For one week in May, more than 100,000 people in the UK carefully counted their plastic waste at home in a national investigation into plastic use and recycling. It was called the Big Plastic Count, run by organizations Greenpeace and Everyday Plastic.
So how did they get on, and what did they discover about their dependency on a material that has become a part of our everyday lives?
Jules, 41, and her family threw away 124 pieces of plastic during their week of counting. The packaging in party bags and sticker packs for her daughter’s sixth birthday was the most upsetting, she says. She had thought her household was quite low plastic and so was “shocked” by how much they used. “It’s the hidden stuff that isn’t recyclable—like pizza wrappers—that gets you,” Jules explains.
“Every single sheet for the stickers in the party bags came individually wrapped in its own unrecyclable bag, and then they were packed together in a bigger bag,” she says.
Her children are passionate about protecting the environment but Jules says she finds it very hard as a consumer to make the right choices.
“We can only do so much. It’s in the manufacturer’s hands. The whole thing is such a juggle (杂耍).” Taylor, a 25-year-old scheduler, says of the 70 pieces of plastic he counted, it was the cucumber packaging that upset him the most. He has family who live abroad where he says it’s easy to buy fruits and vegetables without any plastic. He’d also like to see more local produce in shops direct from farmers, which would reduce the need for excessive packaging used to transport goods long distances.
“I get progressively more upset with the fact that supermarkets sell so much plastic,” he says. Even if he could find plastic-free alternatives, he says the cost is exorbitant. “The price of everything is going up, but things that are better for the environment are much more expensive,” he says.
1. What was Jules’ reaction to the plastic packaging in her house?| A．Nervous | B．Annoyed | C．Desperate. | D．Tolerant. |
| A．Flexible | B．Reasonable. | C．Low | D．Sky-high. |
| A．Consumers can’t control the plastic packaging. |
| B．Almost every family has many plastic products. |
| C．Taylor’s parents don’t like cucumber packaging. |
| D．Jules’ children like to collect plastic waste. |
| A．Health. | B．Business. | C．Environment. | D．Entertainment. |
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【推荐1】It should be one of the main goals in today society to reduce plastic consumption. Though many believe recycling will solve the problem, and continue using plastic, it’s actually the opposite. In 2013, 254 million tons of trash was produced in the U.S. alone, and only around 30% was recycled. This means the rest ended up in a landfill and will stay there for up to 1000 years.
Recently, China has stopped importing trash from all over the world. Before this, over 30% of the world’s waste would end up in China, causing a popular belief that Asian countries are those responsible for creating the majority of the waste in the world. Now, Asian countries, including Vietnam and Thailand, are looking for new ideas to avoid plastic. One of those ideas was a new, eco-friendly way to pack their goods by avoiding plastic packaging.
One of Perfect Homes Chiangmai’s team members noticed a creative way to reduce plastic that a supermarket called Rimping Supermarket was using and decided to take photos of their shelves with his phone. Little did he know that people all around the world would absolutely love this idea. “I just popped in to get a few items while we were waiting to sign some contracts (合同) with our lawyer, who was delayed. When I noticed the vegetables wrapped in banana leaves and simply liked the idea, I took a few pictures and posted them online.” he said.
With more than 3.5 million views and over 17 thousand shares, the idea became something people can encourage more supermarkets to implement (贯彻).
Some have noticed that not everything on the shelves is completely plastic-free, to which the supermarket responded that they are taking one step at a time, but it’s not that easy. Many products come to the supermarkets pre-packaged and many companies are interested in wrapping their produce in plastic since it is the cheapest and the easiest option.
It’s now up to the shoppers to show the supermarket which they prefer. If everyone opts for the banana leaf packaging, they will probably stop stocking the items in plastic.
1. What does the underlined phrase “opts for” in the last paragraph probably mean?| A．Doubts. | B．Discusses. | C．Dislikes. | D．Chooses. |
| A．Leaf Packaging Goes Viral (走红) |
| B．Reducing Plastic Consumption |
| C．Recycling Avoids Plastic Packaging |
| D．A Good Option Makes A Difference |
【推荐2】Have you ever wondered how an ecosystem functions? Why do there exist so many mosquitoes and so few tigers? What makes the numbers of diverse species? Now scientists have figured out mathematical models of food webs, noting who eats whom and how much each one eats.
Drawing upon the models, scientists have discovered some key principles operating in food webs. Most food webs, for instance, consist of many weak links rather than a few strong ones. When a predator (掠食动物) always eats huge numbers of a single prey (猎物), the two species are strongly linked; when a predator lives on various species, they are weakly linked. Food webs may be dominated by many weak links because that arrangement is more stable over the long term. If a predator can eat several species, it can survive the extinction of one of them. And if a predator can move on to another species that is easier to find when a prey species becomes rare, the switch allows the original prey to recover. The weak links may thus keep species from driving on another to extinction.
Mathematical models have also revealed that food webs may be unstable, where small changes of top predators can lead to big effects throughout entire ecosystems. In the 1960s, scientists proposed that predators at the top of a food web had a surprising amount of control over the size of populations of other species — including species they did not directly attack.
And unplanned human activities have proved the idea of top-down control by top predators to be true. In the ocean, we fished for predators such as cod on an industrial scale, while on land, we killed off large predators such as wolves. These actions have greatly affected the ecological balance.
Scientists have built an early-warning system based on mathematical models. Ideally, the system would tell us when to adapt human activities that are pushing an ecosystem toward a breakdown or would even allow us to pull an ecosystem back from the borderline. Prevention is key, scientists say because once ecosystems pass their tipping point (临界点), it is remarkably difficult for them to return.
1. What have been found with the help of mathematical models of food webs?| A．The rules regulating food webs of the ecosystems. |
| B．The different living habits of species in food webs. |
| C．The approaches to studying the species in the ecosystems. |
| D．The differences between weak and strong links in food webs. |
| A．Leopards stick to eating antelopes. |
| B．Crocodiles sometimes attack eels. |
| C．Wolves are not picky about their food, even insects. |
| D．Killer whales attack humans in extreme conditions. |
| A．The direct prey species will die out. |
| B．Other species will remain almost unaffected. |
| C．The indirect prey species will become top predators. |
| D．Other species will face unexpected changes in populations. |
| A．By getting illegal practices under control. |
| B．By stopping us from killing large predators. |
| C．By signaling the urgency for taking preventive action. |
| D．By fixing and reconstructing the broken-down ecosystems. |
【推荐3】About 70 kilometers offshore from the southern coast of Iceland, there is a volcanic island called Westman Islands. Every summer, locals can often be seen standing on the edge of the cliffs (悬崖) throwing birds down. The birds they throw are called puffins (海鹦), a type of seabird. Puffins are the most common bird in Iceland, and the Westman Islands are the largest puffin habitat in the world. Every year in late spring, the puffin producing season arrives and the islands are filled with busy puffins.
However, in the past 20 years, these puffins have been slowly disappearing for various reasons, one of which has something to do with their nature. Each year, the babies are born and grow in the caves on the high sea cliffs. About two months later, they will leave the cave to seek food on the ocean by following the moonlight. But they always mistake humans lights on the ground for the moon, and eventually lose their way and crash into the town. They are too young to fly back to the ocean again. Unable to find food, they are left to wait for death.
Over time, the locals realized that freeing the young puffins at the cliffs could set them on the correct path. So a puffin patrol (巡逻队) made up of mainly local children was formed. Their mission is to search for lost baby puffins in the streets with boxes. flashlights and food on the nights of September and October every year. Once found, baby puffins will be taken to the cliff and set free to the ocean. Over the years, the puffin patrol has gradually become a tradition, working quietly for the protection of puffins.
In spite of the love and care of the children, the number of puffins has dropped greatly ind recent years due to climate change, environmental pollution and rising sea temperatures, So there is still a lot of angst about what their future will be like.
1. Why do the baby puffins always arrive at town?| A．They try to search for food in town. | B．They lose their way during the flight. |
| C．They intend to rest during the flight. | D．They find it a better producing place. |
| A．To help puffins produce young. | B．To feed the young puffins. |
| C．To rescue the endangered puffins. | D．To direct puffins with lights. |
| A．Concern. | B．Origin. | C．Approach. | D．Joy. |
| A．How do we prepare for the puffin season? | B．Why are the baby puffins thrown off cliffs? |
| C．Why is the population of puffins falling? | D．How can we free young puffins correctly? |
【推荐1】Have you ever spent half an hour searching the Internet which, as you find out afterwards, lasted three hours, or opened a book shortly after breakfast and a little while later noticed that the room was getting darker?
Most people can remember experiencing such a state. Your mind wasn’t wandering; you were totally focused and concentrated on that activity, to such an extent that you were not even aware of yourself. Psychologists call these fully absorbing (引人入胜的) experiences flow states, which were discovered and named by a world-famous psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. His book Flow: The Psychology of Happiness became an ins tant best-seller, making its way to the top self-help classics.
The state of flow happens under very specific conditions —when we encounter a challenge that is testing for our skills, and yet our skills and capacities are just about possible to meet this challenge. So both the challenge and the skills are at high levels, stretching us almost to the limit. If challenges exceed(超过) skills, one can become anxious. If skills exceed challenges, we usually become bored. Neither of these two cases results in flow.
What is also interesting in flow is the almost total absence of emotions during the actual process. One seems to be almost beyond experiencing emotions, most likely because the awareness of self is not present. Mihaly himself is also very much aware of the potential negative impact of the flow. One philosopher once described his own experience of flow: “When I get totally involved in the conversation, I am not aware of myself, the world around or the passage of time. Sometimes, I may become addictive to that existence, unwilling to cope with other daily routines of life, like forgetting dinner, and saying goodbye to my children.”
1. Why does the writer describe the phenomenon at the beginning?| A．To offer a background of the topic. |
| B．To clarify the definition of the topic. |
| C．To make a summary for the passage. |
| D．To introduce the topic of the passage. |
| A．Adopting a dog. | B．Watching a film. | C．Going to a party. | D．Playing the chess. |
| A．The state of flow is little conditional. |
| B．Skills are the most important in flow. |
| C．Geniuses at normal schools may get bored. |
| D．Challenges at high levels push us to the limit. |
| A．The “flow state” can have its drawbacks. |
| B．We must make plans for our daily life. |
| C．Spending time with family is necessary. |
| D．Enjoying flow is difficult for most of us. |
【推荐2】Walking through an airport is never easy. Now imagine doing it if you were blind. That’s the problem faced by Chieko Asakawa, computer scientist and IBM researcher. Asakawa often flies between the US and Japan, making the journey monthly. If traveling alone, she has to be helped at both ends of the flight, which sometimes includes endless waiting. Searching for a better replacement led Asakawa to invent a high-tech suitcase that helps get her to the place she wants to go safely.
“I never relax when I travel alone,” she says. “I always think about what technology will help me travel more easily, quickly and comfortably.” It was this restlessness that led to the AI suitcase.
The idea has been in development since 2017 through research between IBM. other Japanese companies, and Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania. Asakawa says there are hopes to commercialize the suitcase and pilot scheme (试验计划) is planned to use it in an airport, a shopping mall and other public spaces. Though the suitcase is too full of tech to hold any clothes, that could change in the future, she says.
A runner, Asakawa held Olympic dreams as a child, but a swimming accident at age 11 caused her to gradually lose her sight until, aged 14, she became totally blind. As a grown-up she has paid attention to developing accessibility technology. Among her creations is “a Designer,” whose aim is to make designers’ websites more user-friendly, and “IBM Home Page Reader”, the first voice browser to allow Internet access for blind people. Asakawa has won industry and government awards and been introduced into the US National Inventors Hall of Fame.
“The blind people usually use a white cane (手杖) or a guide dog. A smart suitcase will open up many doors for blind people, because we’d be able to go anywhere by ourselves. Without new technology, we can not make our society more inclusive,” Asakawa says. “The suitcase is a great showcase for how AI and technology can change the lives of the blind.”
1. What drove Asakawa to invent the suitcase?| A．The great commercial value of the suitcase. |
| B．The suggestion from an international airport. |
| C．The previous experience of keeping the blind company. |
| D．The wish to finish her trip smoothly without others’ help. |
| A．It can hold a lot of clothes. |
| B．It has yet to be widely used. |
| C．It has proved unhelpful for the blind. |
| D．It is ready to be commercially produced. |
| A．It will change people’s way of traveling. |
| B．It will hugely free up the blind’s movements. |
| C．It will make the public care for the blind more. |
| D．It will encourage scientists to do more researches. |
| A．AI suitcase will help the blind go around. |
| B．Technology is changing the blind people’s lives. |
| C．A robot suitcase makes traveling easy and popular. |
| D．Traveling alone requires much courage for the disabled. |
【推荐3】What are two things that make humans different from animals? One is language and the other is music. It’s true that some animals can sing. However, the songs of animals like birds are very limited. It’s also true that humans, not animals, have developed musical instruments.
Music is a strange thing. It’s clearly distinct from language. However, people can use music to communicate things — especially their emotions. When music is combined (组合) with speech in a song, it’s a very powerful form of communication.
If music is truly different from speech, then we should process music and language in different parts of the brain. The scientific evidence suggests that this is true. For example, Vissarion Shebalin, a Russian composer, had a stroke (中风) in 1953. It injured the left side of his brain. He could no longer speak or understand speech. He could, however, still compose music until his death ten years later. On the other hand, sometimes strokes cause people to lose their musical ability, but they can still speak and understand speech.
By studying the physical effects of music on the body, scientists have also learnt a lot about how music influences the emotions. But why does music have such a strong effect on us? That is a harder question to answer.
Geoffrey Miller, a researcher at University College, London, thinks that music and love have a strong connection. Music requires special talent, practice and physical ability. That’s why it may be a way of showing your fitness to be someone’s mate. For example, playing a musical instrument requires fine muscular control. You also need a good memory to remember the notes. And playing those notes correctly suggests that your hearing is in excellent condition. Finally, when a man sings to the woman he loves, it may be a way of showing off.
However, Miller’s theory still doesn’t explain why certain combinations of sounds influence our emotions so deeply. For scientists, this is clearly an area that needs further research.
1. What can we learn from the first paragraph?| A．Music is a common language. | B．Humans are advanced animals. |
| C．Music is closely related to humans. | D．Animals can use music to communicate. |
| A．Different. | B．Direct. | C．Free. | D．Far. |
| A．Music is another form of language. |
| B．Music can inspire people’s creativity. |
| C．Gifted people have more opportunities to succeed. |
| D．’The brain processes music and language separately. |
| A．It was advanced at that time. | B．It made a valuable contribution. |
| C．It sill needs to be improved. | D．It will be confirmed by younger scientists. |
