Do you know how many kinds of plants and animals there are in the world? Maybe one million (百万)? Two million? No, not even close! Scientists think there are between eight and fourteen million kinds of plants and animals, but we only know about 1.8 million now. They are slowly finding new kinds all the time, and that’s good news for us.
In 2009, a group of scientists went to the rainforest to search for new kinds of animals. They had to walk silently and looked really carefully. They found a tiny frog (青蛙) that is smaller than the end of your smallest finger! They found another frog, too. That looks like it is made of glass. The scientists also found seven new kinds of grasshoppers (蚱蜢). Some of them are very beautiful.
Scientists tell us that frogs and insects (昆虫) are very important. They help to keep our environment clean. We can also use them to make new medicines. Researchers all over the world are working very hard to find new plants and animals every day. But their jobs are getting harder, because forests where these animals live are quickly disappearing (消失) and the animals are, too.
1. We only know about2. Scientists walked silently and
3. Scientists can use
4. The disappearance of forests makes scientists’ jobs
5. Do you think plants and animals are important? Why or why not?
2 . Last month, there was an earthquake (地震) in Turkey. About 100 hours after the earthquake, a Chinese dog found a person there. The person was in the rubble (碎石) of a six-story building.
The Chinese dog is Lucky. He is now three and a half years old. He is from the Zhejiang Rescue Team of Ramunion (浙江雷蒙德救援队). He spent four hours searching in the rubble of the building. And he found a living man at last.
People there have welcomed Lucky and the Rescue Team of Ramunion. “Thank you so much for trying so hard to help us!” a Turkish said.
Find out more in this video about Lucky.
根据语篇内容，判断下列句子正误，正确的在答题卡上将“T”涂黑，错误的在答题卡上将“F”涂黑。1. The building has 6 floors.
2. Lucky is from Turkey.
3. Lucky spent 4 hours in searching the rubble of the building to find a living man.
4. The people in Turkey love Lucky.
5. We can read the passage in a history book.
A World without Bees
| A. alive B. careful C. like D. increase E. living F. or |
People think bees are helpful insects because they give us honey. We use honey in a lot of different foods. Many people like to pour sweet honey over bread or cakes,
Pollination means mixing the pollen (花粉) from two flowers. Bees take pollen from one flower to another. When the pollen mixes, the plant can grow fruits and vegetables. Bees help pollinate a lot of favourites
The number of bees around the world is dropping quickly. However, it’s not too late to try to
| A. enter | B. attend | C. out | D. popular |
What is a spelling bee? Not too many Chinese students know it, but it is so
The National Spelling Bee is the largest education contest. It first began in 1925 in Washington. D. C.. It is held in late May or early June of each year. It is open to students in eighth grade or lower and not reaching their 15th birthday.
The contest is quite simple. When it’s your turn, the teacher says a word and you have to spell it. If you spell it right, you stay in the game. If you spell it wrong, you’re
Usually, children need to spend a lot of time learning vocabulary. They must remember thousands of English words and spell every word correctly in the contest. Only winners in regional (地区的) contest can
Students may want to feed street cats in school, but they may not know where the cats are. Now, at Beijing Foreign Studies University (BFSU), students can use their phones to find school cats and get to know them.
To give school cats a better life, students of the university made a WeChat mini-program (小程序)—Beiwai Cats. On it, every cat in the university has an “ID card”. The cards show the cats photos and also have stories about them. Cat lovers can also adopt (收养) school cats on the mini-program.
Zhou Hengxiao, 20, helped make the mini-program. He is a member of the BFSU Love Cats Group. He says it is useful for both the students and the cats. Through the mini-program, students can learn more about the cats.
The group is also active on Weibo, Bilibili and Xiaohongshu. “We share the culture of our university through the cats. When we make money from these platforms (平台), we will use it to feed the cats and help with their illnesses,” he says.
The group hopes to add more cats near the university to Beiwai Cats. “Some people think it’s a little dangerous for students to feed the cats, but we just want to do our best to give every small life a home,” says Zhou. “Students can learn how to take care of others, too.”
1. What do the “ID cards” show about cats?2. Why does Zhou Hengxiao think the mini-program is useful?
3. What will the students use the money from the platforms to do?
4. What does the group hope to do in the future?
5. Do you think it is good, for the students to feed the cats? Why?
5 . Jane Goodall is a famous scientist. For more than 40 years, Goodall had lived mostly in Tanzania in East Africa, studying chimpanzees (黑猩猩).
As a young child, Jane Goodall was interested in animals. She grew up in the English countryside and was always climbing trees or riding horses.
When Jane was 23, she got a chance to go to Africa. Even though she had never been to college, she got a job with a famous scientist named Louis Leakey.
One day Louis Leakey said he needed a volunteer. He needed someone to go to a lake in Tanzania to study a kind of chimpanzees. Jane was excited. On July 16th, 1960, she began her exploration (探索). At first, the chimpanzees ran away from Jane. But with time passing, they got used to her being around.
Every day, Jane would follow the chimpanzees, taking notes on their behaviors. She learned many new things about chimpanzees. She watched how a chimpanzee made a tool. She learned how some chimpanzees became good leaders. She watched how mother chimpanzees raised their children. She watched animals get angry and get upset. She wrote everything down so others would understand animals as she did. She learned that if you pay really close attention to animals, you will understand what they are “saying”.
1. Jane Goodall grew up in the ________.| A．countryside | B．city | C．town | D．college |
| A．18. | B．20. | C．23. | D．27. |
| A．ride a horse | B．follow her | C．make a tool | D．understand her |
| A．wrote down | B．took pictures of |
| C．made videos of | D．drew pictures about |
6 . A record of 1,101 manatees (海牛) died in Florida last year, many from hunger. So last December, government wildlife experts thought up a plan to give food to the manatees. They decided to feed them green vegetables like lettuce and cabbage. Ron Mezich, an expert, said, “We’re making a difference.” So far, they have served up more than, 193,000 pounds of lettuce to hungry manatees. But as the weather is getting warm, the program is expected to end soon.
Manatees are huge sea animals that only eat sea grass and other plants that live in the sea. That’s one reason why they’re sometimes called “sea cows”. Since 1967, Florida’s manatees have been on the US government’s list of endangered animals. Most dangers to manatees come from humans. One of the biggest problems facing the animals are boats. Manatees are curious and fairly slow. That has led to thousands of manatees being hit or killed by boats. At one point, there were only about 2,000 manatees left in Florida. With protection, the number increased. In 2016, there were more than 6,000 manatees.
However, as sea grass began to disappear, the number of manatees keeps going down again. Warming seas with polluted water have created huge growths of algae (藻) on the ocean’s surface. The algae blocks the sunlight that allows the sea grass to grow. For example, in Indian River Lagoon, where manatees often go in the winter, about 90% of the sea grass beds there have died off. Long term, Florida will work to help restore (恢复) sea grass beds. But that will take time. Scientists still worry that hundreds more manatees could starve this winter.
1. Why are manatees sometimes called “sea cows”?| A．They are as big as cows. | B．They can swim like cows. |
| C．They have tails like cows. | D．They feed on plants like cows. |
A． | B． |
C． | D． |
| A．sea pollution→growth of algae→death of sea grass→death of manatees |
| B．growth of algae→sea pollution→death of sea grass→death of manatees |
| C．sea pollution→death of sea grass→growth of algae→death of manatees |
| D．growth of algae→death of sea grass→sea pollution→death of manatees |
| A．provide | B．prevent | C．help | D．attack |
| A．The government in Florida carries out a feeding program to prevent manatees from starvation. |
| B．Manatees in Florida are facing threats from boats and pollution. |
| C．Sea grass beds are disappearing due to algae growth, impacting manatees. |
| D．Reasons for Manatees’ death are still unclear. |
Scientists have studied how apes (猿) use gestures. But until recently, no research had been carried out on humans’ ability to understand ape’s gestures. Researchers Kirsty and Catherine at the University of St. Andrews decided to work on it.
They created a game for people to play online. The game was simple.
Thousands of people played the game. The researchers were surprised to find that people were able to choose the correct meaning of the gestures over 50% of the time.
The scientists believe that humans may have a natural ability to understand the gestures of apes. But it’s not clear why.
The researchers say that they need to study how humans are able to understand the gestures of apes.
| A．People watched short videos of apes making a gesture. |
| B．They wanted to see if humans could understand the gestures of apes. |
| C．Humans and other apes all developed from an earlier kind of ape that lived long ago. |
| D．They’re also curious about how humans understand other animals, like dogs. |
| E．That’s twice as much as people would be expected to do. |
| F．The final result is surprising, since most people haven’t spent much time at all with apes. |
8 . Joe Hoagland was three years old when the story began. And Fonzie is a dolphin (海豚).
When Joe was born, he had a problem with his heart and doctors had to operate (动手术) on him. The operation didn’t go well and he couldn’t move the left side of his body. The doctors at the hospital didn’t think he could get better.
His mother Deena took him to different places for treating. Joe liked being in the water and Deena thought swimming could help him. One day, she went with Joe to a place called Dolphin Plus, where people swam with dolphins. Joe met Fonzie there and the story began.
Soon, Joe wanted to see Fonzie every day. Joe loved playing with him and feeding him. Joe always fed Fonzie with his left hand. Slowly, he got better and better. Deena saw that Joe’s friendship with Fonzie helped him a lot, and she knew it was a good idea for other people, too. So, she and her family worked to open a place called Island Dolphin Care. Many people with health problems came to spend time with the dolphins. Sadly, Fonzie died when Joe was 17. Joe wrote: Fonzie was a great friend to me. We shared a lot of good times. I will always remember him.
1. What did the doctors think about Joe?| A．Joe would get better in the future. |
| B．Joe shouldn’t receive the operation. |
| C．It wasn’t possible for Joe to become better. |
| D．It was good for Joe to have more operations. |
| A．To protect the dolphins. |
| B．To keep Fonzie in mind. |
| C．To make more money for Joe. |
| D．To help people with health problems. |
| A．Strict. | B．Kind. | C．Poor. | D．Shy. |
9 . Last month, I met a homeless dog when I had a walk with my mother in the park.
I began to take care
The problem of homeless pets will change for the better if we can work together to create a good world for
| A．Α | B．An | C．The | D．/ |
| A．try | B．tried | C．am trying | D．will try |
| A．happy | B．happily | C．angry | D．angrily |
| A．When | B．So | C．Or | D．If |
| A．in | B．on | C．of | D．at |
| A．is | B．was | C．are | D．were |
| A．One | B．First | C．Two | D．Second |
| A．choose | B．to choose | C．raise | D．to raise |
| A．themselves | B．they | C．their | D．them |
| A．lose | B．losing | C．keep | D．keeping |
10 . Animals are our friends. Sometimes they make trouble, but sometimes they can help us. Here are two real stories from our readers.
The first story is from Ray. “My cat, Tiger, hates it when I use my phone because it takes my attention away from him. One year, I had a fall at home and I was unable to move. And I couldn’t get the phone to call for help. Tiger stayed by my side until he disappeared under my bed. ‘What’s he up to?’ I wondered. To my surprise, he pushed something towards me. It was my phone. He probably didn’t know what it was, but he knew that it made me happy. Thanks to Tiger, I was able to communicate with my friend.”
The second story is from Colin. “Years ago, my friend Julius saved a bird—a wild cockatoo (鹦鹉) from the side of the road and kept it in a big cage (笼子). One of her wings hurt, so she was unable to return to the wild immediately. Soon, two wild cockatoos came to visit and one of them wanted to find his way into the cage. Those two cockatoos visited the cockatoo in the cage every day. After recovery, the three cockatoos flew away together.”
After reading the stories, don’t you think we should get along well with animals? No matter they are our pets or live in the wild, they have their feelings. We should respect every life in the world.
1. Tiger is the name of _______.| A．a bird | B．a dog | C．a cat | D．a cockatoo |
| A．Because one of her wings hurt. | B．Because Julius caught it as a pet. |
| C．Because she likes the life in the cage better. | D．Because her friends live in Julius’s home. |
| A．尊重 | B．损害 | C．供养 | D．窃取 |
| A．To tell us Ray, Julius and Colin are animal lovers. |
| B．To ask us not to use phones too much. |
| C．To let us know family members should help each other. |
| D．To tell us that we should respect every life in the world. |
