Imagine a world without insects. It might sound good at first without creepy-crawly bugs and annoying flies in your apartment. However, the results would be harmful.
The number of insects has dropped by more than half in the past decades, according to British biologist Dave Goulson, author of Silent Earth: Averting the Insect Apocalypse. As insects make up most of the known species on this planet, this data is not good news.
Insects are indeed on the path to dying out, according to the first global scientific review of insect population decrease, which was published in the journal Biological Conservation in January 2019. The researchers say intensive agriculture has been the main cause of the decrease. Pesticides(杀虫剂), in particular, destroy insect habitats. Urbanization and climate change are also significant reasons. “Unless we convert our ways of producing food, insects will go down the path of dying out in a few decades.”
What would happen to Earth without insects? It’s almost impossible to predict, but the soil healthy and much more. Without insects, many animals would have nothing to eat, and the predators(捕食者) of those animals would go hungry ns well. The ecosystem(生态系统)would be thrown off balance.
“If insect species losses cannot be stopped, this will have harmful effects for both the planet’s ecosystems and for the survival of mankind, said Sanchez-Bayo. once of the authors of the review. The first step to stop this process is “to build a society that values the natural world, both for what it does for us and for its own sake”, Sanchez-Bayo suggests. “The obvious place to start is with our children, encouraging environmental awareness from an early age.”
1. What is people’s general impression of insects?A.Very interesting. | B.Quite unpleasant. |
C.Extremely helpful. | D.Unexpectedly harmful. |
A.Drop. | B.Change. | C.Expand. | D.Simplify. |
A.Insects keep the earth ecosystem. |
B.Insects ensure the earth’s diversity. |
C.Insects make the soil dry and healthy. |
D.Insects help slow down climate change. |
A.Use nature in a gentle way. |
B.Produce less food for human beings. |
C.Educate younger generation to know about it. |
D.Provide insects with enough habitats and food. |
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【推荐1】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2】The temperature was rising to 90 degrees on Tuesday in the hills of the Delaware Water Gap National Recreational Area, when Lexie Daniel and her friends saw a heroic act of kindness to save a dog’s life.
Lexie and her fellow hikers met a man whose dog was seriously overheated. Even though they donated (捐赠) their water, they were afraid it wouldn’t be enough to save the pup, after seeing how much the dog was already struggling.
“The owner brought along a huge jug, but no water seemed to be helping,” Lexie told GNN.
Too tired to carry the dog himself, the loving owner called the park rangers as soon as possible. Supervisory Park Ranger Kris Salapek soon found them on the trail (追踪). Kris then lifted the huge dog onto his shoulders and carried him down the mountain. “It was a long distance-a couple miles down a difficult rocky path,” says Lexie.
When they reached the stream, Kris laid him in the water as he knelt beside him and poured water on him. The ranger then picked him back up over his shoulders and walked all the way back down to the street for about an hour.
Lexie’s cousin Tori Matyola said, “The owner hiked down ahead of the ranger so that once he got down the mountain he had the car ready to take him straight to the vet. The dog was looking a little better by the time he got to the car and picking up his head.”
When she got home, Lexie, a pediatric (小儿科的) nurse from Hackettstown, New Jersey, posted the good deed on Facebook and it went viral with 35,000 people sharing the post and showing admiration for the ranger.
“This is a HERO,” Lexie wrote. “We are so lucky to have rangers like this who put animals before themselves. This ranger deserves recognition and a standing ovation (列队鼓掌) for his bravery, selflessness, and strength.”
1. What were Lexie and her fellow hikers worried about?A.The dog’s struggle for more water. | B.The dog’s lack of water to keep alive. |
C.The owner’s unability to feed his dog. | D.The owner’s tiredness to carry the dog. |
A.It was tough. | B.It was simple. | C.It was unbelievable. | D.It was unexpected. |
A.To clean it. | B.To feed it. | C.To cool it. | D.To relax it. |
A.Her appreciation to Kris. | B.Her relief of the dog’s recovery. |
C.The ranger’s example set to people. | D.The ranger’s experience of saving the dog. |
【推荐3】For months, their adventure through China’s south-western Yunnan province had gone almost unnoticed. But last week, when images of a group of 15 Asian elephants walking through a residential(居民的) area appeared on social media, it immediately seized the imagination of the nation, stirring up considerable media interest and questions as to what caused their unusual journey.
The movement was so unusual that authorities sent as many as 360 people with 76 cars and nine drones(无人机) to track it. State TV has spent days following their every footstep. Chinese wildlife authorities have been struggling to understand why the elephants left their natural habitat last year. According to Xinhua, a group of 16 wild elephants began the journey in March 2020 to the north. In November, they arrived in Pu’er in Yunnan, where a female elephant gave birth to a baby, and settled there for five months. They then continued the walk on 16 April. A week later, two left the group, leaving 15 to continue their odyssey.
The appearance of the animals has not been warmly received by residents in Yunnan. Along the way, they have caused much destruction, eating whole fields of corn and ruining farm buildings. State broadcaster CCTV has estimated the damage to be at least 6.8m yuan ($1.07m). Fortunately, no human death has been reported so far.
Chinese experts said there had been other reports of elephants wandering into villages and harming crops in recent years. “Large-scale human engineering developments have changed the ‘islanding’ of elephant habitats,” said Zhang Li, a professor from Beijing Normal University. “The traditional zones between humans and elephants are gradually disappearing, and the chances of elephants’ facing humans naturally increase greatly.”
The wild elephant population in Yunnan is about 300, up from 170 in 1980, but the habitat area has decreased from 2,084 square km in 1976 to less than 500 square km in recent years.
1. What happened to the group of wild elephants in Yunnan?A.They got trapped while approaching a residential area. |
B.They headed north after leaving their natural habitat. |
C.They had a newborn baby in March 2020. |
D.They split up and three male elephants left. |
A.Adventure. | B.Break. | C.Struggle. | D.Victory. |
A.Excited. | B.Confused. | C.Embarrassed. | D.Annoyed. |
A.Wild elephants got on well with humans in the past. |
B.An island will be reserved to protect wild elephants. |
C.The number of wild elephants will stay stable. |
D.There may be more human-elephant conflicts in the future. |
【推荐1】A new study says that no matter how much the world cuts back on greenhouse gases, a large and important part of ice of Antarctica (南极洲) is expected to disappear.
Researchers used computer models to expect the future melting (融化) of protective ice around Antarctica’s Amundsen Sea in western Antarctica. They said the melting will take hundreds of years. It will slowly add nearly 1.8 meters to sea levels. And it will be enough to change where and how people live in the future.
The study found that even if future warming was limited to just a few tenths of a degree more, it would have limited power to prevent ocean warming that could lead to the breakdown of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.
Study lead writer Kaitlin Naughten is an expert on oceans at the British Antarctic Survey. She said their research suggests that Earth is set on the path to a quickly increasing speed of ocean warming and ice shelf melting over the rest of the century.
While past studies have talked about how serious the situation is, Naughten was the first to use computer modeling to study how warm water from below will melt the ice. The study looked at four different cases in how much greenhouse gases the world produces. In each case, ocean warming was just too much for this area of the ice to survive.
Naughten looked at floating areas of ice that hold back glaciers (冰川). Once these areas of ice melt, there is nothing to stop the glaciers behind them from flowing (流) into the sea.
The study also looked at what would happen if future warming was limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius over mid-19th century levels: the international goal. They found the rapid melting process in this case as well.
The world has already warmed about 1.2 degrees Celsius since pre-industrial times and much of this summer went past the 1.5 degrees mark.
1. Which can best describe the findings of the study?A.Cheerful. | B.Encouraging. | C.Misleading. | D.Disappointing. |
A.Her research area. | B.Her research time. |
C.Her research method. | D.Her research purpose. |
A.They will flow into the sea. | B.They protect the Antarctic ice. |
C.They have warmed about 1.2℃. | D.They disappear faster than other ice. |
A.Ice in Parts of Antaretica Will Disappear | B.Climate Change Will Harm Humans |
C.Sea Level Will Rise Suddenly in the Future | D.Limiting Greenhouse Gases Makes No Sense |
【推荐2】President Theodore Roosevelt is remembered for his speech. His lines included "speak softly and carry a big stick". He also said, "The government is us; we are the government, you and I." Roosevelt was also a conservationist and his skills came into play in support of that cause.
At the Conference of Governors in 1908, the question of what should be done with America's natural resources was discussed. It might sound ordinary now, but then it was something new. Roosevelt opened the conference with a speech titled "Conservation as a National Duty". Conservation "is second only ...to the great fundamental questions of morality". "We have become great in a material sense because of the wasteful use of our resources," he explained. "But the time has come to inquire seriously what will happen when our forests are gone, when the resources are used up, when the soils shall have been still further impoverished (使贫瘠) and washed into the streams, polluting the rivers and making the fields bare." He said by planning ahead, these could be avoided.
Roosevelt understood there would be impediments when saying resource use should be limited. For centuries citizens held the belief that the land with abundant resources belonged to them and allowed free use (and misuse) for survival and profit. Yet he also knew that was a must.
During his presidential years since 1901, he had worked to establish a system and create national wildlife reserves, but his opening speech in 1908 was a critical moment in conservation. It positioned conservation "in a way that reassessed America's past actions and warned its possible future if nature was not saved". The address greatly affected Americans,view of conservation. It made conservation sound public and moral rather than a private and economic issue. And Roosevelt did so on a grand stage: his event involved all levels of governments and created a spectacle (壮观的场面) for the press to report on. Newspapers which were filled with advance notice of the Conference of Governors wrote at length about the event and Roosevelt's speech.
1. How did Roosevelt stress the importance of conservation in his speech?A.By putting it in a place before morality. |
B.By listing potential consequences of overdeveloping. |
C.By criticizing Americans' use of resources. |
D.By giving examples of environmental destruction. |
A.Approvals. | B.Failures. | C.Risks. | D.Barriers. |
A.was highly valued by newspapers |
B.won support from all government members |
C.promoted the establishment of the system |
D.made conservation a private and economic issue |
A.Conservation and Morality, Which Comes First |
B.President Roosevelt Contributed Much to the US |
C.An Address Changed Americans'Attitude to Nature |
D.Roosevelt, a Great Man Remembered for His Speech |
【推荐3】A new report says plastics are responsible for $13 billion in damage to the oceans and the undersea environment. The findings were announced recently at a United Nations conference.
Plastic thrown away carelessly makes its way into rivers and other waterways.
The report also calls on companies to improve methods for using plastics.
But all of the companies must join to deal with the problem.
A.It asks for them to better measure and direct plastic use. |
B.But people can make a big difference. |
C.Plastics should be gathered together and reused.. |
D.It is convenient to use plastic bags in everyday life. |
E.Then, fish may eat the plastics. |
F.The report tells about harm to sea life and what might be done to improve the situation. |
G.The plastic eventually reaches coastal areas and ocean waters |
Drayton believes that anyone can become an agent for change. The important thing is to simply give yourself permission. If you see a problem that you care about, you can help solve it. The young in particular are willing to accept this concept because at heart every child wants to grow into a happy, healthy, contributing adult. In fact ,It is many young people's ambition to set up programmes or businesses that improve social conditions. An excellent example is an Ashoka project started in 1995 in Dhaka, which handled the rubbish problem facing the city ,helped local farmers and provided an income for poor people there .
When Masqsood and Iftekhar began to study the problem of all the uncollected rubbish that lay in Dhaka’s streets. Attracting tats and disease , they discovered that 80% of it was natural waste . So they educated the poor people in the city to compost (把……制成堆粪)this waste . They knew that they would have a market for the end product because local farmers were struggling with chemical ferntilisers (化肥) which were expensive and had reduced the natural minerals in the soil over the years . At first , they were refused ,but once they were able to persuade that there was money to be made , the project took off. In 2009 sales were $14,000.
Drayton is optimistic that in ten years Ashoka will be making really serious, practical progress in bringing about social change by changing the way we look at economic development.
1. Which of the following could be the best title for the passage?A.changemakers | B.Businessmen |
C.Social Conditions | D.Rubbish Problem |
A.the local farmers | B.Masqsood and Iftekhar |
C.Drayton and his team | D.the poor people in Dhaka |
A.considers Drayton's concept |
B.gets permission from Ashoka |
C.tries to improve social conditions |
D.is a young, happy and healthy adult |
A.changing | B.forgiving | C.cautious | D.Positive |
【推荐2】The rhino census (犀牛普查) is out, bearing good news for the greater one-horned rhinos! In September, 2022, the International Rhino Foundation (IRF) documented in a report that there is a baby boom in this population, representing an increase of 167 percent.
According to the report, there are a total of 4,014 greater one-homed rhinos living m India, Nepal, and Bhutan. Although this is positive news, their IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) status still remains vulnerable.
In India alone, the home to 70 percent of the world’s greater one-homed rhinos, there was an increase of 274 rhinos since the last bi-annual census, according to the organization Rhino Review.
An important reason for this baby boom is the fact that Assam, India, has enlarged Kaziringo National Park, home to the world’s largest one-homed rhino population. The park went from 430 square kilometers to 1,040 square kilometers. This gives more breeding areas for the things, and they are closed to visitors during breeding season.
India and Nepal are also protecting the rhinos by enforcing wildlife crime laws. To reduce rhino death by poaching (偷猎), the IRF donates vehicles and equipment, plus education including guard training and crime investigation.
The IRF data for other rhino species is not as promising, although the greater one-horned rhino numbers are encouraging for future conservation. According to the report, there is a decline in Sumatran rhinos, Africa’s white rhinos, while the Javan rhino population is stable and threatened by loss of habitat.
The State of the Rhino report offers hope for these other species. Given that the greater one-horned things were once close to extinction, with fewer than 100 living in the world, their recovery is incredible. This demonstrates that there are solutions when organizations and people work together. It is hoped that this successful rhino baby boom will affect other endangered wildlife species around the globe.
1. What contributes to the baby boom of one-homed rhinos in Assam, India?A.Extending the protected areas for rhinos. |
B.Raising fund to set up more reserves for rhinos. |
C.Leaving the one-homed rhinos alone in the wild. |
D.Keeping visitors away from the Kaziringo National Park. |
A.Cooperating with other organizations. |
B.Enhancing anti-poaching efforts. |
C.Transferring the rhinos to other habitats. |
D.Guarding the rhinos with new equipment. |
A.Rhinos are no longer a vulnerable species. |
B.Rhinos will affect other wildlife in the world. |
C.Everyone can play a role in protecting nature. |
D.It is possible to protect other endangered species. |
A.To inform good news on the greater one-horned rhinos. |
B.To show the measures of the greater one-homed rhinos. |
C.To introduce an endangered species — the greater one-homed rhinos. |
D.To indicate the decline of other species of rhino population. |
【推荐3】Like the move from horse-drawn carriages to vehicles powered by internal-combustion engines, the change from cars powered by fossil fuels to electric vehicles (EVs) will have a profound effect on personal transport. The Epidemic worldwide caused a 20% drop in global light vehicle sales in 2020, to about 70m, but they pick up in 2021. And the proportion of vehicles powered by batteries will grow quickly.
The increasing share price of Tesla, provides a big motivation for newcomers to catch up. Tesla may lead in battery technology and software, but to make those advantages stick, it must prove that “production hell” is behind it. Scaling up manufacturing has caused Tesla its biggest headaches.
Big name carmakers face an equally discouraging challenge: learning how to write software. Electric cars require integrated software, not just to ensure that batteries and motors work together to provide the best performance, but to connect the car to the outside world.
And what of the Tesla followers, from China’s Li, Nio and Xpeng to American firms such as Fisker, Lucid and Nikola? Cash from excitable investors has poured in and it is the same with big name carmakers — as are tech giants, keen to get involved as transport goes digital. Can the followers persuade investors that they have patent technology that will give them a long-term advantage?
Eye-catching Advertisements of vehicles are one thing, but as the industry’s trouble shows, working out how to make cars at scale, when softwares are as important as brakes and bodywork, is quite another. The coming year will make clearer which of Tesla’s competitors, new and old, can stay in race.
1. Which word best describes the trend of electric cars industry?A.Disappointing. | B.Promising. |
C.Uncertain. | D.Challenging. |
A.Its advertising is considered to be exaggerating. |
B.It has to compete with many capable newcomers. |
C.Its production capacity has become a bottleneck. |
D.It may lose its advantage in software writing. |
A.They are mostly well-established companies. |
B.Their share prices are catching up with those of Tesla. |
C.Their problem lies in improving brakes and bodywork. |
D.They are all receiving money from eager investors. |
A.The Battle Within the EV Industry |
B.New EV Companies Are Catching up |
C.Electric Cars—Your Future Choice |
D.Production Capacity—a Headache of EV Industry |