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Passage One
There are some serious problems in the Biramichi River. The local Chamber of Commerce, which represents the industries in the area, hired me as a consultant to do a one-year study on fishing in the Biramichi River and write a report for them. This is my report.
One of the major problems in the Biramichi River, is that the level of the oxygen in the water is too low. Several chemicals have displaced the oxygen. This chemical pollution has two sources: The factories which dump polluted water directly into the river and the local community, which dumps untreated human wastes into the river. The local town government has already spent 2 million dollars on waste water treatment projects. But it would cost another 27 million to complete the projects. It would take at least 15 years for the town to collect enough revenue from taxes to complete these projects. The factories here employed 17 000 people, and in the area where there is very little alternative employment, it is not economically practical to close or relocate the factories. Also, the factories can not afford to finance chemical treatment plants by themselves.
Another problem is that the members of the Biramichi fishing cooperative are overfishing. Fishes are caught when they are on the way upstream to lay eggs. Consequently, not enough fish are left to reproduce in large numbers. The members of the cooperative say that they have already reduced their annual catch by 60 percent. However, my study indicates that they took fewer fish because there were fewer fish to catch, not because they were trying to preserve fishes.
Passage Two
Everybody has to die someday. But nobody likes to think about it. Even so, at some time in their lives most people manage to think about the question of how to make a will.
If you have already made yours, it's probably just a few pages of wring, stating that you wish to leave everything to your family. That's the kind of will that the majority of people make. However, there are plenty of ways to make your will more interesting if you want to.
To begin with, you don't have to write it on paper. One man wrote his will on an envelope, another on a door, and the third on an egg. For some people, the most important part of their will is the part that says how they want to be buried. Mrs . Sundrew West, a rich widow from Texas, decided that she wanted to be buried with her favorite car. In 1973, Mr. Green, a dentist from England, left most of his money to the nurse who worked for him if, in 5 years, she wouldn't wear any kind of make-up or jewelry or go out with men.
Finally, let's hope that your will is not like that of Dr. Wagner, who lived in America one hundred years ago. His family, who had not been to see him for years, suddenly began to visit him when he became ill. What was worse, each person suggested to Dr. Wagner that they would like something to remember him by when he died. Greatly annoyed with them, Dr. Wagner wrote a will that would do this: To each of his four brothers, he left one of his legs or arms. His nephew got his nose, and his two nieces each got an ear, his teeth went to his cousins. Then he set aside one thousand dollars to pay for cutting up his body and the rest of his money, he left to the poor.
Passage Three
In recent years, there has been an unusually large number of divorces in the United States. In the past, when two people married each other, they intended to stay together for life. While today many people marry, believing that they can always get divorced if their marriage does not work out.
In the past, a large majority of Americans frowned on the idea of divorce. Furthermore, many people believed that getting a divorce was a luxury that only the rich could afford. Indeed, getting a divorce is very expensive. However, since so many people have begun to take a more casual view of marriage, it is interesting to know that the costs of getting a divorce are lower. In fact, wherever you go in the United States today, it is not unusual to see newspaper ads that provide information on how and where to get a cheap divorce.
Hollywood has always been known as the divorce capital of the world. The divorce rate among the movie stars is so high that it is difficult to know who is married to whom. Today, many movie stars change husbands and wives as though they were changing clothes. Until marriage again becomes a serious and important part of people's lives, we will probably continue to see a high rate of divorce.
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