1 . The Amazon rainforest is as undisturbed a place as most people can imagine, but even there, the effects of a changing climate are playing out. Now, research suggests that many of the region’s most sensitive bird species are starting to evolve in response to warming.
Birds are often considered sentinel (哨兵) species — meaning that they indicate the overall health of an ecosystem — so scientists are particularly interested in how they’re responding to climate change. In general, the news has not been good. For instance, a 2019 report by the National Audubon Society found that more than two-thirds of North America’s bird species will be in danger of extinction by 2100 if warming trends continue on their current course.
For the new study, researchers collected the biggest database so far on the Amazon’s resident birds, representing 77 non-migratory species and lasting the 40 years from 1979 to 2019. During the study period, the average temperature in the region rose, while the amount of rainfall declined, making for a hotter, dryer climate overall. According to the report on November 12 in the journal Science Advances, 36 species have lost substantial weight, as much as 2 percent of their body weight per decade since 1980. Meanwhile, all the species showed some decrease in average body mass, while a third grew longer wings.
Because of the study’s long time series and large sample sizes, the authors were able to show the morphological (形态学的) effects of climate change on resident birds. However, the researchers themselves are unsure and wonder what advantage the wing length changes give the birds, but suppose smaller birds may have an easier time keeping cool. In general, smaller animals have a larger rate of surface area to body size, so they dissipate more heat faster than a bigger animal. Less available food, such as fruit or insects, in dryer weather might lead to smaller body size.
1. Why are scientists fond of doing research on birds?| A．They have small body sizes. | B．They are sensitive to hot weather. |
| C．They are ecological balance indicators. | D．They live in an undisturbed rainforest. |
| A．Two-thirds of species showed a considerable decrease in weight. |
| B．About 26 species responded to climate change with longer wings. |
| C．36 species lost 2% of their body weight every year from 1979 to 2019. |
| D．A third of species have been extinct for a decade due to the hotter climate. |
| A．Put off. | B．Give off. | C．Put away. | D．Give away. |
| A．Why it is easier for smaller animals to keep cool. |
| B．Why the Amazonian birds have lost substantial weight. |
| C．Whether bird species in Amazon will be extinct in 2100. |
| D．What effects the wing length changes have on birds. |
2 . Everybody knows vegetables are necessary for us, but the difficulty in growing vegetables is more than you think. Many years ago I moved from the city to the country. One of the first things I did was to make a large vegetable garden. It was hard work to change the grassy area to a fine garden. Imagine how much work it must have been for the early pioneer families to break the native wilderness by hand. I planted a full garden that first year -- everything from root vegetables like carrots and beets to green beans, corn, tomatoes, zucchini, acorn squash, and melons. A root vegetable means that we eat the root of the plant that grows in the soil instead of the part that grows above the ground.
My best friends Fritz and Heidi, both German shepherd dogs, loved to play out in the country. They enjoyed discovering all the new places where rabbits and deer appeared. A garden was something new to the dogs. At gardening time Heidi preferred to go exploring but Fritz would stay close to me and help.
Once in a while I would find a cucumber at the side of the garden with dog teeth marks in it. Who do you think tasted the cucumbers? Since Heidi didn’t stay near the garden, it must have been Fritz!
One day Fritz went into the garden. He sniffed among the leaves of the melon vines growing close to the ground. He had discovered ripe melons by their smell, fantastic! Knowing when melons are just right to pick is very hard for humans. But Fritz knew the exact right time to pick each melon in the garden. From then on, Fritz was my best garden helper even if he did sometimes eat the cucumbers.
1. Why did pioneer families have a hard time in gardening?| A．Because they didn’t know how to plant a garden. |
| B．Because they had to break native wilderness by hand. |
| C．Because here wasn’t enough rain at that time. |
| D．Because their dogs didn’t know how to help. |
| A．Carrots and tomatoes are root vegetables. |
| B．Heidi was a dog who liked to stay at home at gardening time. |
| C．Heidi liked to explore new places while Fritz liked to stay at home. |
| D．Fritz was good at identifying whether melons were ripe. |
| A．naughty | B．clever | C．friendly | D．ordinary |
| A．The Best Garden Helper | B．How to Grow Vegetables |
| C．Dogs Are Our Best Neighbors | D．How to Train a Good Gardener |
3 . 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. |
4 . It’s unlikely that we’ll see a dodo, a flightless bird, walking this earth anytime again, according to Beth Shapiro, a evolutionary molecular biologist.
“When most people think about de-extinction, they’re imagining cloning,” Shapiro said. Cloning, the approach that created Dolly, the sheep in 1996 and Elizabeth Ann, the black-footed ferret in 2020, creates an identical genetic copy of an individual by putting DNA from a living adult cell into an egg cell from which the nucleus (细胞核) has been removed. Adult cells contain all the DNA needed to develop into a living animal. Egg cells then use that DNA as a blueprint to turn themselves into many kinds of cells——skin, organs, blood and bones——the animal needs.
“But no living cells from dodos exist. Instead,” Shapiro said, “you’d have to start with a closely related animal’s genome (基因组) and then change it into one similar to dodos.” For example， mammoths (猛犸) are also extinct，but they were very closely related to modern Asian elephants, so researchers are attempting to bring mammoths back from extinction by creating a hybrid mammoth with some mammoth genes replacing part of the elephant genome in an elephant egg cell. However, there are likely millions of genetic differences between the genome of an Asian elephant and that of a mammoth according to Shapiro.
As for the dodo, its closest living relative is the Nicobar pigeon. Mammoths and Asian elephants are pretty closely related, whereas it had been more than 20 million years since the dodo and the Nicobar pigeon had any common ancestors. Genetic differences between the two bird species are therefore much greater, making it a formidable task to create a successful hybrid in the lab, Shapiro said.
Even if scientists manage to bring dodos back, the island where they once lived is a very different place nowadays, which make it impossible to reintroduce dodos without major intervention.
1. What is Paragraph 2 mainly about?| A．The special role of DNA. |
| B．The process of cloning. |
| C．The development of cloning. |
| D．The complexity of cloning. |
| A．Dodos are harder to bring back to life. |
| B．Their living cells are hard to preserve. |
| C．Cloning can be used to recreate extinct animals. |
| D．They share a similar genome with Asian elephants. |
| A．Urgent. |
| B．Possible. |
| C．Tough. |
| D．Different. |
| A．Favorable. |
| B．Intolerant. |
| C．Objective. |
| D．Negative. |
5 . One key element of human language is semantics (语义). Scientists had long thought that unlike our words, animal vocalizations (发声) were involuntary, renecting the emotional state of the animal without conveying any other information. But over the last four decades, numerous studies have shown that various animals have distinct calls with specific meanings.
Many bird species use different alarm calls. Japanese tits, which nest in tree holes, have one call that causes their baby birds to get down to avoid being pulled out of the nest by crows, and another call for tree snakes that sends them jumping out of the nest entirely. Siberian jays vary their calls depending on whether an enemy is seen looking for food or actively attacking — and each call gets a different response from other nearby birds.
Two recent studies suggest that the order of some birds’ vocalizations may impact their meaning. Though the idea is still controversial, this could represent a basic form of the rules governing the order and combination of words and elements in human language known as syntax (句法), as illustrated by the classic “dog bites man” vs. “man bites dog” example.
Even if some birds share basic aspects of human language, we still know very little about what’s actually going on in their minds. Most animal communication research has focused on describing signals and behavior, which on the surface can look a lot like human behavior. Determining if the underlying cognitive (认知的) processes driving the behavior are also similar is much more challenging, as at the heart of this question is intentionality: Are animals merely reacting to their environment, or do they intend to convey information to one another?
1. What was scientists’ long-held belief about animal vocalizations?| A．They conveyed no emotion. | B．They were semantically related. |
| C．They varied greatly with species. | D．They expressed no intended meaning. |
| A．By listing data. | B．By giving examples. |
| C．By providing definition. | D．By making comparisons. |
| A．What birds’ vocalizations mean. | B．How rules govern human language. |
| C．What the two recent studies indicate. | D．How bird’s vocalizations are combined. |
| A．Shared aspects of human and birds’ languages. |
| B．Focus of most animal communication research. |
| C．Underlying, cognitive processes of birds’ vocalizations. |
| D．Insufficient knowledge about birds’ communication intentionality. |
In Sarek National Park above the Arctic Circle, I wake up with the wind
Sarek's mountains, which used to be covered by vast
In order to keep the land in its
After breakfast, I set out again
7 . I fell in love with Yosemite National Park the first time I saw it. My parents took us there for camping. On the way out, I asked them to wait while I ran up to El Capitain, a
About 15 years ago I started seeing a lot of
I tried
In 2004, together with some climbers, I set a date for a
Each year volunteers come for the cleanup from everywhere. In 2007 alone, 2,945 people picked up 42,330 pounds of trash.
I often hear people
| A．distant | B．huge | C．narrow | D．loose |
| A．immediately | B．finally | C．gradually | D．recently |
| A．imagining | B．painting | C．describing | D．climbing |
| A．garden | B．home | C．lab | D．palace |
| A．material | B．resources | C．waste | D．goods |
| A．more | B．most | C．less | D．least |
| A．throwing away | B．picking up | C．breaking down | D．digging out |
| A．kill | B．save | C．wait | D．spend |
| A．cleanup | B．party | C．picnic | D．concert |
| A．dropped out | B．showed up | C．looked around | D．called back |
| A．demand | B．receive | C．achieve | D．overcome |
| A．plan | B．visit | C．contact | D．difference |
| A．talk | B．complain | C．argue | D．quarrel |
| A．doing | B．thinking | C．questioning | D．watching |
| A．method | B．explanation | C．example | D．research |
8 . Urban Wildlife
Cities are diverse ecosystems. In addition to visitors, a large number of species share our urban areas. As our cities spread, we need to think about what it is like for other species to have human neighbors.
Cities are built for humans.
There are also structures built with the aim of bringing wildlife into the city. The Olympic Forest Park in Beijing is a good example. The park used native plants, and created open and natural spaces for wildlife. The result is a zone in Beijing with over 160 species of birds. In many ways, the park is the opposite of a zoo.
If we learn to share our space, we can become better neighbors of the wildlife around us.
| A．They are built to protect birds. |
| B．Our actions sometimes help other species. |
| C．If we do not, more species will become extinct. |
| D．They do not always provide suitable habitats for wildlife. |
| E．Instead of being kept in cages, wildlife can move more freely. |
| F．At first, people were afraid of the bats and tried to get rid of them. |
| G．They would sit on it and their droppings would fall into the water. |
9 . On May 21, 2022, Tom Turcich of New Jersey became the 10th person to walk around the world. Over seven years, he walked 48,000 kilometers across six continents and 38 countries - most of it with his dog Savannah.
Speaking to CNN, Turcich explained that, after a friend died in an accident at age 17 he started to look at life differently, and decided to go on a journey around the world. It took over eight years of saving and planning before Turcich finally left his home on April 2, 2015 - just before his 26th birthday - on his way to Panama. He had a stroller to carry his hiking equipment, a sleeping bag, a laptop, a camera and a box of food.
About four months into the journey, Turcich adopted Savannah from, an animal shelter in Texas. She joined him for the rest of the trip, becoming the first dog to walk around the world. The pair walked around 30-40 kilometers a day, spending most nights camping. Some parts could not be done on foot, however - such as when Turcich and Savannah took a boat from Uruguay to Antarctica. In late 2017, Turcich had to return home to recover from an illness he got while traveling through Ireland and the UK.
He and Savannah started walking again in May 2018, going through Europe, North Africa and Turkey before getting stuck in Azerbaijan for six months because of the COVID-19 pandemic. They were able to travel to Kyrgyzstan before taking a plane to Seattle. From there, he and Savannah walked back to New Jersey.
Turcich said the most difficult place to walk through was “desolate“ Wyoming. Now that he’s back home, Turcich says he wants to stay in one place for a while - and write a book about his trip.
1. What led to Turcich’s decision to walk around the world?| A．His thoughtful plan before a birthday. |
| B．His different attitude towards travelling. |
| C．The death of his friend at an early age. |
| D．The adoption of Savannah from a shelter. |
| A．They spent most of nights in hotels during the trip. |
| B．Their journey has been recorded in Turcich’s book. |
| C．Their trip was once interrupted due to Turcich’s illness. |
| D．The most challenging place for them to walk through was Azerbaijan. |
| A．Creative and curious. |
| B．Brave and determined. |
| C．Caring and intelligent. |
| D．Humorous and cautious. |
| A．To persuade people to travel with a reliable animal. |
| B．To motivate young people to take a worldwide walking trip. |
| C．To emphasize the importance of an unforgettable travel experience. |
| D．To share a story about a man and a dog’s walking around the world. |
I must admit, I haven’t always liked animals. In fact, I distrusted them greatly while growing up, and I still fear the ones I don’t know personally. What set my beliefs in stone was being attacked—not once but many times, including the summer after second grade when I was bitten by a rabbit. Then, when I was nine and riding my dirt bike down the road, a large dog charged me and tried to bite my ankle. After all those negative experiences, there was one thing I knew for sure: All creatures, great and small, were no friends of mine.
After college in California, I returned to live the single life in Las Vega. Then I met Lisa. In no time at all, we fell in love, married and moved into a new house. Despite my avoidance of animals, Lisa had a dog called Bailey. Bailey didn’t like me, but he tolerated my existence once he realized I wasn’t going anywhere.
Things changed as spring came. We welcomed a new member of our family: our son Evan. One evening Evan grabbed hold of the dog’s tail. The irritated dog paused and turned to look at his stuck tail but waited patiently until being released. Still the stories I’d heard of animals attacking babies worries me.
Then my worst fear occurred. I sat on the couch (沙发) reading after a long day while my wife worked at the dining-room table paying the bills. I saw Evan crawl across the family-room carpet as he made his way behind the couch. One minute, all was quiet and then Bailey entered the room and headed to where Evan had crawled. I nearly jumped out of my skin when I heard the dog start a fearful barking behind me.
注意：1.续写词数应为150左右;
2.请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
Throwing the book away, I rushed around the couch with great fear.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Having witnessed our dog killing a scorpion (蝎子) and saving my son, I was speechless.
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