Ecologists Dr. Matt Holden, Dr. Andrew Rogers and Dr. Russell Yong observed their share house and its backyard in 2020, and discovered 1,150 unique species of animals and plants over a 12-month period.
“We asked a large number of ecologists and conservation scientists how many species they’d expect to find in this setting and they said it could be only 200,”Dr. Holden said. “But after 60 days of surveying, we’d already discovered 777 species. It shows suburban (郊区的) houses and apartments could have far more biodiversity (生物多样性) than ever imagined, especially when it comes to insects.”
The idea of the species count was born when Dr. Rogers went to clean spider’s webs (蜘蛛网) in his room and wondered how many spiders were in the house. “The three of us soon worked out a plan to check the house and backyard in search of other insects that lived alongside us,” Dr. Holden said.
The survey showed richly biodiverse creatures, including 436 moth and butterfly species, 56 different spiders, and 56 birds. The researchers were also surprised to discover three species not previously recorded in Australia’s leading biodiversity database. “The house was a rich ecosystem of species interacting—we discovered unexpectedly a kind of moth, which spends its whole time feeding inside the waste of other animals before turning into an adult,” Dr. Holden said.
Homes across all suburban areas could play host to similar biodiversity. “It depends on how people tend to their homes and gardens—keeping low maintenance trees and flowers and preventing chemicals used for killing insects will lead to the rising number of living creatures,” Dr. Holden said. “You don’t have to go travelling to connect with Australia’s different species of creatures. Just look in your own backyard.”
1. How many species did the three housemates discover in 12 months?| A．200. | B．436. | C．700. | D．1, 150. |
| A．Cleaning his room. | B．Observing the spiders. |
| C．A talk with his friend. | D．A mass of dead insects. |
| A．Australia has seen a jump in living creatures. | B．Suburban backyards are home to diverse species. |
| C．Wildlife tourism threatens animals and plants. | D．People should keep their gardens free of insects. |
| A．A children’s story. | B．A museum guide. |
| C．A science magazine. | D．A health report. |
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【推荐1】Cambodia recorded 792 rare white-shouldered ibises (白肩黑鹮) in its 2022 census (统计), an increase of 5 percent from 755 birds in a year earlier, conservationists said on Thursday.
Bou Vorsak, director of BirdLife in Cambodia, said the census, jointly conducted by the members of the Cambodian Ibis Working Group (CIWG), found 377 white-shouldered ibises at Siem Pang Wildlife Sanctuary, 326 at the Mekong Flooded Forest, and 89 at Koh Srolauv, Kulen Promtep, Lomphat, Srepok and Phnom Prich Wildlife Sanctuaries. “The white-shouldered ibis is one of the rarest birds in the world, with the global population of approximately 1,000 birds,” he told the journalist. “Cambodia is the largest habitat for this critically endangered species, accounting for nearly 80 percent of the global population.”
Vorsak said BirdLife in Cambodia is delighted to support this species working group to develop and implement the Cambodian ibis conservation action plan to protect the critically endangered birds from extinction.
Neth Pheaktra, secretary of state and spokesman for the Ministry of Environment, said the government thanked all conservation partners for their efforts to protect and conserve natural resources and wildlife, including white-shouldered ibises.
“The Ministry of Environment and non-governmental organization (NGO) partners will continue their efforts to provide safe habitats to wildlife through law enforcement (执行), local economic supporting, and other education campaigns to change public behavior,” he said. “The Ministry of Environment will continue to educate people to stop trapping, hunting, eating and trading wildlife.”
World Wide Fund (WWF) Cambodia country director Seng Teak congratulates the rising number of white-shouldered ibis population trends in Cambodia. “It is a positive result for the conservation and protection of the species. We stand ready to collaborate on the joint conservation action efforts to thrive for stronger survival of this rare species,” he said.
1. What can we learn from the first two paragraphs?| A．There were 755 ibises recorded in 2022. |
| B．The population of ibises has dropped by 5 percent. |
| C．The population of the white-shouldered ibis is small. |
| D．The white-shouldered ibis is the rarest bird in the world. |
| A．Arrange for. | B．Line up. | C．Take over. | D．Carry out. |
| A．Making policy to protect them. |
| B．Educating people not to do harm to them. |
| C．Forcing people to spare fields for wildlife. |
| D．Giving local residents economic supporting. |
| A．To make others join WWF. |
| B．To show how great work he had done. |
| C．To express his attitude to the conservation. |
| D．To convince people to keep the white-shouldered ibis. |
【推荐2】The Amazon rainforest is as pristine (处于原始状态的) a place as most people can imagine, but even there, the effects of a changing climate are playing out. Previous research found that some birds in the Amazon are experiencing drops that may be related to climate change. Now, new research suggests that as the Amazon's dry season has gotten hotter, some species are starting to evolve (进化).
For the new study, researchers studied 77 non-migratory species over a 40-year period. They reported in the journal Science Advances that 36 species have lost weight, as much as 2 percent of their body weight every ten years since 1980. Meanwhile, all the species became smaller in body size, while a third grew longer wings.
The researchers themselves are unsure what advantage the wing length changes give the birds, but smaller birds may have an easier time keeping cool. In general, smaller animals have a larger ratio (比例) of surface area to body size, so they dissipate more heat faster than a bigger animal. Less available food, such as fruit or insects, in dryer weather might lead to smaller body size.
“Think about a fighter plane. It has short wings and is heavy. It has to go really fast to stay high in the air, so it uses up plenty of energy,”says ecologist Vtek Jirinec, “who led the new study, while a glider (滑翔机) almost uses no power to stay high in the air, because it’s got these long wings, and it’s light.”
For those who wonder why a small body change in a small homebody bird should matter, Jirinec points to how our actions have effects we don’t always see － such as changing the size and shape of animals half a world away.
“We think of Amazonia as a pristine place, full of life, untouched by people, away from deforestation,” Jirinec says. “But it looks like no, not necessarily.”
1. What does the new study find out about some bird species in the Amazon rainforest?| A．They have changed physically. | B．They are dying out due to hotter weather. |
| C．They have a smaller population than before. | D．They have migrated as a result of less rainfall. |
| A．Feel. | B．Need. | C．Give out. | D．Make use of. |
| A．To study how birds speed up in the air. |
| B．To show the advantage of birds’ longer wings. |
| C．To describe how birds' wings move when flying. |
| D．To introduce the difficulty birds can meet when flying. |
| A．It isn't as attractive as it was. |
| B．It is making a quick recovery. |
| C．It is being influenced by human activities. |
| D．It isn't suitable for some bird species any longer. |
【推荐3】Most people know something about the greenhouse effect. Factories send gasses such as carbon dioxide, or CO2, into the atmosphere, the air around the earth. In the past, this wasn’t a problem because trees absorbed the CO2. But now people in many countries are cutting down billions of trees all around the world. At the same time, factories are sending more CO2 into the atmosphere. It’s difficult to believe, but factories put billions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere every year. One ton is over 2000 pounds, so it is a lot of pollution. There is too much CO2 and there aren’t enough trees, so the world is getting warmer. In other words, we have a greenhouse effect. This is terrible for the environment.
What can we do about this? Firsts we can stop using so much coal and oil. We can learn to use different kinds of energy: the sun, wind, steam from volcanoes，and heat from inside the earth. Second, instead of cutting down trees, we should plant more trees. One tree can absorb ten pounds of carbon dioxide every year.
The trees are good for the earth’s atmosphere and for Guatemala (拉丁美洲国家危地马拉).In small towns and villages in Guatemala, most women are poor and have hard lives. Trees help them in three ways. First, the Connecticut factories pay them to plant the trees. Their pay is com, not money. The com is good for their children. Second, these women know a lot about their environment. They know where to plant when to plant, and what kinds of trees to plant. For example，they plant many fruit trees. The fruit gives them vitamins for their families’ s diets. Other trees are good for firewood. In a few years, the women won’t spend so much time looking for firewood. Third, all these trees are good for the soil. Now rain can’t wash the soil down from the mountains so easily.
This plan isn’t enough to stop the greenhouse effect. However, it’s a start. The woman of Guatemala are helping themselves and helping their environment.
1. Which of the following statement is NOT true?| A．Factories send more CO2 into the atmosphere. |
| B．Trees can’t absorb the same CO2 as they did in the past. |
| C．Billions of trees are being cut down throughout the world. |
| D．The greenhouse effect is extremely bad for the environment. |
| A．The reasons why we should plant more trees. |
| B．Ways we can adopt to take heat from volcanoes. |
| C．Measures to be taken to forbid the use of coal and oil. |
| D．Things we can do to stop or reduce the greenhouse effect. |
| A．By preventing the greenhouse effect. |
| B．By developing their skills of planting trees. |
| C．By enabling them to earn more money to support their family. |
| D．By making them get com and fruit to feed their family in return. |
| A．Critical. | B．Neutral. |
| C．Positive. | D．Doubtful. |
【推荐1】In a bid to reduce global electronic waste, Fairphone has created a smartphone that owners can repair themselves. What makes its technology so sustainable?
“This is my phone’s camera,” says Bas van Abel, co-founder of the Fairphone, holding a small, square component aloft. He has just removed it from his smartphone, using a tiny screwdriver.
“There are eight components in total which can be removed and replaced,” he says, as he carefully disassembles his entire smartphone, placing the camera alongside his phone battery, USB port, screen and loudspeaker.
Founded in 2013 in Amsterdam, Fairphone makes Android smartphones which can easily be exchanged, customized and repaired by their owners. By enabling and encouraging people to fix their phones, rather than throwing them away as soon as a component breaks, Fairphone hopes to help reduce electronic waste.
In 2022, 5.3 billion mobile phones were thrown away, the Belgian non-profit The WEEE Forum, which analyses electronic waste, estimates. In the US, people replace their phones every 18 months on average as new models with upgraded features are released. Most devices now come as sealed units that are extremely difficult and expensive to repair, or even produce error messages if damaged components are fixed.
Fairphone wants to break this trend by selling phones that have a longer working life.
Despite its ambition, Fairphone is still only a minor player in the mobile phone market ——since launching, it has sold around 550,000 devices. To put this into context, more than 232 million iPhones were sold worldwide in 2022. But van Abel says Fairphone is trying to prove that it is possible for companies to turn a profit selling sustainable smartphones.
Sustainability, however, comes with a high price tag. The latest Fairphone model costs £649. This is partly because Fairphone has to build everything in-house, according to van Abel. “We do all the software updates ourselves as there’s not one company in the world that supports long-lasting phones,” he says. “There’s a lot of investment needed for us to be able to do what we want to.”
1. What do we know about van Abel?| A．He was quite skillful in repairing mobile phones. |
| B．He created a smartphone that can repair itself. |
| C．He was satisfied with this sustainable smartphone. |
| D．He advocated recycling electronic products. |
| A．Because the functions of the phones needed to be upgraded. |
| B．Because old phones were not environmentally friendly. |
| C．Because they didn’t like using second-hand phones. |
| D．Because the data in the phones showed errors. |
| A．Its various products were deeply loved by consumers. |
| B．Its sales profit was higher than that of iPhone. |
| C．It required financial and technical support. |
| D．It encouraged people to purchase high-capacity smartphones. |
| A．Everything’s hard in the beginning. |
| B．No pains, no gains. |
| C．Love me, love my dog. |
| D．Kill two birds with one stone. |
【推荐2】Being the “cat’s whiskers（胡须）” is a humorous and positive way of noting that something is considered to be very near perfect. The humorous and cute images that this particular term brings to mind have something to do with the use of whiskers of the cat, including the ability to express feelings, sense changes in the environment, help with hunting, and help the cat measure distance（测量距离）.
Different views are held on the exact origin of the English saying “cat’s whiskers”.
Some believe that the term, along with a similar “cat’s meow”, has its origin in girls’ boarding schools of the 19th century. Others believe that the term was first brought to life by Thomas Dorgan, an artist who was active during the early years of the 20th century. What is generally agreed is that by the 1920s, both “cat’s whiskers” and “cat’s meow” were often used in the United States and commonly used as a term among young people of college age.
Unlike other sayings that may sometimes carry positive or negative meanings depending on the setting, “Cat’s whiskers” is always used in a positive way. An employer（雇主）may use the term to refer to an employee who produces wonderful work. Proud parents may say this to their children when they perform well in a school play or win some type of competition. In each situation, “cat’s whiskers” is used to show warm feelings for another person.
While not used as commonly as before, being the “cat’s whiskers” is still generally understood to be a good thing. Younger people may sometimes have to receive an explanation of what the term means, which can lead to seeing the use of the saying in a funny way. Even those who consider the saying to be outdated and not worthy of use in public may still use the term to show love and respect in private settings.
1. The expression “cat’s whiskers” can be used to describe something that ______.| A．will never happen | B．needs to be measured |
| C．causes misunderstanding | D．is better than everything else |
| A．How “cat’s whiskers” is used. | B．When “cat’s whiskers” got popular. |
| C．What “cat’s whiskers” meant at first. | D．Why “cat’s whiskers” has different meanings. |
| A．Pleased. | B．Excited. | C．Confused. | D．Angry. |
【推荐3】Running is a great form of exercise. However, running under certain conditions can cause a variety of injuries.
The National Running Association recently released the results of its latest survey on common running injuries, as illustrated in the picture on the right. According to the survey results, the most reported cases are related to knee injury and muscle pull, with the former occurring a little less frequently. About a quarter of the respondents say they have had plantar fasciitis, The number of respondents suffering from Achilles tendonitis or shin splints is nearly twice that of those with stress fracture, which is also what fewest respondents report.
There are two main causes of running injury: structural imbalance and training volume. Structural imbalance occurs when a certain muscle group is weak and requires other muscle groups to help. The body adapts to stresses and becomes stronger. This is the basic principle of training. However, if you push too fast or run too far, you can stress the body in such a way that it never has time to fully recover. Training progression and moderation are the keys to avoiding overuse injury.
Here are several ways to avoid running injury.
● Prepare your body for running by walking.
● Understand your body type and be patient.
● Follow a sensible training plan or find a coach.
● Wear the right shoes.
The cause of the injury is not easy to diagnose. For example, a foot problem can cause a problem in the knees or back. Finding and treating the cause of a running injury is the job of a trained doctor. More importantly, listen to your body and recognize the signs of overtraining so that you can avoid running injury.
1. Which group of injuries best fits the blanks numbered ①, ②, ③ and ④ in the picture?| A．① knee injury; ② muscle pull; ③ stress fracture; ④ shin splints |
| B．① muscle pull; ② knee injury; ③ stress fracture; ④ Achilles tendonitis |
| C．① knee injury; ② muscle pull; ③ shin splints; ④ stress fracture |
| D．① muscle pull; ② knee injury; ③ Achilles tendonitis; ④ stress fracture |
| A．Using some muscles more intensely than others. |
| B．Training weak muscles more often than strong ones. |
| C．Adapting your body to stresses slowly. |
| D．Giving your body little time to recover. |
| A．turn to a coach for help | B．consult a trained doctor |
| C．understand your body type first | D．wear another pair of running shoes |
