1 . Hristo Hristov has been working with wildlife in Bulgaria’s remote Rhodope Mountains for over 30 years. He first came here as a bright-eyed student in the early 1990s, eager to increase the number of griffon vulture (欧亚尤雪). At the time, there were fewer than 20 birds left. Fast forward to November 2020, there were more griffon vultures. At the last count, a record 245 now live in the Rhodope Mountains.
As a rewilding officer, Hristo is responsible for the welfare of the animals in his area, which means constant observation, and lengthy periods out in the wild conducting research. “This process is sometimes long — you have to live together with the animals,” he explains. “Forget everything; you live in nature. It doesn’t matter if they’re horses, wild cattle or European bison (野牛).”
This small corner of south-eastern Europe is one of the continent’s most ecologically diverse areas. Large animals, such as wolves, brown bears, deer, and wild horses, coexist here. It’s also a peaceful place for birdlife, with 300 species recorded. The ultimate goal is to create a habitat where multiple different species depend on one another.
Hristo’s current challenge is to continue the reintroduction of European bison to the wild. Since 2013, Hristo has worked with Rewilding Europe, a not-for-profit organisation which operates across Europe, to bring bison back to the Rhodope Mountains. In 2019, several bison were released into the wild, and three baby bison have already been born, two of those coming in 2020. At the end of last year, another two females were donated to the project from zoos in Hungary and Slovakia. When the new animals are eventually released into the wild, they will number 13.
1. What can be learned about griffon vultures?| A．They are now in danger of dying out. | B．They may live as long as over 30 years. |
| C．They can be seen in the Rhodope Mountains. | D．They were first discovered in the early 1990s. |
| A．Proud but caring. | B．Silent but generous. |
| C．Honest and creative. | D．Devoted and patient. |
| A．Develop the theme with examples. | B．Add some background information. |
| C．Summarize the previous paragraphs. | D．Introduce a new topic for discussion. |
| A．It will be hard to assess. | B．It will start to explode. |
| C．It will show promise. | D．It will be something to worry about. |
2 . Lots of animals live and move in groups--elephants in herds, wolves in packs, birds in flocks, and fish in schools. Research has shown that where an individual is located in the group can affect the benefits it gets from hanging out in a crowd. However, Shaun Killen, an ecophysiologist at the University of Glasgow in the UK says, researchers haven’t yet fully explored the role of physiological processes such as digestion in driving animals’ collective behavior.
Killen and his colleagues recently studied schools of Eurasian minnows (修鱼) swimming in a tank against a current. Pieces of food were constantly moving past the fish, and the team recorded how many each minnow ate and the fishes’ positions before and after eating. After calculating the metabolic (新陈代谢的) costs of digesting each fish’s meal and comparing it to the fish’s position ,the team observed a trend: fish that had just gulped down a big meal moved to the back of the school, even when they’d swum at the front at most other times.
“It makes sense that feeding would influence individuals’ positions in a group,” says DamienFarine, who studies collective behavior in birds at the University of Konstanz in Germany, “If a fish is hungry, it’s competing with others in the school to eat, and being at the front gives it access to more food. But once the fish is full, it doesn’t necessarily need to be at the front.” In addition,“being at the back of the group is less energetically costly for a range of reasons,” Farine notes.” An individual at the back doesn’t have to contribute to navigating, and by relaxing the brain load it saves more energy.”
Killen says he’s been thinking about the pros and cons of being at the back of the pack, such as protection from attackers and a boost from schoolmates’ slipstream. Changes in position, especially during the basic trade -off between feeding and movement, appear to influence group leadership ,information transfer, and group decision making. But the consequences of the trade-offs for group power and survival are not yet understood.
1. What does Killen and his colleagues’ study focus on?| A．How behavioral traits influence position change of individuals in fish schools. |
| B．How location influences nutrition states of individuals in fish schools. |
| C．How digestion influences distribution of individuals in fish schools. |
| D．How location influences benefits of individuals in fish schools. |
| A．Swallowed. | B．Located. | C．Witnessed. | D．Missed. |
| A．A full fish competes to eat at the back. |
| B．A hungry fish has easier access to more food. |
| C．Being at the back saves the energy of a full fish. |
| D．Being at the front costs a hungry fish less energy. |
| A．Cautious. | B．Confident. | C．Positive. | D．Disappointed. |
China will establish a new batch of national parks, including Huanghekou, Qianjiangyuan-Baishanzu and Kalamayli, in a steady and
Speaking at the second National Park Forum held in Xining, capital of Qinghai province, Guan said China has adopted the strictest measures
China’s national parks are specific land or sea areas
In 2021, China established the first batch of national parks, with
“The Sanjiangyuan park realized the full protection of the source of the Yangtze, Yellow and Lancang
“Efforts
4 . Scientists have been experimenting with playing sounds to plants since at least the 1960s, during which time they have been exposed to everything from Beethoven to Michael Jackson. Over the years, evidence that this sort of thing can have an effect has been growing. One paper, published in 2018, claimed that an Asian shrub known as the telegraph plant grew substantially larger leaves when exposed to 56 days of Buddhist music — but not if it was exposed to Western pop music or silence. Another, published last year, found that marigolds and sage plants exposed to the noise of traffic from a busy motorway suffered growth difficulty.
Plants have been evolving (进化) alongside the insects that eat them for hundreds of millions of years. With that in mind, Heidi Appel, a botanist now at the University of Houston, and Reginald Cocroft, a biologist at the University of Missouri, wondered if plants might be sensitive to the sounds made by the animals with which they most often interact. They recorded the vibrations made by certain species of caterpillars (毛毛虫) as they chewed on leaves. These vibrations are not powerful enough to produce sound waves in the air. But they are able to travel across leaves and branches, and even to neighbouring plants if their leaves touch.
They then exposed tobacco plant — the plant biologist’s version of the laboratory mouse — to the recorded vibrations while no caterpillars were actually present. Later, they put real caterpillars on the plants to see if exposure had led them to prepare for an insect attack. The results were striking. Leaves that had been exposed had significantly higher levels of defensive chemicals, making them much harder for the caterpillars to eat. Leaves that had not been exposed to vibrations showed no such response. Other sorts of vibration — caused by the wind, for instance, or other insects that do not eat leaves — had no effect.
“Now speakers with the right audio files are more often being used to warn crops to act when insects are detected but not yet widespread,” says Dr. Cocroft. “Unlike chemical pesticides, sound waves leave no dangerous chemicals.”
1. What can we learn about plants from the first paragraph?| A．They may enjoy Western music. | B．They can’t stand Buddhist music. |
| C．They can react to different sounds. | D．They can make different sounds. |
| A．Plants can make a cry for help. | B．Plants evolve alongside insects. |
| C．Plants are sensitive to the sounds. | D．Plants have been studied for years. |
| A．They can recongnize harmful vibrations. | B．They look like laboratory mice. |
| C．They can threaten the caterpillars. | D．They can release poisonous chemicals. |
| A．Disadvantages of chemical pesticides. | B．Application of the experimental results. |
| C．Interaction between plants and insects. | D．Warning system of widespread insects. |
5 . Time to load up some popular games: new research indicates pigs possess the mental capability to play video games. The study, published in Frontiers in Psychology, tested the ability of four pigs (Hamlet, Omelette, Ebony and Ivory) to play a simple joystick (操纵杆) game with their noses, moving a cursor (光标) to four targets on the screen. Although the animals didn’t demonstrate the skills to win a round any time, they did show an understanding of some elementary games. Performing well not by chance, the pigs appeared to recognize the movement of the cursor was controlled by the joystick. The fact that they did so well despite a lack of flexible fingers is “extraordinary”, according to the researchers.
“It is no small achievement for an animal to grasp the concept that the behaviour they are performing is having an effect elsewhere. That pigs can do this to any degree should give us pause as to what else they are capable of learning and how such learning may impact them, “said Purdue University’s Dr Candace Croney, the study’s lead author.
Researchers also noted that while the pigs could be taught to play the game using food as positive motivation, they also responded well to social interaction. In fact, when the game was made more challenging and the pigs became unwilling to participate in it, “only oral encouragement by the experimenter” would see training continue.
These findings are the latest to highlight the intelligence of pigs. Not only have they been shown to use mirrors to find hidden food, but studies have also demonstrated how pigs can be taught to “come” and “sit” after oral commands.
As with any sentient (有感觉力的) beings, how we interact with pigs and what we do to them impacts and matters to them. We therefore have a moral duty to understand how pigs acquire information, and what they are capable of learning and remembering, because it ultimately offers the potential for how they understand their interactions with us and their environments.
1. What can be learned from Paragraph 1?| A．The pigs sometimes won the video games. |
| B．The pigs operated joysticks with their noses. |
| C．The pigs competed with each other in the games. |
| D．The pigs sometimes performed well accidentally. |
| A．Stop us from advancing. | B．Affect us in learning. |
| C．Make us think seriously. | D．Force us to train pigs better. |
| A．Their being inspired by human words. | B．Their being driven by food. |
| C．Their being willing to keep trying. | D．Their being motivated by challenges. |
| A．Smart Pigs: Best Animal Players | B．Flexible Noses: Fun Games |
| C．Oral Commands: Pig Learners | D．Pig Players: Learning Potential |
6 . A new study suggests classic paintings by well-known Impressionists Joseph Turner and Claude Monet may have been influenced by air pollution during the Industrial Revolution.
The study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by authors from Harvard and Sorbonne universities, analyzed 60 oil paintings by Turner from 1796 to 1850 and 38 paintings by Monet from 1864 to 1901.
Scientists don't know exactly how polluted the cities were during that time for lack of data. However, researchers say examining the works of Turner and Monet can give a picture of long-term environmental change with the air pollution.
In particular, researchers said changes in local sulfur dioxide emissions from burning coal may explain changes in the colour contrast and intensity of Turner, Monet, and others' works, even after taking into account the artistic trends and subject matter of the time.
Scientists successfully measured painters' representation of nature, focusing on differences in local weather patterns which influenced colour in works painted in different parts of Europe. Paintings' done in Britain generally feature a paler blue sky than other works in other parts of the continent. Generally, artists can historically accurately represent their environment, so Turner and Monet were chosen because they are famous for their landscape and cityscape paintings and also because they were active during the Industrial Revolution, when air pollution grew at a rate never seen before.
Additionally, researchers say that as the air in London and Paris became more polluted, the cities would appear hazier to the eyes as well as in photographs. By comparing the paintings of Turner and Monet to pictures from the era, they were able to determine the artists were at least partly influenced by the change in emissions.
1. How did the researchers conduct the study?| A．By referring to relevant historical records. |
| B．By comparing the paintings of Turner and Monet. |
| C．By relating the paintings to the air conditions then. |
| D．By analyzing the data during the Industrial Revolution. |
| A．Air pollution at that time. | B．Change in subject matter. |
| C．Social trends of the period. | D．Development of photography |
| A．European artists preferred landscape paintings. |
| B．Scientists focused on studying weather patterns. |
| C．Turner and Monet intended to present pollution. |
| D．Britain suffered from air pollution most in Europe. |
| A．To inform people of a new discovery. | B．To instruct people to appreciate paintings. |
| C．To introduce the Industrial Revolution. | D．To call on people to protect the environment. |
7 . While beach vacations may be a great way to take your mind off work, lakes surrounded by mountains make for an even more wonderful experience. If you are looking for some peace on your vacation, we have some recommendations for you in the Caucasus (高加索).
Lake Sevan
Lake Sevan is located in the central part of Armenia, in the Gegharkunik province. It is the largest lake in Armenia, 6,200ft above sea level. Along the lake shore, there are various accommodations such as resorts and hotels with plenty of activities to take part in such as windsurfing, swimming and sunbathing. While there, do not forget to visit one of the famous cultural sites with remarkable history, the Sevanavank Monastery, and it offers a great view of the lake as well.
Paravani Lake
Paravani Lake, 6,801ft above sea level, is in the south of Georgia, near the Javakheti Plateau. At this level, altitude sickness can appear and it is a good idea to be prepared to adapt to it properly, or bring medicine for altitude sickness. Being a volcanic lake makes for a more interesting experience. The lake is best known for fishing. Do not come here during the winter months when the lake freezes.
Lake Cildir
Lake Cildir is in the Ardahan province, east Turkey, near the borders of Georgia and Armenia. It is a large freshwater lake of eastern Turkey, and many tourists don’t notice this beautiful attraction. Lake Cildir is surrounded by mountains of the Caucasus. The lake freezes during late November. If the winter is not extremely cold, you can try some lake activities like ice skating and ice fishing.
Lake Van
Lake Van is the must visit of all lakes in this list, the largest lake in Turkey. Lake Van is on the eastern shore of Turkey and is also the most accessible lake there. It’s 5,380ft above sea level, and unique to many lakes around the world: the water is high in salt content.
1. If you want to visit some historic sites during your travel by a lake, you can go to________.| A．Lake Cildir | B．Paravani Lake | C．Lake Sevan | D．Lake Van |
| A．Lack of medicine. | B．Altitude sickness. |
| C．Volcano eruptions. | D．Low temperature all the year. |
| A．Its water is high in salt. | B．It is a volcanic lake. |
| C．It is globally the largest lake. | D．It is surrounded by mountains. |
8 . On September 7, 1991, the costliest hailstorm (雹暴) in Canadian history hit Calgary’s southern suburbs. As a result, since 1996 a group of insurance companies have spent about $2 million per year on the Alberta Hail Suppression Project. Airplanes seed threatening storm cells with a chemical to make small ice crystals fall as rain before they can grow into dangerous hailstones. But farmers in east-central Alberta — downwind of the hail project flights — worry that precious moisture (水分) is being stolen from their thirsty land by the cloud seeding.
Norman Stienwand, who farms in that area, has been addressing public meetings on this issue for years. “Basically, the provincial government is letting the insurance companies protect the Calgary-Edmonton urban area from hail,” Mr. Stienwand says, “but they’re increasing drought risk as far east as Saskatchewan.”
The Alberta hail project is managed by Terry Krauss, a cloud physicist who works for Weather Modification Inc. of Fargo, North Dakota. “We affect only a very small percentage of the total moisture in the air, so we cannot be causing drought.” Dr. Krauss says. “In fact, we may be helping increase the moisture downwind by creating wetter ground.”
One doubter about the safety of cloud seeding is Chuck Doswell, a research scientist who just retired from the University of Oklahoma. “In 1999, I personally saw significant tornadoes form from a seeded storm cell in Kansas,” Dr. Doswell says. “Does cloud seeding create killer storms or reduce moisture downwind? No one really knows, of course, but the seeding goes on.”
Given the degree of doubt, Mr. Stienwand suggests, “It would be wise to stop cloud seeding.” In practice, doubt has had the opposite effect. Due to the lack of scientific proof concerning their impacts, no one has succeeded in winning a lawsuit against cloud-seeding companies. Hence, private climate engineering can proceed in relative legal safety.
1. What does the project aim to do?| A．Conserve moisture in the soil. | B．Forecast disastrous hailstorms. |
| C．Prevent the formation of hailstones. | D．Investigate chemical use in farming. |
| A．Managers of insurance companies. | B．Farmers in east-central Alberta. |
| C．Provincial government officials. | D．Residents of Calgary and Edmonton. |
| A．To compare different kinds of seeding methods. | B．To illustrate the development of big hailstorms. |
| C．To show the link between storms and moisture. | D．To indicate a possible danger of cloud seeding. |
| A．Scientific studies have proved Stienwand right. | B．Cloud-seeding companies will continue to exist. |
| C．The doubt about cloud seeding has disappeared. | D．Private climate engineering is illegal in Canada. |
9 . Some termite (白蚁) species have figured out how to enjoy the shelter of the huge complex nests that the insects build without contributing to their construction. They avoid the full anger of their builder hosts by being extremely easy-going.
Animals that live in the nests of another species without affecting them are known as inquilines. Inquiline termites are unique among termites in being unable to make their own nests. Instead, they live in the hallways built by another termite, Constrictotermes cyphergaster. Until now, it has been unclear how the two parties kept peaceful in such tight quarters because termites are typically very aggressive towards outsiders.
Helder Hugo at the University of Konstanz in Germany and his colleagues collected Constrictotermes cyphergaster’s nests in the Brazilian Cerrado and brought them into the laboratory. They then placed host and tenant (房客) termites in either open or narrow areas and used video to track and record the ways in which the two species reacted to each other.
Right from the start, the inquiline’ termites moved around less than their hosts and interacted little with them, even in the much narrower area. “Many times,” says Hugo, “when two unrelated groups are put together in a limited space—such as an experimental area—the outcome is conflict with losses from both sides.” But that didn’t happen here. Despite attacks from host termites, the tenant termites were obedient. Hosts would bite or attack the inquilines with strong chemicals, but their targets never responded in the same way, choosing to flee. Some ignored the hosts completely.
“We did not expect that they would never fight back,” says Hugo, noting that the inquilines are capable of protecting their own place with mouths. “By preventing conflict going worse, inquiline termites may considerably improve their chances of living together with their host termites peacefully.”
“Passiveness does not necessarily lead to defeat, but can be a very useful strategy, saving energy and resources,” she adds. “Nature may not always be red in tooth and claw, and aggression is not any more successful a strategy than ‘cowardice’ (儒弱).”
1. What is the feature of the inquiline termites?| A．They live in another termite species’ nests. |
| B．They are aggressive towards outsiders. |
| C．They like to build their own nests. |
| D．They are communicative tenants. |
| A．The differences between the two species. |
| B．The findings of the observation. |
| C．The living habits of termites. |
| D．The process of the research. |
| A．Aggressive. | B．Unacceptable. | C．Effective. | D．Dangerous. |
| A．The Characteristics of Termites |
| B．Passiveness Doesn’t Necessarily Lead to Defeat |
| C．The Relationship Between Host and Tenant Termites |
| D．Termites Use Cowardice to Avoid Their Hosts’ Anger |
10 . Every year, I circle the first day of spring on our calendar. In this way, it won't slip by
For years, spring in our town was
But let us suppose Johnston's store ignores its duty and we are left
| A．unnoticed | B．unrequested | C．unrealistic | D．unchallenged |
| A．put away | B．learn about | C．depend on | D．make up |
| A．working | B．closing | C．equipped | D．appointed |
| A．ignored | B．indicated | C．celebrated | D．interrupted |
| A．post | B．receive | C．exchange | D．coin |
| A．searching | B．charging | C．readying | D．demanding |
| A．general | B．accurate | C．casual | D．invisible |
| A．open | B．neat | C．stylish | D．fresh |
| A．Naturally | B．Surprisingly | C．Specifically | D．Fortunately |
| A．admits | B．ceases | C．considers | D．suggests |
| A．sign | B．chance | C．function | D．preparation |
| A．clear | B．guilty | C．worthy | D．unaware |
| A．Although | B．When | C．Because | D．Until |
| A．hangs up | B．pulls on | C．gives away | D．shows off |
| A．family | B．business | C．hobbies | D．habits |
