1 . Mice and rats have long been used in medical research because of their biological similarities to humans. Recently scientists at the University of Richmond in Virginia have trained rats to drive small vehicles.

The research team built tiny cars out of plastic and other materials, which had an opening at one end to which electrical wires were attached. By touching one of three different wires, the rat could control the car in different directions-left, center and right. Sweet treats were placed inside the containers in an attempt to get the rats to drive the vehicle for the food. After several months' training, the animals could drive to get to the treats.

Kelly Lambert, who has long been interested in the way the brain changes to react to different experiences and difficulties, led the experiment. She told the French news agency AFP the research suggested rat brains might be more complex and flexible than once thought. The driving activity seemed to help the rats relax and the rats kept in what was called “enriched environments” performed far better than those in labs.

The researchers examined levels of two hormones (荷尔蒙) in the rats — one that causes stress and the other that counters it. All the rats that took part in the training had higher levels of the hormone that reduces stress. The research suggests the increased relaxation levels could be linked to the enjoyment of successfully completing a new skill. The team also found the rats that drove themselves showed higher levels of the stress-fighting hormone than those that simply rode in small cars controlled by humans.

Lambert's team is planning to further the research to learn more about how the rats learned to drive. This research may open new areas of non-drug treatments for people suffering from mental health conditions.

1. Why have scientists chosen rats for the research?

A．They can build tiny vehicles on their own.

B．They are biologically similar to human beings.

C．They are clever enough to be trained to drive cars.

D．They can be used as non-drug treatments for humans.

2. What does the underlined word "counters" in paragraph 4 mean?

A．removes.	B．substitutes.
C．resists.	D．transforms.

3. What can we learn about the experiment?

A．The brains of rats might be more complex and flexible than those of human beings.

B．The increased relaxation levels led to the rats' enjoyment of learning a new skill.

C．All the rats involved in the training had higher levels of the hormone causing stress.

D．The rats in cars controlled by humans had lower levels of the stress-fighting hormone.

4. In which section of a newspaper may this text appear?

A．Science.	B．Sports.
C．Education.	D．Entertainment.

2 . A months-long drought affecting most of southern Africa has led to serious food shortage for millions of people.

The United Nations estimates(估计 )that more than 11 million people are facing extreme lack of food. The World Food Program says southern Africa has received normal rainfall in just one of the past five growing seasons.

Among the hardest hit areas is South Africa’s Northern Cape province. There, many farmers are struggling to keep their families and animals alive as they lose money and debt grows. Sheep farmer Louis told the AP he had lost more than 400 sheep over the past two years. He said this drought was the worst during his 45 years of farming. He got emotional while explaining that he now accepted donations of animal feed so he could keep the rest of his animals alive.

It’s estimated that this area will need at least $28 million over the next three months to assist 15, 500 affected farms. So far, South Africa’s government has promised $2 million.

Gertruida from Vosburg told the AP things had gotten so bad that she shared her family’s food with their animals. Small children were hungry, too. At Vosburg’s only school, Delta Primary School, large groups of children lined up for what became both breakfast and lunch. The meal usually included corn meal, vegetables and soup. “It’s very hard for the parents to actually feed their children at home, “one teacher said.

In Kimberley, the capital of Northern Cape, government officials give out money from the $2 million disaster aid program. The job can be difficult because some farmers live in places that are not easy to get to.

1. Which of the following is TRUE about the drought?

A．It has lasted a whole month.

B．It is the worst in Africa’ s history.

C．It has killed 400 sheep altogether.

D．It affects Northern Cape worst.

2. Why were Louis’ feelings out of control?

A．Because his debts grew.

B．Because he got donations.

C．Because he lost more sheep.

D．Because his children went hungry.

3. What’s the text mainly about?

A．Government takes measures to fight the rare drought.

B．People carry out self-rescue after the severe drought.

C．Farmers suffer a loss of animals because of the drought.

D．Deadly drought in Southern Africa leaves millions hungry.

3 . 阅读下面短文，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

“Climate emergency” was picked by Oxford Dictionaries as the word of the year for 2019 after     1     (use) on average 100 times more than in 2018.

Defined as “a situation     2     urgent action is required to reduce or stop climate change and avoid environmental damage resulting from it ”, the word became one of the most important     3     (term) of 2019. “Climate” did not have a place in the top words     4    (typical) used to modify (修饰) “emergency” in 2018. Instead, the top types of emergencies that people wrote about     5     (be) health, hospital and family emergencies. But with climate emergency, people saw something new,     6     extension of emergency to the global level. The choice was reflective, not just of the rise in climate awareness, but the focus specifically     7     the language used to discuss it. Oxford said the rise of “climate emergency”     8       (show) an intentional push towards language of urgency.

The dictionary’s word of the year is chosen     9     (reflect) attention of the passing year and should have lasting potential as a term of     10     (culture) significance. Previous winners of word of the year include “toxic” in 2018 and “youthquake” in 2017.

4 . 假如你是李华，关注到这样一则报道:由于温度升高，无处觅食的北极熊入侵俄罗斯北部村庄。请你就环境恶化问题，用英语给联合国环境规划署写一封电子邮件。内容包括:
1. 表示震惊。
2. 表达担忧。
3. 呼吁采取行动。
注意:
1. 词数80左右；
2. 开头和结尾均已给出(不计入总词数)；
3. 可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。
Dear Sir/Madam,

I am writing to you about hungry polar bears invading a northern village in Russia for food.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Best wishes for you.

Yours,

Li Hua

5 . 2010年4月14日7:49青海玉树地区玉树发生地震。
基本情况:
1. 为当地有历史记录以来最强烈的地震
2. 很多人正在睡觉；居民住房大量倒塌；水电供应中断；学校、医院严重损毁
3. 有2, 698人遇难，270人失踪，12, 000多人受伤
4. 政府十分关心灾情，表示要尽一切可能帮助灾区人民重建家园。
参考词汇: 当地的 local
注意:词数:100左右。
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

6 . Dogs may help save the day in the Philippines, as they use their noses to smell out survivors buried by Friday’s mudslide (泥石流). The team of dogs arrived in the Philippines from Spain, and this Tuesday they were just beginning their work. Search officials told CNN they hope the recent rain will wash away the smell of rescue teams so the dogs can do their job more accurately.

The dogs were brought in after sound equipment found sounds coming from deep inside the ruins, at a place where a school stood before the mudslide covered it. The sounds could mean people are still alive under all the mud or it could just be the earth resettling.

On Monday, rescue workers worked at the school site until three in the morning, trying to locate survivors, and they will begin digging again as soon as the dogs think they find someone.

Human teams from the US, Malaysia, and Australia are all trying to help, too. But so far they have yet to locate any survivors. Rescue workers told CNN that an earlier report that 50 survivors had been found was false.

How did all that mud bury the village in the first place? On Friday, 2,400-foot Mt Kanabag turned into a mudslide after two weeks of constant rain weakened it. The mountain crumbled and the mud fell onto the village Guinsaugon, burying the 1,800 people who lived there. Out of the 300 houses in the village, only 3 were not covered by the mud. The village is on a southern Philippine Island called Levte. Rescue efforts have been difficult because the village takes six hours to reach from the nearest airport. Hopefully, the dogs can help their human friends find survivors.

1. According to the search officials’ words in the first paragraph, we can learn that ________.

A．the smell of rescue teams can disturb the dogs

B．the dogs can follow the smell of rescue teams

C．the dogs can’t smell the rescue teams

D．the dogs can tell the smells of buried people and rescue teams apart

2. The main purpose of this passage is probably ________.

A．to show the way to rescue the victims in the ruins

B．to introduce the instruments to save victims in a disaster

C．to tell readers that dogs can smell out victims buried in the ruins

D．to show how to train dogs to save victims in a mudslide

3. How many survivors have been found by the dogs?

A．50.

B．Only a few.

C．1, 800.

D．None.

4. The reason why the rescue work wasn’t going smoothly was probably that ________.

A．the rain was heavy

B．so many people were buried

C．it was difficult to reach the village

D．these is little chance to save the survivors

7 . 读后续写

We have a pit bull (比特犬). We found him a few weeks ago, walking along the road in a rural area. He jumping on cars, we thought maybe his family was camping somewhere nearby, so we passed him by. A few hours later, on our return trip, he was still in the same place, again, trying to get folks to stop for him. When he saw us, he laid down in the middle of the road, so we were unable to get around him.

We stopped the car and looked around for a few minutes, trying to figure out if anyone was around from whom he was separated. It didn’t appear so. Then, we took a good look at the dog. He had no collar and he was really thin. We decided he was abandoned.

My husband said, “If he doesn’t bite me when I try to pick him up to put him in the car, then we have a new dog.” The dog happily joined us with no fight at all. The only thing we were in danger of was getting licked to death. He kept sticking his head between the two front seats and thanking us for picking him up.

The dog was clearly on the road for some time. He was extremely under weight. He was covered in scars and new wounds. We have guessed that some of the scars were from when he was on the road. We thought of possible fights with coyotes, but he also looked as though he was used to fighting other dogs. We figured his incredibly sweet personality was the reason he was abandoned. He can’t have been a good fighting dog.

Therefore, we fed him a lot over the course of the next two weeks and he gained over twenty pounds.

注意：
1. 所续写短文(两部分共计)的词数应为150左右；
2. 应使用5个以上短文中标有下划线的关键词语；
3. 续写部分分为两段，每段的开头语已为你写好；
4. 续写完成后，请用下划线标出你所使用的关键词语。
Paragraph 1:

We took him to the vet.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Paragraph 2:

Now we all love the dog very much. He once helped save me from trouble.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

8 . Record fires sweeping across the Amazon this month have been catching global headlines as scientists and environmental groups are worried that they will worsen climate change and threaten biodiversity(生物多样性).

As the largest rainforest in the world, the Amazon is   often called “the lungs of   the world”. It is also home to about 3 million species of plants and animals, and 1 million local people. The vast lands of rainforest play an important role in the world’s ecosystem because they take in heat instead of it being reflected back into the atmosphere. They also store carbon dioxide (二氧化碳)and produce oxygen, making sure that less carbon is given off, mitigating the effects of climate change.

“Any forest destroyed is a threat to biodiversity and the people who use that biodiversity,” Thomas Lovejoy, an ecologist at George Mason University told National Geographic. “The shocking threat is that a lot of carbon goes into the atmosphere,” he stressed. “Facing the global climate change, we cannot afford more damage to a major source of oxygen and biodiversity. The Amazon must be protected,” U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres said.

Data from the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) show that the number of forest fires in Brazil quickly increased by 82 percent from January to August this year from a year ago. A total of 71,497 forest fires were recorded in the country in the first eight months of 2019, up from 39,194 in the same period in 2018, INPE said. “It’s reported that the forest areas in the Brazilian Amazon have decreased something between 20 and 30 percent compared to the last 12 months,” Carlos Nobre, a researcher at the University of Sao Paulo, told German broadcaster Deutsche Welle.

Brazil owns about 60 percent of the Amazon rainforest, whose drop could have severe results for global climate and rainfall. The size of the area ruined by fires has yet to be determined, but the emergency has transcended(超出）Brazil’s borders, reaching Peruvian, Paraguayan and Bolivian areas.

1. What is the second paragraph mainly talking about?

A．The effects of climate change.

B．The role of the Amazon rainforest.

C．The results of the Amazon rainforest fires.

D．The causes of the decreasing biodiversity.

2. Which of the following best explains “mitigating” underlined in Paragraph2?

A．Easing.	B．Causing.
C．Worsening.	D．Benefiting

3. What can we learn from Thomas’s and Antonio’s words?

A．The biodiversity makes the rainforests unique.

B．The rainforest fires result in serious consequences.

C．The global climate crisis brings more rainforest fires.

D．The dry weather leads to the rainforest fires.

4. Which section of a magazine is this text probably taken from?

A．Sports and music.	B．Science and technology.
C．Nature and geography.	D．Business and culture.

9 . Cameron is no ordinary dog, and not just because he was born on Valentine's Day. To Maggie, a first grader at Burgundy Farm Country Day School, the dog who spends most days on campus is more like a friend. When Cameron is near, Maggie feels "really, really, happy," she said, "I feel safe around him, she added.   "He '11 lie down and ask   me to scratch his tummy," she explained, because Cameron likes Maggie.

Cameron is one of a handful of dogs at Burgundy, a K-8 private day school in Alexandria, Virginia. Dogs started showing up there when the head of school, Jeff Sindler, brought his clumsy Labrador, Luke, to the main office building where Sindler works. After Luke died, Sindler adopted Cameron and brought him to campus, too, where the dog Maggie described as really cute" became a school favorite.

“They don’t care if you are good at basketball or a great reader, or popular," Sindler said. “They just want to be loved — equal opportunity," he added. "Cameron and the other dogs on campus—are always fastened with a rope and with their owner一go a long way toward improving students' social and emotional well-being," he said. They reduce tension and ease anxiety, and inspire happy feelings from students.

“They bring out some important emotions/' he said, “and are especially helpful to children and adults who struggle in social communication, Children often came from challenging backgrounds: many lived in poverty, or had to travel through dangerous neighborhoods to get to school, or shared a too-crowded home. When these emotionally needy children met the dogs, they relaxed and were more prepared to learn.

Just as important, dogs on school grounds set a positive, welcoming tone. They help preserve the school climate that is accepting, supportive and curious・"Dogs are one way to hold on to Sindler said, adding that "schools should be fun and exciting, and dogs can be a big part of that."

For Sindler, including Cameron was all part of an effort to create a safe environment where learning could flourish.

1. What makes the dog Cameron really special?

A．His rare species	B．His particular birthmark.
C．His attractive appearance.	D．His friendly nature.

2. How do dogs on campus improve students' social and emotional well-being?

A．By playing fetch together fondly.

B．By offering them comfort equally.

C．By playing basketball together freely.

D．By walking a long way together happily.

3. What does the underlined word"that" in paragraph 5 refer to?

A．A positive tom.	B．The school ground.
C．A welcoming attitude.	D．The school atmosphere.

4. What’s the purpose of the passage?

A．To encourage schools to bring in more dogs.

B．To explain why dogs help students with learning.

C．To introduce a way to help students grow healthily,

D．To explore the possibility to challenge no-dog rules.

10 . Environmental experts warn that our planet is drowning in plastic.

The world’s cities produce 2 billion tons of trash every year. By the year 2050 that number is expected to rise to 3 billion tons. The World Bank estimates that the largest amount of trash today, about 44 percent, is plastic. But we often have to buy packaged goods. And often that packaging is made of plastic.

Now, that may be changing. A new environmentally-friendly shopping model was recently launched at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. This shopping model, called Loop, aims to replace throwaway containers with reusable ones.

Loop is the idea of Terra Cycle, an American-based recycling company. Its chief, Tom Szaky. told the Associated Press (AP) that “removing plastics from the ocean is not enough.” He said the point is to get away from single-use packages. Szaky said that Loop is the future of shopping. But it comes from an idea of the past.

He compared it to the “milkman model” of the 1950s in the United States. Back then, someone brought milk to your doorstep in glass bottles and then left with empty bottles. These could be cleaned and used again. The result is zero-waste.

Jennifer Morgan from the environmental non-profit organization Greenpeace also joined in the discussion about Loop at Davos. She said that “Greenpeace welcomes the aim of the Loop Alliance to move away from throwaway culture and disposability.” But Morgan questioned whether companies worldwide are ready to change their business models.

Loop is set to launch later this year in three eastern U.S. states, and also in Paris, France and some of the surrounding area. Then Loop plans to expand to the U.S. West Coast, Toronto, Canada and Britain by the end of this year or 2020.

1. What does the author intend to do in Paragraph 2?

A．Provide background information.	B．Advocate zero-waste lifestyle.
C．Explain the reason for trash.	D．Introduce a new topic.

2. Where does the idea “Loop” come from?

A．The World Economic Forum.	B．Demand of some companies.
C．Zero-waste model.	D．The milkman model.

3. Which countries is Loop expected to expand to by 2020?

A．United States and Switzerland.	B．Switzerland and Britain.
C．Canada and Britain.	D．France and Canada.

4. What is the text mainly about?

A．A new shopping model.	B．The development of future city.
C．The world’s environmental issue.	D．The concerns of future shopping.