What’s the furthest you have ever cycled? Perhaps you cycle to school or to work, or maybe at most a short cycling trip with friends? How would you feel about spending months on the road travelling solo from the UK to China，by bike?
As an experienced British cyclist and adventure lover, Pete Jones is at present making a long trip across the Eurasian Continent from Britain to China alone. For Pete, camping in the wild and cycling for long distances through inhospitable terrain (不适合人居住的地带) are his second nature.
Mr Jones is currently taking a great journey. Having lived on and off (断断续续地) in Xinjiang for three years, and having visited the country many times since 1992, Pete Jones is no stranger to China. But he says many people there are puzzled by his strong love for cycling, and they ask why he chooses to cycle when he can afford a car. Indeed, while there are about 400 million bicycles in China, where it has long been the preferred means of transport, rapid economic growth has caused an rapid development in car ownership.
Edward Genochio, another British cyclist who completed a 41,000 km trip to China and back, said one of his goals was to tell people cycling is a safe, sustainable and environmentally friendly means of getting about.
In the UK, the last few years have seen a rise in the number of people choosing two wheels over four, with some estimates (估计) saying the number of people cycling to work has almost doubled in the last five years.
Politicians also see cycling as a way to prove that they are concerned about the environment, with people such as London mayor Boris Johnson often riding to work by himself. But we may have to wait some time before we see him emulating (效仿) Pete Jones in attempting to cycle all the way to China.
1. What is the meaning of the underlined word “solo” in the first paragraph?| A．Alone. | B．Lonely. |
| C．Happily. | D．Hard. |
| A．cycling is good for health |
| B．cycling around the world is interesting |
| C．cycling is not polluting the environment |
| D．bicycles are a kind of safe transportation |
| A．Pete Jones’s desire for cycling led to his staying in China for three years |
| B．now the number of Chinese people owning cars is larger than those owning bikes |
| C．London mayor Boris Johnson will emulate Pete Jones to cycle to China in the future |
| D．both British common people and politicians see riding bikes as a good means of transport |
| A．An Adventure Lover | B．Cycling to China |
| C．What’s the Use of Bicycles | D．Three British People |
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【推荐1】A small but shining silver lining: The corona-virus has quickened the change to pedal power in Europe. The German Cycling Association (ADFC) reports that Germans across the country are spending twice as much time biking as they were before the COVID-19. There is a growing demand for bikes and shared-bikes, and now even shortages throughout bicycle supply chain. For bike shops it’s an unexpected increase.
In unimagined numbers, bikes are starting to take the place of cars in our cities. It has increased 930 miles of new bike lanes in Europe. Belgium, Denmark, and the Netherlands are pioneering fast lanes for riders. “Pop-up lanes” are being used for bikes in Berlin and Paris; Rome has painted new bike lanes, in each case taking away lanes from cars.
Women riders are reportedly another big factor in the biking transformation. E-bikes are, too. E-bikes use an onboard battery to boost power when the rider is going up a hill, or just needs a rest. E-bikes have removed “the sweat factor.” Who wants to show up to work or a party sweaty?
The European Cyclists’ Federation states that bikes are also strongly supported by European governments to cut carbon and increase the quality of their cities. European countries provide direct financial support for cyclists. At the end of April, France announced a 20 million Euro plan to promote cycling after the end of the lockdown. The plan includes 50 Euro vouchers for the repair of a bike. Italy worked on a regulation for Covid recovery, by means of which 120 million Euro was set aside to cover 70% and up to 500 Euro of the price of conventional, muscle-powered and electric bikes.
1. What is the passage mainly about?| A．The popularity of bicycles in Europe. | B．The preference for bicycles globally. |
| C．The impact of the pandemic on people’s life. | D．The change in choice on public transportation. |
| A．Two. | B．Three. | C．Four. | D．Five. |
| A．More women in Europe go to work by bike than men. |
| B．Europeans choose bikes mainly for financial support. |
| C．E-bikes become popular because of Europeans’ laziness. |
| D．Measures have been taken to encourage Europeans to use bikes. |
| A．A guidebook. | B．A newspaper. | C．A science report. | D．A business plan. |
【推荐2】Many of you have probably had this experience: You get on a train and are ready to take a nap or read a book, only to find that the passenger in front of you is watching a TV show on his cellphone without headphones. The child next to you won't stop crying. And the old lady behind you talks on her phone during the whole trip.
Wish the train could be less noisy? There might be a solution for you. The Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway, one of China's busiest high-speed rail lines, will have “quiet” carriages starting from Dec 23, Xinhua reported.
In quiet carriages, onboard videos will be muted and announcements will be made at a lower volume. Doors at the ends of the carriage will be kept closed to reduce noise from other carriages, CGTN noted. Train attendants will be responsible for making sure that passengers remain quiet and follow the rules.
Passengers who are willing to obey the rules can choose the quiet carriages when booking their tickets, according to China's national railway operator.
Some people have pointed out that this kind of quiet environment should be offered in all carriages. They say that having quiet carriages might give people the impression that they don't need to be quiet in non-quiet carriages.
While some Internet users are upholding the new service, it has also sparked discussion about just how quiet travelers should be in quiet carriages. Many people have raised questions such as “What if I snore?” and “Can we talk to our travel companions if we need to?”
1. Paragraph 1 is written to show that| A．traveling by train is very common | B．people do all kinds of things on trains |
| C．many people watch TV shows on trains | D．people on trains are sometimes very noisy |
| A．Passengers won't be allowed to watch videos. |
| B．Train attendants won't make any announcements. |
| C．No one will make sure passengers follow the rules. |
| D．The doors at the ends of carriages will stay closed. |
| A．In need of. | B．In support of. | C．In search of. | D．In place of. |
| A．The rules should be made clearer. | B．Most people don't like the service. |
| C．The service is better for solo travelers. | D．It's easy to make trains perfectly quiet. |
In fact, the car of tomorrow is a symbol of hope. The emission of carbon dioxide has contributed to global warming, but the car producers are waking up to their responsibilities. Investment in new technology to maximize efficiency and minimize environmental damage is not only improving the car industry’s act but also setting an example to other industries.
It is said that most cars of today run about 15 percent efficiency, which does highlight the potential for improvement. Get it right, and we could continue to enjoy the freedom that comes with owning a car, without the worries.
Of course, many advances have already been made. There’s evidence that the public is eager to buy cleaner and greener cars. And with petrol prices increasing there is no doubt that the cars with economical, efficient engines are going to be in great demand.
The good news is that we can all drive the car of tomorrow today, without having to worry about the purchase cost. By choosing our holiday hired cars wisely we can cut down on our fuel costs and experience an eco-friendly drive. Hire a green car and you’ll make a difference to the environment.
Designers will always enjoy catching our imagination with “concept cars” that look more like miniature(微型) spaceships than anything you see on the highway. Whether these creations will eventually become family cars remains to be seen. However, for the moment, there’s no doubt at all what the car of tomorrow will be, and it’s here today: something familiar and friendly that does its job with considerably less trouble and much greater efficiency than the car of yesterday.
1. The writer of the text intends to ________.
| A．suggest | B．inform | C．approve | D．instruct |
| A．the production is beyond its need |
| B．it’s not environmentally friendly |
| C．the competition is very fierce |
| D．the economic situation affects it a lot |
| A．fewer cars will be produced in the future |
| B．new cars cost less to maintain |
| C．cleaner and greener cars are in great demand |
| D．no measures have been taken to improve car quality |
| A．Indifferent. | B．Negative. |
| C．Doubtful. | D．Supportive. |
【推荐1】Lego is considering a brick rental scheme in an attempt to cut down on plastic waste.The Danish toymaker has promised to make all its bricks from sustainable sources by 2030 and is ploughing significant resources into finding alternatives.
Tim Brooks,vice-president responsible for sustainability,said the company was “totally open” to the idea of a product rental scheme but acknowledged that lost pieces could cause a significant problem.He said the rental scheme was “possible” but admitted there were some “technical barriers”,one of which is the complexity of some Lego kits (配套元件),many of which contain thousands of pieces.
“What are the chances of giving them to an eight-year-old child and getting them all back again?” Mr Brooks added.There is a lot of technical thinking that needs to be done.
“We are right at beginning of that.” Mr Brooks said Lego was exploring several ideas with a view to producing the highest value from products while consuming the least amount of resources.He said many would “probably never see the light of day” and there was no current plan to try a rental scheme.
Lego has come under increasing pressure to reduce its carbon footprint amid growing international alarm about the impact of plastic waste on the environment.It manufactures 19 billion pieces per year—36,000 a minute—that are made only of plastic while much of the internal packaging is also plastic.
So far,the only breakthrough has been the development of a line of bricks made from plant-based plastic sourced from sugarcane.The green trees,plants and flowers were first included in Lego sets late last year but account for only one or two percent of the total amount of plastic elements produced.Henrik Ostergaard Nielson,a production supervisor in Lego’s factory in Billund,told the New York Times last year,“We need to learn again how to do this.”
1. How will Lego cut down on plastic waste?| A．By considering a brick rental scheme. |
| B．By producing a new kind of toys instead of bricks. |
| C．By replacing common plastic with a renewable material. |
| D．By investing large amounts of money into market. |
| A．It’ll cause certain serious problems. |
| B．It’ll be of great complexity. |
| C．It’ll require more mature technical skills. |
| D．It’ll involve much more kits of bricks. |
| A．Ideas. | B．Values. |
| C．Products. | D．Resources. |
| A．Lego has to explore a new product to earn a profit. |
| B．A brick rental scheme has been put into mass production. |
| C．Plant-based plastic is environmentally friendly. |
| D．Lego is optimistic about the brick rental scheme. |
【推荐2】It’s obvious that plastic pollution is a big problem nowadays. Luckily, researchers have found a chemical from a kind of worm can degrade one of the most common forms of plastic. The finding could open up new ways to deal with the problem.
There have been several studies showing microorganisms can release enzymes (酶) that cause the plastic polyethylene (聚乙烯) to start to change. But that process takes a long time. The recently-discovered enzymes were found in the saliva (唾液) of the wax worm moth. They appear to act in only a few hours.
Federica Bertocchini is one of the researchers who helped write a study on the finding. She is also a beekeeper. Bertocchini said that one year she found her honeycombs full of wax worms. Honeycombs are built by bees to store honey. She cleaned the honeycombs and put the worms in a plastic bag. When she returned, she found the bag was full of holes. All this made her wonder if the worms were eating the plastic or if there was a chemical reaction that caused the holes, leading to the idea of the research.
“We checked that, doing proper lab experiments, and we found the polyethylene had been oxidized (氧化),” she said.
In her latest research, Bertocchini and her coworkers identified two enzymes in the worm’s saliva. The enzymes appeared to break down polyethylene in only a few hours at room temperature. Bertocchini says her team is still trying to understand how the worms deal with the plastic. She adds, hopefully in the future, the enzymes can be used in homes, where each family could deal with their own plastic waste.
1. What does the underlined word “degrade” in paragraph 1 probably mean?| A．Break down. | B．Bring forth. | C．Compete with. | D．Pick out. |
| A．They’re easily available. | B．They can be produced at home. |
| C．They function very fast. | D．They can be applied to all plastics. |
| A．How Bertocchini found the enzymes. | B．Why Bertocchini cleaned the honeycombs. |
| C．How Bertocchini took care of the honeycombs. | D．How Bertocchini came up with the idea of the research. |
| A．They will work at room temperature. | B．People can make them on their own. |
| C．They will solve all plastic pollution. | D．They will become a household product. |
Manta rays (魔鬼鱼) are some of the creatures in the ocean who allow divers to swim right up to and interact (互动) with them. Unfortunately, these gentle animals are in big trouble. Since 2011, manta rays have been listed as a threatened species worldwide.
Peru, a country in South America, recently took a big step to protect giant manta rays: It banned fishing for them. Although 12 other countries have passed laws to protect rays, Peru’s may be the most important one yet. That’s because there are more manta rays in the Pacific Ocean near Peru than in any other place in the world.
Giant manta rays are unusual-looking creatures. The giant, flat rays are typically about 4.5 meters wide and can grow up to 8 meters wide! “They’re sort of like giant flying carpets underwater,” says Joshua Stewart of the Manta Trust, an organization that researches manta rays.
People catch rays for their meat. Overfishing is bad for any sea creature, but it’s even worse for manta rays. Female manta rays usually have only one baby, every two to five years. So every ray that’s caught hurts the population in a big way. People who break Peru’s new law can be fined or have their fishing licenses taken away. Even rays caught accidentally in fishing nets must be set free.
Earlier this year, the Manta Trust attached video cameras, called Crittercams, to manta rays off the west coast of Mexico. The footage (连续镜头) the cameras collect could help researchers predict where rays swim and when. The scientists could use the information to warn fishing boats to avoid these areas, helping reduce the number of accidentally caught rays.
Stewart says it’s important to protect these unique creatures. “There’s really no other animal that compares in size that you can have interactions with in the wild.”
1. What’s a characteristic of manta rays?| A．They can fly like a bird. | B．They are usually of small size. |
| C．They are very friendly to people. | D．They like swimming up and down. |
| A．Their habitats are badly damaged. | B．They only live in the Pacific Ocean. |
| C．Their number has dropped greatly. | D．Fewer and fewer female rays give birth. |
| A．protect them | B．look for more rays |
| C．make films about them | D．reduce their population |
| A．It makes no sense. | B．It is hard to follow. |
| C．It is really essential. | D．It needs improvement. |
【推荐1】A new paper published in Environmental Research Letters has some warning news for people living in the lower 48 states: You may be at risk from river flooding and not even know it until the water starts to rise.
In fact, the study, estimates of present and future flood risk in the United States, found that 41 million U. S. residents are at risk from flooding along rivers. That’s three times more than current estimates based on the flood maps produced by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) , which primarily maps the areas at risk for 1-in-100-year floods in populous (人口众多的) river basins.
Why does the big difference come into being? As always, it’s all about the data. Generally, FEMA prioritizes risk-assessment areas based on their population; reserving expensive field-work methodologies (研究方法) for the more populous river basins, but many other rivers have not yet been mapped at all.
The size of the USA means that flood maps made in this way are incomplete. It would be too expensive and time-consuming to survey every river basin in America. The national-scale flood maps produced by FEMA leave the flood risk of many parts of the country unaccounted for.
For this research, scientists from The Nature Conservancy adopted a pioneering methodology that avoids the defects of the FEMA approach, where individual catchments (流域) are studied by making use of big data. The study used a new high-resolution model, produced by the flood-mapping organization Fathom, which copies floods on all rivers across the entire continental United States.
“We were all surprised by how many people are actually exposed to freshwater flooding in the USA,” said Oliver Wing, lead researcher on the study and a PhD student at the University of Bristol. “It’s particularly worrisome considering that most of these people aren’t even aware of the risk they face. This study helps fill that critical information gap.”
1. What did the new paper intend to tell readers?| A．The mistakes made by FEMA. |
| B．The serious situation of the flood. |
| C．The populous river basins of the USA. |
| D．The unseen risk of the flood in the USA. |
| A．It’s dangerous to research all the rivers. |
| B．The size of the USA is too big. |
| C．It ignores less populous rivers. |
| D．The efficiency of making it is low. |
| A．Shortcomings. | B．Potential. |
| C．Consumption. | D．Contributions. |
| A．Critical. | B．Supportive. |
| C．Cautious. | D．Uncaring. |
【推荐2】We’ve known that sitting for long periods of time every day has countless health consequences, like a higher risk of heart disease. But now a new study has found that sitting is also bad for your brain, which runs counter to received ideas about deep thought, from our teachers, who told us to sit down and focus, to Rodin’s famous “Thinker”, seated with chin on hand.
A study published last week, conducted by Dr. Prabha Siddarth at the University of California, showed that sedentary(久坐的) behaviour is associated with reduced thickness of the medial temporal lobe (中颞叶), a brain area that is critical to learning and memory.
The researchers asked a group of 35 healthy people, aged 45 to 70, about their activity levels and the average number of hours each day spent sitting and then scanned their brains. They found that the subjects who reported sitting for longer periods had the thinnest medial temporal lobes. It means that the more time you spend in a chair the worse it is for your brain health, resulting in possible damage to learning and memory.
What is also interesting is that this study did not find a significant association between the level of physical activity and thickness of this brain area, suggesting that exercise, even severe exercise, may not be enough to protect you from the harmful effects of sitting.
It then surprisingly turned out that you don’t even have to move much to enhance cognition(认知) ;just standing will do the trick. For example, two groups of subjects were asked to complete a test while either sitting or standing. Participants are presented with conflicting stimuli(刺激), like the word “green” in blue ink, and asked to name the colour. Subjects thinking on their feet beat those who sat by a 3-millisecond margin.
The cognitive effects of severe physical exercise are well known. But the possibility that standing more and sitting less improves brain health could lower the bar for everyone.
1. Which of the following can best replace the phrase “runs counter to” in paragraph 1?| A．Goes against. | B．Bears out. | C．Pushes forward. | D．Corresponds with. |
| A．Set a trap. | B．Do a deal. | C．Get to the point. | D．Get the desired result. |
| A．Blank. | B．Edge. | C．Decrease. | D．Difference. |
【推荐3】First aid is emergency care for a victim of sudden illness or injury until more skillful medical treatment is available. First aid may save a life or improve certain vital signs including pulse, temperature, a clear airway, and breathing. In minor emergencies, first aid may prevent a victim’s condition from worsening and provide relief from pain. First aid must be given as quickly as possible. In the case of seriously injured, a few minutes can make the difference between complete recovery and loss of life.
First aid measures depend upon a victim’s needs and provider’s level of knowledge and skill. Knowing what not to do in an emergency is as important as knowing what to do. Improperly moving a person with a neck injury , for example, can lead to permanent spinal (脊柱的) injury and paralysis (瘫痪)。
Despite the variety of injuries possible, several basic rules of first aid apply to all emergencies. The first step is to call for professional medical help. The victim, if conscious (有意识的), should be reassured that medical aid has been requested, and ask for permission to provide any first aid. Next, assess the scene, asking other people or the injured person’s family or friends about details of the injury or illness, any care that may have already been given, and preexisting conditions such as diabetes (糖尿病) or heart trouble. The victim should be checked for the medical card that describes special medical conditions. Unless the accident scene becomes unsafe or the victim may suffer further injury, do not move the victim.
First aid requires rapid assessment of victims to determine whether life-threatening conditions exist. One method for assessing a victims condition is known by ABC, which stands for:
A — Airway: is it open and clear?
B — Breathing: is the person breathing? Look, listen, and feel for breathing.
C — Circulation: is there a pulse? Is the person bleeding extremely?
Check skin color and temperature for additional indications of circulation problems.
1. Before we give first aid to a victim, it is very important for us to ___________________.| A．make sure what to do and what not to do | B．refer to all kinds of handbooks on first aid |
| C．remove the ring or bracelet he/she may be wearing | D．take him/her to a hospital at once |
| A．professional doctors | B．the victim’s family members |
| C．the victim’s friends | D．those who are not necessarily professional doctors |
| A．Checking whether there is a pulse. | B．Looking, listening and feeling for breathing. |
| C．Replacing his/her medical card. | D．Examining whether the airway is open and clear. |
| A．the importance of protecting the accident scene. | B．some basic knowledge about first aid. |
| C．what professional medical help is. | D．who can give first aid. |
