In the 13th century, the 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 . However , people in China began to use paper money in the 7th century .
A Chinese man called CaiLun invented paper almost 2000 years ago. He made it from wood . He took the wood from trees and made it into paper . He then put these pieces of paper together and made them into a book .
Now paper still comes from trees . We use a lot of paper every day ! If we keep on wasting so much paper , there will not be any trees on the earth . If there are no trees , there will be no paper . Every day , people throw away about 2800 tons (噸) of paper in our city . It takes 17 trees to make one ton of paper . This means that we are cutting nearly 48000 trees every day . Since it takes more than 10 years 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 .
So how can we save paper ? 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 .
Everyone can help to save paper . If we all think carefully , we can help protect trees . But we should do it now , before it is too late .
小題1:When he was in China , Marco polo ___________ .
| A．discovered CaiLun invented paper |
| B．learned to make paper |
| C．saw many wonderful things |
| D．told people about it |
小題2:About _______ tons of paper are thrown away every day in our city.
| A．1700 | B．2000 | C．2800 | D．48000 |
小題3:Which of the following is NOT the way of saving paper ?
| A．To use both sides of every piece of paper |
| B．To use the paper bags from shops more than once |
| C．To use cotton handkerchiefs instead of paper ones |
| D．To grow more trees |
小題4:Which of the following is NOT TRUE ?
| A．If we keep on wasting paper , we will have no paper to use |
| B．The Chinese used paper money much earlier than the people in western countries |
| C．About 48000 trees can be used to make 2800 tons of paper |
| D．It is never too late to plant trees for paper . |
小題5:Which is the best title (標題)of the passage ?
| A．Saving Paper | B．The history of Paper |
| C．Cotton Handkerchiefs Back Again | D．CaiLun , the Great Inventor |
