Many schools make it a rule to check students’ school bags. They do this for a variety of reasons, many of which are linked to keeping pupils safe. Schools do not want anything dangerous or distracting kids from their schooling to find their way inside. Recent years have seen many terrible accidents happening in schools, making both teachers and parents worried about the problem.
Mrs. Nabors, a teacher at Jefferson Elementary, feels that all of her kids understand what materials they are not permitted to bring to school. This explains why she seldom takes trouble to do a bag check in her class. However, last Friday Mrs. Nabors and her students had just finished their morning work when the teacher realized something seemed to be wrong, so she suddenly declared to the class that the bag search was about to begin. On hearing the announcement, all her pupils quickly placed their bags on the desk, waiting for checking.
Searching the school bags one by one, she didn’t find anything that isn’t permitted to bring to school. What she saw were things usually seen in Elementary school pupils’ school bags: text books, pencil boxes, calculators (计算器), snacks and food for lunch. Nearly all the students accepted the check peacefully, and some even offered to give the teacher a hand. There was one girl, though, who was watching everything in anxiety. When it’s her turn to be checked, eyes to eyes, Mrs. Nabors’ immediately sensed that the second-grader was carrying more than simply a forbidden game in her luggage.
When the teacher went to get the bag, she noticed something moving within. She’ d seen a lot of unusual things that kids had slipped in, but the wiggling (扭动) shape was new to her. She had never discovered anything disturbing … until then.
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。
Paragraph 1:
When Mrs. Nabors unzipped the bag, she found two puppy eyes staring back at her.
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Paragraph 2:
To know why the girl took the dog to school, Mrs. Nabors took her to her office.
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1. How many pandas are living in the wild today?
| A．About 600. | B．About 1,600. | C．About 6,000. |
| A．Eating. | B．Playing. | C．Sleeping. |
| A．They aren't used to living in the rainy forests. |
| B．They seldom live together in the wild. . |
| C．The bamboo forests are being destroyed by human beings. |
3 . Every year, as many as 50, 000 elephants in Africa are killed illegally for their tusks (象牙). Now scientists have improved DNA methods that allow them to match up elephant tusks, and help track down criminals that are selling them.
Even though it’s against the law, African elephants have long been killed by criminals for their tusks. Other people, called “traffickers”, buy the tusks and transport them out of the country on a ship. The traffickers re-sell the tusks for even more money, usually in Asia. Elephant tusks can sell for about $1, 000 a kilogram.
In the past, it was hard to catch the criminals. Usually by the time the dead animals were found, the illegal hunters had been far away. And when traffickers were caught with elephant tusks, it was impossible to say where the tusks came from. Traffickers usually hide them in tricky ways inside shipments of other products. That means that only about 10% of tusks from illegally killed elephants are ever found.
Several years ago, scientists led by Dr. Samuel Wasser figured out a new way to solve the problem. Using elephant waste, they built a list of the DNA of almost all elephants in Africa.
Now when elephant tusks are found on a ship in another country, DNA tests can show where they came from. This information can trigger quick action in the country where the animals were killed. It can also help the police discover patterns in the ways the illegal hunters and traffickers work.
Dr. Wasser is hopeful that the method of using DNA information from elephants to track illegally killed wildlife will soon be adopted to help protect other kinds of animals and break up more criminal groups.
1. Why do scientists use DNA information from elephants?| A．To improve the health of elephant tusks. |
| B．To keep track of the illegal dealers. |
| C．To protect elephants against natural disasters. |
| D．To research into elephants’ habits. |
| A．The way they are transported. |
| B．The lack of tracking technology. |
| C．The difficulty in catching criminals. |
| D．The various tricks of illegal hunters. |
| A．start with | B．result from | C．hold back | D．lead to |
| A．It can make all criminals have nowhere to hide. |
| B．It can scare away potential illegal hunters. |
| C．It can be widely used in wildlife protection. |
| D．It can make elephant tusk sales unprofitable. |
4 . How does an ecosystem (生态系统) work? What makes the populations of different species the way they are? Why are there so many flies and so few wolves? To find an answer, scientists have built mathematical models of food webs, noting who eats whom and how much each one eats.
With such models, scientists have found out some key principles operating in food webs. Most food webs, for instance, consist of many weak links rather than a few strong ones. When a predator (掠食动物) always eats huge numbers of a single prey (猎物), the two species are strongly linked; when a predator lives on various species, they are weakly linked. Food webs may be dominated by many weak links because that arrangement is more stable over the long term. If a predator can eat several species, it can survive the extinction (灭绝) of one of them. And if a predator can move on to another species that is easier to find when a prey species becomes rare, the switch allows the original prey to recover. The weak links may thus keep species from driving one another to extinction.
Mathematical models have also revealed that food webs may be unstable, where small changes of top predators can lead to big effects throughout entire ecosystems. In the 1960s, scientists proposed that predators at the top of a food web had a surprising amount of control over the size of populations of other species—including species they did not directly attack.
And unplanned human activities have proved the idea of top-down control by top predators to be true. In the ocean, we fished for top predators such as cod on an industrial scale, while on land, we killed off large predators such as wolves. These actions have greatly affected the ecological balance.
Scientists have built an early-warning system based on mathematical models. Ideally, the system would tell us when to adapt human activities that are pushing an ecosystem toward a breakdown or would even allow us to pull an ecosystem back from the borderline. Prevention is key, which scientists says because once ecosystems pass their tipping point (临界点), it is remarkably difficult for them to return.
1. What have scientists discovered with the help of mathematical models of food webs?| A．The living habits of species in food webs. |
| B．The rules governing food webs of the ecosystems. |
| C．The approaches to studying the species in the ecosystems. |
| D．The differences between weak and strong links in food webs. |
| A．has a wide food choice | B．can easily find new prey |
| C．sticks to one prey species | D．can quickly move to another place |
| A．The prey species they directly attack will die out. |
| B．The species they indirectly attack will turn into top predators. |
| C．The living environment of other species will remain unchanged. |
| D．The populations of other species will experience unexpected changes. |
| A．By getting illegal practices under control. |
| B．By stopping us from killing large predators. |
| C．By bringing the broken-down ecosystems back to normal. |
| D．By signaling the urgent need for taking preventive action. |
The Taj Mahal is
The Taj Mahal’s familiar round tops are surrounded with four towers, from
The inside of the main building is a striking (if smallish) space that
6 . When you throw something in the recycling bin, do you think about what it could become? And when you do, does it make you more likely to use that recycling bin? Recently, a study was conducted in an effort to decide whether or not explaining to people what their recyclables are transformed into would help increase recycling rates.
The researchers started with a group of 111 college students, asked to draw on paper before watching one of three ads.One was a public service message that showed paper going into recycling bins.The other two also showed the paper either being transformed into new paper or a guitar.After completing a survey, the students were asked to deal with the paper when they left. Half of those who saw the first ad recycled their paper, while the recycling rate jumped to 80% for those who'd seen the other ads.
After doing a few more lab experiments, the researchers headed into the real world.At a party, volunteers spoke with attendees (出席者) about recycling, with half mentioning transformed products and half keeping it general.They discovered the subject of the talks came into play.After the game, the recycling and trash bags were weighed.Those who received a message recycled over half of their waste, while those who did not recycled less than a fifth.
All this is to say that details matter.People want to know what treasures their trash can become, and when that's laid out clearly, they' re more likely to do it.Perhaps recycling companies should redesign signs to describe the items being created.Recycling is far from a perfect solution,but it doesn't hurt to manage to improve its rates.
1. What's the function of the first paragraph?| A．To lead to the main topic. |
| B．To reflect the author's attitude. |
| C．To introduce a new recycling bin. |
| D．1 To emphasize the benefits of recycling. |
| A．Took effect. |
| B．Broke down. |
| C．Took off. |
| D．Came to mind. |
| A．Sign the names on the items. |
| B．Find perfect ways of recycling. |
| C．Examine the details of items. |
| D．Show the transformation of waste. |
| A．Sports and games. |
| B．Travel and tourism. |
| C．Entertainment and recreation. |
| D．Science and human life. |
Climate change is already affecting wildlife all over the world, but certain species are suffering more than others. Polar animals
It's not just polar animals that are in trouble. Apes like orangutans, which live in the rainforests of Indonesia, are
Sea turtles (海龟) rely on nesting beaches
Climate change won't just affect animals; it's already having
8 . Greenhouse gas emissions would rise if all farms in England and Wales went organic. Though the emissions of each farm would go down, much more food would have to be imported, as the amount they would produce would decrease greatly.
“The key message from my perspective is that you can't really have your cake and eat it,” says Laurence Smith, now at the Royal Agricultural University in the UK, who was part of the team that ran the numbers. Smith is a supporter of organic farming and says “there are a lot of merits of the organic approach”, but his analysis shows that organic farming has downsides too.
Farming and changes in land use, such as cutting down forests, are responsible for a third of all greenhouse gas emissions. That means reducing farming emissions and the land needed for farming is required to limit further global warming.
Smith and his colleagues found that emissions per unit of food are, on average, 20 per cent lower for organic crops and 4 per cent lower for organic animal products. However, organic harvests per hectare (公顷) are also lower on average. For wheat and barley, for instance, harvests are just half of those of conventional farms. This means 1.5 times as much land would be needed to grow the same amount of these foods.
The estimated increase in emissions varies greatly, depending on where the extra farmland comes from. If only half comes from turning grassland into farms, the increase could be as low as 20 per cent. If grassland that would otherwise have been reforested is turned into farmland, emissions could nearly double.
This doesn't necessarily mean people should stop eating organic produce, says Smith. People might choose organic food for other reasons, such as to reduce their pesticide exposure (though contrary to popular belief, organic farmers do use pesticides) or for the sake of wildlife.
Going 100 per cent organic could also harm global biodiversity. The extra land used for farming would mean the land available for wildlife would be smaller and more fragmented (碎片化的).
Smith says the best option may be to use some organic and conventional farming methods at the same time.
1. Why may greenhouse gas emissions increase if a country goes organic?| A．Organic farms take longer to build. |
| B．The agricultural output will increase greatly. |
| C．The emissions of each farm unit will increase. |
| D．Greater demand for imported food will be created. |
| A．Changes. | B．Challenges. | C．Advantages. | D．Differences. |
| A．Organic harvests per unit are greater than traditional harvests. |
| B．Organic farming needs more farmland to feed a country. |
| C．Global warming could be brought under control. |
| D．Land was not used in a responsible way. |
| A．Stopping using pesticides. |
| B．Eating less organic produce. |
| C．Going back to traditional farming. |
| D．Adopting mixed farming methods. |
9 . Carter Ries is 16 years old and has been running the non-profit organisation, One More Generation, with his sister Olivia since 2009. Together these two young change-makers are working to
Carter said in a 2017 interview, “My sister and I have been doing this for the last eight years and not once have we wanted to
“Olivia and I go around the world
“We have created many campaigns — such as our Plastic and Recycling Awareness Week program — where we teach students how they can learn to help our environment. Another
“We recently launched a global OneLessStraw Pledge Campaign — highlighting the effects of global straw
| A．employ | B．inspire | C．remind | D．force |
| A．explore | B．study | C．preserve | D．observe |
| A．quit | B．lose | C．finish | D．choose |
| A．stand by | B．push on | C．show off | D．slow down |
| A．questioning | B．warning | C．asking | D．teaching |
| A．gradually | B．finally | C．successfully | D．fortunately |
| A．afraid | B．willing | C．free | D．unable |
| A．experience | B．struggle | C．example | D．research |
| A．write | B．deliver | C．edit | D．bring |
| A．photograph | B．introduce | C．document | D．stop |
| A．doubted | B．noticed | C．suffered | D．cared |
| A．change | B．reason | C．truth | D．authority |
| A．embarrassing | B．interesting | C．enjoyable | D．difficult |
| A．purchase | B．prohibition | C．usage | D．transportation |
| A．suggestion | B．message | C．topic | D．lecture |
10 . Alaska's Arctic is experiencing surprising changes with the effects of climate change occurring at twice the rate of the rest of the world. Significant loss of sea ice from a warming climate is one example of this change. Polar bears rely on sea ice — their primary habitat — to hunt seals, which are their primary food source. In certain regions of the Arctic, loss of sea ice has sharply reduced the ability of polar bears to hunt for seals, and it has resulted in polar bears coming to shore to look for food and den in greater numbers.
There are 19 polar bear populations throughout the circumpolar Arctic, two of which include the Chukchi and Southern Beaufort Sea Populations. The Southern Beaufort Sea population is considered the most endangered on the planet, and Defenders has prioritized our polar bear work to focus on this population.
Defenders has a multi-pronged approach to protecting the Southern Beaufort Sea population of polar bears. We are working to protect its critical habitat, minimize climate change effects and reduce human-polar bear conflicts. To reduce human-polar bear conflicts, we promote and support a variety of coexistence measures, including the use of polar bear-proof food storage lockers and polar bear patrols in Arctic communities that use non-lethal hazing and deterrence measures as a first line of defense.
The Southern Beaufort Sea population of polar bears has experienced such a dramatic rate of decline in the past few decades that it's possible that this population could be extinct within our lifetime. Clearly strong measures are needed to limit greenhouse gas emissions to lessen the effects of climate change and slow the loss of sea ice.
In the case of the Southern Beaufort Sea population of polar bears, in addition to reducing climate impacts, we need to continue to work to reduce human-polar bear conflicts so that community residents remain safe and fewer of these polar bears are lost to “defense of life and property” kills. Defenders is grateful to be able to work with Arctic communities, families and residents to do what we can't to ensure community safety and preserve and ultimately recover this polar bear population.
1. How has climate change influenced polar bears?| A．It has threatened their freedom and security. |
| B．It has created increasing conflicts among them. |
| C．It has caused a dangerous population imbalance. |
| D．It has destroyed their habitats and food source access. |
| A．The effects of human activities on polar bears. | B．The measures taken to preserve polar bears. |
| C．The current living situations of polar bears. | D．The favorable environment for polar bears. |
| A．Their population has recovered. |
| B．Their self-protection efforts have worked. |
| C．Some have lost their lives to residents' defense kills. |
| D．Some have adapted to changes in their surroundings. |
| A．Encountering polar bears | B．Coexisting with polar bears |
| C．Polar bears are making a comeback | D．Polar bears may survive the ice melt |
