1 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passage coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.

Surprise! A New Penguin

A team of scientists in New Zealand recently came across the remains of a previously unknown species of penguin—by mistake. The discovery of the Waitaha penguin species, which has been extinct for 500 years, is exciting news for the scientific community     1     it gives new insight into how past extinction events can help shape the present environment.

The researchers uncovered the Waitaha penguin remains while studying New Zealand’s rare yellow-eyed penguin. The team wanted to investigate the effects     2     humans have had on the now endangered species. They studied centuries-old bones from     3     they thought were yellow-eyed penguins and compared them with the bones of modern yellow-eyed penguins. Surprisingly, some of the bones were older than     4     (expect). Even more shockingly, the DNA in the bones indicated that they did not belong to yellow-eyed penguins. The scientists concluded that these very old bones     5     have belonged to a previously unknown species, which they named the Waitaha penguin.

By studying the bones, scientists further concluded that the Waitaha penguin was once native     6     New Zealand. But after the settlement of humans on the island country, its population     7     (wipe) out.

Based on the ages of the bones of both penguin species, the team discovered a gap in time between the disappearance of the Waitaha and the arrival of the yellow-eyed penguin. The time gap indicates that the extinction of the Waitaha penguin created the opportunity for the yellow-eyed penguin population     8     (migrate) to New Zealand.

    9     yellow-eyed penguins thrived （兴盛） in New Zealand for many years, that species now also faces extinction. The yellow-eyed penguin today is considered one of the world’s     10     (rare) species of penguin, with an estimated population of 7,000 that is now the focus of an extensive conservation effort in New Zealand.

3 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passage coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.

Sneakers (运动鞋) Made from Old Chewing Gum

Dutch fashion and shoe label Explicit Wear is hoping to solve one of life’s sticky situations—the annoyance of stepping in waste chewing gum on the pavement—while helping to keep Amsterdam’s city streets clean. The brand has partnered with local marketing organization Iamsterdam and sustainability firm Gumdrop     1    (create) a   limited edition sneaker for adults made from recycled gum collected from   the city’s pavements.

Chewing gum causes an incredibly serious ecological problem,    2    it is made from plastics that do not biodegrade ( 生物降解). It’s also the second     3    (common) form of roadside litter, after cigarette ends. An incredible 3.3 million pounds of gum are incorrectly thrown away on the sidewalks each year,    4    (cost) the city millions of dollars to clean up. Gumdrop plans to collect waste gum from the streets of Amsterdam, clean them, and turn them into Gum-Tec, the material that forms the base of the shoe.

The waste gum will be put to good use to make stylish kicks,    5    will also raise awareness for the anti-littering cause.    6    (price) at around $332, the shoes will come into the market sometime next month.

Available for preorder now, the new Gumshoe sneakers—offered in both a bubblegum pink and a black/red colorway—     7     (feature) long-lasting rubber outsoles (鞋子外底)   shaped   from   recyclable   compounds produced by Gumdrop, 20 percent of which are made from gum.

Nearly 2.2 pounds of gum     8    (use) in every four pairs of shoes. A map of Amsterdam is made into the bottom of the soles to remind people of the littering problem. Even better, the sneakers actually still smell like bubblegum,    9    the annoying stickiness. Just as good as any sneaker with a rubber sole, the Gumshoes help   get chewing gum off our streets and keep the dangerously non-biodegradable substance out of our eco-system.

To help spread their sustainability message,    10    Gumshoe’s creators are hoping to do is to expand their project to other major cities around the world.

4 . Directions: Read the following passage. Summarize the main idea and the main points of the passage in no more than 60 words. Use your own words as far as possible.

Imagine living on the edge of a vast desert, which is moving quietly closer to your village every day and covering your fields. The desert is on the move. This is called desertification.

Desertification occurs in regions close to an already existing desert. It generally arises from two related causes. The first is over-use of water in the area. There is not enough water in any case, and if it is not carefully used, disaster can follow. As time goes on, water shortages make farming more and more difficult. In some places, locals can remember local lakes and marshes which were once the homes for all kinds of fish and birds. They have been completely buried by the sand now. Farmers leave the land, and fields are replaced by deserts.

The second cause is misuse or over-use of the land. This means that the wrong crops are planted and need more water than is available. Ploughing large fields and removing bushes and trees means that the wind will blow away the soil. Once the soil is lost, it is hard to replace, and if there is rain, it has nowhere to go, and brings no benefit.

It is not only the farmers and villagers who suffer. Every spring, the skies over some of eastern cities, thousands of kilometers away from the deserts, can be darkened by sandstorms. Dust from deserts can have a great effect on weather systems. While desertification is perhaps being partly caused by global warming, these sandstorms can make global warming worse by adding to what is known as the greenhouse effect.

What can be done to slow down or stop the process of desertification? A great deal of work is already under way. Obviously first steps are to find new water sources. Tree planting can help, by providing barriers between desert and rich field. Some types of grass also hold the soil together, and stop the wind taking it. Without these efforts, it will be harder and harder to stop the world’s deserts in their tracks, and more and more farmers will give up and head for cities. The lesson to be learnt lies beneath the sand.

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5 . Hailing from Sweden, “plogging” is a fitness craze that sees participants pick up plastic litter while jogging adding a virtuous, environmentally driven element to the sport. Plogging appears to have started around 2016, but is now going global, due to increasing awareness and __ over plastic levels in the ocean.

The appeal of plogging is its __—all you need is running gear and a bin bag, and the feeling of getting fit while supporting a good cause. By adding regular squats(蹲) to pick up junk and carrying __ to jogging. we can assume the health benefits are increased.

Running and good causes have always gone __ — just think of all the fundraising marathon runners do. But there couldn’t be a more on-trend way of keeping fit than plogging.

Anything that’s getting people out in nature and connecting __ with their environment is a good thing, says Lizzie Carr, an environmentalist who helped set up Plastic Patrol, a nationwide campaign to __ our inland waterways of plastic pollution. There’s been a real __ in the public mindset around plastics, helped by things like Blue Planet highlighting how disastrous the crisis is,” she says.

We need to keep momentum high and the pressure up, and empower people through __ like plogging and Plastic Patrol.

The plastic Patrol app allows users to __ plastic anywhere in the world by collecting discarded items, photographing them and __ to the app, giving us a better knowledge of what sorts of plastic and which brands are being thrown out. “I’d urge all ploggers to get involved,” adds Carr.

Plogging isn’t the first fitness trend to combine running with a good cause, Here are some of our favourites:

Good Gym

Its idea is simple: go for a run, visit an elderly person, have a chat and some tea, and run back.

__ among the elderly is a growing problem in the UK. With over 10,000 runs so far, __, Good Gym is finding a solution.

Guide Running

Guide runners volunteer their time to helping blind people get __. By linking themselves together, the __ —impaired individual can feel safe while both work of a sweat.

___for the Homeless

Start-up Stuart Delivery and the Church Housing Trust collaborated last year in bringing clothing and healthy food to the homeless. Deliveries are mostly made by bike, so those who deliver keep fit while helping rough sleepers(无家可归者).

1.

A．satisfaction

B．hesitation

C．fear

D．control

2.

A．complexity

B．simplicity

C．instrument

D．expense

3.

A．substance

B．responsibility

C．value

D．weight

4.

A．one on one

B．head to toe

C．hand in hand

D．on and off

5.

A．positively

B．neutrally

C．objectively

D．fairly

6.

A．accuse

B．rid

C．assure

D．rob

7.

A．shift

B．interest

C．aid

D．delight

8.

A．motives

B．performances

C．exercises

D．initiatives

9.

A．eliminate

B．map

C．seek

D．degrade

10.

A．leading

B．devoting

C．ending

D．uploading

11.

A．Disappointment

B．Tiredness

C．Sickness

D．Loneliness

12.

A．therefore

B．moreover

C．however

D．instead

13.

A．excited

B．ready

C．active

D．smart

14.

A．visually

B．audibly

C．visibly

D．sensibly

15.

A．Running

B．Plogging

C．Driving

D．Cycling

7 . Directions: Read the following passage. Fill in the blanks to make the passage coherent. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word. For the other blanks, fill in each blank with one proper word. Make sure that your answers are grammatically correct.

Melbourne: So lovely. So... livable.

Every year, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) releases a list of 140 cities and ranks them in terms of their “livability”. Melbourne     1     (top) the list for the fifth year running.

The rankings rate “relative comfort” for more than 30 factors across five categories: stability, health care, education, infrastructure (基础设施), and culture and environment. The final scores     2     (calculate) as a percentage ranging from 1 (“intolerable”) to a perfect score of 100 (“ideal”).

Take a look at the top 10 cities, and you will find that half of     3     are in Australia and New Zealand, three in Canada, and two in Europe. They’re all medium-size cities in prosperous countries,     4     relatively low population densities. It's an equation (平衡，制衡局面) that leads to low crime rates and a functional infrastructure.

Does that mean non-Melbournians should all pack up and move to the world’s     5     (livable) metropolis? Not necessarily.

    6     the top 10 cities in the EIU’s rankings may be pleasant to live in, they’re not high on most people’s lists of top cities to visit. After all, they are not cities     7     (describe) as dynamic (充满活力的). Before Melbourne assumed the No. 1 ranking, it was Vancouver     8     came out on top for almost a decade its incredible stability.

“I find Melbourne a really boring town, so more livable means really dull,” said a policeman in Australia. “I live in Sydney because it’s interesting, not because it’s comfortable.”

Raised is the question whether you want to live in a livable city or a dynamic one. Big cities like Tokyo, London and New York suffer in the rankings because of higher crime rates and overburdened infrastructure,     9     drags down the rating of how “comfortable” they are. Yet they’re hard    10     (beat) — when it comes to recreational offerings, including nightlife, culture and entertainment.

8 . Some plants get so hungry that they eat flies, spiders, and even small frogs. What’s more amazing is that these plants occur naturally (in special environments) in every state. In fact, they’re found on every continent except Antarctica.

You’ve probably seen a Venus’ flytrap. It’s often sold in museum gift stores, department stores, and even supermarkets. A small plant, it grows 6 to 8 inches tall in a container. At the end of its stalks (茎) are specially modified leaves that act like traps. Inside each trap is a lining of tiny trigger hairs. When an insect lands on them, the trap suddenly shuts. Over the course of a week or so, the plant feeds on its catch.

The Venus flytrap is just one of more than 500 species of meat-eating plants, says Barry Meyers-Rice, the editor of the International carnivorous (食肉的) Plant Society’ s Newsletter. Note: Despite any science-fiction stories you might have read, no meat-eating plant does any danger to humans.

Dr. Meyers-Rice says a plant is meat-eating, only if it does all four of the following “attract, kill, digest, and absorb” some from of insects, including flies, butterflies, and moths. Meat-eating plants look and act like other green plants -- well, most of the time.

All green plants make sugar through a process called photosynthesis (光合作用). Plants use the sugar to make food. What makes “meat-eating” plants different is their bug-catching leaves. They need insects for one reason: nitrogen. Nitrogen is a nutrient that they can’t obtain any other way. While almost all green plants on our planet get nitrogen from the soil, “meat-eating” plants can’t. They live in places where nutrients are hard or almost impossible to get from the soil because of its acidity. So they’ve come to rely on getting nitrogen from insects and small animals. In fact, nutrient-rich soil is poisonous to “meat-eating” plants. Never fertilize them! But don’t worry, either, if they never seem to catch any insects. They can survive, but they’ll grow very slowly.

1. According to the passage, carnivorous plants ________.

A．only grow in wild field	B．are rare to see
C．are as common as flies	D．cannot grow on Antarctica

2. Venus flytrap preys on insects with ________.

A．its numerous long an thin stalks	B．a container where it grows
C．its insect-catching leaves	D．the lining of tiny trigger hairs

3. We can conclude from the third paragraph that ________.

A．carnivorous plants are dangerous

B．carnivorous plants are fictional

C．carnivorous plants occasionally eat book

D．carnivorous plants are harmless to humans

4. In the eyes of the author, which of the following statements is TRUE?

A．Carnivorous plants cannot grow in acid soil

B．Carnivorous plants can grow in nutrient-poor soil

C．Carnivorous plants will die if they cannot catch any insects

D．Carnivorous plants can get nitrogen from nutrient-rich soil