READNING

　　prescribed burning 的利弊

　　1 do harm to animals

　　2 increase pollution level; carbon dioxide heating atmosphere and other chemicals cause acid rain.

　　3 cause natural fires, so that it will have to spend more time, money and resources.

　　LISTENING

　　1 plan time to non-reproducing reason: less young animals, mature are able to escape;

　　2 trees can absorb and fire usually small, guarantee new trees to grow

　　3 prescribed burns clear dead wood and decrease fire.

　　Independent Writing:

　　Do you agree or disagree with the following statement: The most effective way for government to encourage energy conservation is increasing the price of gasoline and electricity.

　　Nowadays, frequent power cut or the drain of oil supply has become a serious problem that concerns us with its damage to not only the environment, but also our efficiency in work and study. Although some people propose to raise the cost of fuel as a solution to this issue, I personally believe that it is not the best way to solve the problem of air pollution.

　　Indeed, increasing the cost of gasoline and electricity can conserve energy to some extents. Considering the higher price of the fuel, more people would reduce their use of private cars or shut down lights and the air-conditioner when leaving home. As a result, the reduced number of cars leads to a decrease in demand to the gasoline and hence make the use of energy more efficiency. However, this solution does not solve the problem completely. Even the price of the gas goes up, most people would still choose to pay because fuels are the basic need for them to work and travel. Such necessity is not able to be replaced, and conservative problems would continue to be a problem. For example, my mom drives to work every day because there are no subway or buses between our home and her working place. Moreover, the public transportation is way too time-consuming and less comfortable.

　　For government, exploiting new energy sources, on the other hand, is a better alternative to energy conservation because it’s a stable solution that will solve the problem eternally. Cars that are powered by solar energy, for example, do not have to worry about the limited power supply, since it uses a long-lasting and powerful battery to absorb and store the energy from the sunlight and then use this energy to power the cars. According to research conducted by scientists in Japan and China, by holding the transformation rate between solar energy to electricity to 28 percent, the solar energy cars do not have to recharge itself and can keep running under the sun for 18 hours. Based on this, cars driven by solar energy would push the limits of energy to a new level.

　　Moreover, spreading out the concept of conserving energy is another more effective way to achieve the goal. In fact, there are certain group of citizens who are concerned with extravagant energy use, and they are quite cautious in using electricity, water and oiling their cars. If the government can take measures to educate more people with the same principles, energy consumption might drop considerately. Henry’s father used to be a truck driver when he was young. He is so fond of driving truck that he even go to nearby Walmart by his Toyota Tundra. After Henry was lectured about the energy crisis in many developing countries like India, he was aware of the fact that by saving energy as much as possible himself, he was able to help a family in New Deli to use electricity constantly for a night. Furthermore, he asked his father to join him and persuaded him to change driving truck into some clean energy car, namely Prius. By doing this, they might save certain amount of gasoline that could help poor people in Northwest Tibet use heaters in winter.

　　All in all, I believe raising the cost of the fuel is not the best way to conserve energy, since they are better alternatives such as applying new energy sources and necessary education to more people about necessity on energy crisis.