1 . Plastic-Eating Worms
Humans produce more than 300 million tons of plastic every year. Almost half of that winds up in landfills(垃圾填埋场), and up to 12 million tons pollute the oceans. So far there is no effective way to get rid of it, but a new study suggests an answer may lie in the stomachs of some hungry worms.
Researchers in Spain and England recently found that the worms of the greater wax moth can break down polyethylene, which accounts for 40% of plastics. The team left 100 wax worms on a commercial polyethylene shopping bag for 12 hours, and the worms consumed and broke down about 92 milligrams, or almost 3% of it. To confirm that the worms’ chewing alone was not responsible for the polyethylene breakdown, the researchers made some worms into paste(糊状物) and applied it to plastic films. 14 hours later the films had lost 13% of their mass — apparently broken down by enzymes (酶) from the worms’ stomachs. Their findings were published in Current Biology in 2017.
Federica Bertocchini, co-author of the study, says the worms’ ability to break down their everyday food — beeswax — also allows them to break down plastic. ＂Wax is a complex mixture, but the basic bond in polyethylene, the carbon-carbon bond, is there as well, ＂she explains, ＂The wax worm evolved a method or system to break this bond. ＂
Jennifer DeBruyn, a microbiologist at the University of Tennessee, who was not involved in the study, says it is not surprising that such worms can break down polyethylene. But compared with previous studies, she finds the speed of breaking down in this one exciting. The next step, DeBruyn says, will be to identify the cause of the breakdown. Is it an enzyme produced by the worm itself or by its gut microbes(肠道微生物)?
Bertocchini agrees and hopes her team’s findings might one day help employ the enzyme to break down plastics in landfills. But she expects using the chemical in some kind of industrial process — not simply ＂millions of worms thrown on top of the plastic.＂
1. What can we learn about the worms in the study?| A．They take plastics as their everyday food. |
| B．They are newly evolved creatures. |
| C．They can consume plastics. |
| D．They wind up in landfills. |
| A．identify other means of the breakdown |
| B．find out the source of the enzyme |
| C．confirm the research findings |
| D．increase the breakdown speed |
| A．help to raise worms |
| B．help make plastic bags |
| C．be used to clean the oceans |
| D．be produced in factories in future |
| A．To explain a study method on worms. |
| B．To introduce the diet of a special worm. |
| C．To present a way to break down plastics. |
| D．To propose new means to keep eco-balance. |
2 . 
I used to think ants knew what they were doing. The ones marching across my kitchen counter looked so confident; I just figured they had a plan, knew where they were going and what needed to be done. How else could ants organize highways, build elaborate nests, launch impressive attacks, and do all the other things ants do?
Turns out I was wrong. Ants aren’t clever little engineers, architects, or soldiers after all --- at least not as individuals. When it comes to deciding what to do next, most ants don’t have a clue. “If you watch an ant try to accomplish something, you’ll be impressed by how awkward it is,” says Deborah M. Gordon, a biologist at Stanford University.
“Ants aren’t smart,” Gordon says. “Ant colonies are.” A colony can solve problems unthinkable for individual ants, such as finding the shortest path to the best food source, assigning workers to different tasks, or defending a territory from neighbors. As individuals, ants might be tiny dummies, but as colonies they respond quickly and effectively to their environment. They do it with something called collective intelligence.
Where this intelligence comes from raises an essential question in nature: How do the simple actions of individual ants add up to the complex behavior of a group? How do hundreds of honey-bees make a critical decision about their hive (蜂巢)if many of them disagree? The collective abilities of such animals --- one of which grasps the big picture, but each of which contributes to the group’s success --- seem miraculous even to the biologists who know them best. Yet during the past few decades, researchers have come up with fascinating insights.
1. The author’s former false impression about ants is that he thought them to be _______.| A．smart | B．awkward | C．elaborate | D．creative |
| A．Ants will function as a single body once a decision is made by the commander. |
| B．Ants are the only species which developed collective intelligence. |
| C．The ant queen plays a role in managing ant workers besides laying eggs. |
| D．An individual ant can’t comprehend the whole process of a big movement. |
| A．where we can observe such fantastic behavior of ants |
| B．which is the leading ant in charge of the action |
| C．how the collective intelligence works |
| D．what inspiration can be drawn from the collective abilities |
3 . Everyone in business has been told that success is all about attracting and retaining (留住) customers. It sounds simple and achievable. But,
Only now are organizations beginning to wake up to those lost opportunities and calculate the
In the US, Domino’s Pizza estimates that a regular customer is worth more than $5,000 over ten years. A customer who receives a poor quality product or service on their first visit and
The logic behind cultivating customer
| A．in particular | B．in reality | C．at least | D．first of all |
| A．emphasize | B．doubt | C．overlook | D．believe |
| A．denying | B．ensuring | C．arguing | D．proving |
| A．Moving | B．Hoping | C．Starting | D．Failing |
| A．markets | B．tastes | C．prices | D．expenses |
| A．culture | B．social | C．financial | D．economical |
| A．promise | B．plan | C．mistake | D．difference |
| A．cost | B．opportunity | C．profit | D．budget |
| A．as a result | B．on the whole | C．in conclusion | D．on the contrary |
| A．huge | B．potential | C．extra | D．reasonable |
| A．beliefs | B．loyalty | C．habits | D．interest |
| A．altering | B．understanding | C．keeping | D．attracting |
| A．Assumed | B．Respected | C．Established | D．Unexpected |
| A．agreeable | B．flexible | C．friendly | D．sensitive |
| A．unfair | B．difficult | C．essential | D．convenient |
4 . Passage Nine (Holmes’ Knowledge)
His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge. Of contemporary literature, philosophy and politics he appeared to know next to nothing. Upon my quoting Thomas Carlyle, he inquired in the naivest way who he might be and what he had done. My surprise reached a climax, however, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar system.
“You appear to be astonished,” Holmes said, smiling at my expression. “Now that I do know it I shall do my best to forget it. You see, I consider that a man’s brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose: A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has difficulty in laying his hand upon it. It is a mistake to think that the little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it, there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you know before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.”
“But the Solar System!” I protested.
“What the deuce is it to me?” he interrupted impatiently.
One morning, I picked up a magazine from the table and attempted to while away the time with it, while my companion munched silently at his toast. One of the articles had a pencil mark at the heading, and I naturally began to run my eye through it.
Its somewhat ambitious title was “The Book of Life,” and it attempted to show how much an observant man might learn by an accurate and systematic examination of all that came in his way. It struck me as being a remarkable mixture of shrewdness and of absurdity. The reasoning was close and intense, but the deduction appeared to me to be far-fetched and exaggerated. The writer claimed by a momentary expression, a twitch of a muscle or a glance of an eye, to fathom a man’s inmost thought. Deceit, according to him, was impossibility in the case of one trained to observation and analysis. His conclusions were as infallible as so many propositions of Euclid. So startling would his results appear to the uninitiated that until they learned the processes by which he had arrived at them they might well consider him as a necromancer.
“From a drop of water,” said the writer, “a logician could infer the possibility of an Atlantic. So all life is a great chain, the nature of which is known whenever we are shown a single link of it. Like all other arts, the science of Deduction and Analysis is one which can be acquired by long and patient study, nor is life long enough to allow any mortal to attain the highest possible perfection in it.”
This smartly written piece of theory I could not accept until a succession of evidences justified it.
1. What is the author’s attitude toward Holmes?| A．Praising. | B．Critical. | C．Ironical. | D．Distaste. |
| A．By deduction. | B．By explanation. | C．By contrast. | D．By analysis. |
| A．Learning what every body learned. |
| B．Learning what was useful to you. |
| C．Learning whatever you came across. |
| D．Learning what was different to you. |
| A．One may master the way of reasoning through observation. |
| B．One may become rather critical through observation and analysis. |
| C．One may become rather sharp through observation and analysis. |
| D．One may become practical through observation and analysis. |
5 . Pride and Prejudice for the Modern Woman
Let us imagine how Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen’s most famous work, might be updated, 200 years on.
Austen’s popularity is rooted in her intelligence. But today she would certainly have had a very different life, as would her characters. Here’s my own suggestion.
It is a truth finally and universally acknowledged that a single woman with brains deserves to have equal opportunities to men, however disadvantaged she may feel by sexism.
“My dear husband,” said his hopeful wife one day, “have you heard that the local store, standing empty for so long, is taken over by a bright young businesswoman?”
Her dull and indifferent (漠不关心的) husband replied that he had not. “But it is, it is,” she replied excitedly. Mr Dull-Husband made no reply.
“Don’t you want to know her plans?” she cried with some impatience.
“Well, clearly you think it matters to your silly little head... so I’d better listen.”
“Well, my dear, the rumour (传言) is that she has already set up a string of successful businesses in northern England, though how a woman can know anything about that is beyond me. She will move in herself next month.” “What is her name?” “Bingley.”
“Is she married or single?”
“What a question! And none of your business. But her coming will be a fine thing for our five boys.” “How so? How can it possibly affect them?”
“My dear love; those lazy boys need something to wake them up. There are bound to be jobs going.”
“Is that her point in settling here? Surely as a woman she has simply taken a fancy to the place.”
“Nonsense, my love, how little you’ve noticed the world has changed. She’s got a first-rate degree and some sort of business qualification, I’m told. She surely needs one of our boys! Perhaps you might give her a call.”
“Me? No. Perhaps you can take an interest. You still have your looks, after all. She may even offer you a job.” “Oh, that’s not likely. These new chances belong to the younger generation. But now you mention it, I think I’ll go along all the same.”
And Mrs Bennet went along. That was 10 years ago. She is now managing director of a FTSE-listed company.
...It would remain the case, of course, that Mrs Bennet would be one of very few women on the company board, that her salary would be lower than her male colleagues, her bonus of a more “female” dimension and her lifespan (年限) among the city’s business leaders shorter than theirs. Still, she’d no doubt have enjoyed Davos — and might even have hobnobbed (攀谈) with influential figures.
1. Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?| A．Austen was born 200 years ago. |
| B．Austen rewrote Pride and Prejudice. |
| C．Austen’s success lies in her wisdom. |
| D．Austen’s updated work gains popularity. |
| A．had mixed feelings of admiration and surprise about Bingley |
| B．felt kind of worried and doubtful about Bingley |
| C．was extremely anxious to meet Bingley |
| D．had a great curiosity about Bingley |
| A．get married to | B．work for her |
| C．help her move in | D．take over her store |
| A．Women with brains can also be as successful as men. |
| B．Women have to pay a high price for success. |
| C．A judgment must be made free from prejudice. |
| D．Sex discrimination still exists nowadays. |
Components of Soft
Soil is made up of a number of layers(层), each having its own distinctive colour and texture. The upper layer is known as the litter. It acts like a blanket, limiting temperature changes and reducing water loss. The topsoil layer is made up of small particles of rock mixed with rotten plant and animal matter called humus(腐殖质), which is black and gives the topsoil its dark colour. This layer is usually rich in nutrients, oxygen, and water. Below the topsoil is the subsoil, a layer that contains more stones mixed with only small amounts of organic matter. This layer is lighter in colour because of the lack of humus. Beneath the soil lies a layer of bedrock.
Soil forms from the bottom up. Over time bedrock is attacked by rain, wind, frost, and snow. It is gradually broken down into smaller particles in a process called weathering. Plants begin to grow, and rotten materials enrich the topsoil. Most of the soil in Eastern Canada, for example, was formed from weathered rock that was exposed when the ice disappeared l2,000 years ago.
Water Beneath the Soil
Surface water collects and flows above the ground in lakes, ponds, and rivers. Once in the soil or rock, it is called groundwater. Gravity pulls groundwater through the soil in a process called percolation(渗透). Eventually the water reaches a layer called the water table. Under this is bedrock through which water cannot percolate.
As water percolates downward, it dissolves organic matter and minerals from the soil and carries them to deeper layers. This causes a serious problem because plants require these nutrients for growth.
Soil pH
Soil can be acidic, neutral, or basic. The pH of the soil is determined by the nature of the rock from which it was formed, and by the nature of the plants that grow and rot in it.
The acidity of rain and snow can lower the pH of the groundwater that enters the soil. By burning fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gasoline, humans have been contributing to higher levels of acidity in many soils. When fossil fuels are burned, gases are released into the air and then fall back to earth as acid rain. Acid soil increases the problem of carrying nutrients to lower soil levels. As nutrients are removed, soil is less fertile. Plants grow more slowly in acidic soil, and also become easily attacked by diseases.
1. The layer of soil that provides necessary nutrients for plant growth is called_______.
| A．litter | B．topsoil | C．humus | D．subsoil |
| A．Soil forms from weathered rock on the earth surface. |
| B．The deeper layer of soil is darker in colour than the surface soil. |
| C．Air pollution is partially responsible for acid soil. |
| D．Groundwater tends to carry away nutrients for plant growth. |
| A．between the topsoil layer and the subsoil layer |
| B．in the subsoil layer above bedrock |
| C．between the subsoil layer and bedrock |
| D．in the bedrock layer beneath the subsoil |
| A．rushed away into the river |
| B．cleaned and purified by water |
| C．destroyed and carried away by water |
| D．mixed with water and become part of it |
