Burd's strategy was simple: Since plastic does eventually degrade, it must be eaten by microorganisms (微生物). If those microorganisms could be identified, we could put them to work eating the plastic much faster than under normal conditions.

　　With this goal in mind, he ground plastic bags into a powder and concocted(調制) a solution of household chemicals, yeast(酵母) and tap water to encourage microbes growth. Then he added the plastic powder and let the microbes work their magic for 3 months. Finally，he tested the resulting bacterial culture on plastic bags，exposing one plastic sample to dead bacteria as a control. Sure enough, the plastic exposed (暴露) to the live bacteria was 17% lighter than the control after six weeks.

　　The inputs are cheap：maintaining the required temperature takes little energy because microbes produce heat as they work, and the only outputs are water and tiny levels of carbon dioxide.

　　“Almost every week I have to do chores and when I open the closet door, I have piles of plastic bags falling on top of me. One day, I got tired of it and I wanted to know what other people are doing with these plastic bags. The answer：not much. So I decided to do something myself.”said Daniel Burd.

　　遼寧高考閱讀專題訓練題目：

　　1. Daniel Burd won first prize at the Canada-Wide Science Fair because________.

　　A. he found a new kind of microorganism

　　B. he contributed much to environmental protection

　　C. he found a way to degrade plastics in shorter time

　　D. he could encourage microbes growth in an easier way

　　2. Daniel Burd exposed one plastic sample to dead bacteria to________.

　　A. make the live bacteria work better

　　B. test how effective his method was

　　C. know which bacteria worked faster

　　D. control the temperature in the process

　　3. Maintaining the required temperature takes little energy because ________.

　　A. plastics can get hot easily

　　B. microbes can produce heat themselves

　　C. much carbon dioxide is produced

　　D. the temperature can be controlled

　　4. Daniel Burd got his idea from ________.

　　A. his school textbook

　　B. the failure of researchers

　　C. his everyday work

　　D. the practice of other people

　　遼寧高考閱讀專題訓練答案：

　　1.C　細節理解題。從文章第二段可知，他因發現短時間降解塑料袋的方法而獲獎，故答案選C項。

　　2.B　推理判斷題。從文章第四段中的“...exposing one plastic sample to dead bacteria as a control”可推斷，他這樣做的目的在于測試他的方法是否有效，所以答案為B項。

　　3.B　細節理解題。從文章倒數第二段中的“maintaining the required temperature takes little energy because microbes produce heat as they work”可知答案選B項。

　　4.C　推理判斷題。從文章最后一段丹尼爾·伯德說的話可推知，他是從每天的工作中得到啟發的，故答案選C項。