1 . Flora was playing with her new dog Stitch, while wearing a favourite second-hand sweater. Stitch jumped up and grabbed her sleeve-and tore several holes in it with her sharp teeth.
Flora wasn’t about to throw the item out. “I can’t bring myself to throw away nice clothing just because of a hole, ”she explains. She decided to tackle a new skill repairing. She began by reading a book called Make Do and Repair, about the innovative ways to avoid waste.
Instead of tying to make the repair as small as possible, she turned to “visible fixing, ”a fashion in repairing clothes that leaves an intentionally obvious fix. She added flowers, or other small designs to damaged clothes. “Every time you do a repair, it’s like getting a new piece of clothing, ”says Flora.
Sadly, we have been in the habit of replacing things instead of repairing them—and the garbage is piling up. Worldwide, we throw out 92 million tonnes of fabric every year.
The good news is that fixing things can help solve the waste problem. It’s part of a larger shift toward a circular economy -the idea that instead of throwing out items once they are broken or out of date, we reuse or repair them, keeping them out of the waste yard for as long as possible.
There was a time when people fixed things themselves or called their local repair shop, But as more items were produced and prices dropped, replacing even a big appliance became more convenient.
That’s changing, in part due to information now available online. The popular how-to site iFixit. com has enabled more than 100 million repairs.
“Companies have been designing products that break easily or become outdated quickly, forcing consumers to buy new ones or purchase upgrades. We’re now seeing some producers show interest in making it possible for users to repair things. Some companies are selling official parts and sharing their repair guides through iFixit. IFixit has grown into a database with over 100, 000 repair manuals. We have this vision of a world where repair is the expectation for all things that are made, ”says Chamberlain, director of iFixit.
1. Why did Flora read a book?| A．For innovation. | B．For repairing skills. |
| C．For a better life. | D．For dog-raising information. |
| A．People’s habit. | B．Repairing quality. |
| C．Fabric production. | D．Worldwide garbage. |
| A．To remove landfills. | B．To increase production. |
| C．To help exchange goods. | D．To realize resource cycle. |
| A．He expects more wiser users. |
| B．He supports purchase upgrades. |
| C．He creates the repairing database of iFixit. |
| D．He has a desire for companies and consumers. |
| A．A food shop. | B．A terrible picnic. | C．Tomorrow’s weather. |
3 . New research by scientists at the University of Bristol explains how a “stop－start” pattern of evolution,governed by environmental change,could explain why crocodiles (鳄鱼) have changed so little since the age of the dinosaurs.
Crocodiles today look very similar to ones from 200 million years ago. There are also very few species alive today—just 25. Other animals such as lizards and birds have achieved a diversity of many thousands of species in the same amount of time. Prehistory also saw types of crocodile we don’t see today,including giants as big as dinosaurs,plant－eaters,fast runners and snakelike forms that lived in the sea.
The rate of their evolution is generally slow,but occasionally they evolve more apace because the environment has changed. In particular,this new research suggests that their evolution speeds up when the climate is warmer,and that their body size increases.
Lead author Dr. Max Stockdale said,“Our analysis used a machine learning algorithm (算法) to estimate rates of evolution. Evolutionary rate is the amount of change that has taken place over a given amount of time,which we can work out by comparing measurements from fossils and taking into account how old they are. For our study we measured body size,which is important because it interacts with how fast animals grow,how much food they need,how big their populations are and how likely they are to die out.”
The findings show that the limited diversity of crocodiles and their apparent lack of evolution result from a slow evolutionary rate. It seems the crocodiles arrived with an already efficient and versatile (多功能的) body plan that doesn’t require changes. This versatility could be one explanation why crocodiles survived the meteor (流星) impact at the end of the Cretaceous period,in which the dinosaurs died out. Crocodiles generally develop better in warm conditions because they cannot control their body temperature and require warmth from the environment.
1. What do we know about prehistoric crocodiles?| A．They fed mainly on plants and lived in the ocean. |
| B．They evolved much faster than contemporary birds. |
| C．They were more diverse in species than present crocodiles. |
| D．They differed greatly in appearance from present crocodiles. |
| A．Naturally. | B．Steadily. |
| C．Separately. | D．Quickly. |
| A．growth rate | B．food choice |
| C．length of life | D．speed of evolution |
| A．What determines crocodiles’ body size |
| B．Why crocodiles have changed so little |
| C．How crocodiles have evolved since their existence |
| D．What effects climate has on the evolution of crocodiles |
4 . Children are celebrated and doted on in the Land of Smiles,making it a great place for a family holiday. Besides the Thais’ natural love for kids,Thailand’s affordability,weather and lots of activities make it a perfect getaway destination. Here is our list of the best family-friendly places to visit in Thailand.
Phuket
Phuket is one of Thailand’s most popular destinations. From beautiful beaches and a fascinating old town to aquariums and horseback riding,Phuket has them all. Many of the island’s resorts (度假胜地) offer children’s clubs and babysitting services,enabling mum and dad to get a well-earned break,too. Phuket is easily reached from most parts of Thailand and has direct flights from many other countries.
Chiang Mai
Chiang Mai,Thailand’s mountainous cultural center,is a fantastic place to travel with the whole family. Chiang Mai has a calm and relaxed atmosphere and is small enough to easily gain your direction. Here,you’ll find plenty of fun and exciting activities for all ages,including museums,local markets,cooking schools and much more.
Krabi
The beach lovers’ destination Krabi is the perfect place to relax. Not only are some of the country’s best beaches in Krabi,but it is also a fantastic place to pick up a snorkel (呼吸管) and mask and become acquainted with Thailand’s beautiful underwater world. In the surrounding area,there are also plenty of options for fun day trips to national parks,waterfalls,elephant sanctuaries (保护区) or,for older kids,rock climbing in some of the world’s best climbing spots.
Koh Samui
Koh Samui has long been one of Thailand’s most popular family holiday destinations. It almost has everything one would want. Many resorts have kids’ programs on offer,and you’ll find plenty of family-friendly activities to choose from. For something a little different,take your tribe to make new furry friends by volunteering at the animal rescue center for the day.
1. What is the feature of Phuket?| A．It is easy to get lost there. | B．It has convenient transportation. |
| C．It offers some voluntary work. | D．It is the cultural center of Thailand. |
| A．Diving. | B．Riding elephants. |
| C．Visiting museums. | D．Making furry friends. |
| A．Phuket. | B．Chiang Mai. |
| C．Krabi. | D．Koh Samui. |
5 . Damon Carson must have one of the most interesting inboxes in the world. On any given day, in his office in Denver in the western US state of Colorado, he will field numerous inquiries from people looking to unload things. We’re not talking about someone trying to dispense with an old refrigerator or some out-of-fashion clothing, but companies.
Picture large companies looking to unload massive amounts of waste that would otherwise go to the landfill.
For example, Carson got a request from a battery company to deal with 22 tonnes of barium sulfate (硫酸钡) used in lead-acid batteries. A load of plastic garbage cans from a discount store were just waiting for him to repurpose them. And a recreation company wanted to know if Carson was interested in 360 kilograms of blue ropes, which they no longer needed to make the handles on coolers.
“They don’t want to just throw the waste away,” he explains. “Nor should they. Because it has value.” He is a matchmaker of the never-ending waste stream, trying not to pair people with people, but things with people. For nearly a decade, his company, Repurposed Materials, has been involved in this business. He’s not looking to recycle the things he gets-breaking them down to make something new-but rather finding a second life for cast-off goods in their original forms.
Once working in construction, Carson was familiar with an almost everyday phenomenon. “You’d open up one of these big construction dumpsters (大垃圾桶) and things would start falling out,” he says. He would find perfectly good windows still covered with plastic from the factory. “You can’t wrap your mind around how wasteful America is until you run a waste company,” he says. He began thinking about creating a sort of secondhand hardware store that would sell unwanted materials and keep them out of the waste stream. Then, in 2010, a business was born.
1. What does the underlined phrase “dispense with” in the first paragraph mean?| A．Make use of. | B．Look forward to. |
| C．Get rid of. | D．Come back to. |
| A．To prove Carson’s tough work. | B．To indicate Carson’s “big business”. |
| C．To appeal for waste management. | D．To explain the source of the material. |
| A．By creating something new. | B．By selling them to companies. |
| C．By recycling them to save energy. | D．By getting others to use them. |
| A．His disappointment at America. | B．His love for secondhand hardware. |
| C．His exposure to too much waste. | D．His experience in a waste company. |
6 . 阅读下面材料，在空白处填入适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。
Huangshan,
Summer is one of the peak seasons, when the mountain is green and refreshing and temperatures are cool and comfortable. In the fall, the colors are
7 . The amount of plastic pollution in the oceans is rapidly increasing. This is problematic, as at least 700 species of sea animals — including sharks, whales seabirds and turtles — can be trapped in the stuff or mistake it for a tasty snack. While we know that some species seem to eat plastic because it looks like jellyfish or some other food source, less research has been carried out into what sea plastic smells like to sea animals.
But now, a study from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has found that the coating of algae and microbes (藻类、微生物) that naturally builds up on ocean plastics causes the rubbish to give off the smell of food.
The researchers took 15 healthy turtles, each around five months old and placed them in a laboratory aquarium (水族箱). They then piped in clean water, clean plastic, turtle food, and plastic that had been down in the sea environment for five weeks. The turtles showed no reaction to the smell of clean water or clean plastic. But when they were exposed to the smells of ocean plastic or turtle food, they exhibited hunting behaviour — like sticking their noses out of the water and showing increased activity.
“This finding is important because it’s the first demonstration that the smell of ocean plastics causes animals to eat them,” said Dr Kenneth J Lohmann, who took part in the study.
“It’s common to find the sea turtles with their digestive systems fully or partially blocked because they’ve eaten plastic materials There also are increasing reports of sea turtles that have been ill and stranded on the beach due to their swallow of plastic.”
“Once these plastics are in the ocean we don’t have a good way to remove them or prevent them from smelling like food” said Lohmann. “The best thing we can do is to keep plastic from getting into the ocean at all.”
1. What does the new research mainly focus on?| A．What has caused the sea plastic pollution. |
| B．What sea plastic smells like to sea animals. |
| C．How dangerous the sea environment is. |
| D．How dangerous the sea plastic pollution is. |
| A．The turtles of 5 months old are the most healthy ones. |
| B．The turtles prefer dirty environments to clean ones. |
| C．The clean plastic has no certain smell to attract turtles. |
| D．The clean plastic is more dangerous than the ocean plastic. |
| A．trapped | B．rescued | C．harmed | D．treated |
| A．Sea turtles and sea environment | B．Sea turtles and their enemies |
| C．Sea turtles and sea food chain | D．Sea turtles and sea plastics |
8 . At Sho Farm in northern Vermont, farmers Melissa Hoffman and Shawn Smith work hand in hand with the land and its inhabitants, and among them are hundreds of ducks. The ducks at Sho Farm are not being raised to be killed for food. Rather, they are naturally involved in farming operations, helping to manage pests and add fertilizer (肥料) to the soil.
In the beginning, Hoffman, who has a background in organic farming and ecology action, worked with ecologists and biologists to survey the plants and wildlife all around the area. This was “to understand who was living here, so that everything we did was in relationship to the life already here,” he says.
So, at Sho Farm, focus is placed on living harmoniously alongside other life and working with traditional ecological knowledge. Food is seen not as a commodity (商品) but as a relationship with land and life.
The methods of food production at Sho Farm, as well as the farmers’ philosophy of working with rather than against nature, are in sharp contrast to most modern agricultural systems. And that’s the point. “We’ve been talking a lot about the broken food system and the consequences of it to the environment, to wildlife, to the animals in animal agriculture and to human health,” says Hoffman, adding that it’s not just the food system that’s broken. “It’s the relationship between humans, non-human animals, land and nature.”
The ducks play a vital, integrated role on the farm, explains Hoffman, by naturally providing pest control, fertilizer and (fuel-free) land maintenance (维护), just as by-products of their existence. “We noticed where we summered groups of ducks and parts of the food system that were not doing very well. The following year, the food system was efficiently improved,” he says.
It’s a symbiotic relationship that works well. “Animals don’t have to be part of a farm in a commodity sense. They can be part of the farm as a partner,” Hoffman says. “They are wonderful partners.”
1. Why did Hoffman do a survey in the beginning?| A．To get familiar with the surroundings. |
| B．To have a good relationship with other people. |
| C．To live in harmony with other life on the farm. |
| D．To have a good understanding of organic farming. |
| A．The causes of the broken food system. |
| B．The reasons for Hoffman’s farming methods. |
| C．The changes in modern agricultural systems. |
| D．The process of food production at Sho Farm. |
| A．Animals are treated well at Sho Farm. |
| B．Animals are not to be sold for money. |
| C．People and animals play the same role in organic farming. |
| D．People and animals work together and benefit each other. |
| A．Efficient. | B．Modern. | C．Natural. | D．Economical. |
9 . An environmental group in Colombia is leading a project to save wild areas in the San Lucas Mountains with the help of coffee growers.
Since 2016, San Lucas areas have been threatened by mining and coca (古柯) planting Gold miners and coca growers make more money than coffee farms. Now the group WebConserva helps link coffee farmers with coffee processors from around the country in order that they can earn more. At the same time coffee farms can serve as boarders around the forests to protect the biodiversity within.
To date, the project includes 10 families who farm 400 hectares of coffee plants. WebConserva said it hopes, in time, 200 families will be included. At that level. 20,000 hectares of untouched forest could be protected. The families promise not to cut down trees to expand their crops or to hunt wild animals. In return, they receive $300 for 125 kilograms of coffee.
Arcadio Barajas is among those taking part. His coffee farm sets up a barrier between cattle farms and forests where wild animals live, thus reducing the possibility of conflict between cattle farmers and wild animals. “Cutting down the forest to plant coca and killing wildlife were against my faith, and now I feel that growing coffee lets me be a good guard of the land,” he said.
Amnobis Romero is a former coca grower and miner. “Many families depended on illegal activities to support their children years ago. Now, we feel it a duty to look after this biodiversity and leave it for future generations,” he said. Activists want San Lucas to be protected as a national park, but the process has been slow. Carlos Valderrama, director of Webconserva, hopes the project can build production system that will last far into the future. “It protects forests, biodiversity and ecosystems at the same time as improving coffee growers’ quality of life,” he said.
1. What does the underlined word “they” in Paragraph 2 refer to?| A．Coffee farmers. |
| B．WebConserva members. |
| C．Gold miners. |
| D．Coca growers. |
| A．By increasing cattle farms. |
| B．By setting up a barrier. |
| C．Ry developing gold mining. |
| D．By encouraging coffee farming. |
| A．Families have enough money for their kids. |
| B．Coffee planting will last for several generations. |
| C．Coffee farming changed the former coca growers’ lives. |
| D．The project benefit the forests more than the local farmers. |
| A．Families protecting wildlife will get very rich. |
| B．WebConserva benefits ecosystems and local people’s life. |
| C．Gold mining and coca farming have been replaced rapidly. |
| D．San Lucas will develop into a national park in the near future. |
10 . Music is known to have a great deal of mental and physical benefits on humans. From helping to treat physical medical problems to relieving stress, music can be extremely beneficial in helping to improve health.
Animals may have a great deal of stress.
Music can be extremely beneficial for animals in high stress situations.
| A．It can create a space for them. |
| B．The same goes for our furry friends, too. |
| C．They could be stressed for a variety of reasons. |
| D．It would be a beneficial practice for all parties. |
| E．Another place where music can be helpful is in car rides. |
| F．There are ways that you can identify stress in your animals. |
| G．It’s no wonder loud noises can cause dogs and cats so much stress. |
