|
语篇阅读高分练(二) (建议用时：30分钟) Ⅰ.阅读理解 [2015·甘肃天水一中高三高考信息卷(二)] Can you imagine a world without chocolate? It’s not something I’d like to do.So I was relieved to read that there’s a university with a programme to safeguard the future of chocolate! The University of Reading，in England，has just opened a new clearing house for all the world’s new cocoa varieties.They must be quarantined(隔离检疫)before they can be grown.Why? Cocoa production hit a record high of 4.4 million tons last year but about 30%of the precious crop is regularly lost to pests and diseases.Now we don’t want that，do we? Demand for chocolate has been increasing faster than the world supply of cocoa and researchers think that new varieties are key to solving this problem. The University of Reading has been protecting the quality of the new crops since 1985，after it took over the task from the Royal Botanical Gardens in Kew，London.And it has improved its facilities.The leader of the institution’s cocoa project，Professor Paul Hadley，says，“One of the main issues concerning cocoa improvement is the supply of reliably clean，healthy，interesting cocoa material.” The cocoa centre has a collection of 400 plant varieties and their greenhouse uses a lot of energy to keep them in tropical conditions.After up to two years in quarantine，clean and safe seeds are sent to some 20 countries，including several in West Africa.That’s where 75%of the cocoa used for chocolate worldwide comes from.The crop is extremely important for the local economy：it employs about two million people. | 
