News feed：A burning issue
【明報專訊】CALIFORNIA (加州) is burning! As of September 20, at least 26 people had died from 7,900 fires that had been raging across more than 3.5 million acres of land in this US state. They have destroyed more than 6,100 structures. The disaster started in early September and the fire service estimated that it would be contained in late October.
Lively Venus
AGROUP of UK scientists have found strong evidence that life actually exists in the atmosphere of Venus (金星), which is hot and full of acid. The reason is that phosphine (磷化氫), a gas normally produced from the decay of organic matter, a sign of life, has been discovered in it.
A cool reception
TO HEED an instruction from President Xi Jinping on a ''dual circulation'' (雙循環) economic strategy, which means relying less on foreign markets and focusing on local ones, the Ministry of Commerce in China held events with regional governments to boost local sales of goods originally aimed at foreign markets. However, the events got a cool reception from customers, who deemed the products too expensive and western-style.
■Gear up
According to the passages on this page, circle the correct answers.
(1) California is a region in America. ( True / False )
(2) President Xi's new economic policy pays more attention to Western markets than Chinese ones. ( True / False )
(3) The decay of organic matter shows that life ( A. is interesting / B. is about to disappear / C. might exist ) on Venus.
(Answers on next text)
■Glossary
rage (v) 肆虐
decay (n) 腐蝕
cool (adj) 冷淡
reception (n) 反應
[Smarties' Power English 第286期]
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