【推荐2】Malin Pinsky had the first of two lightbulb moments in 2003 while crossing Drake Passage. He was then standing on the bridge of a research ship and was scanning the sky for seabirds, which was one of his duties as a research technician on the cruise (海上航游). Just five months earlier he had finished college, where he studied biology and environmental science.

As the ship entered nutrient-rich Antarctic waters, whales suddenly showed up all around the ship. That moment on the bridge helped him realize that the ocean looks featureless from the top, but there’s so much going on underneath.

The second lightbulb moment hit him several months later. Pinsky was then an intern (实习生) in Washington, D.C. His job was making photocopies. It was around the time when two big reports had come out. Both focused on what policies might best preserve U.S. ocean resources. “I realized we have all these laws and policies that determine how we as a society interact with the ocean. But they’re far out of date. We don’t yet have the science to know what the new policy should be,” Pinsky said.

Today he runs a lab with about 20 workers. His team wants to seek how our changing climate, as well as overfishing and habitat destruction, might be driving changes in fish and other animals in the sea. To find out, team members travel each year to coral reefs near the Philippines. There, they carefully catalog populations of different fish. They collect data on the growth and mating of these fish, their diversity and other factors.

“Pinsky’s broad approach to the problem — looking at species, where they live and how fisheries are managed — is setting the pace for other scientists,” says Kimberly Oremus, a fishery economist at the University of Delaware in Newark. “Pinsky is pushing the whole field to respond to his growing body of research.”

1. What made Pinsky have the first lightbulb moment?

A．The vastness of the ocean.

B．The sight of seabirds in the sky.

C．The view of Drake Passage.

D．The appearance of whales around the ship.

2. What did Pinsky realize when he was an intern in Washington, D.C.?

A．He needed to take more photos of oceans.

B．He should do something to update ocean policies.

C．The U.S. ocean resources need to be better preserved.

D．There have already been perfect policies to preserve the ocean.

3. What does Pinsky’s team focus on?

A．The harm of overfishing.

B．Features of different fish.

C．Factors affecting ocean ecosystems.

D．The reasons for global warming.

4. What’s Kimberly Oremus’ attitude towards Pinsky’s research?

A．Positive.

B．Doubtful.

C．Disapproving.

D．Uninterested.

【推荐1】An ancient species of great ape likely disappeared hundreds of thousands of years ago when climate change put their favorite fruits out of reach during dry seasons, scientists recently reported.

The species is known as Gigantopithecus blacki. It once lived in southern China. It stood 3 meters tall and weighed up to 295 kilograms. It represents the largest great ape known to scientists.

“It’s just a massive animal — just really, really big,” said Renaud Joannes-Boyau, a researcher at Australia’s Southern Cross University. He helped write the study, which recently appeared in Nature. But its size may also have been a weakness. Joannes-Boyau said, “When food starts to be scarce, it’s so big that it can’t climb trees to explore new food sources.”

The huge apes likely looked similar to the modern orangutans (红毛猩猩). They survived for around 2 million years in Guangxi. They ate plants that included fruits and flowers — until the environment began to change. Starting about 600,000 years ago, Guangxi’s forests began producing fewer fruits. The area was experiencing more periods of dry weather. Researchers examined pollen (花粉) and sediment (沉积物) found in caves to learn more about the changes and their effects. The giant apes did not disappear quickly, the researchers say. They likely went extinct sometime between 215,000 and 295,000 years ago.

As the climate changed, smaller apes may have been able to climb trees to search for different food. But the researchers found that the giant apes ate more food that provided less nutrients. “When the forest changed, there was not enough food preferred by the species,” said Zhang Yingqi of China’s Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology. He helped write the study.

1. What is Gigantopithecus blacki?

A．An ancient giant ape.	B．A recently found ape species.
C．A modern orangutan.	D．An endangered species.

2. Which of the following can replace the underlined word “scarce” in the third paragraph?

A．dangerous.

B．rare.

C．important.

D．necessary.

3. How did Gigantopithecus blacki’s size become a weakness?

A．It made them easy to be sick.	B．It made them unable to find mates.
C．It made them difficult to climb trees for food.	D．It made them struggling in adapting to climates.

4. According to Zhang Yingqi, what caused Gigantopithecus blacki’s decline?

A．Competition for food.	B．Climate change.
C．Spread of diseases.	D．Human activities like hunting.

【推荐2】Once again, China has conquered the world’s highest peak, Mount Qomolangma, on May 4th, 2022. Thirteen members of the Chinese Earth Summit Mission 2022 scientific expedition (探险) team successfully established an automatic weather station at an altitude of over 8800 meters, the world’s highest of its kind, on Mount Qomolangma on the China-Nepal border, achieving the milestone task of the country’s second comprehensive survey to the roof of the world.

To finish this mission, Yao Tandong, a leader of the expedition, said they have organized a massive party consisting of 16 teams and over 270 researchers, some of whom trained for over two years for the project. Now they have set up eight stations from 5200 meters to 8800 meters on Mount Qomolangma, with four stations higher than 7000 meters respectively at 7028 meters, 7790 meters, 8300 meters and 8800 meters. These weather stations at different altitudes mainly monitor the temperature, relative humidity, wind direction, wind speed, pressure and radiation changes in the region, and can realize real-time remote transmission (传输) of data.

Conventional weather observations are generally below 5000 meters and rarely above 5000 meters, and such high-altitude weather observations are scarce at the moment, Zhao Huabiao, a researcher at the Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, said. “The reason for building a weather station at 8800 meters instead of 8848 meters is that the snow and ice on the summit are not suitable for fixing equipment, and in this regard, the weather station was built on bedrock around 8800 meters which is easier,” said Zhao.

The team reached the summit of Mount Qomolangma and used high-accuracy radar to measure the thickness of ice and snow, and collected samples for further research. Kang Shichang, a researcher of the Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said studying the changes to the glacier aims to clarify the impact of global warming, which is beneficial to mounting a global response to climate change. “Through the study of glacier changes and glacier air pollutants, we can see the impact of global and regional human activities in the Qomolangma area,” Kang said.

1. What do we know about the expedition team?

A．They built the world’s highest automatic weather station.

B．They found the quickest way to reach Mount Qomolangma.

C．They conducted an experiment successfully on the world’s highest peak.

D．They became the first Chinese team to do research on Mount Qomolangma.

2. What do the figures in paragraph 2 mainly indicate?

A．The importance of real-time data transmission.

B．The tough environment of Mount Qomolangma.

C．The difficulty of monitoring weather conditions.

D．The challenging task of the scientific expedition.

3. Why was the weather station built at 8800 meters instead of 8848 meters?

A．To reduce the effect of strong winds.

B．To keep away from tough bedrocks.

C．To fix equipment more conveniently.

D．To predict the weather more accurately.

4. What does Kang Shichang intend to tell us about the glacier?

A．Its characteristics.	B．Its value of research.
C．Its formation process.	D．Its impact on climate change.

【推荐3】Politicians and the public tend to worry about carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions (排放) but neglect the effects of cutting methane (甲烷). Actually, dealing with the gas would have a large effect rapidly and at relatively low cost.

Human activity emits far less methane than carbon dioxide, but methane has a heavier impact. Over the course of 20 years, a ton of the gas will warm the atmosphere about 86 times more than a ton of CO₂. As a result, methane is responsible for 23% of the rise in temperatures since preindustrial times. Carbon dioxide gets most of the attention, but unless methane emissions are limited, there is little hope of controlling the climate.

By how much do methane emissions need to fall? Carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for centuries, making it hard to reduce its atmospheric concentrations (浓度). By contrast, methane has a half-life of roughly ten years, which means that it degrades quickly. If new emissions can be cut to below the rate at which old emissions reduce, the concentration of methane in the atmosphere will soon fall, slowing global warming. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that, to keep temperatures between 1.5℃ and 2℃ above preindustrial levels, human methane emissions must drop to 35% below where they stood in 2010 by midcentury.

That is entirely possible. A big step would be to stop millions of tons of methane from leaking out of fossil-fuel infrastructure each year, through pipes with holes, leaky valves and carelessness. The International Energy Agency, a global forecaster, estimates that 40% of methane emissions from fossil fuels, equal to 9% of all human methane emissions, can be got rid of at no net cost for firms. The harder task is to reduce emissions from agriculture, but even here farmers can make use of new ideas, including developing new forms of food for farm animals, and changing how rice is watered.

1. What does the underlined word “neglect” in paragraph 1 probably mean?

A．Ignore.

B．Blame.

C．Value.

D．Delay.

2. What does the author intend to communicate in paragraph 2?

A．A less serious threat to global warming.

B．The little hope of controlling the climate.

C．People’s more attention on carbon dioxide.

D．The urgent need to reduce methane emissions.

3. Why does the author call attention to methane emissions?

A．They are the only hope of controlling the climate.

B．Their atmospheric concentrations are hard to reduce.

C．Their impact on the climate is huge but manageable.

D．They stay in the atmosphere longer than carbon dioxide.

4. Which source of methane emissions is more difficult to reduce according to the text?

A．Coal mining.

B．Rice farming.

C．Fuel burning.

D．Oil leaking.