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Here amid the steel and concrete canyons, green grass grows. A hawthorn tree (山楂树) stands in new soil, and freshly dug plants bend in the wind. But Chicago City Hall here seems an unlikely spot for a garden of any variety-especially 20,000 square feet of gardens-on its roof. As one of a handful of similar projects around the country, the garden is part of a $1.5 million demonstration projected by the city to reduce its "urban heat islands", said William Abolt, the commissioner of the Department of Environment. Heat islands-dark surfaces in the city, like rooftops-soak up heat. The retention can bake a building, making it stubborn to cooling. The roof of City Hall, a 90-year-old gray stone landmark on LaSalle Street in the heart of downtown, has been known to reach temperature substantially hotter than the actual temperature on the street below. The garden will provide greenery and shade. "And that," said the city officials, "will save the city dollars on those blistering summer days." The project savings from cooling is about $4,000 a year on a new roof whose life span is about 50 percent longer than that of a traditional roof. The sprawling open-air rooftop garden is being carefully, built on a multi-tiered bed of special soil, polystyrene, egg-carton, shaped cones and "waterproof membrane" mall to keep the roof from leaking, or caving under the normal combined weight of soil, rain and plant life. The design calls for soil depths of 4 inches to 18 inches. When the last plants and seedlings are buried and the last bit of compost is laid, the garden will have circular brick stepping-stones winding up to hills. "The primary focus of what we want to do was to establish this laboratory on the top of City Hall to get people involved and understanding their impact on the environment and how the little things can make an impact on the quality of life", Mr. Abolt said, adding that the plants also help to clear the air. Rooftop gardens, in places where concrete jungles have erased plants and trees, are not new, not even in Chicago. Arms of greenery dangling over terraces or sprouting from rooftops, common in Europe, are becoming more so in the United States as people become increasingly conscious about the environment. Richard M. Daley, who urged the environmental department to look into the project after noticing rooftop gardens in Hamburg, Germany a few years ago, has praised the garden as the first of its kind on a public building in the country. It will hold thousands of plants in more than 150 species-wild onion and butterfly weed, sky-blue aster and buffalo grass-to provide data on what species adapt best. Small plants requiring shallow soil depths were chiefly selected. The word "substantially" (Line 2, Para. 5 ) most likely means ______.

A. a little bit
B. in fact
C. materially
D. considerably

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两心室复极化过程形成()

A. 心电图的P波
B. 心电图的QRS波群
C. 心电图的ST段
D. 心电图的Ta波
E. 心电图的T波

Questions 26 to 29 are based on the passage you have just heard.

A. It is needed to adjust the temperature of our bodies.
B. It is our second need.
C. We need clothing to cover our bodies.
D. Weather is changing all the time.

Earthquakes can rip apart entire cities and outlying districts, as the 1995 disaster in Kobe, Japan showed. SeismoLogists, scientists who study earthquakes and related phenomena, have records dating back to 1556, from the Chinese province of Shaanxi, which indicate that earthquakes have been devastating our world for centuries. The destructive forces which produce earthquakes usually begin deep below the ground, along a fault in weaker areas of the earth’s rocky outer shell, where sections of rock repeatedly slide past each other. As the fracture extends along the fault, blocks of rock on one side of the fault may drop down below the rock on the other side, move up and over the other side, or slide forward past the other. The violent shattering of rock releases energy that travels in waves, and these seismic waves move out from the focus of the earthquake in all directions. As the waves travel away from the focus, they grow gradually weaker, generally resulting in the ground shaking less as distances increase. Geological movements are not the only occurrences to trigger an earthquake. Human activity, most often the filling of reservoirs with extraordinarily large amounts of water, can also cause earthquakes. Similarly, massive explosions can wreak havoc, too. Earthquakes almost never kill people directly. Instead, many deaths and injuries result from falling objects and collapsing buildings, while fire resulting from broken gas or fallen power lines is another danger. The Kobe earthquake in January 1995 lasted only 20 seconds, yet resulted in a death toll of over 5,000 and injured approximately 26,000 people. Even though earthquake prone countries spend enormous human and financial resources on seismographic measurement, as a means of predicting earthquakes, there is a danger in paying too much heed to seemingly high risk zones and erecting less stable buildings solely because of their being in a low risk zone. Prior to the earthquake, Kobe was not regarded as at serious risk, but after the disaster, investigation of the damage revealed that nearly all deaths occurred in small buildings shattered rather than twisted when stressed. Coupled with the problem of soft soils, the buildings had little firm support and many crumbled. If countries wish to withstand the devastating forces of substantial earthquakes and reduce death, injury and property damage, it is important to design and construct buildings that are earthquake resistant, as well as monitor seismic forces. It is believed that

A. soft soils may fail to support less stable buildings in an earthquake.
B. soft soils may cause building to twist rather than shatter.
C. soft soils are easy to cause earthquake.
D. soft soils can be found in high-risk zones.

Clara came to Jordan’s. Some of the older hands, Fanny among them, remembered her earlier rule, and cordially disliked the memory. Clara had always been "ikey", reserved, and superior. She had never mixed with the girls as one of themselves. If she had occasion to find fault, she did it coolly and with perfect politeness, which the defaulter felt to be a bigger insult than crossness. Towards Fanny, the poor, over-strung hunchback, Clara was unfailingly compassionate and gentle, as a result of which Fanny shed more bitter tears than ever the rough tongues of the other overseers had caused her. There was something in Clara that Paul disliked, and much that piqued him. If she were about, he always watched her strong throat or her neck, upon which the blond hair grew low and fluffy. There was a fine down, almost invisible, upon the skin of her face and arms, and once he had perceived it, he saw it always. When he was at his work, painting in the afternoon, she would come and stand near him, perfectly motionless. Then he felt her, though she neither spoke nor touched him. Although she stood a yard away he felt as if he were in contact with her. Then he could paint no more. He flung down the brushes, and turned to talk to her. Sometimes she praised his work; sometimes she was critical and cold. "You are affected in that piece," she would say; and, as there was an element of truth in her condemnation, his blood boiled with anger. Again: "What of this" he would ask enthusiastically. "H’m!" She made a small doubtful sound. "It doesn’t interest me much." "Because you don’t understand it," he retorted. "Because I thought you would understand." She would shrug her shoulders in scorn of his work. She maddened him. He was furious. Then he abused her, and went into passionate exposition of his stuff. This amused and stimulated her. But she never owned that she had been wrong. During the ten years that she had belonged to the women’s movement she had acquired a fair amount of education, and, having had some of Miriam’s passion to be instructed, had taught herself French, and could read in that language with a struggle. She considered herself as a woman apart, and particularly apart, from her class. The girls in the spiral department were all of good homes. It was a small, special industry, and had a certain distinction. There was an air of refinement in both rooms. But Clara was aloof also from her fellow-workers. None of these things, however, did she reveal to Paul. She was not the one to give herself away. There was a sense of mystery about her. She was so reserved, he felt she had much to reserve. Her history was open on the surface, but its inner meaning was hidden from everybody. It was exciting. And then sometimes he caught her looking at him from under her brows with an almost furtive, sullen scrutiny, which made him move quickly. Often she met his eyes. But then her own were, as it were, covered over, revealing nothing. She gave him a little, lenient smile. She was to him extraordinarily provocative, because of the knowledge she seemed to possess, and gathered fruit of experience he could not attain. Which of the following descriptions is NOT true of Paul’s feeling when he was with Clara

A. He felt attracted by her.
B. He didn’t quite understand her.
C. He felt himself inferior for lacking knowledge and experience.
D. He shared many ideas with her concerning paintin

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