Three-quarters of a million tourists flock to the white beaches every year, but this booming industry has come at a price. Poisonous smoke rising from open fires, rubbish made up of plastic bottles，packets…”,it’s a far cry from the white sands, clear waters and palm trees that we associate with the Maldives(马尔代夫）,the paradise island holiday destination set in the Indian Ocean.
Of its 200 inhabited islands,which are spread across an area of 35,000 square miles,99 are good resorts (旅游胜地).So many tourists come every year, more than double the local population. Of these, over 1 00,000 travel from the UK. The capital，Male，is four times more densely populated than London. Given these facts, it’s hardly surprising that the Maldives has a waste disposal problem.
Years ago，when the tourists left，the government had to deal with a stream of rubbish. Their solution was to turn one of the islands into a dumping ground. Four miles west of Male is the country’s dumping ground, Thilafushi. What you are seeing here is a view of the Maldives on which no honeymooners would like to clap eyes. Each visitor produces 3.5 kg of waste per day. The country dumps more than 330 tons of rubbish on the island every day.
Now, since many waste boats, tired of waiting seven hours or more, directly offload then goods into the sea, the government of the Maldives has banned the dumping of waste on the k land. So,the waste boats ship the rubbish to India instead.
1. The underlined part in paragraph can probably be understood as“ ”.| A．It’s quite similar to |
| B．It’s a long distance from |
| C．It’s a loud shout from |
| D．It’s totally different from |
| A．The large local population. |
| B．Too many waste boats. |
| C．The large number of tourists. |
| D．Dumping rubbish into the sea. |
| A．It is much more crowded in Male than in London. |
| B．Another island will be used as a dumping ground. |
| C．No honeymooners are willing to visit the Maldives. |
| D．Waste on islands will be offloaded directly into the sea. |
| A．To attract more tourists to the Maldives. |
| B．To state the waste disposal problem in the Maldives |
| C．To call on us to protect the environment, |
| D．To explain the causes of pollution in the Maldives. |
相似题推荐
【推荐1】In just a few decades the United States could eliminate fossil fuels（矿物燃料）and rely 100 percent on clean, renewable energy. That's the vision of, a Stanford engineering professor who has produced a state-by-state road map of how the country could rid itself of coal oil, natural gas, and nuclear power.
By 2050, Jacobson expects the nation's transportation network - cars, ships, airplanes - to run on batteries or hydrogen produced from electricity. He sees the winds blowing across the Great Plains powering vast stretches of the country's middle while the burning sun helps electrify the Southwest. "There's no state that can't do this," Jacobson says.
Today only 13% of U. S. electricity comes from renewables（再生性能源）. Jacobson's goal would be one of the nation's most ambitious undertakings. This transformation would cost roughly $15 trillion, or $47,000 for each American, for building and installing systems that produce and store renewable energy.
What would it take? Seventy-eight million rooftop solar systems, nearly 49,000 commercial solar plants, 156,000 offshore wind turbines（风力涡轮机）, plus wave-energy systems. Land-based wind farms would need 328,000 turbines, each with blades longer than a football field,. These farms would occupy as much land as North Carolina.
For now, he says, prospects are encouraging. Thanks in part to government funding and large-scale production, costs are falling. The amount of power generated nationwide by wind and solar increased 15-fold each between 2003 and 2013. This summer Barack Obama moved to reduce carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants, and Hawaii committed to having all its electricity provided by renewables by 2045.
Still, many experts aren't convinced. “It has zero chance,”Stephen Brick, an energy fellow with the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, says of Jacobson's plan. Political, regulatory, and social barriers are huge, especially in a nation where the energy systems - and much of its political influence - is rooted in the oil, gas, and coal industries. Some critics are concerned about whether the resulting grid（输电网）would be reliable. And neighborhood battles would likely occur over wind farms and solar plants. Even outspoken scientist James Hansen, who warned the government a quarter century ago about climate change, insists that nuclear power is essential to rid the country of fossil fuels.
Yet Jacobson’s work at least offers a starting point. Scientists and policymakers may keep arguing about solutions, but as Obama points out, the nation must continue its march toward a clean-energy future even if it's not yet clear how that will look in 35 years. “If we don't do it,” he said this summer, “nobody will.”
1. Which of the following does Professor Mark Jacobson engage in?| A．Organizing projects to build and install solar energy systems state by state. |
| B．Persuading the U. S. President to realize his renewable energy goal. |
| C．Outlining a plan detailing how energy in the U. S. could be carbon free by 2050. |
| D．Arguing about opportunities and obstacles of his plan. |
| A．The huge investment in solar and wind projects. |
| B．The unshakeable foundation of traditional energy systems. |
| C．The job losses in oil and coal industries. |
| D．The inevitable land-use battles between states. |
| A．one state of the U. S. will be first to become carbon free before 2050 |
| B．developing clean-energy industry will drive the world's market |
| C．fossil fuels will soon be eliminated in the U. S. |
| D．there will be no vacant land for wind farms |
| A．has no scientific grounds | B．unreasonably excludes nuclear power |
| C．will be eventually lacking in funds | D．is not feasible in some aspects |
| A．The Coexistence of Fossil Fuels and Renewables |
| B．A Blueprint for a Carbon Free America |
| C．One Man's Dream: Determination and Innovation in Energy Future |
| D．Professor and his Solar and Wind Technology |
【推荐2】While global warming and ocean acidification driven by pollution cause a real threat to sea creatures, climate change is not the primary driver threatening to cause the extinction (灭绝) of large ocean animals. It is humans that are threatening large sea creatures primarily by hunting and fishing them.
Researchers findings reflect a phenomenon experienced by ancient land ecosystems (生态系统). These losses in the ocean are paralleling what humans did to land animals some 50,000 to 10,000 years ago, when we wiped out around half of the big-bodied mammals on Earth, like mammoths, mastodons. saber-tooth cats and the like.
The increasing threat to large groups of sea animals is a recent phenomenon. The researchers made this discovery by comparing characteristics of nearly 2,500 extinct sea vertebrates and mollusks alongside others currently in danger of extinction. They found that smaller sea animals were a little more likely than large ones to be killed off during five previous mass extinction events—the most recent of which was associated with a small planet’s strike some 65 million years ago.
What was surprising to the researchers was that they did not see a similar kind of pattern in any of the previous mass extinction events that they studied.
The study shows that a sixth mass extinction, which may already be underway, could kill off larger-bodied animals while leaving smaller ones behind. That could have a terrible long-term impact.
Such removal of the largest animals from the modern oceans, which never happened in the history of animal life, may disturb the order of ecosystems for millions of years even at levels of taxonomic loss far below those of previous mass extinctions.
This news should serve as a wake-up call for humans to fundamentally change the way they manage the oceans. That is to say, it is a warning of what will happen if we don’t get our act together.
Limiting industrialization of the oceans may be necessary to give threatened animals time and space to recover. Most whaling has been banned since the 1980s. We have brought gray whales back from the edge of extinction and blue whales are coming back too.
The researchers point out that cutting back on carbon emissions (排放) will also be necessary to slow extinctions.
1. Paragraph 2 is intended to tell us that ________.| A．both land animals and sea animals die out because of humans |
| B．big-bodied animals were killed as they were threat to humans |
| C．humans tended to kill animals on land instead of those in seas |
| D．humans have been main killers of animals for a very long time |
| A．It is easier for sea creatures to go extinct than land ones. |
| B．The patterns of sea animal mass extinction are irregular. |
| C．Humans were responsible for all those extinctions. |
| D．Small-bodied creatures produce their young more easily. |
| A．To completely ban people from hunting them. |
| B．To fully realize the urgency of protecting them. |
| C．To unconditionally release kss CO2 into the air. |
| D．To reasonably keep control of the trade in them. |
【推荐3】The worldwide 20th century “Green Revolution”, which saw huge year-by-year increases in global grain yields (产量),was fueled by the development in the 1960s of new high-yielding dwarfed (矮小) varieties known as Green Revolution Varieties (GRVs).
These dwarfed GRVs are common all over the world in today’s wheat and rice crops. Because they are dwarfed, with short stems, GRVs devote relatively more resources than tall plants to the growth of grains rather than stems, and are less likely to suffer yield losses from wind and rain damage. However, the growth of GRVs requires farmers to use large amounts of nitrogen fertilizers (氮肥) in their fields. These fertilizers are costly to farmers and cause extensive damage to the natural environment. The development of new GRVs combining high yields with reduced fertilizer requirements is thus a global agricultural goal.
Researchers at the University of Oxford and the Chinese Academy of Science have discovered for the first time a gene that can help reach the goal. Comparing 36 different dwarfed rice varieties, the researchers identified a novel natural gene that helps increase the rate at which plants make use of nitrogen from the soil. This gene, called GRF4, can increase the amount of a protein (蛋白质) in plant cells. GRF4 is actually a promoter that encourages the activity of other genes—genes that promote nitrogen uptake (摄入). Professor Harberd said, “Increasing GRF4 levels could contribute to an increase in the grain yields of GRVs, especially at low fertilizer input levels.”
The researchers say the latest rice variety containing GRVs should now become a major target for farmers in increasing crop yields and fertilizer use efficiency, with the aim of achieving the global grain yield increases necessary to feed a growing world population at a reduced environmental cost. It is very urgent at the moment.
Professor Harberd added, “This study is an example of how studying fundamental science objectives can lead rapidly to potential solutions to global challenges. It shows how the discovery can enable chances for food security and future new green revolutions.”
1. What can we know about dwarfed GRVs?| A．They have higher yield and taller stems. |
| B．They are a “double-edged sword”. |
| C．They are environmentally friendly. |
| D．They can be easily affected by weather. |
| A．Increasing the rate of nitrogen use. |
| B．Producing cheaper nitrogen fertilizers. |
| C．Using fewer fertilizers to produce more grains. |
| D．Finding a gene to solve agricultural problems. |
| A．It promotes other genes' activity. |
| B．It increases the output of crops. |
| C．It takes in nitrogen from the soil. |
| D．It lowers fertilizer input levels. |
| A．Decreasing the amount of fertilizers required by GRVs. |
| B．Encouraging farmers to adopt the new rice variety. |
| C．Calling on farmers to use effective fertilizers. |
| D．Focusing on the improvement of GRF4. |
| A．GRVs—a potential measure to achieve global food security. |
| B．The influence of agricultural development on the environment. |
| C．The importance of raising public awareness of global issues. |
| D．GRF4—foundation for new green revolutions. |
【推荐1】For much of the 20th century, milk was a simple part of daily life in the U.S., as farmers raised cows, milkmen delivered bottles and children drank it at school. But those days are fading. On January 5 Borden Dairy, the milk processor with a cheery Elsie the cow on its label, announced to be filing for bankruptcy (破产) protection. Borden Dairy, which said it was affected by “market challenges facing the milk industry,” follows Dean Foods, America’s largest milk producer, which filed for bankruptcy protection in November.
America has fallen out of love with drinking milk, as there are more lower-calorie options and people are preferring water bottles to milk cartons (盒子). Americans each drank about 146 lb. of fluid milk-a category that includes products from skim to creamin 2018, according to the USDA’s Economic Research Service. That may sound like a lot, but it’s down 26% just since 2000.
The downturn has been tough on milk processors like Borden and Dean, which buy fresh milk from farms and use techniques to create a consumer-safe drink with a longer shelf life. For the past five years, thanks to technology that increased milk production, fresh-milk prices were relatively low, which meant processors could break even although there was shifting demand. But prices went up again last year, squeezing the processors’ already tight profits. “Declining sales in a business with small profit is not a good recipe for success” says Mark Stephenson, director of dairy policy analysis at the University of Wisconsin.
Milk processors are also facing competition from big retailers (零售商), which have set up their own processing plants. In 2018, Walmart opened a milk-processing plant in Indiana to serve hundreds of stores in the Midwest, taking away approximately 95 million gal. of milk-processing business from Dean Foods.
1. What can we learn about American milk industry?| A．Consumers favor bottled milk. |
| B．Milk producers have cows on their labels. |
| C．Processed milk is losing its popularity. |
| D．Borden Dairy is the largest milk producer. |
| A．Have no loss. | B．Upgrade technology. |
| C．Go bankrupt. | D．Produce large quantities of goods. |
| A．Positive. | B．Concerned. |
| C．Ambiguous. | D．Prejudiced. |
| A．They open stores abroad. | B．They lower the price of milk. |
| C．They process milk by themselves. | D．They won’t offer fresh milk to processors. |
The Ban on Trading Ivory(象牙) is Unfair but Necessary
As in some countries elephant population have recovered, there are competing proposals about how absolute the ban on elephant trading should be. Countries seeking a modest relaxation have a strong case to make. But it is not strong enough. The ban must stay.
Understandably, countries that have done a good job protecting their elephants feel this is unfair.
To understand why these reasonable-sounding proposals should be rejected, consider what
has happened to elephant numbers since some legal trade was authorised, when Botswana, Namibia and South Africa were allowed in 2007 to sell a fixed amount of ivory to Japan.
A survey conducted in 2014-15 estimated that elephant numbers had fallen by 30% across 18 countries since 2007.
The objection to trade in products of endangered species is not moral. When the world is confident that it will boost elephant numbers rather than wipe them out, the ivory trade should be encouraged.
| A．Regrettably, that point has not yet come. |
| B．Elephant numbers started falling. |
| C．The existence of even a small legal market increases the opportunities for illegal trade. |
| D．They point out that they have devoted huge resources to the elephant. |
| E．In the long run technology can help make trade coexist with conservation. |
| F．One animal, as so often in the past, will attract much of the attention: the African elephant. |
【推荐3】Apple and Microsoft each launched new products. One company astonished everyone. The other made people sleepy. Can you guess which was which? You probably guessed wrong. Because Apple, famous for its creative products, was the tech giant whose new product caused a collective shrug(耸肩). While Microsoft, which stole a move out of the Apple Playbook, won cheers from high-end, creative-class consumers like business analysts, media designers and music producers.
As Hayley Tsukayama remarked at The Washington Post, the Surface Studio, one of Microsoft's new products, is really just a super-sized version of the Surface Books product that Microsoft has been selling for years. But if you've ever watched science fiction movies like Minority report--where Tom Cruise seems to operate pictures and data hanging on mid-air by touching them, spreading his fingers to increase on details, and sending files and information sliding from one folder to another with a click of the fingers, you can see how Microsoft is trying to show the same experience.
Meanwhile, apple's new products were almost like some fine promotions for its Apple TV. They boast(炫耀)that the new Macbook Pros has a smaller size and more functions, and a new touch screen bar on laptop keyboards where function keys used to be.
So what's going on? In many ways, Apple is focusing on attracting the average consumers who have been attracted by Microsoft. And Microsoft is focusing on targeting the high-end professionals Apple has historically been associated with. You can even see this is the companies' ad campaigns: Microsoft's ads stress imagination and creativity, while Apple,s commercial chief performance and convenience of its Macbooks.
So Apple is trying to control the world of devices and laptops from the top down, starting with the high-end market and moving on to appeal to a broader base of consumers. Microsoft, having already strengthened itself within the bigger low-end market, is now attempting the opposite with a bottom-up strategy. Will these succeed? Time will tell...
1. What can we learn from the first paragraph?| A．Microsoft's new products made a big hit. |
| B．Apple's products aim at high-end consumers. |
| C．Apple and Microsoft developed the same products. |
| D．The design of Microsoft's products is original and unique. |
| A．To show how trendy Microsoft’s new products are. |
| B．To tell us Microsoft's new products can be used in movies. |
| C．To encourage more people to see the science fiction movie. |
| D．To show Microsoft’s new products are inspired by the movie. |
| A．Apple is changing its focus on consumer groups from average to high-end ones. |
| B．Microsoft is changing its focus on consumer groups from high-end to average ones. |
| C．The two companies are adopting different business strategies from their own before. |
| D．The two companies are facing fierce competition with each other. |
| A．Leisure and Entertainment. |
| B．Economics and Business. |
| C．Culture and Education. |
| D．Life and Fashion. |
【推荐1】The first model of Apple’s iPhone was launched in June 2007. Since then, many different smartphones have been introduced. The devices now influence our daily lives in many ways. One thing that has changed is that many people now use their phones to easily take pictures without the need for a camera. Not surprisingly, this change has caused major business problems for camera manufacturers.
Of course, the camera built into the first iPhone 15 years ago did not include a high-quality camera able to compete with separate camera models. But over the years, smartphone makers have invested heavily in research and development to change that. Today, many smartphones have high-quality cameras designed to produce better pictures. And most phone devices also offer powerful tools to improve the quality of the pictures we take.
Japan’s Camera &Tmaging Products Association (CIPA) said the digital camera market continually expanded starting in 1999. It experienced its first decrease in 2009 — and continued to fall thereafter. The biggest change appeared from 2010 to 2020, when worldwide camera shipments fell about 93 percent, CIPA reported. The decreases were mainly caused by drops in shipments of digital cameras that have built-in lenses.
However, camera makers have had more success selling digital cameras with interchangeable lenses. This is because these cameras are generally targeted at professional photographers who demand higher quality. Such cameras can produce “high image quality that distinguishes them from smartphones,” CIPA said.
But this does not mean that professional photographers never use smartphones to capture pictures. Brynn Anderson is based with the AP in Atlanta, Georgia. She said: “Sometimes being a photographer with a larger camera can be intimidating to the person being photographed. Using a phone makes it easier for me to get comfortable moments that might not happen otherwise.” Rodrigo Abd, an AP photographer in Buenos Aires, Argentina says using the iPhone makes it easier for him “to always be attentive” to everyday events when not covering a news story. Oded Balilty is based in Tel Aviv, Israel. “It is definitely an alternative tool,” he said of the iPhone. But he added: “It’s the photographer not the device, that determines the quality of a photo.”
1. What is the potential cause of the first decrease of digital cameras in 2009?| A．Less money was invested to improve digital cameras. |
| B．Cameras had been built into smartphones and improved. |
| C．Fewer digital cameras with built-in lenses were produced |
| D．The digital camera market stopped promoting new products. |
| A．They are more affordable. | B．They have superb shooting quality. |
| C．They offer the power to beautify photos. | D．They are specially designed for professionals. |
| A．Amusing. | B．Demanding. | C．Rewarding. | D．Scaring. |
| A．The level of the photographer depends on the iPhone. |
| B．The iPhone completely replaces his professional tool. |
| C．The professional skills of the photographer is crucial. |
| D．The iPhone enables him to work at any time and place. |
【推荐2】You might text your friend a white lie to get out of going to dinner, exaggerate your height on a CV online to appear more attractive or invent an excuse for your boss over email to save face.
Social psychologists have long wondered where people tend to lie the most — that is, in person or through some other communication medium. A 2004 study was among the first to investigate the connection between deception (欺骗) rates and technology. Jeff Hancock’s team had 28 students report the number of social interactions they had through face-to-face communication, the phone, instant messaging and email over seven days. Students also reported the number of times they lied in each social interaction.
The results suggested people told the most lies on the phone and the fewest through email, which is broadly in line with a “feature-based model”. According to the model, specific aspects of a technology — whether people can communicate back and forth smoothly, whether the messages are fleeting and whether communicators are distant — predict where people tend to lie the most.
When Hancock conducted his study, few students had a Facebook account. The iPhone was in its early stage. What would his results look like nearly 20 years later?
In a new study, I recruited (招募) 250 people and studied interactions from more forms of technology. The participants recorded their social interactions and number of interactions with a lie over seven days, across face-to-face communication, social media, the phone, texting, video chat and email. The results show people seem to lie according to the “feature-based model”.
There are several possible explanations for these results. Phone and video chat, for example, might make deception less costly to a social relationship if caught. Deception rates might also differ across technology because people use some forms of technology for certain social relationships. For example, people might only email their colleagues (同事), while video chat might be a better fit for more personal relationships.
People often believe just because we use technology to interact, honesty is harder to come by. Not only is this perception (看法) misguided, but it is also unsupported by enough evidence. The belief that lying is common in the digital age just doesn’t match the data.
1. What does the author intend to do in the first paragraph?| A．Reveal the tendency of people to tell lies on social media. |
| B．Introduce the topic of technology’s role in people’s telling lies. |
| C．Demonstrate the increasing popularity of social media. |
| D．Illustrate people’s ways of social interactions. |
| A．Their participants were all students. |
| B．They both aimed to reduce deception rates. |
| C．Their results were both consistent with a certain model. |
| D．They analyzed the same kind of social relationships. |
| A．Social media users tend to lie more. |
| B．Close people are more likely to lie to each other. |
| C．Lying can greatly influence friendships. |
| D．Deception rates can be reduced by using technology. |
| A．It is unacceptable among friends. |
| B．It worsens interpersonal relationships. |
| C．It doesn’t happen as frequently as expected. |
| D．It is in line with advances in technology |
【推荐3】Voices offer lots of information. It turns out that they can even help diagnose (诊断) an illness and researchers are working on an app for that. The National Institutes of Health is funding a massive research project to collect voice data and develop an AI that could diagnose people based on their speech.
Everything such as your breathing patterns when you speak offers potential information about your health, says Dr. Yael Bensoussan, the director of the University of South Florida’s Health Voice Center and a leader on the study.“We asked experts: Well, if you close your eyes when a patient comes in, just by listening to their voice, can you have an idea of the diagnosis they have?” says Bensoussan.“And that’s where we got all our information. Someone who speaks low and slowly might have Parkinson’s disease. Depression or cancer could even be diagnosed.”
The project is part of the NIH’s Bridge to AI program, which was launched over a year ago with more than $100 million in funding from the government, with the goal of creating large-scale health care databases for precision (精准) medicine.“We were really lacking what we call open source databases,” says Bensoussan.“Every institution has their own database. But to create these networks was really important to allow researchers from other generations to use this data.”
The ultimate goal of the project is an app that could help bridge access to rural or underserved communities, by helping general practitioners (行医者) refer patients to specialists. To get there, researchers have to start by amassing data, since the AI can only get as good as the database it’s learning from. By the end of the four years, they hope to collect about 30,000 voices.
There are a few roadblocks, however. HIPAA, the law that regulates medical privacy, isn’t really clear on whether researchers can share voices. Every institution has different rules on what can be shared, and that opens all sorts of moral and legal questions.
1. What is the project aimed at?| A．Examining voice data. |
| B．Detecting speech problems. |
| C．Offering health information. |
| D．Developing a medical diagnosis app. |
| A．Doctors work better with their eyes closed. |
| B．Parkinson’s disease can be easily discovered. |
| C．How a person walks shows his health condition. |
| D．The voice of a patient may indicate a certain illness. |
| A．Storing. | B．Analyzing. | C．Collecting. | D．Exchanging |
| A．The difficulty in carrying out the project. |
| B．The need to share voices concerning the project. |
| C．The way to protect medical privacy in the project. |
| D．The proposal for issuing rules related to the project. |
Gift No. 1
Offer to be your mother's health friend. Promise to be there for any and all doctor's visits whether a disease or a regular medical check-up. Most mothers always say “no need，” but another set of eyes and ears is always a good idea at a doctor's visit. The best part? This one is free.
Gift No. 2
Help your mother organize all of her medical records, which include the test results and medical information. Put them all in one place. Be sure to make a list of all of her medicines and what times she takes them.“Having all this information in one place could end up saving your mother's life，”Dr Marie Savard said.
Gift No. 3
Enough sleep is connected to general health conditions. “Buy your mother cotton sheets and comfortable pillows to encourage better sleep，” Savard said. “We know that good sleep is very important to our health.”
Gift No. 4
Some gift companies such as Presents for Purpose allow you to pay it forward this Mother's Day by picking gifts in which 10 percent of the price you pay goes to a charity. Gift givers can choose from a wide variety of useful but inexpensive things—many of which are “green”—and then choose a meaningful charity from a list. When your mother gets the gift, she will be told that she has helped the chosen charity.
1. What are you advised to do for your mother at doctor's visits?
| A．Take notes. | B．Be with her. |
| C．Buy medicine. | D．Give her gifts. |
| A．Keeping her medical information together. |
| B．Buying all gifts for her from one company. |
| C．Making a list of her medical check-ups. |
| D．Storing her medicines in a safe place. |
| A．enjoy good sleep | B．be well-organized |
| C．get extra support | D．give others help |
【推荐2】The connection between people and plants has long been the subject of scientific research. Recent studies have found positive effects. A study conducted in Youngstown，Ohio，for example, discovered that greener areas of the city experienced less crime. In another，employees were shown to be 15% more productive when their workplaces were decorated with houseplants.
The engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology(MIT)have taken it a step further changing the actual composition of plants in order to get them to perform diverse，even unusual functions. These include plants that have sensors printed onto their leaves to show when they’re short of water and a plant that can detect harmful chemicals in groundwater. ＂We’re thinking about how we can engineer plants to replace functions of the things that we use every day,＂explained Michael Strano, a professor of chemical engineering at MIT.
One of his latest projects has been to make plants glow(发光)in experiments using some common vegetables. Strano’s team found that they could create a faint light for three-and-a-half hours. The light，about one-thousandth of the amount needed to read by，is just a start. The technology, Strano said, could one day be used to light the rooms or even to turn trees into self-powered street lamps.
In the future，the team hopes to develop a version of the technology that can be sprayed onto plant leaves in a one-off treatment that would last the plant’s lifetime. The engineers are also trying to develop an on and off＂switch＂where the glow would fade when exposed to daylight.
Lighting accounts for about 7% of the total electricity consumed in the US. Since lighting is often far removed from the power source(电源)-such as the distance from a power plant to street lamps on a remote highway-a lot of energy is lost during transmission(传输).Glowing plants could reduce this distance and therefore help save energy.
1. What is the first paragraph mainly about?| A．A new study of different plants. |
| B．A big fall in crime rates. |
| C．Employees from various workplaces. |
| D．Benefits from green plants. |
| A．To detect plants’ lack of water |
| B．To change compositions of plants |
| C．To make the life of plants longer. |
| D．To test chemicals in plants. |
| A．They will speed up energy production. |
| B．They may transmit electricity to the home. |
| C．They might help reduce energy consumption. |
| D．They could take the place of power plants. |
| A．Can we grow more glowing plants? |
| B．How do we live with glowing plants? |
| C．Could glowing plants replace lamps? |
| D．How are glowing plants made pollution-free? |
【推荐3】Right now in the Pacific Northwest， the local Lummi tribe is reminding us of our connection to nature， pushing us to question how we treat other species and demanding the release of a captive killer whale from Miami Seaquarium． Many local cultures have known for thousands of years that the success and sustainability of society depend upon our relationship to the natural environment have tried at great lengths to share this knowledge with us． And it's about time that we listened．
As a conservation biologist， my job is to conduct research that helps protect Earth's biodiversity． From my scientific perspective， I back the Lummi's call to release Lolita back into her native waters． Unlike other captive killer whales that were born at amusement parks， Lolita was taken directly from her native environment， which luckily has remained． This means that the likelihood of a successful reintroduction is quite high．
Why？ First， because Lolita already knows how to hunt from her younger years in the Salish Sea before she was taken． Proponents of keeping killer whales captive often say that the whales are not equipped with the skills to know how to hunt and survive in the wild． This is not the case for Lolita．
Second， the fact that Lolita's family still exists and that her mother is still alive means the chances of her being accepted back into the family are quite high． In addition to their 80-year lifespans， killer whales have also been shown to long-term memories． That makes it very likely that Lolita's family will remember her and welcome her back． The fact that Lolita's mother is still alive is particularly exciting because killer whale families are matriarchal， meaning that the female members of the families largely shape the group's social structure．
From my conservationist perspective， I also back the call to free Lolita． Her family belongs to a group known as "southern resident killer whale，" an endangered species whose populations are not doing well． By bringing Lolita home to the Salish Sea， we are effectively adding one more re-productively mature female into the population． If Lolita reproduces， her offspring will help maintain the wild population of wild resident killer whales．
From an ethical perspective， I support the release of Lolita because it is the right thing to do． We know that killer whales are intelligent， and that they are highly social creatures， parallel to Primates （灵长类） and yes， humans too． What does it mean for us as a society that we allow the captivity of intelligent marine mammals for our own amusement？ If we cannot begin to value the diversity of life on this planet， how are we going to be able to value the diversity of life within the human race？
The release of Lolita would be a victory for the Lummi， for science-based conservation and for repairing the relationships between humans and other species． As Martin Luther King Jr． once put it， One day the ridiculousness of the almost universal human belief in the slavery of other animals will be apparent． We shall then have discovered our souls and become worthier of sharing this planet with them．
1. What does NOT contribute to the successful reintroduction of Lolita？| A．The native living environment of Lolita has remained． |
| B．Lolita learned the survival skills at Miami Seaquarium． |
| C．Killer whales have long lifespans and long-term memories． |
| D．Lolita's mother is still alive and plays a decisive role in the family． |
| A．The ecological balance of Pacific Ocean will be disturbed． |
| B．The population of the endangered species may stop decreasing． |
| C．People will value the diversity of life within the human race． |
| D．The Lummi tribe may gain enormous economic benefits． |
I： Introduction P： Point Sp： Sub-point （次要点） C： Conclusion
A． | B． | C． | D． |
| A．To call on Seaquariums to stop using animals for entertainment． |
| B．To introduce the local Lummi culture to the world． |
| C．To support the proposal to free Lolita the killer whale． |
| D．To encourage people to live in harmony with animals． |
