1 . On November 8th, a tornado, the most powerful in the past 70 years, hit Jersey, causing great damages to the area and leaving the residents in great panic.
“Suddenly, the windows of the waiting room exploded in and dragged everything inside. My cars have been completely destroyed by branches and fences, and my garden is completely gone. There’s no furniture, no fence; everything has been thrown everywhere. At first there was lightning but then a strange noise and strange darkness came over the whole house. It was like being in a scary scene in the movie The Wizard of Oz,” Ashleigh Quail-Charleston, a Jersey resident, told the Bailiwick Express after the tornado that struck overnight on November 1—2 during Storm Ciaran.
The consequence looked like a bomb had gone off: cars hit, roofs with holes, windows broken. “A huge tree leans drunkenly against a block of flats. Piles of branches are piled optionally and pavements are covered with pieces,” said Chris Stone at BBC Radio Jersey. The tornado was powerful and exceptionally rare, caused by a severe thunderstorm that had sent out intense lightning and huge hailstones described as “ice bombs”. The Tornado and Storm Research Organization (Torro) and Jersey Met Office revealed the tornado left a trail of damages 8 km long across the island, and rated its intensity as T6 on an international scale of tornado power.
According to Torro records, this was the most powerful tornado to strike anywhere in the British Isles or Channel Islands since December 7th, 1954 when a tornado struck west London, leaving tremendous devastation, with Gunnersbury railway station torn apart, roofs torn off houses and one car even thrown through the air.
Tornados during Storm Ciaran also hit Sompting in West Sussex and Loders in Dorset. One resident in Loders, Sophie van Hensbergen, described the moment, saying, “The tornado struck with a very, very powerful whistling sound and the windows looked as though we were in a car wash.”
1. Why is The Wizard of Oz mentioned in paragraph 2?| A．To summarize the consequence. | B．To introduce the topic. |
| C．To enrich the readers’ knowledge. | D．To help describe the tornado. |
| A．How tornado was rated. |
| B．What caused the tornado. |
| C．How severe the tornado was. |
| D．What should be done to prevent the tornado. |
| A．Marks. | B．Damages. | C．Memory. | D．Impression. |
| A．A news item. | B．A science report. |
| C．A movie reviewer. | D．A weather forcast. |
2 . Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo has long worked to make her city less dependent on cars. She wanted to see more people using bicycles to get around. Over a number of years, the city government set limits on cars and increased the amount of bike paths from 200 kilometers to over 1,000 kilometers.
This year, Parisians are not complaining about too much automobile traffic. Instead, they say there are too many bikes. “Now, it’s really like a bike traffic jam(阻塞),” Thibault Quere, a spokesperson for France’s Federation of Bicycle Users, said. ”It’s kind of a good difficulty to have, especially when we think about what Paris used to be.”
Some famous roads along the River Seine are completely closed to cars. Now you see people riding bikes, running and walking with their families along the river. In another part of Paris, a bike path on Sebastopol Boulevard is one of the busiest in Europe, after opening in 2019. In one week in early September, it reached a record high of 124,000 riders.
The city will host the Summer Olympics in 2024 and plans to add more bike paths by then. Paris wants to reduce its pollution by half during the games, even as visitors from around the world will be in the city for the event. Organizers say all of the competition sites will be reachable by bike through a 60-kilometer network of bike paths.
The change to Paris, however, has not been easy. With more people using bikes, more people are making mistakes. Some of them are new to cycling and disobey traffic rules. But the environment may be improving. Cycling is good exercise and helps reduce pollution, which is still a problem for the large city. The French government blames atmospheric pollution for 48,000 early deaths in the country each year.
Hidalgo was re-elected in 2020 and plans to keep making what she calls a “Paris that breathes”. Her newest five-year bike plan includes over $250 million for more bike paths and bike parking. The new budget is an increase of over $100 million from her first five-year plan.
1. What can be learned from the second paragraph?| A．Hidalgo’s effort has paid off. | B．Parisians prefer to travel by car. |
| C．Parisians find it difficult to ride bikes. | D．Quere disagrees with Hidalgo. |
| A．To compare the famous roads in France. |
| B．To praise people enjoying riding bicycles. |
| C．To stress the importance of France in Europe. |
| D．To show how busy a cycle path is in Paris. |
| A．Tour local bike shops. | B．Ride to competition sites. |
| C．Promote the sights in France. | D．Support the athletes around the world. |
| A．Friendly. | B．Helpful. | C．Determined. | D．Honest. |
3 . Steller or Northern Sea Lions are sometimes confused with California Sea Lions but are much larger and lighter in color. Males may grow to 11 feet in length and weigh almost 2,500 pounds.
Stellers are not often seen in bays or rivers. Steller pups are born on offshore islands from mid-May to mid-July and weigh 35—50 pounds.
The current population of Steller Sea Lions is about 40,000 along the entire Pacific coast. There is great concern about this species. The western Aleutian stock has dropped by 80 percent in the last 30 years. In 1997, the western stock in Alaska was listed as endangered.
| A．Steller Sea Lions eat a variety of fishes. |
| B．Reasons for this decline are not known. |
| C．The male has a thick neck and looks like a lion. |
| D．They spend about half their time on land and half in water. |
| E．Mothers stay with pups for one to two weeks before hunting at sea. |
| F．They forbid the killing, harming or disturbance of any sea mammal. |
| G．Females are much smaller, growing to 9 feet in length and weighing up to 1,000 pounds. |
4 . Time is running short to address climate change, but there are possible and effective solutions on the table, according to a new UN climate report released in March.
Only swift, dramatic, and sustained emission (排放) cuts will be enough to meet the world’s climate goals, according to the new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a body of climate experts that regularly summarize the state of this issue.
“We are walking when we should be running fast,” said Hoesung Lee, IPCC chair, in a press conference announcing the report in March. To limit warming to 1.5℃ above preindustrial levels, the target set by international climate agreements, annual greenhouse-gas emission will need to be cut by nearly half between now and 2030, according to the report. It calculates that the results from actions taken now will be clear in global temperature trends within two decades.
“We already have the technology and the know-how to get the job done,” said Inger Andersen, executive director of UN Environment Programme, during the press conference. “Stopping climate change will still be complicated, and long-term emission cuts may largely rely on technologies, like carbon dioxide removal, that are still unproven at scale. In addition to technological advances, cutting emission in industries that are difficult to transform will involve many factors.”
But in the near term, there’s a clear path forward for the emission cuts needed to put the planet on the right track. There are some of the tasks with the lowest cost and highest potential to address climate change during this decade, such as developing wind and solar power, cutting methane (甲烷) emission from fossil-fuel production and waste, protecting natural ecosystems that trap carbon, and using energy efficiently in vehicles, homes, and industries.
1. What is the author’s attitude towards tackling climate change?| A．Positive. | B．Worried. | C．Skeptical. | D．Uncertain. |
| A．It’s impossible to achieve the climate goal. |
| B．He knows how to cut emission efficiently. |
| C．The pace of global warming is speeding up. |
| D．He is dissatisfied with current emission cuts. |
| A．Policy. | B．Market. | C．Funding. | D．Technology. |
| A．Emission cutting is urgent. |
| B．Climate change is unstoppable. |
| C．Global warming is becoming complicated. |
| D．Meeting climate goals needs cooperation. |
5 . The “mark test” (or “mirror test”) is a way to test animal intelligence — whether an animal can recognize itself, especially animals with large brains. A mark is put on an animal, usually in a spot that can only be seen with a mirror. Then the animal is allowed to look in a mirror. If the animal seems to pay attention to the mark, scientists believe the animal has recognized itself.
But some scientists believe the mark test doesn’t work well for all animals. Roosters (公鸡) are a good example. Scientists at the University of Bonn recently ran the mark test on roosters. They put a pinkish triangle on the chest of the roosters. But when the roosters looked in a mirror, they didn’t seem to notice the mark.
The scientists needed a different way to test whether the roosters could recognize themselves. When there’s danger — like a hawk (鹰) flying above — roosters make loud calls to warn nearby chickens. But roosters only make the cries if other chickens can hear them. If they’re alone, they remain quiet so the hawk won’t see them. The scientists realized that they could use the shadow of a hawk to test if roosters could recognize themselves in a mirror.
First, the scientists let the roosters spend time getting used to being in a closed-in space and having a mirror around. Then, they ran several tests by making a hawk shadow appear above the bird and watching how the rooster reacted.
When there was no mirror, the roosters reacted as usual. They called out when they were near another rooster, but remained quiet when they were alone. But when a rooster was in a space where it could see itself in the mirror, it wasn’t fooled into thinking there was another rooster. It remained silent despite the hawk shadow.
It proves the roosters knew they were seeing themselves in the mirror, and not other roosters. That suggests that the mark test may not be a good test of whether an animal can recognize itself.
The scientists hope their results will encourage other scientists to look for better ways of testing self-recognition in animals.
1. What is the purpose of the “mark test”?| A．To test a bird’s ability to fly. |
| B．To measure an animal’s brain size. |
| C．To see if an animal can recognize itself. |
| D．To compare different animals’ intelligence. |
| A．By testing their eyesight with a mirror. |
| B．By putting a mark on the roosters’ chest. |
| C．By placing two roosters before the mirror. |
| D．By observing their reactions to a hawk shadow, |
| A．Roosters are not intelligent animals. |
| B．The mark test is a reliable measure of self-recognition. |
| C．The mark test may not accurately determine self-recognition. |
| D．Roosters can recognize themselves better than other animals. |
| A．Conducting more experiments on roosters. |
| B．Using the mark test on other bird species. |
| C．Studying self-recognition in dolphins and elephants. |
| D．Searching for better ways to test animal intelligence. |
6 . South Baltimore is surrounded by water, highways, and train tracks. It’s also often thought of as a place to avoid—folks are taught to be careful of or even avoid South Baltimore. “People think South Baltimore is a place filled with danger. It’s not. It’s just we’re surrounded by dangerous things,” says Taysia, 17.
Taysia is part of a group of student activists fighting against a very different kind of danger in their neighborhood: air pollution and climate change. Lots of trucks with their noise pass through the neighborhood. South Baltimore is also home to a junkyard where they crush (压碎)cars, an old landfill, chemical plants, and mountains of coal. These are not the communities anyone wants.
The residents of South Baltimore are breathing polluted air today. Coal releases a black dust that’s small enough to get into people’s lungs. It can cause disease and death if you’re breathing it day after day. The mountains of coal are the focus of a growing opposition movement called Free Your Voice, led by South Baltimore teenagers.
The teens of Free Your Voice are taking on a big opponent (对手): the massive transportation company CSX, which transports more than 8 million tons of coal through South Baltimore annually. CSX makes billions of dollars a year.
The teens went door to door, warning their neighbors about the dangers of the coal transportation. Not everyone was on board at first. “We were talking to people and that’s just like, ‘You’re a kid! Like this is not gonna change, it’s been happening forever.’” Taysia says.
Meanwhile, the students spent the summer using sticky paper to gather samples of dust from all over the neighborhood to prove that the dust was from coal and to pinpoint which parts of the neighborhood were most affected.
The goal is to eventually get the state regulators to deny the permit that CSX needs to operate, or at least require the company to enclose all the coal, or at the very least put water onto all of it so there’s less dust blowing around. And the state is considering all of those requests.
1. How did people describe South Baltimore according to Taysia?| A．Wealthy. | B．Dangerous. | C．Peaceful. | D．Inclusive. |
| A．The junkyard. | B．The old landfill. |
| C．The chemical plants. | D．The coal transportation. |
| A．They believed the pollution was harmless. |
| B．They trusted CSX’s environmental practices. |
| C．They had no awareness of the pollution and climate change. |
| D．They thought the students were too young to make a change. |
| A．Conducting surveys. | B．Distributing leaflets. |
| C．Using sticky paper for dust samples. | D．Organizing protests. |
7 . From 2018 to 2021, about 10 billion snow crabs (蟹) disappeared from the eastern Bering Sea off the coast of Alaska. “It’s a fishery disaster in the truest sense of the word,” says Cody Szuwalski, a fishery biologist.
Usually, as winter’s thick sea ice melts (融化), the meltwater settles on the seafloor, creating a cold-water pool with temperatures below 2° Celsius on the eastern Bering Sea shelf, which makes perfect habitat for snow crabs. But a sea heat wave in the area in 2018 and 2019 prevented the usual amount of sea ice from forming.
After a close study, Szuwalski and his colleagues have found the water temperature probably didn’t kill the crabs directly, as snow crabs in laboratories can survive in waters up to 12℃. Instead, the crabs might have died from hunger. According to the study, the food demand of snow crabs in labs almost double as water temperature rises from 0℃ to 3℃. The crab population reached historic highs in 2018 thanks to great ocean conditions for newborn crabs around 2010. As a result, the crowded crabs probably needed more food, but because of the smaller foraging (觅食) area, they had even fewer resources to sink their claws into.
“It’s just something we didn’t expect, but now we have to live with,” says Christopher Harley, an ocean scientist. Such effects of ocean heat waves are likely to go beyond snow crabs. In answer to climate change, ecosystems in northern areas of the earth, such as Alaska’s, are changing more rapidly than anywhere else. Scientists can try to help predict (预测) and prepare for changes in the future with the aid of former research. “But the future increasingly holds events that have never happened on record before, like the drop in the snow crab population,” Harley says.
1. Which of the following is suitable for snow crabs to live according to the text?| A．Quiet warm water. | B．Large water area. | C．Cold deep water. | D．Cold sea surface. |
| A．Polluted seawater. | B．Inability to fight diseases. |
| C．Change in water temperature. | D．Too little food for so many snow crabs. |
| A．To adapt to climate change. | B．To force people to reduce activities. |
| C．To avoid destruction from humans. | D．To remove environmental pollution. |
| A．It is useless. | B．It is challenging. | C．It is economical. | D．It is rewarding. |
8 . A powerful earthquake hit Morocco on Friday night. The earthquake struck around 11 pm on Friday night. The USGS (US Geological Survey) says that the earthquake had a magnitude of about 6.8. But Morocco’s earthquake center recorded the earthquake as being almost twice that strong.
The quake was one of the most powerful ever recorded in Morocco. It’s also the country’s deadliest earthquake in over 60 years. So far, the earthquake is reported to have killed over 2,680 people. It has injured over 2,500 others. The earthquake was extremely dangerous because it happened at night. Marrakesh is a big city that’s popular with tourists. Many of its modern buildings seem to have survived the earthquake. But the old part of the city, called the Medina, was hit hard. The Medina has buildings that are over 1,000 years old.
Outside of Marrakesh, the earthquake caused even more damage. In the Atlas Mountains, the earthquake’s center, there are many small villages. Some villages were nearly destroyed. Many of the people in the area live in simple houses made of mud bricks. This is a traditional way of building in Morocco. But it’s not strong enough to protect against earthquakes. Many of these houses collapsed. Some of the bricks turned to sand.
Rescue workers have been working hard to save those affected by the quake. In larger cities, rescue efforts seem to be going well.
But it has taken a lot longer for help to reach far areas in the mountains. Many of these villages are difficult to get to. The earthquake caused landslides, blocking roads and making these places even more difficult to reach. In some areas, phone and electrical service were also knocked out, leaving these places completely cut off. That means that the local people in some areas far away have had to deal with the situation on their own.
But more help is coming. Some countries have offered teams of experts; others have offered emergency supplies.
1. Why was the earthquake in Morocco especially dangerous according to the text?| A．It was the strongest on record. | B．There were too many tourists there. |
| C．The buildings there were all too old. | D．It happened when people were asleep. |
| A．Looked beautiful. | B．Fell down. | C．Lasted long. | D．Stood still. |
| A．Causes of the earthquake. | B．Terrible sights after the earthquake. |
| C．Difficulties met in rescuing. | D．Survivors’ efforts to rebuild the city. |
| A．Culture. | B．News. | C．Environment. | D．Tourism. |
9 . David lost his beloved dog Baya before Christmas two years ago. Baya was active and cute. David’s family spent many days
Two years later, a homeless dog
Obviously, Baya is
| A．preparing | B．searching | C．paying | D．begging |
| A．calls | B．honor | C．gifts | D．rescue |
| A．fruitless | B．generous | C．worthwhile | D．different |
| A．advantage | B．challenge | C．decision | D．hope |
| A．continued | B．appeared | C．hid | D．returned |
| A．sent | B．forced | C．followed | D．invited |
| A．refer to | B．rely on | C．track down | D．cheer for |
| A．appreciated | B．impressed | C．recognized | D．contacted |
| A．frightened | B．excited | C．confident | D．curious |
| A．addicted | B．related | C．adapted | D．reduced |
| A．aware | B．uncertain | C．afraid | D．proud |
| A．native | B．self | C．partner | D．owner |
| A．calm | B．average | C．pretty | D．active |
| A．care | B．notice | C．control | D．advantage |
| A．removing | B．identifying | C．recovering | D．reserving |
10 . 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. |
