of our solar system.

Reading Comprehension

       For the past several years, the Sunday newspaper supplement Parade has featured a column called “Ask Marilyn.” People are invited to query Marilyn vos Savant, who at age 10 had tested at a mental level of someone about 23 years old; that gave her an IQ of 228 – the highest score ever recorded. IQ tests ask you to complete verbal and visual analogies, to envision paper after it has been folded and cut, and to deduce numerical sequences, among other similar tasks. So it is a bit confusing when vos Savant fields such queries from the average Joe （whose IQ is 100）as, What’s the difference between love and fondness? Or what is the nature of luck and coincidence? It’s not obvious how the capacity to visualize objects and to figure out numerical patterns suits one to answer questions that have eluded some of the best poets and philosophers.
　　Clearly, intelligence encompasses more than a score on a test. Just what does it mean to be smart? How much of intelligence can be specified, and how much can we learn about it from neurology, genetics, computer science and other fields?
　　The defining term of intelligence in humans still seems to be the IQ score, even though IQ tests are not given as often as they used to be. The test comes primarily in two forms: the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale and the Wechsler Intelligence Scales （both come in adult and children’s version）. Generally costing several hundred dollars, they are usually given only by psychologists, although variations of them populate bookstores and the World Wide Web. Superhigh scores like vos Savant’s are no longer possible, because scoring is now based on a statistical population distribution among age peers, rather than simply dividing the mental age by the chronological age and multiplying by 100. Other standardized tests, such as the Scholastic Assessment Test （SAT）and the Graduate Record Exam （GRE）, capture the main aspects of IQ tests.
　　Such standardized tests may not assess all the important elements necessary to succeed in school and in life, argues Robert J. Sternberg. In his article “How Intelligent Is Intelligence Testing?”, Sternberg notes that traditional test best assess analytical and verbal skills but fail to measure creativity and practical knowledge, components also critical to problem solving and life success. Moreover, IQ test do not necessarily predict so well once populations or situations change. Research has found that IQ predicted leadership skills when the tests were given under low-stress conditions, but under high-stress conditions, IQ was negatively correlated with leadership – that is, it predicted the opposite. Anyone who has toiled through SAT will testify that test-taking skill also matters, whether it’s knowing when to guess or what questions to skip.

Reading Comprehension

     What do we mean by a satisfactory standard of living？ Obviously, it must include the basic necessities of life such as food clothing and shelter. To get these necessities on regular basis, a person must have a reliable income. But we have other needs which would probably also be included as basic, such as health and education facilities.
     We may think of all of these as our needs. Yet most of us would be far from satisfied if we had nothing more than these which are supplied for us. (78) We all enjoy extra income to spend on things like books, sports or hobbies. Sometimes we save some of this extra income to pay for future expense of this type on holidays. So we must add our wants to our basic needs. Our standard of living is the degree, to which these needs and wants are satisfied.
     But as time goes on, what we think of as our basic needs changes. Twenty years ago a television would have been a luxury, and still is in many countries now. Even now we cannot say it is a need in the same sense as food, clothing and shelter. Yet if most of the people of a country have one, it comes to be accepted as a need. It is possible therefore to have food, clothing and shelter and still be poor by the standards of our own society.

Reading Comprehension

     There was one thought that air pollution affected only the area immediately around large cities with factories and heavy automobile traffic. At present, we realize that although these are the areas with the worst air pollution, the problem is literally worldwide. On several occasions over the past decade, a heavy cloud of air pollution has covered the east of the United States and brought health warnings in rural areas away from any major concentration of manufacturing and automobile traffic. In fact, the very climate of the entire earth may be infected by air pollution. Some scientists consider that the increasing concentration of carbon dioxide in the air resulting from the burning of fossil fuels (coal and oil) is creating a “greenhouse effect”— conserving heat reflected from the earth and raising the world’s average temperature. If this view is correct and the world’s temperature is raised only a few degrees, much of the polar ice cap will melt and cities such as New York, Boston, Miami, and New Orleans will be in water.
     Another view, less widely held, is that increasing particular matter in the atmosphere is blocking sunlight and lowering the earth’s temperature — a result that would be equally disastrous. A drop of just a few degrees could create something close to a new ice age, and would make agriculture difficult or impossible in many of our top farming areas. Today we do not know for sure that either of these conditions will happen (though one recent government report drafted by experts in the field concluded that the greenhouse effect is very possible). Perhaps, if we are lucky enough, the two tendencies will offset each other and the world’s temperature will stay about the same as it is now. 

Reading Comprehension

     Traditionally,universities have carried out two main activities: research and teaching. Many expertswould argue that both these activities play a critical role in serving thecommunity. The fundamental question, however, is how does the community want orneed to be served？
     In recent years universities have been coming under increasing pressure from both the governments and the public to ensure that they do not remain "ivory towers(象牙塔)"of study separated from the realities of everyday life. University teachershave been encouraged, and in some casesconstrained, to provide more cofrses which produce graduates with the technical skills requiredfor the commercial use. If Aristotle wanted to work in a university in the UKtoday, he would have a good chance of teaching computer science but would notbe so readily employable asa philosopher.
     A post-industrialsociety requires large numbers of computer programmers, engineers, managers andtechnicians to maintain and develop its economic growth but "man", asthe Bible says, "does not live by bread alone. " Apart from requiring medical and social services, which do not directly contribute to economic growth, the society should also value and enjoy literature, music and the arts.Because they can also promote economic growth. A successful musical play, forinstance, can contribute as much to the Gross National Product through touristdollars as any other things.

Reading Comprehension

     The California lawmakers voted Thursday to raise the legal age to buy tobacco products from 18 to 21. The measure is part of a larger package of laws aimed at reducing tobacco use. If Governor JerryBrown signs the bill, Calfornia will become the second state. after Hawail, to raise the age limit forbuying cigarettes and other tobacco products. More than 100 cities in the U. S.,including New Yorkand Boston, have already raised the age limit.
     A week ago, the California Assembly approved the measure, which—in addition to raising theage limit—treats electronic cigarettes the same as tobacco products, expands smoke-free areas, increases smoking bans and allows counties to collect higher taxes on cigarettes than the 87-cent perpack state tax. The Assemblys vote came a few days after the city of San Francisco increased the ageto buy tobacco products to 21.
     California lawmakers passed the bill despite lobbying （游说）from tobacco interests. The meas.ure also faced opposition from many Republicans, who said the state should not be involved in policing people's personal choices. "I don't smoke. I don 't encourage my chidren to, said Republican Assemblyman Donald Wagner. "But they're adults, and it 's our job to treat our citizens as adults."
     But supporters of the bill say raising the age to 21 moves legally purchased tobacco that much far.ther from younger kids. "This will save the medical system millions of dollars, " said Democratic Assemblvman Jim Wood. "It will save thousands of lives." A 2015 study by the Institute of Medicine "found that if the minimum legal age to buy tobacco were raised to 21 nationwide, tobacco use would drop by 12 percent by the time today's teens reached adulthood. In addition, there would be223,000 fewer premature (过早的) deaths and 50,000 fewer deaths from lung cancer.”

Reading Comprehension

     Some psychologists maintain that mental acts such as thinking are not performed in the brain alone, but that one's muscles also participate. It may be said that we think with our muscles in somewhat the same way that we listen to music with our bodies.
     You surely are not surprised to be told that you usually listen to music not only with your ears but with your whole body. Few people can listen to music without moving their body or, more specifically, some part of their body. Often when one listens to a symphonic concert on the radio, he is attracted to direct the orchestra even though he knows there is a good conductor on the job.
     Strange as this behavior. may be, there is a very good reason for it. One cannot derive all possible enjoyment from music unless he participates, so to speak, in its performance. The listener "feels" himself into the music with more or less noticeable motions of his body.
     The muscles of the body actually participate in the mental process of thinking in the same way, but this participation is less obvious because it is less noticeable.

Reading Comprehension     

     Computer technology is advancing so fast that old hardware quickly becomes completely obsolete. The electronic waster (e-waste) from this constantly growing field is polluting the environment, both here and abroad.
     Computers contain toxic materials such as lead. Despite the danger of throwing these hazardous materials in a landfill, that's exactly where tons of computers end up. Americans reuse or recycle only about 10 percent of the 50 million computers they replace each year, according to ABC News. Eighty percent is being stockpiled, which could create even bigger problems in the future, and the remaining 10 percent is landfilled. Throwing e-waste in landfills creates a potential for landfills are tougher in the United States than in many other countries, e-waste is often exported, especially to some developing countries.
     Some countries are creating policies to deal with the growing e-waste problem. In the Netherlands, you can bring your old computer to the seller when buying a new one, and the seller must by law accept it free of charge. Japan passed a law in 2001 requiring producers to recycle certain parts.
     In the United States, a movement called the Computer Take Back Campaign is demanding that producers take more responsibility for disposing of old computers, California and Massachusetts recently prohibited certain computer parts in landfills, while Apple and IBM take back computers for about a $30 fee. Gateway is one step ahead: They will pay you $50 for recycling your old computer when you buy a new one from them. Lastly, many nonprofit programs accept used equipment, and services have popped up that distribute old computers to schools and other organizations.