【推荐1】Population and climate

The human population on Earth has grown to the point that it is having an effect on Earth’s atmosphere and ecosystems. Burning of fossil fuels, deforestation, urbanization, and cultivation of rice and cattle are increasing the concentration of carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides and dust in the atmosphere. About 70 percent of the Sun’s energy passes through the atmosphere and strikes Earth’s surface. This radiation heats the surface of the land and ocean, and these surfaces then reradiate infrared radiation back into space. This allows Earth to avoid heating up too much. However, not all of the infrared radiation makes it into space; some is absorbed by gases in the atmosphere and is reradiated back to Earth’s surface. A greenhouse gas is one that absorbs infrared radiation and then reradiates some of this radiation back to Earth. Carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxides are greenhouse gases. In fact, without greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, scientists calculate that Earth would be about 33℃ cooler than it currently is.

The current concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is about 360 parts per million. Human activities are having a major influence on atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations, which are rising so fast that current predictions made by scientists are that atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide will double in the next 50 to 100 years.

Some scientists predict that a doubling of carbon dioxide concentration will raise global temperatures anywhere between 1.4℃ and 4.5℃. The increase in temperature will not be uniform, with the smallest changes at the equator and changes two or three times as great at the poles. The local effects of these global changes are difficult to predict, but it is generally agreed that they may include alterations in ocean currents, increased winter flooding in some areas of the Northern Hemisphere, a higher incidence of summer drought in some areas, and rising sea levels, which may flood low-lying countries.

1. It can be inferred from the passage that one positive aspect of greenhouse gases is that they _______.

A．remove pollutants from Earth’s atmosphere and ecosystems

B．absorb 70 percent of the Sun’s energy

C．help keep Earth warm

D．double atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide

2. Which of the sentences below BEST summarizes the highlighted sentence?

A．The rapid rise of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations is mostly caused by human activities.

B．Human activities will no longer have an influence on atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations in the next 50 to 100 years.

C．Some scientists predict that atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations will not increase in the next 50 to 100 years.

D．Some scientists recently predict that atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations that are largely influenced by human activities will double in the next 50 to 100 years.

3. The word “uniform” in paragraph 3 is closest in meaning to _______.

A．different

B．identical

C．comparable

D．changeable

4. What are the local effects of global changes?

A．Sea levels will fall.

B．The effects will not occur in some regions of the world.

C．The local plants and forests will be permanently damaged.

D．It is hard to know exactly what form the local effects will take.

5. Which of the following statements is NOT true?

A．Raising livestock and growing rice are the actions of humans.

B．The surface of the land and ocean can help decrease the temperature of Earth.

C．Although carbon dioxide concentration may double in the future, temperatures at the North Pole and South Pole may not change.

D．Nitrogen oxides absorb infrared radiation that can increase the temperature of Earth.

【推荐2】Directions: Complete the following passage by using the sentences given below. Each sentence can be used only once. Note that there are two more sentences than you need.

Climate change is changing the flavor of French wine

Records going back 700 years show that Burgundy’s wine grapes have been feeling the heat of the past three decades.

The summer of 1540 was burning hot in the vine-covered hills of Burgundy, France—so hot as to be “almost unbearable,” according to one written account from the time.     1     In the Alps, glaciers melted, their snouts retreating up steep-sided valleys. Fires burned from France to Poland. And in the wine country of central France, the grapes withered to raisins (葡萄干) on the vine, so sugary the wine made from them was syrupy and extra-alcoholic.

    2     the look of the vines before they bud; the look of the vines as they mature over long seasons; and the fat, sugary, fragrant curve of the grapes when they’re ready to be made into wine. Normally, winemakers harvested grapes at the very end of September or early October. But that year, they had to rush to get overripe grapes off the vine weeks earlier than usual.

Now, a nearly 700-year-long record of harvest shows that early harvest dates like the one from 1540 are now par for the course, thanks to climate change.     3     “We can clearly see the reaction of the grapes to the rise in temperature,” says Thomas Labbé, an historian at the University of Burgundy. “We can predict, using modeling, the harvest will occur around about the 15th of August, in the core of summer.”

    4     Already, as temperatures worldwide have warmed, the alcohol content of wines has bumped up from about 12 percent in the 1970s to about 14 percent today, though that number varies from region to region. Part of that, though, is winemaker preference, part of it is because grapes are maturing faster in the heat. The more sugar they accumulate, the more of it is converted to alcohol during the winemaking process.

A．Though the kind of heat hasn’t settled into Burgundy yet, it’s probably coming.

B．Winemakers have kept careful track of the harvest dates for centuries.

C．That will almost certainly affect the way wines taste and feel, and how strong they are.

D．In fact, it was hot all across Europe that year.

E．The subtle feel resulting from more alcoholic wine is not favored.

F．Winemakers know the growth stages intimately.

【推荐3】阅读下面短文，根据题目要求回答问题。

Balancing Trees and CO₂

Tree planting used to be regarded as an effective means of reducing climate change. Perhaps it’s time for us to rethink this practice. Trees pull CO₂ from the air. This effectively removes CO₂ from the atmosphere. But trees only hold onto CO₂ as long as they’re alive. Once they die, trees decay (腐烂) and release that CO₂ back into the atmosphere.

Recent studies have found that trees around the world are growing faster than ever. The rise of CO₂, mainly due to burning fossil fuels, is probably driving that rapid growth, said Roel Brienen, a forest ecologist at the University of Leeds, UK. High levels of CO₂ are increasing temperatures, which in turn speeds tree growth in those areas, he added.

The faster trees grow, the faster they store carbon. It seems like good news. However, it is known that fast-growing tree species, in general, live shorter lives than their slow-growing relatives.

In order to see whether the growth-lifespan trade-off (生长与寿命之间的权衡) is a universal phenomenon, Brienen and his colleagues analyzed over 210,000 individual tree ring records of 110 tree species from more than 79,000 sites worldwide. They found that, in almost all habitats and all sites, faster-growing tree species died younger than slow-growing species, and even within a species, the trade-off between growth and lifespan held strong.

The team also created a computer program that modeled a forest and tweaked (微量调整) the growth of the trees in this model. Early on, it showed that “the forest could hold more carbon as the trees grew faster”, Brienen reported. But after 20 years, these trees started dying and losing this extra carbon again. “We must understand that the only solution to bringing down CO₂ levels is to stop emitting (排放) it into the atmosphere,” said Brienen.

1. What does “this practice” in Para.1 refer to?
2. Why are trees around the world growing faster than ever?
3. Read the following statement, underline the false part of it and explain the reason.
 The team has found that the faster trees grow, the faster they store CO2, and the longer lives they live.
4. Please briefly present what you can do in daily life to reduce the emission of CO₂ . (about 40 words)

【推荐1】To help make up for sleep lost during marathon night flights, migrating( 迁徙 ) birds take hundreds of power nap(小睡) during the day, each lasting a few seconds.

Every autumn, Swainson’s thrushes(画眉) fly up to 3,000 miles from their breeding grounds in northern Canada and Alaska to winter in Central and South America. Come spring, the birds make the long trip back.

The birds fly mostly at night and often for long hours at a time, leaving little time for sleep. So to get through these tiresome periods, thrushes, during autumn and spring when the birds are normally migrating, change their sleep patterns, staying awake at night and resting during day. But instead of sleeping for a long period at a time, the birds took several naps a day, each one lasting only 9 seconds on average.

The thrushes also mixed up their shut-eye sessions with two other forms of sleep. In one, called unilateral eye closure, or UEC, the birds rested one eye and one half of their brains while their other eye and half brain remained open and active, protecting them from danger.

The birds also occasionally slipped into another state, one that any college student who has ever been stuck in a boring lecture can relate to. Called drownsiness( 睡 意 ), this state is characterized by a partial shutting of both eyes that still allows for some visual processing.

“In terms of quality, drowsiness may be less useful than normal sleep, but it may also be safer.” said Fuchs.

What’s interesting is that even animals should make up for sleep loss. That a need for sleep cannot be lost even in these birds means the importance of sleep for many, if not all, animals, not to mention human.

1. What would be the best title for the text?

A．Migrating Birds Travel for Long Hours

B．Migrating Need Help

C．How Birds Migrate during Autumn

D．Migrating Birds Take Many Daily Power Naps

2. According to the text, when having drowsiness, the thrushes______.

A．will rest one eye and the other active

B．will often sleep during day

C．will still be careful with the possible dangers

D．will not see anything in front of them

3. What can we learn from the text?

A．Sleep is important for human being.

B．Animals need sleep to rest.

C．Migrating birds need sleep only during day.

D．College students often have drowsiness in fall.

【推荐2】Since the sex of a sea turtle(海龟)is determined by the heat of sand hatching the eggs, scientists had suspected they might see slightly more females. Climate change, after all, has driven sea temperatures higher, which, in these creatures, favors female children. They found female sea turtles from Raine Island, the Pacific Ocean's largest and most important green sea turtle living area, now outnumber males by at least 116 to 1. "This is extreme," says turtle scientist Camryn Allen.

Biologist Michael Jensen wanted to know if climate change had already changed turtles' sexes. By using genetic(基因的) tests, he'd figured out that he could follow turtles of all ages. Still, his research data would lack an important detail: sex. Only after a turtle matures is it possible to tell its sex from the outside -- mature males have slightly longer tails. By then turtles can be decades old, so scientists often use Iaparoscopy(腹腔镜检查)，sending a thin tube into each animal, but that's not so practical if you're hoping to examine hundreds of creatures. Fortunately, at a turtle conference, he met Allen, and all she needed was a little blood.

They compared their results with temperature data for nesting beaches. What worries them is that Raine Island has been producing almost female turtles for at least 20 years. This is no small thing. More than 200,000 turtles come to nest there. During high season, 18,000 turtles may settle in at once. "But what happens in 20 years when there are no more males coming up as adults? Are there enough to maintain the population?" says Allen. They also found cooler beaches in the south are still producing males, but that in the north, it's almost entirely females hatching. These findings clearly point to the fact that climate change is changing many aspects of wildlife biology.

But how widespread is this phenomenon -- and what is the consequence?

1. How might the scientists feel if there were slightly more female turtles?

A．It's normal.

B．It's unique.

C．It's extreme.

D．It's doubtful.

2. What is a scientist's conventional way to identify a turtle's sex?

A．Testing its blood.	B．Doing genetic tests.
C．Using laparoscopy.	D．Watching its tail.

3. Why do the findings worry Jensen and Allen?

A．Too many females gather near Raine Island.	B．Sea turtles may end up dying out.
C．Turtle populations are in decline.	D．Female turtles cause temperatures to rise.

4. What does the last paragraph imply?

A．People should stop the phenomenon.

B．People have to test the consequence.

C．Climate change has changed sea turtles' sexes.

D．More work needs doing about the phenomenon.

【推荐3】To grow sugary dates（海枣） in the sand, Siwa’s farmers must first make the desert suitable for farming. An oasis（绿洲）in Egypt, Siwa has been home to humans for thousands of years. Since ancient times, the oasis has hosted farms producing some of the most valuable dates in Egypt, and the sugary dates have appeared on Egyptians' tables.

The desert environment in Siwa is not quite fit for plants to grow. For example, the water there contains much salt. However, it is with local people's effort that date trees, crops and other plants grow in harmony despite the complex agricultural fields, which impressed me a lot during my visit to the oasis. To make a new piece of field, farmers first remove the top soil and replace it with a mixture of sand and waste matter from animals. The first plants are medicinal plants. Then, farmers plant date trees and olive trees. These farming skills are passed down from generation to generation.

To grow date trees is demanding. And it takes 10 years for a new date tree to mature, but once it does, the tree produces generous fruit: around 110 pounds of dates per year. Each farmer picks dates with the skilled hands. They climb the trees using nothing more than a belt. In total, Siwa grows more than 25,000 tons of dates from 280,000 trees per year.

The dates can be eaten fresh, or made dry. Every part of the date tree is significant in Siwa, from leaves made into beds and boxes to wood used to build houses. And then, of course, there's the fruit itself. The dates can be cooked with goat meat or mixed with eggs for breakfast. They can also be mixed with flour, water, and olive oil, and boiled slowly to make a local dessert.

1. What can we learn about sugary dates from Paragraph 1？

A．They're introduced to Egypt from abroad.

B．They're the most valuable fruit in Egypt.

C．They can adapt to tough environment.

D．They have existed for a long time.

2. What impressed the author a lot during his visit to Siwa？

A．The great variety of plants grown there.

B．The hard but happy life of local people.

C．The great complexity of the local agriculture.

D．The local farmers' wisdom and contribution to farming.

3. What do the figures mentioned in Paragraph 3 show？

A．It's worthwhile to make an effort to grow date trees.

B．It' s easy for farmers to pick dates from the trees.

C．It costs a lot to grow date trees in the oasis.

D．It's necessary to develop agriculture in Siwa.

4. In which section of a newspaper may this passage appear？

A．Education.	B．Health.
C．Nature.	D．Entertainment.