1 . Urbanization
Until relatively recently, the vast majority of human beings lived and died without ever seeing a city. The first city was probably founded no more than 5,500 years ago.
Britain was only the beginning.
In 1900, fewer than 40% of Americans lived in urban areas. Today, over 82% of Americans live in cities. Only about 2% live on farms.
Large cities were impossible until agriculture became industrialized. Even in advanced agricultural societies, it took about ninety-five people on farms to feed five people in cities.
Over the past two centuries, the Industrial Revolution has broken this balance between the city and the country.
| A．That kept cities very small. |
| B．The rest live in small towns. |
| C．The effects of urban living on people should be considered. |
| D．Soon many other industrial nations became urban societies. |
| E．But even 200 years ago, only a few people could live in cities. |
| F．Modernization drew people to the cities and made farmers more productive. |
| G．Modem cities have destroyed social relations and the health of human beings. |
I wake up to the sound of the wind buffeting the cloth of my tent. Even though the sun is
Around 9,000 years ago, reindeer began to arrive at Sarek’s mountains. Following the reindeer
For hundreds of years,
After breakfast, I pack my bag and set out again. Being in such a
3 . If you live in a town or city on the edge of a desert or coastline where sand dunes form, you might understand the threat they can have. It’s, sometimes, a piece of cake for them to cover roads, buildings, farms and other man-made developments with their unpredictable movements. Thus, figuring out how they move is important for preventing some natural disasters.
Now scientists have discovered that dunes have been secretly moving in ways we never knew before. There are different explanations on dune interaction, however, Karol Bacik, first author on the new dune study, and his colleagues have found a new one for dune movement. The researchers employed high-speed cameras to observe how dunes separated by distance can act as if they’re connected.
It turns out, currents flowing over sand dunes can carry “information” to other dunes downstream in the form of swirls(旋涡). For instance, as wind or water flows over the top of a dune, it slightly moves. This can generate “swirls” on the back of a downstream dune and push it in a direction opposite the movement of the front dune.
It’s the first time that researchers were able to provide causal explanations for some of these strange, previously unpredictable movements. The team also hopes to get out of the laboratory and into the real world, to see if their models can be applied to dune movements in complex natural systems. They plan to use satellite images over large deserts to track groups of dunes over long periods.
Perhaps they can start to alter the dune marching orders in the near future. Imagine being able to tell a dune field exactly how you want it to move. That’s the idea that this research might one day make possible.
1. We can learn that the purpose of the study is to _________.| A．stop the sand dunes from moving around |
| B．figure out the track of sand dune movements |
| C．prove the interaction of dunes with each other |
| D．examine a model of sand dunes in the real world |
| A．A study. | B．An interaction. | C．An explanation. | D．A dune. |
| A．A sand dune communicates with another only by currents. |
| B．Swirls on the back of a dune are the power to move itself. |
| C．Some strange dune movements have got causally explained before. |
| D．Researchers think it unnecessary to study further on the dune models. |
A team of over 30 Chinese surveyors left the base camp at Mount Qomolangma for a higher spot
China has started a campaign to measure the height of Mount Qomolangma ,
Preparation of the project
5 . Ever since the University of Bologna in Haly was founded in 1088 as the first modern university, most people have associated great universities,with major cities.
Colleges and universities in the U.S.,though, have followed a different pattern. To be sure, leading universities such as the University of Chicago and Columbia University in New York City call major urban centers home.
purposes, the whole town.
Given the huge diversity of U.S. higher education, the message for international students shopping for a great university is doubled.
known places may amaze you in an unimaginable manner with their high quality and a significant number of their international students.
| A．Bloomington is also a great college town. |
| B．Think the Sorbonne in Paris or Peking University. |
| C．Set your sights beyond the most well-known schools. |
| D．One reason: there were no major cities there at the time. |
| E．There was no better recipe for popularity than small campuses. |
| F．Part of the explanation for this lies in America's distinctive history. |
| G．But many are located in cities and towns most people have never heard of. |
6 . In many countries of the world, people can confidently tell you the meaning of their town or city, but most people who live in Manchester, Oxford or Birmingham would not be able to explain what the name of their city means. The name of every British town and city, however, has a long history.
Two thousand years ago, most people living in Britain were Celts. Even the word “Britain” is Celtic. Then the Romans arrived and built camps which became cities called “castra”. This is why there are so many place names in England which end in “-chester” or “-caster” – Manchester, for example.
The Romans never reached Wales or Scotland, and many place names there are Celtic (凯尔特语的). For example, Welsh place names that begin with “Llan” come from the Celtic word for church.
After the Romans left Britain, it was attacked by tribes (部落) called the Anglo-Saxons who were from the area of Europe that is now Germany and Holland. Without the Roman army, it was impossible to protect the country from these people. The names of their villages often ended in “-ham” or “-ton”. Some got their name from the leader of the village, so Birmingham, for example, means “Beormund’s village”.
The Anglo-Saxons were farmers and the landscape was very important to them, so we have villages called Upton (“village on a hill” – a good place to build a village) and Moreton (“village by a lake”, where floods could make life tough). Place names that end in “-ford” (a place where you could cross a river) also describe the location of Anglo-Saxon villages.
Twelve hundred years ago, the Vikings came to England from Scandinavia. They traded with the Anglo-Saxons but lived in their own villages. These often ended in “-by” or “-thorpe”. The name “Kirkby” means “a village with a church” and Scunthorpe was the village of a man called Skuma.
Finally, in 1066, England became Norman – the Normans gave us the place name “grange”, which means farm.
And how about London? Experts cannot agree. The Romans called the city Londinium, but they were not the first inhabitants (居民). People once believed that the United Kingdom’s capital city got its name from the castle (城堡) of a King called Lud, but this is very unlikely. Our best guess today is that the name comes from a Celtic word meaning a fastflowing river. Like a number of British place names, its history is lost in time.
1. The origin of British place names is unfamiliar to many local people because of ______.| A．the death of ancient languages | B．their lack of interest in the names |
| C．the long lost history of the names | D．the frequent changes to the names |
| A．beside a river | B．near a castle |
| C．on a hill | D．with a church |
| A．The Celts — The Romans — The Vikings — The Normans — The Anglo Saxons |
| B．The Celts — The Romans — The Anglo Saxons — The Vikings — The Normans |
| C．The Romans — The Celts — The Vikings — The Anglo Saxons — The Normans |
| D．The Romans — The Anglo Saxons — The Celts — The Normans — The Vikings |
| A．It is short for Londinium. | B．It’s from the term for a river. |
| C．It is puzzling and hard to confirm. | D．It comes from the castle of a King. |
7 . The Hope Diamond is one of the world’s most famous jewels. It was in the possession of a series of people: kings, bankers, rich women and thieves, before its arrival 60 years ago at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.
As a rare blue diamond, it has a complex social history, to be sure. But, far more so is its geological history, researchers say in a new report. This is the first time anyone has come up with a fact-based study or model for how blue diamonds form.
The group looked at 42 blue diamonds, including one from South Africa that recently sold for $25 million in 2016. Researchers could tell where the stones were formed based on the very small minerals trapped inside.
Diamonds are a hard, clear form of pure carbon called a crystal (结晶). They form under extreme heat and pressure. Blue diamonds crystallize alongside water-bearing minerals that long ago were part of the floor of the sea. But these minerals were pushed deeper underground during the movement of the Earth’s plates.
Scientists already knew these diamonds received their blue color from the element boron (硼). The study says that boron had once been in ocean water but was eventually pushed into the seafloor rock. Over millions of years, the boron continued to move deep underground.
Many diamonds appear colorless. Often, however, they have some yellow color. Still others have a light brown, pink or green color. About 99 percent of all diamonds form somewhere between 150 to 200 kilometers underground, a far shallower birthplace than their blue relations. “These diamonds are among the deepest ever found,” Carnegie Institution for Science geochemist Steven Shirey said of the blue diamonds.
The public can see the Hope Diamond at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C.
1. By saying the underlined part in Paragraph 2, the researchers mean the blue diamond ________.| A．was formed in extreme weather |
| B．has a very complex forming history |
| C．has a far-reaching influence in society |
| D．used to be very popular among rich people |
| A．By observing their colors. |
| B．By studying their structures. |
| C．By referring to where they were found. |
| D．By examining tiny substances in them. |
| A．The water. | B．Extreme heat and pressure. |
| C．A special matter. | D．The seafloor rock. |
| A．They contain several colors. |
| B．They form in much deeper underground. |
| C．They come into being in a different way. |
| D．They are found near the earth’s surface. |
| A．The social status of the Hope Diamond. |
| B．The discovery of the Hope Diamond. |
| C．The formation of the blue diamond. |
| D．The diversity of diamonds. |
Antarctica is the coldest continent on Earth. It's also among the driest.
Yet Antarctica is full of wildlife, which has adapted
9 . When you think of the Arctic, you imagine an icy land of pure white snow, which is considered to be the last really clean place
The researchers state that microplastics in snow suggest that microplastics may be in the air that we
Previous research has found that they flow over long distances and into our oceans,
10 . Indonesia has said the country would be removing its capital city, in part because it's sinking into the Java Sea. Jakarta is one of the fastest sinking cities in the world, according to the World Economic Forum, due to rising sea levels and the over-extraction of groundwater. But it isn't the only city in trouble. Here's a look at some others that are also at risk.
Houston
Houston has been sinking for decades and, like Jakarta, the over-extraction of groundwater is partly to blame.
The Houston Chronicle reported that parts of Harris County, which contains Houston, have sunk between 10 and 12 feet (about 3 meters), since the 1920s, according to data from the US Geological Survey. Areas have continued to fall as much as 2 inches per year, an amount that can quickly add up.
Lawmakers have tried to address the issue, creating a special purpose district meant to regulate the withdrawal of groundwater in 1975. But the problem has persisted, with privately owned wells and water suppliers continuing to pull from aquifers (蓄水层).
Lagos
The city of Lagos sits on the coast of Nigeria, constructed partly on the mainland, partly on some nearby islands. It's also Africa's most populous city. Its geography makes Lagos especially easily flooded, and the coastline has already been eroding. As sea levels rise due to global warming, the city is increasingly at risk.
One study from 2012 revealed that, because Nigeria's coastline is so low, a sea level rise of just 3 to 9 feet (about 1 to 3 meters) "will have a catastrophic effect on the human activities in these regions."
Washington
Washington is one of the most important cities in the US — and it's also sinking. Research from 2015 showed that America's capital will drop more than 6 inches (15 centimeters) in the next 100 years.
But unlike Jakarta, Washington's sinking has nothing to do with aquifers or rising sea levels — it's actually because of an ice sheet from the last ice age. A mile-high ice sheet pushed land beneath the Chesapeake Bay upward. When the ice sheet melted, thousands of years ago, the land settled back down. The researchers now believe that the area is gradually sinking, a process that could last thousands of years.
1. What is the common reason for the sinking between Houston and Jakarta?| A．the soft land | B．rising sea level |
| C．the eroding coastline | D．over-extraction of groundwater |
| A．positive | B．indifferent |
| C．unknown | D．negative |
| A．Houston | B．Lagos |
| C．Washington | D．Jakarta |
