1 . Making a family
For years, Dad had avoided getting a dog. Whenever the
For me, at age thirteen, Chip brought out my
Chip even
Most
People sometimes complain that dog lovers are
| A．topic | B．news | C．problem | D．doubt |
| A．replaced | B．destroyed | C．bothered | D．controlled |
| A．defeated | B．challenged | C．discouraged | D．transformed |
| A．awkward | B．responsible | C．generous | D．creative |
| A．harvest | B．desire | C．ignore | D．realize |
| A．lesson | B．habit | C．custom | D．routine |
| A．seek | B．greet | C．hide | D．assist |
| A．feared | B．softened | C．admired | D．strengthened |
| A．adorable | B．strong | C．aggressive | D．naughty |
| A．persuade | B．forbid | C．allow | D．order |
| A．necessarily | B．exactly | C．importantly | D．entirely |
| A．drove | B．dragged | C．followed | D．pushed |
| A．languages | B．tricks | C．subjects | D．styles |
| A．satisfying | B．inspiring | C．changing | D．abandoning |
| A．weakness | B．theory | C．darkness | D．beauty |
2 . The process by which rich land becomes desert is called desertification(沙漠化).
Africa’s Great Green Wall is a project to build an 8000-kilometer-long forest across 11 of the continent’s countries. The project is meant to contain the growing Sahara Desert and fight climate change.
Launched in 2007, the project aims to plant a forest from Senegal on the Atlantic Ocean in western Africa to Eritrea, Ethiopia and Djibouti in the east.
The U. N. desertification agency says the project will need to plant an average of 8. 2 million hectares yearly to reach its goal of 100 million hectares by 2030.
| A．It has severe impacts on the environment. |
| B．That is only 4 percent of the program’s goal. |
| C．However, it is difficult to carry out the project. |
| D．But the project has been facing many problems. |
| E．The project would create millions of green jobs in rural Africa. |
| F．Despite many problems, those involved in the project remain hopeful. |
| G．Some countries have struggled to keep up with the demands of the project. |
3 . How do you teach a monkey new tricks? Labs have proved difficult places to train monkeys to respond to different sounds, but in the forests of Senegal’s Niokolo-Koba National Park, researchers were astonished how quickly one species of monkey adapted its behavior to a new sound.
Julia Fischer at the German Primate Center in Gottingen and her team flew drones over a community of green monkeys in the area, to see what they made of a new flying object in their environment. They responded instantly, making alarm calls to warn one another of the potential new threat.
The vocalizations were distant from the ones they made in response to models of leopards and snakes, but almost identical to calls made by a related species of monkey about eagles. The results suggest a hardwired response to the perception of an aerial threat and the use of that specific call.
They monkeys adapted so quickly to the mechanical noise that they began scanning the skies and making the calls even when the sound of the drone was played from the ground. The monkeys were never seen issuing alarm calls in response to birds of prey in the area, suggesting that the birds they usually see aren’t considered a threat. The drones, however, seemed to be perceived as dangerous. “It’s certainly disconnecting, unpredictable, something they’ve not seen before, so it makes sense to alert everybody,” say Fischer. She says she was “blown away” by how rapidly the monkeys appeared to learn. “The listeners are smart. It’s almost impossible to get a monkey in a lab to do an audio task. It isn’t clear why such learning is harder in a lab environment,” she says.
The study involved a year’s worth of fieldwork by a team of eight, who flew the drone about 60 meters above the monkeys. The research wasn’t without incident. Fisher had to duck inside a shelter made of palm leaves at one point, after a baboon ran to attack the leopard model she was holding.
Vervet monkeys in East Africa are related to green monkeys. They have been closely studied for the different calls they make in response to a variety of predators, including pythons, leopards, baboons and martial eagles.
The expectation for the green monkey study was that they would stay silent. come up with a new alarm call or produce one similar to the velvet monkeys’ eagle call. Fischer’s bet was on the eagle call option, and she was proved right. The vocalization appears to be highly conserved by evolution. “It teaches us about how different their vocal communication system is from ours,” says Fischer. “There is a very limited level of flexibility.”
1. What can be learned about green monkeys’ behavioral adaptability to a new sound?| A．They made sounds similar to a new flying object. |
| B．They alerted each other to possible danger. |
| C．They responded as though they had seen eagles. |
| D．They scanned the sky for the source of the sound. |
| A．compare the different sounds made by the monkeys |
| B．specify the monkeys’ extraordinary adaptability |
| C．illustrate these birds pose no threat to the monkeys |
| D．prove drones are more appealing to the monkeys |
| A．The study conducted by Fischer and her team was painstaking. |
| B．Monkeys differ greatly in their ability to adapt to a new sound. |
| C．Researchers have unlocked why monkeys learn quickly in nature. |
| D．Monkeys turn out to be quite flexible in their vocal communication. |
| A．Unbelievable—Monkeys Should Make Different Sound! |
| B．How Do Monkeys Get New Tricks? |
| C．Monkeys See Drones... |
| D．Vervet Monkeys vs Green Monkeys |
Recently Australia has listed the koala as an endangered species across most of
“This listing adds priority when it comes to the
Last year, a New South Wales survey found koalas would be extinct there by 2050
“Koalas have gone from no-listing to vulnerable (易危物种) to endangered within a decade. That is a
Scientists warn that climate change will also
Koalas are also found in South Australia and Victoria but their numbers are on the decrease nationally, according to protection groups.
5 . Microplastics are “one of the greatest man-made disasters of our time”, according to the Natural History Museum. That’s bad news, given they are also everywhere: in tap water, the food you buy, the clothes you wear and the air you breathe.
The largest microplastics can be seen by the naked eye and are anything under half a cen- timetre in size. But many of them are small enough to act like spots of dust which we can unconsciously breathe in or eat in food. The smallest particles are called nanoplastics and they are small enough to get their way deep into the human body.
New findings from the University of Portsmouth show that there is so much synthetic material in our homes that we might be breathing in up to 7, 000 microplastic particles a day. Using special equipment, researchers measured a typical family home and found the highest concentration of it was in the bedroom of the eight-year-old daughter, whose room was decorated with plastic-based bedding, carpet and soft toys.
Although research is in its early stage, the risks of these plastics could be serious—some studies have linked high exposure to cancer risk and disrupting our hormones. In animal studies, the particles have been shown to affect metabolism, gut bacteria and the immune system, among other things.
It is not yet known what a healthy level of microplastics might look like, but Dr Sabine Donnai, CEO of the Viavi clinic, thinks that many people in the West are over the limit. In tests at her clinic, patients often come back with dangerously high levels of plastic in their bodies, she says.
1. What does paragraph 2 talk about?| A．The seriousness of microplastics. | B．The size of microplastics. |
| C．The solution to microplastics. | D．The effect of microplastics. |
| A．With technical instrument. | B．By referring to previous data. |
| C．Through experiments. | D．By observing environment. |
| A．Deciding. | B．Disturbing. | C．Discovering. | D．Defending. |
| A．New study found microplastics | B．Microplastics are found in clothes |
| C．Microplastics are threatening our life | D．We breathe in microplastics every day |
