【推荐1】We’re often reminded of the importance of preserving the planet as we see it for future generations — and children at St Oswald’s Primary School in Chester certainly agree.

Nine-year-old Isobel Kelleher from the school’s Hummingbirds class thinks adults need to take notes. “Sometimes they can be busy and I don’t think they think they can make a difference, but if everyone does a little bit, it all adds up,” she tells HuffPost UK. “We started looking at plastic pollution in our oceans and the things like plastic bags and broken-down pieces of plastic that are polluting them,” she says. “Fish can eat the plastic and they can die, or we might even eat the fish ourselves.”

Mr. Timms, Isobel’s teacher, has been spearheading a new project at the school which lets children loose creatively to raise awareness of the need to be more environmentally friendly. The entire Hummingbirds class, which is made up of 9-and 10-year-old pupils, has been busy writing poems and creating online video adverts to warn adults about the serious situation of our oceans and wildlife.

Mr. Timms thinks children have an important role to play in teaching us how to take care of the things around us. “We sometimes overlook how much we can really learn from children,” he says. “It has been really hard to believe having parents come in saying that their children have been asking them to stop using plastic, and to recycle more, and even stopping them using plastic straws.”

Mr. Timms is proud of his Hummingbirds class. “The message that they would like to send to the world is simple: Stopping this isn’t someone else’s job, and it won’t be OK if we just leave it.”

1. What do we know about adults in Paragraph 2?

A．They haven’t done their part well.	B．They can do nothing to stop pollution.
C．They have started to care about oceans.	D．They are too busy to protect the environment.

2. What is the school project intended to do?

A．To prohibit students from using plastic bags.

B．To persuade parents to relate to their children.

C．To remind adults to be friendly to environment.

D．To teach students how to write poems creatively.

3. What is the purpose of Mr. Timms’ words in Paragraph 4?

A．To show the effects of the project.	B．To have adults care about education.
C．To attract people to support his work.	D．To prove kids are creative in teaching.

4. What is the text mainly about?

A．A lesson adults get from their children.

B．A school project to protect the environment.

C．The role teachers play in educating their students.

D．The enthusiasm a teacher has for the environment.

【推荐2】Saving the environment is a hot topic right now, and most companies are thinking of ways to “go green”, that is, to reduce pollution and save electricity.     1    

How do you reduce energy use in your home？How do you make your home eco-friendly?     2     “Green” houses look similar to the houses we live in today, with a few noticeable differences. They have solar panels on the roofs or have some kind of wind power to produce their own electricity. On sunny or windy days when the house is not used, power is produced and stored in batteries (电池) for later use at night, while extra power is fed back into the power grid to make money. Imagine getting paid by the power company instead of paying the company.     3    

One of the main reasons that we use so much power in our homes is to heat or cool them. “Green” houses are very well insulated (隔热的), keeping the temperature inside fixed.     4     Obviously, the appliances (家用电器) used inside our houses must also be “green” to limit the energy they use and the waste heat they send out.

    5     This way, they can reduce the burden (负担) on the environment for raw materials (原材料). You can paint your next house whatever color you like, but make sure it is “green”.

A．Used plastic, paper, and rubber are included.

B．The answer might be to build a “green” house.

C．Most importantly, solar energy or wind power is clean energy.

D．Finally, “green” houses are built largely from used materials.

E．Not only large buildings but also small family houses are “green”.

F．In the construction industry, this practice is also becoming popular.

G．As a result, we can reduce the need for a lot of power to heat or cool them.

【推荐3】By the end of the century, if not sooner, the world’s oceans will be bluer and greener due to a warming climate, according to a new study.

At the heart of the phenomenon lie tiny marine microorganisms (海洋微生物) called phytoplankton, which create colourful patterns at the ocean surface. Ocean colour varies from green to blue, depending on the type and concentration of phytoplankton. Climate change will fuel the growth of phytoplankton in some areas, while reducing it in other spots, leading to changes in the ocean’s appearance.

Phytoplankton live at the ocean surface, where they pull carbon dioxide into the ocean while giving off oxygen. When these organisms die, they bury carbon in the deep ocean, an important process that helps to regulate the global climate. But phytoplankton are vulnerable to the ocean’s warming trend, which can easily affect phytoplankton growth.

Stephanie Dutkiewicz, a scientist in MIT’s Center for Global Change Science, built a climate model that projects changes to the oceans throughout the century. The model projects that currently blue areas with little phytoplankton could become even bluer. But in some waters, such as those of the Arctic, a warming will make conditions riper for phytoplankton, and these areas will turn greener.

And why does that matter? Phytoplankton are the base of the food web. If certain kinds begin to disappear from the ocean, Dutkiewicz said, “it will change the type of fish that will be able to survive.” Those kinds of changes could affect the food chain.

Whatever colour changes the ocean experiences in the coming decades will probably be too gradual and unnoticeable, but they could mean significant changes. Dutkiewicz said, “The change in the colour of the ocean will be one of the early warning signals that we really have changed our planet.”

1. What are the first two paragraphs mainly about?

A．The various patterns at the ocean surface.

B．The cause of the changes in ocean colour.

C．The tiny marine organisms in the oceans.

D．The current condition of warming climate.

2. What does the underlined word “vulnerable” in Paragraph 3 probably mean?

A．Sensitive.

B．Beneficial.

C．Significant.

D．Unnoticeable.

3. What can we learn from the passage?

A．Phytoplankton play a declining role in the marine ecosystem.

B．Dutkiewicz’s model aims to project phytoplankton changes.

C．Phytoplankton have been used to control global climate.

D．Oceans with more phytoplankton may appear greener.

4. What is the main purpose of the passage?

A．To assess the consequences of ocean colour changes.

B．To analyse the composition of the ocean food chain.

C．To explain the effects of climate change on oceans.

D．To introduce a new method to study phytoplankton.