When did you last stop to look at a tree? Really look at it , not merely notice it. Trees play such an important role in our lives and yet day to day we often don’t even notice them; we often take them for granted. Yet if you are looking to strengthen your grounds , reduce pollution around your school , improve your children’s health and wellbeing and develop your science subject , then planting trees is certainly the way forward.
The first and most obvious benefit of starting a tree-planting program is the environmental impact. Children are enthusiastic,and often highly knowledgeable about climate change and the main causes of it. They are also interested in projects that can make a difference to their community’s carbon footprints. Planting trees is an easy and long-lasting way to involve pupils and to have a positive impact on the climate.
A tree-planting program also offers teachers the opportunity to discuss biodiversity (生物多样性) and gives pupils the chance to get involved in an actual example. It’s a real-life science experiment and will provide children with amazing habitats to study in science lessons for years to come.
Planting trees can also have a positive impact on children’ s mental health. One in four people in the UK will experience mental health issues at some point in their lives and one in 10 children aged 5-16 have a diagnosable (可诊断的) mental health condition , according to The Children’s Society. Mental health is a complex issue with many causal factors and no simple solutions. However , according to the Mental Health Foundation , the opportunity to play and learn in outdoor environments has been quoted in research studies as a significantly positive influence.
Being active will also improve children’s general health and wellbeing, as well as increasing engagement more generally by providing an enjoyable context for learning. Parents and the community, too, will enjoy the improved beauty of the school grounds.
1. What can children do to contribute to the community’s efforts to cut carbon footprints?| A．Reduce their daily activities. | B．Attend tree-planting projects. |
| C．Learn more about climate change. | D．Encourage more people to take action. |
| A．By making their classes livelier. |
| B．By supplying them with habitats to study. |
| C．By providing them with real examples of biodiversity. |
| D．By giving them chances to communicate with students. |
| A．Outdoor activities can benefit children' s mental health. |
| B．Children’s playtime is reducing gradually in recent years. |
| C．Planting trees is a perfect way to improve the environment. |
| D．Few people in the UK pay much attention to mental health. |
| A．How can schools get involved in tree-planting projects? |
| B．Children need more care from their teachers. |
| C．Why should schools be planting trees? |
| D．Schools should set up new classes. |
相似题推荐
【推荐1】Hearing a sound in his tea farm, Tenzing Bodosa awoke. Looking out, he saw a herd of wild elephants in the moonlight. For many tea farmers in India, seeing wild elephants in the crops is cause for alarm. However, for Bodosa, who employs more than 70 workers at two farms in the state of Assam, it meant everything was working as planned.
He calls it the “world’s first elephant-friendly tea farm”. Consumers pay more for this tea, which comes from farms that protect elephant habitats, reduce fences and ditches (沟渠) to ease their movement and safely get rid of chemicals.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) lists Asian elephants as an endangered species. About 40, 000 to 50, 000 elephants remain in the wild. That is a drop of more than 50 percent in the last 75 years. India is home to about 28, 000 wild elephants. Many reasons have led to the decrease. One reason for the decreasing population is connected to tea farms. India is the second-largest tea grower, after China, and Assam leads tea production. Assam has a population of 5, 719 wild elephants, the most after the state of Karnataka. Elephants regard tea farms as parts of their forest habitat, as they have been part of their migratory routes over centuries.
“In India, meetings between humans and wild elephants often end badly for both,” said Bodosa. “I decided that there had to be a way for us to coexist peacefully.” Bodosa has been growing tea naturally since 2007, when he was one of the few farmers to start using natural products.
To make his farms elephant-friendly, he created an area for elephants, planting elephant grass, elephant apples and star fruit. He provided them with easy passage by making sure there were no ditches or fences. Other animals visit his tea gardens too. Many human visitors come to his farms, and some stay in a tree house that he has built, and volunteer. Bodosa has also trained as many as 70,000 farmers in organic farming. “We have to work hard to secure the lives of both wild elephants and humans,” Bodosa said.
1. What does Bodosa make efforts to do on his farms?| A．Put elephants to work. | B．Grow tea in a natural way. |
| C．Provide free food for visitors. | D．Protect himself from animals’ attack. |
| A．Wild Asian elephants are in danger. |
| B．India is the world’s largest tea producer. |
| C．Assam is home to most of India’s elephants. |
| D．Tea farms are the main reason for elephants’ decrease. |
| A．It makes a lot of money. |
| B．It has become a famous hotel. |
| C．It is influential and beneficial. |
| D．It raises many different kinds of animals. |
| A．Assam elephants: an alarming life |
| B．Farmers live in peace with elephants |
| C．Tea gardens: a balanced diet for elephants |
| D．Farmers return to traditional farming methods |
【推荐2】A recent study conducted by a team of researchers from Canada’s McGill University has found that birds that live in urban environments are not just better at problemsolving and more skilled in tasks that require innovation than their rural cousins，they also have stronger immune systems!
The research，the first ever to examine the cognitive(认知的) abilities of urbandwelling birds along with their country cousins，was led by JeanNicolas Audet，a Ph.D.student from McGill University.The team conducted their study in Barbados because it enjoys a broad range of environments—all the way from populated modern cities to areas that are entirely rural.They began by capturing 53 Barbados bullfinches from various parts of the Caribbean Island.The birds were then assigned several tasks.Some tested their learning skills while others were to observe how creative they were at problemsolving.
Some of the problemsolving tests involved challenging the birds to open drawers or remove lids to get access to tasty treats.It turns out that city dwelling bullfinches are much smarter at devising clever solutions than their country cousins.While they are also much bolder，the urban birds appear to be more cautious when exposed to unfamiliar things.
The results did not surprise the researchers.After all，birds living in cities and towns do face more challenges and dangers than those that live in the country.However，according to Audet，“We expected that there would be a tradeoff and that the birds’ immunity would be lower，just because we assumed that you can’t be good at everything.”
But as it turns out，they were wrong！The city bullfinches proved to have better immunity and are therefore more resistant to diseases than the bullfinches that live in the countryside.The researchers assume that this could be because the birds have had to adapt to the higher concentration of pathogens(病菌) in the city air.As Audet says，“It seems that in this case，the urban birds have all.” While additional studies need to be done to see if this is true for all citydwelling birds，there is no reason to believe that the results would be any different.
Though this is the first time researchers have compared the cognitive abilities of birds living in different environments，it is not the first study to examine the differences between city and country dwellers.Previous research has shown that similar to bullfinches，blackbirds in urban settings are more cautious than their rural cousins.Researchers have also discovered that city dwelling sparrows and blackbirds sing at a higher frequency to be heard over city noise.If only birds knew the advantages of living amongst humans，maybe more would move to cities!
1. Compared with country birds，city birds .| A．are more likely to become sick |
| B．are more intelligent and creative |
| C．tend to sing songs at a lower frequency |
| D．tend to be less careful when facing new things |
| A．Because a lot of birds can be found there. |
| B．Because problems can be created for birds there. |
| C．Because it’s a place with high concentration of pathogens. |
| D．Because birds from various environments can be found there. |
| A．shocked | B．relaxed |
| C．concerned | D．discouraged |
【推荐3】The elephant was lying heavily on its side, fast asleep. A few dogs started barking at it. The elephant woke up in a terrible anger: it ran after the dogs into the village where they ran for safety.
That didn't stop the elephant. It destroyed a dozen houses and injured several people. The villagers were scared and angry. Then someone suggested calling Parbati, the elephant princess.
Parbati Barua's father was a hunter of tigers and an elephant tamer. He taught Parbati to ride an elephant before she could even walk. He also taught her the dangerous art of the elephant round-up—how to catch wild elephants. Parbati hasn't always lived in the jungle. After a happy childhood hunting with her father, she was sent to boarding school in the city. But Parbati never got used to being there and many years later she went back to her old life. “Life in the city is too dull. Catching elephants is an adventure and the excitement lasts for days after the chase,” she says.
But Parbati doesn't catch elephants just for fun. “My work,” she says, “is to rescue man from the elephants, and to keep the elephants safe from man.” And this is exactly what Parbati has been doing for many years. Increasingly, the Indian elephant is angry: for many years, illegal hunters have attacked it and its home in the jungle has been reduced to small pieces of land. It is now fighting back. Whenever wild elephants enter a tea garden or a village, Parbati is called to guide the animals back to the jungle before they can kill.
The work of an elephant tamer also involves love and devotion. A good elephant tamer will spend hours a day singing love songs to a newly—caught elephant. “Eventually they grow to love their tamers and never forget them. They are also more loyal than humans.” she said, as she climbed up one of her elephants and sat on the giant, happy animal. An elephant princess indeed!
1. For Parbati, catching elephants is mainly to ______.| A．get long lasting excitement | B．keep both man and elephants safe |
| C．send them back to the jungle | D．make the angry elephants tame |
| A．she spent her time hunting with her father |
| B．she learned how to sing love songs after class |
| C．she was taught how to hunt tigers in the woods |
| D．she had already been called an elephant princess |
| A．Because illegal hunters catch them and kill them |
| B．Because they are caught and sent for heavy work |
| C．Because they are attacked and their land gets limited |
| D．Because dogs usually bark at them and interrupt them |
| A．dogs are often as powerful as elephants |
| B．people easily fall victims to elephants' attacks |
| C．elephant tamers are becoming fewer and fewer |
| D．the man-elephant relationship is getting much worse |
【推荐1】A series of frog like crouches (蹲). A personal best time of four hours on a typically 15-minute road. This is how Julya Hajnoczky describes her slow and unusual way of hiking. For weeks each year, the photographer walks along footpaths in some of Canada’s most amazing wild spaces. She takes a close look at moss (苔藓) or mushrooms while other visitors speed by. “It must be how cyclists feel on the highway when they’re getting passed by trucks,” she says. Sometimes, though, hikers stop and ask what she sees that they don’t. She’s happy to explain-after all, that’s the point of her project.
In 2017 Hajnoczky designed and built an eight- foot-long movable “home”, which was named the Alfresco Science Machine. Painted forest green, it houses almost everything needed for fieldwork: a bed, a camp kitchen, binoculars and hand lenses, collection permits, field guides, small bottles and specimen (标本) — collection tools, sunscreen, bug repellent. Also Hajnoczky’s searching rules: Pick a minimal amount of plentiful, dead, or abandoned things—never rare species or live animals—and return them when finished.
The resulting photos are the small models of Canadian landscape and make up her ongoing project: At the Last Judgement We Will All Be Trees. Deeply worried about humanity’s relationship with the environment, Hajnoczky describe the images as “elegiac, dark, sorrowful,” as still lifes (静物) created while there’s still life. Yet they’re also fascinating. Slow down, they seem to say. Look with amazement at the natural world and see the importance to protect it.
1. Why are cyclists mentioned in the first paragraph?| A．To highlight the popularity of cycling. | B．To vividly show her pace of hiking. |
| C．To suggest an unusual way of life. | D．To stress environmental protection. |
| A．Record the lives of rare species. | B．Collect as many plants as possible. |
| C．Feed the live animals along the way. | D．Take pictures of a forgotten part of nature. |
| A．Deep. | B．Sad. | C．Delightful. | D．Bright. |
| A．An Insightful Documentary of Wilderness | B．Speedy Adventures in Canada’s Wild Spaces |
| C．The Benefits of Hiking in Nature | D．A Slow Journey through Nature’s Wonders |
【推荐2】This week I watched an international news program and saw what looked like most of the planet—the Americas, Africa, Europe, Asia—painted in bright oranges and reds. Fahrenheit (华氏温度的) temperatures in three-digit numbers seemed to burn all over on the world map.
Heat records have burst around the globe. This very weekend, crops are burning, roads are bending and seas are rising, while lakes recede, or even disappear. Ice sheets melt in rising heat, and wildfires attack forests. People are dying in this heat. Lives of all kinds are threatened, in cities, fields, seas, deserts and forests. Wildlife, farm animals, insects and human beings are in pain.
The UN’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO) says there is more deadly heat in our future because of climate change caused by our species on this planet. Even with advances in wind, solar and other alternative energy sources, and international promises and agreements, the world still derives about 80% of its energy from fossil fuels, like oil, gas and coal, which release the carbon dioxide that’s warmed the climate to the current temperatures of this hot summer. The WMO’s chief, Petteri Taalas, said this week, “In the future these kinds of heatwaves are going to be normal.”
The most alarming word in his forecast might be: “normal.” I’m of a generation that thought of summer as a sunny time for children. I think of long days spent outdoors without worry, playing games or just wandering. John Updike wrote in his poem, “June”:
The sun is rich
And gladly pays
In golden hours,
Silver days,
And long green weeks
That never end.
School’s out. The time
Is ours to spend.
There’s Little League,
Hopscotch, the creek,
And, after supper,
Hide-and-seek.
The live-long light
Is like a dream...
But now that bright, “live-long light,” of which Updike wrote, might look threatening in a summer like this.
The extremely hot weeks that we see this year cause one to wonder if our failures to care for the planet given to us will make our children look forward to summer, or fear another season of heat.
1. What does the underlined word “derive” in Paragraph 3 probably mean?| A．Get. | B．Reduce. | C．Waste. | D．Save. |
| A．alternative energy is the solution to climate change |
| B．the heatwaves are caused by the advanced technology |
| C．agreements need to be signed to deal with climate change |
| D．use of traditional energy is responsible for the heatwaves |
| A．To describe the beauty of summer. |
| B．To indicate the end of happy summers. |
| C．To compare different feelings about summer. |
| D．To suggest ways for children to spend summer. |
| A．What leads to a hot summer | B．Children are afraid of summer |
| C．Burning summers are the future | D．How we can survive a hot summer |
【推荐3】You have most likely heard of renewable energy or even used it in your home, or office to do your part for the environment. Renewable energy is energy from natural resources including the wind, sunlight, and water. This form of energy is always renewed and cannot be exhausted. The most popular modern day form of this energy can be seen in solar paneling(电池板). Renewable energy can produce electricity and plays a major role in reducing greenhouse emissions(排放) and fossil fuels (化石燃料).
A study by the Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory predicts that renewable energy resources can soon provide up to 80 percent of the electricity in the United States. The study was conducted to decide how renewable energy can meet the needs of a rapidly increasing population. Using the current solar panels, wind turbines, geothermal(地热), and hydropower, this 80 percent increase is a promising possibility for our future.
Increasing this renewable energy will provide practical benefits for our economy, climate, and health. Not only will it greatly reduce global warming, but it will improve public health, and provide many economic benefits. In a future with 80 percent fewer renewables, our carbon emissions will also be reduced by 80 percent, and water use will be cut in half.
This future is both possible and affordable, and we already have the tools in place to begin. However, we need to make improvements to our current electricity grid(电网) first. Additionally, the United States needs to carry out a clean energy policy for renewables.
1. The passage is mainly about _______.| A．protecting the environment |
| B．the use of renewable energy |
| C．reducing global warming |
| D．the form of renewable energy |
| A．Tired. | B．Removed. |
| C．Created. | D．Used up. |
| A．Solar. | B．Geothermal. |
| C．Hydropower. | D．Fossil fuels. |
| A．Doing good to our economy, climate, and health. |
| B．Partly increasing global warming. |
| C．Increasing our cost. |
| D．Improving current electricity grid. |
【推荐1】You may know the English letters A, B and C. But do you know there are people called ABC? You may like eating bananas. But do you know there are such people with the name of "banana person"? How strange! Are these people from "another planet"? No. They are just Chinese people like you and me.
ABC means American—born—Chinese. An ABC is a Chinese, but was born in the United States. Sometimes, people call an ABC a "banana person". A banana is yellow outside and white inside. So, a “banana person” is white inside--thinking like a Westerner and yellow outside-looking like a Chinese.
Do you know why? Usually, ABCs know little about China or the Chinese language. Some of them do not speak Chinese. Also, they are not interested in Chinese politics. But if ABC cannot speak Chinese, can we still call them Chinese people? Yes, of course. They are Chinese. They are overseas Chinese. These people may be citizens of another country, like the US, England or
Canada, but they have Chinese blood. Their parents, grandparents or even great-grandparents were from China. They all have black eyes and black hair. But they are not Chinese citizens. They are not people of the People's Republic of China. For example, we all know the famous scientist C.N.Yang. He got the Noble Prize in 1957. Chinese people love him. But he is an American citizen.
1. Chinese in Western countries are called "banana persons" because _________| A．their bodies are white inside but yellow outside |
| B．they think like westerners but look like Chinese |
| C．they were born in China but go to study in American |
| D．they were born in American but work in China |
| A．blood relationship | B．a large water flow |
| C．blood sample | D．lose blood from one’s body |
| A．American Chinese are great | B．Chinese people can win Noble Prize |
| C．American Chinese aren’t Chinese citizens | D．we don’t like him |
| A．Chinese | B．the Noble Prize |
| C．the story of C.N.Yang | D．the meaning of “ABC” |
【推荐2】No rainforest is exactly the same—yet most rainforests are now in the small land area 23.26 degrees north and 23.26 degrees south of the Equator (赤道), between the Tropic of Capricorn and the Tropic of Cancer. You can find tropical (热带的) rainforests in South America and Indonesia. Other rainforests grow well further from the Equator, in Thailand and Sri Lanka.
Despite covering a relatively small area, rainforests have a big role to play in supporting the world. Tropical rainforests are home to a rich variety of plants, food, birds and animals. Can you believe that a single bush in the Amazon may have more species of ants than the whole of Britain? Four hundred and eighty varieties of trees may be found in just one hectare of rainforest.
Rainforests are the lungs of the planet—storing huge quantities of CO2 and producing a large amount of the world’s oxygen. Rainforests have their own perfect system for ensuring their own survival.
Amazingly, the trees grow in such a way that their leaves and branches, although close together, never actually touch those of another tree. Scientists think this is a deliberate (故意的) way to prevent the spread of any tree diseases and make life more difficult for leaf-eating insects such as caterpillars.
To survive in the forest, animals must climb, jump or fly. The ground floor of the forest is not all tangled (缠结的) leaves and bushes, as in films, but is actually fairly clear. It is where leaves are destroyed slowly and turned into food for the trees and other forest life.
Worryingly, rainforests around the world are disappearing at an alarming rate, thanks to deforestation, river pollution and soil erosion (流失) as land is being lost for agriculture and trees are cut down for wood. A few thousand years ago, tropical rainforests covered as much as 12 per cent of the land surface on Earth, but today this has fallen to less than 7 per cent.
We can only hope that the world governments work together to preserve the rainforests—beautiful and important for our existence.
1. What’s the main idea of paragraph 2?| A．The area and history of rainforests. |
| B．The future development of rainforests. |
| C．Rainforests are the lungs of the planet. |
| D．Rainforests are home to animals and plants. |
| A．The leaves of two trees never touch each other. |
| B．There are few leaf-eating insects in the rainforests. |
| C．The leaves and branches of trees are close together. |
| D．The rich soil of the rainforests helps trees grow. |
| A．Rainforests cover a relatively large area. |
| B．Rainforests are under proper protection now. |
| C．Rainforests are the same as described in films. |
| D．Rainforests cover less than 7 per cent of the land surface now. |
| A．Uncared. | B．Angry. | C．Concerned. | D．Acceptable. |
【推荐3】“The Road Not Taken” appears as a preface to Frost’s Mountain Interval, which was published in 1916 when Europe was engulfed in World War I; the United States would enter the war a year later. Frost wrote this poem at a time when many men doubted they would ever go back to what they had left.
Actually, Robert Frost wrote “The Road Not Taken” as a joke for a friend, the poet Edward Thomas. When they went walking together. Thomas was habitually indecisive about which road they ought to take and when looking back often regretted that they should, in fact, have taken the other one. Soon after writing the poem in 1915. Frost complained to Thomas that he had read the poem to an audience of college students and that it had been “taken pretty seriously... despite doing my best to make it obvious by my manner that I was fooling. ... It is my fault.” However, Frost liked to make jokes, “I’m never more serious than when joking.”
Indeed, shortly after receiving this poem in a letter, Edward Thomas’s Army was sent to Arras, France, where he was killed two months later. When Frost sent the poem to Thomas, Thomas initially failed to realize that the poem was about him. Instead, he believed it was a serious reflection on the need for decisive action.
Frost was disappointed that the joke fell flat and wrote back insisting that the sigh at the end of the poem was “a mock sigh, hypo-critical for the fun of the thing.” The joke made Thomas angry; Thomas was hurt by this characterization of what he saw as a personal weakness — his indecisiveness, which partly sprang from his paralyzing depression. Thomas warned Frost that most readers would not understand the poem’s playfulness and wrote, “I doubt if you can get anybody to see the fun of the thing without showing them and advising them which kind of laugh they are to turn on.” Edward Thomas was right, and the critic David Orr has referred to “The Road Not Taken” as a poem that “at least in its first few decades came close to being reader-proof.”
1. What did the college students think of the poem?| A．It fooled them. | B．It deserved high praise. |
| C．It confused them in a manner. | D．It concerned something serious. |
| A．He felt so hurt by it as to go to Arras. | B．He wrote back to criticize its mock sigh. |
| C．He doubted if anybody could see its fun. | D．He thought it relevant to the situation then. |
| A．Readers were forbidden from reading the poem. |
| B．Readers didn’t know who to laugh at in the poem. |
| C．Readers might fail to appreciate the teasing in the poem. |
| D．Readers couldn’t appreciate the beauty described in the poem. |
| A．A Poem Over-interpreted | B．Friendship revealed by a Poem |
| C．Fun of Rereading a Classic Poem | D．The Secret to Understanding a Poem |
