VI. Test Design 20%Please summarize the following article in 200 to 250 words (8%). Based on your summary, design FIVE cloze test questions (7%) and ONE mixed question (混合題) (5%) for PTHS 12th graders. The cloze test questions should each have four options and the correct answers should be included.
Hot chili peppers can illicit big reactions: flushing in the face and ears, panting, tearing up, sweating, and maybe even some swearing. Chilis are inherently dramatic—and even by its own standards, the peppers have had an explosive couple of years.
Severe climate conditions might cause another shortage of sriracha hot sauce after a lapse in 2022 for the same reason. In 2023, a product with a single tortilla chip made with two of the hottest peppers in the world was pulled from shelves “out of an abundance of caution,” though a 14-year-old’s family says he died after eating the chip. Meanwhile, over the last year or so, panic that peppers are being purposefully grown to be less spicy have been inflamed by conspiracy theorists.
On the other hand, certain farmers are pushing back on the alleged “weakening” of peppers by cultivating barely-fit-for-human-consumption levels of heat. There’s also the popularity of viral internet series like “Hot Ones,” where celebrities eat chicken wings basted in hotter and hotter sauces, and “hot” snack varieties that have grown to include Cinnefuego Toast Crunch and Carolina Reaper chocolate. Regardless of whether you prefer milder peppers or boundary-pushing spice, it seems like there is less and less middle ground for the curious foodie. Do you have to settle for only mild or life-choice-questioning hot, with nothing in between? And is our understanding of a chili’s heat— largely through the 112-year-old Scoville measurement process—even accurate?
“There’s no denying things are going in two different directions,” says Ted Ballweg, chili farmer and owner of Savory Accents. There are two camps, he says: one that prefers flavor over heat, and the other pushing the limits of how spicy chilis can be.
For those of us noticing weaker chilis at the supermarket, something else might be at play. As food historian and novelist David DeWitt, known as “The Pope of Peppers,” points out, part of the reason is simple profit.
“Generally, the larger the chili, the milder it is,” says DeWitt. “These days, jalapeños are getting to be about six inches long, when they used to be about three. Farmers are deliberately breeding for larger pods because they get paid by the poundage. Larger chilis weigh more, so they get paid more.”
Brad Rubin, Agri-Food Institute sector manager at Wells Fargo, told the Food Institute that yes, peppers are getting bigger and less flavorful because larger, more consistently spicy peppers sell better in stores.
To be clear though, DeWitt says in his experience he hasn’t found products like sriracha (which uses very common serrano peppers) to be any less spicy than before. Abstracted from National Geography
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