1 . Directions: For each blank in the following passage there are four words or phrases marked A, B, C and D.   Fill in each blank with the word or phrase that best fits the context.

Anyone planning to go camping or hiking should first learn to recognize poison ivy, _____ this plant can cause a rash resulting in reddened skin, an annoying itch, and painful blisters. A severe _____ can even force a person to remain in bed or become hospitalized. The best way to _____ these discomforts is to avoid the plant.

Fortunately this plant is easy to _____. Whether it grows as a bush or a vine, the shape of it is always _____. Each leaf stalk has three glossy leaves, usually with jagged edges. In early spring the leaves are red, turning. And then the autumn comes, the leaves _____ to become bright red or orange. The poison ivy plant is found _____ everywhere in North America. Because many birds eat its berries, its seeds are _____ distributed. The plant loves the sun and flourishes along beaches, in fields, and by roadsides. It also grows ____ in light shade and is often found in parks and pine forests. However, in thick woods the story is different. It is not _____ there. That is because the leaves of the trees block out the sun, which the plant needs to grow.

The poison in poison ivy is in the form of an oil that is in all parts of the plant. It is extremely _____. Merely touching the plant is enough contact for a person to be infected by the _____. Touching clothing or shoes that have brushed against the plant can also cause a rash and blisters. Even the smoke from a fire where poison ivy is burning can cause the skin poisoning.

A person who makes ____ with the plant should wash all infected areas with a strong laundry soap as soon as possible. Clothes that have come in contact with the ____ should be dry cleaned or washed in soap and water. There is one good way to prevent the ____. Stay away from the plant!

1.

A．since

B．so

C．therefore

D．then

2.

A．cold

B．cough

C．case

D．accident

3.

A．keep

B．prevent

C．protest

D．cut

4.

A．forget

B．grow

C．fertilize

D．recognize

5.

A．the same

B．various

C．beautiful

D．ugly

6.

A．become

B．change

C．get

D．avoid

7.

A．barely

B．always

C．usually

D．almost

8.

A．widely

B．narrowly

C．practically

D．strongly

9.

A．very poor

B．very good

C．quite well

D．quite worse

10.

A．supported

B．discovered

C．watered

D．disturbed

11.

A．deep

B．high

C．catching

D．beautiful

12.

A．oil

B．part

C．form

D．contact

13.

A．combination

B．contact

C．access

D．soap

14.

A．smoke

B．fire

C．plant

D．clothing

15.

A．poisoning

B．weeding

C．growing

D．seeding

2 . If there is a building which symbolizes a country—such as the Eiffel Tower for France and Sydney Opera House for Australia—then it has to be the Taj Mahal for India.

It was set up by Emperor Shah Jahan in 1653 in memory of his wife, Mumtaz Mahal. From the time they got married, they wouldn’t be separated. She followed him to wars, advised him on affairs of state, and was loved by his people for her good work. But she died in 1631 during childbirth. The emperor was heartbroken and had the Taj Mahal built as a sign of his love.

It took more than 20 years for the Taj Mahal to be built. Workers were brought in, not only from all over India, but from Central Asia too. A total of 20,000 people worked on the building.

In 1657, Shah Jahan fell ill, and in 1658 his son Aurangzeb, imprisoned (囚禁) his father and seized power. Shah Jahan stayed in prison until his death in 1666. He was finally buried there with his wife he could never forget.

The Taj Mahal is definitely worth more than a single visit. As it is built with white marble stones, its character changes in different lights. It looks more beautiful at sunrise and sunset. At sunset, for example, the color of the Taj changes from white to yellow, then to pink. As the moon rises, it turns a silvery white.

To show respect to the Taj, tourists are asked to take off their shoes during their visit.

1. Emperor Shah Jahan built the Taj Mahal to ________.

A．do wonders

B．memorize his wife

C．show his great power

D．give his wife great honor

2. Which of the following about the Taj Mahal is NOT true?

A．It is a symbol of India.	B．It took over 20 years to complete the Taj Mahal.
C．All workers building the Taj Mahal came from Central Asia.	D．The Taj Mahal was built with white marble stones.

3. Which of the following is true?

A．Shah Jahan lived a hard life in his last few years.

B．Shah Jahan lost his life just because of old age.

C．Shah Jahan was not popular with his people at that time.

D．Shah Jahan treated his son bad when he was young.

4. The writer of the passage ________.

A．has never visited the Taj Mahal

B．thinks highly of the Taj Mahal

C．doesn’t think the Taj Mahal worth a visit

D．thinks the Taj Mahal is more grand than other buildings in the world

3 . Directions: Read the following passage. Summarize the main idea and the main point(s) of the passage in no more than 60 words. Use your own words as far as possible.

African elephants are in trouble. Their numbers have fallen violently from as many as ten million a hundred years ago to as few as 400,000 today. Losses are largely from poaching（偷猎） for the illegal ivory trade, and also because of the smaller living space for elephants, as people open up land for farming and development.

Killing some elephants to help save the species is one suggested strategy for preserving them. Here’s the thinking: Invite rich hunters to pay generous fees to shoot specified numbers of elephants, and use that money as sources for various conservations.

Some people claim that trophy hunting can provide generous financial support for people to conserve and restore wild elephant numbers, protect wildlife from poaching, and to help give local communities a boost in economy. Doing that, the theory goes, poor villagers won’t need to poach elephants to feed their families.

To look into the new business closely, the trophy hunting industry does not provide significant benefits to the communities where it occurs. Across Africa, there are only about 15,000 hunting-related jobs created by the business—a tiny number, especially considering that the six main game-hunting countries alone have a population of nearly 150 million.

Besides that, it is true the total income from trophy hunting is substantial. Take an unnamed area for example, the total income to wild conservancies from trophy hunting, amounted to $165,000. Six years later, this is expected to increase almost tenfold to $1,330,000. Yet after various kinds of processing fees and expenses are reduced, the local communities make an average of only ten cents a hectare (25 cents an acre) from trophy hunting. The return is so small that it justly explains locals’ lack of interest in preserving hunting areas and their continued poaching.

4 . The documentary Blood Lions shows South Africa's cruel "canned' lion hunting industry. In canned hunts, lions are raised by humans and kept in enclosed spaces on private hunting areas. Hunters can get trophy （战利品）easily in exchange for fees of up to $50, 000. There are about 8,000 ranch lions in South Africa. So the country’s hunt operators can make a fortune.

Ian Michler was a lead character in the film. He talked about Blood Lions last July when it was shown in Durban, South Africa. The film has since been viewed in 185 countries. More than 50 screenings have been held at film festivals and in meetings of special interest groups. This year, Blood Lions will be shown at every major tourism conference in Europe and Africa.

Outside the film, Michler and the team are running a global campaign. They are aiming at ending canned hunts and other cold-blooded activities involving lions and other animals.

Australia became the first country, in February 2015, to forbid imports of lion trophies. It was followed by France in November, That month, Blood Lions was shown in the European Parliament. As a result, the government of Finland, Italy, and Spain decided to hold their own screenings. There are a number of other countries likely to do the same.

At the same time, at the end of last year, the world's leading group of African lion researchers offered an important suggestion They advised that any analysis of the present state of wild lions in South Africa should not include its thousands of ranch lions. Wild lions in South Africa now number some 3, 000. There are around 20,000 wild lions in Africa.

"The great majority of lion populations in Africa have been reduced,” says Hans Bauer, lion researcher at Oxford University Wildlife Conservation Research Unit. 'It's important to stress that South Africa's ranch lions are horror that has nothing to do with lion protection. These lions should never be taken into account in any serious analysis of the state of lions in Africa."

1. What do we learn about the documentary Blood Lions?

A．It has an international influence.	B．It has attracted many tourists.
C．It tell the story of a lion fighter.	D．It has brought the producer lots of money

2. Michler and his team’s campaign       .

A．was first started in Australia	B．has won little support in Europe
C．has achieved noticeable effects	D．aims to save endangered animals

3. What can we infer about Hans Bauer?

A．He suggests analyzing lions properly.

B．He has seen an increase of African wild lions

C．He maybe a strong supporter of trophy hunting.

D．He hopes that there will be more ranch lions in Africa.

4. What is the main purpose of the passage?

A．To explain the main idea of a new film.

B．To report an animal protection campaign

C．To encourage fanners lo raise ranch lions.

D．To advertise South Africa's hunting industry.

5 . Directions：Fill in each blank with a proper word chosen from the box. Each word can only be used once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. recently 　　　　B. estimated 　　　　C. employing 　　　　D. definition 　　　　E. confusing F. updated 　　　　 G. scientific　　　 H. argument 　　　I. depending 　　　J. distinct 　　　K. finally

Most of us learn at primary school that there are seven continents, but the next generation of kids may be adding one more to that list.

According to a recent paper published     1     in the Geological Society of American Journal by a group of researchers, “Zealandia” is a new continent that’s hidden beneath the ocean.

Zealandia is     2     to be five million sq. km. Most of this massive area is covered by water, but its highest mountains already have their own name: New Zealand.

The small country is the only part of Zealandia that isn’t underwater, but the paper’s authors want the huge landmass to be recognized worldwide as its own continent.

“The     3     value of classifying Zealandia as a continent is much more than just an extra name on a list,” the researchers wrote in their paper.

Scientists discovered Zealandia all the way back in 1995, then started extensive research on the area     4     underwater and satellite mapping technology. After completing their work, they were     5     able to write a report suggesting that Zealandia be named a continent.

But who decides on what is a continent and what isn’t? There is, in fact, no official organization that does. Some countries’ schools teach that there are six or even five continents. This changes     6     on where in the world school is.

Due to their     7     as a “continuous expanse of land”, some classify Europe and Asia as the same continent --known as Eurasia. Schools in Russia and parts of Eastern Europe teach this.

And to make things even more     8    , France and Greece, as well as other countries, classify North America and South America as simply America.

This     9     over how land is defined has even stretched into outer space. In 2006, the International Astronomical Union（IAU）decided that Pluto was no longer a planet, 76 years after its discovery in 1930. Experts argued that it no longer met the requirements needed to be called a planet alongside the eight others in our solar system. It was therefore renamed a “dwarf planet（矮行星）”，meaning that countless books, models and museum exhibits all over the world had to be     10    .

But will the world take the same notice of Zealandia? The best way to tell is to keep an eye on our textbooks.

6 . Directions: Complete the following passage by using the -words in the box. Each -word can only be used once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. infections     B. factors                 C. particularly          D. separate          E. seriously        F. passive G. mixtures          H. significantly   I. present                       J. negative            K. exposed

Air pollution triggers (引发)more heart attacks than using cocaine and poses as high a risk of sparking a heart attack as alcohol, coffee and physical exertion, scientists said on Thursday. Anger, marijuana (大麻)use and chest or respiratory (与呼吸有关的)     1     can also trigger heart attacks to different extents, the researchers said, but air pollution,       2     in heavy traffic, is the major cause.

The findings, published in The Lancet journal, suggest population-wide       3     like polluted air should be taken more       4     when looking at heart risks, and should be put into context besides higher but relatively rarer risks like drug use. Tim Nawrot of Hasselt University in Belgium, who led the study, said he hoped his findings would also encourage doctors to think more often about population level risks.

Nawrot’s team combined data from thirty-six       5     studies and calculated the relative risk posed by a series of heart attack triggers and their population-attributable fraction (PAF)—in other words the proportion of total heart attacks estimated to have been caused by each trigger. “Of the triggers for heart attack studied, cocaine is the most likely to trigger an event in an individual, but traffic has the greatest population effect as more people are       6     to it,” the researchers wrote. “PAFs give a measure of how much disease would be avoided if the risk was no longer       7    . ”

A report published late last year found that air pollution in many major cities in Asia exceeds the WHO’s air quality guidelines and that poisonous       8     of pollutants result in more than 530,000 earlier deaths a year. While       9     smoking was not included in this study, Nawrot said the effects of secondhand smoke were likely to be similar to that of outdoor air pollution, and noted previous research found that bans on smoking in public places have       10     reduced heart attack rates.

7 . Directions: Read the following passage. Summarize the main idea and the main point(s) of the passage in no more than 60 words. Use your own words as far as possible.

Ban the Bag!

Standing in line at the grocery store last week, I watched the woman in front of me buy a tube of toothpaste. As the clerk placed her purchase in a plastic bag, I couldn’t help wondering how long it would take for that bag to end up in the trash. Then I noticed the big purse the woman was carrying and wondered why she had needed a plastic bag at all.

People have come to rely on plastic bags as everything from shopping bags for groceries to trash-can bags. Although plastic bags can be recycled, only about one percent of those used in the United States are. Instead, after helping people transport items from one place to another, most are thrown away. They end up in landfills, where it can take a plastic bag up to a thousand years to decay. Some bags end up elsewhere in the environment, sticking to trees and fences, blocking rivers and oceans, or floating along city sidewalks.

Plastic bags harm the environment in several ways. First, they break down into particles that pollute our soil and water. Because most plastic bags are made of polyethylene, a product derived from crude oil (原油) or natural gas, they waste nonrenewable resources. Plastic bags can also harm animals. Scientists estimate that more than one million sea animals, including whales, seabirds, and turtles, die each year from intaking or becoming stranded in plastic.

People all over the world are starting to recognize the problems associated with plastic bags. Countries such as China, South Africa, Switzerland, and Uganda are taking action and banning the bags. Other nations, including Italy and Ireland, have been trying to restrict the use of plastic bags by taxing them. In the United States more and more communities are ridding themselves of plastic bags. Now more and more people are also purchasing inexpensive, reusable bags and using them when they shop. If we all take this simple step, we can be a part of a “green” revolution.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

8 . Questions are based on the following passage.
1.

A．How to do the gardening	B．How to get birds to a garden.
C．How to take care of birds.	D．How to feed birds in a garden.

2.

A．Shelter. food and water.	B．Fruit water and insects
C．Plants. shelter and food.	D．Plants. seeds and insects.

3.

A．Not to observe them.	B．Not to approach them.
C．Play with them regularly.	D．Play some music for them.

9 .

A．The broadcast.

B．The weather.

C．The latest news.

D．The holiday

10 .

A．They will go swimming.	B．They will climb mountains.
C．They will buy some clothes.	D．They will forecast the weather conditions.