請依下文回答第 42 題至第 45 題: In Texas, people take chili seriously. So seriously that from May to November, hundreds of Texans devote their weekends ___42___ giant pots of it in chili cookoffs. These contests are carefully organized in cities and towns throughout the state, each one ___43___ that it sponsors the best one around. ___44___ other states have their own version of the cookoff, Texas sets the standards. The Chili Appreciation Society International in Dallas has established rules and regulations as well as a point system for determining the winners. There is even a newspaper, the Goat Gap Gazette in Houston, that is ___45___ for chili heads, the name given to those who are passionate about chili making. It publishes a complete list of competitions in the United States and provides useful hints and bits of gossip for its subscribers. 【題組】43 (A)boasted (B)boasts (C)boasting (D)will boast
請依下文回答第 46 題至第 50 題: A wet spring in Las Vegas has spawned hordes of grasshoppers so large that they are showing up on the weather radar.
In viewing the radar, CNN meteorologist Allison Chinchar said it looked like there were two storms over the Vegas area:
one in the north of the city (that was actual rain) and another right over Las Vegas. But the second one wasn’t moving as
rain normally would, she said. “It looked as though it should be torrentially downpouring in Las Vegas,” said Chinchar.
By changing the settings on the radar, meteorologists could see that the other “storm” was actually the massive hordes
of grasshoppers that have settled over the city in recent days, Chinchar said. Las Vegas, like all of Nevada, has had almost
twice as much rain in 2019 than normal, Chinchar said. “It appears through history that when we have a wet winter or
spring, these things build up often down below Laughlin and even into Arizona,” Jeff Knight, state entomologist, said.
“We’ll have grasshopper migrations about this time of the year, and they’ll move northward.” Knight said the swarms
aren’t terribly unusual given the amount of rain the state has had this year. “We have records clear from the ’60s of it
happening, and I have seen it ... at least four or five times in my 30-plus years,” he said. “There are some special weather
conditions that trigger the migration.” 【題組】50 Which of the following words could replace “hordes” in the first sentence?
(A)Eggs. (B)Children. (C)Swarms. (D)States.