1 . When John Todd was a child, he loved to explore the woods around his house, observing how nature solved problems. A dirty stream, for example, often became clear after flowing through plants and along rocks where tiny creatures lived. When he got older, John started to wonder if this process could be used to clean up the messes people were making.
After studying agriculture, medicine, and fisheries in college, John went back to observing nature and asking questions. Why can certain plants trap harmful bacteria (细菌)? Which kinds of fish can eat cancer-causing chemicals? With the right combination of animals and plants, he figured, maybe he could clean up waste the way nature did. He decided to build what he would later call an eco-machine.
The task John set for himself was to remove harmful substances from some sludge (污泥). First, he constructed a series of clear fiberglass tanks connected to each other. Then he went around to local ponds and streams and brought back some plants and animals. He placed them in the tanks and waited. Little by little, these different kinds of life got used to one another and formed their own ecosystem. After a few weeks, John added the sludge.
He was amazed at the results. The plants and animals in the eco-machine took the sludge as food and began to eat it! Within weeks, it had all been digested, and all that was left was pure water.
Over the years, John has taken on many big jobs. He developed a greenhouse — like facility that treated sewage (污水) from 1,600 homes in South Burlington. He also designed an eco-machine to clean canal water in Fuzhou, a city in southeast China.
“Ecological design” is the name John gives to what he does. “Life on Earth is kind of a box of spare parts for the inventor,” he says. “You put organisms in new relationships and observe what’s happening. Then you let these new systems develop their own ways to self-repair.”
1. What can we learn about John from the first two paragraphs?| A．He was fond of traveling. | B．He enjoyed being alone. |
| C．He had an inquiring mind. | D．He longed to be a doctor. |
| A．To feed the animals. | B．To build an ecosystem. |
| C．To protect the plants. | D．To test the eco-machine. |
| A．To review John’s research plans. | B．To show an application of John’s idea. |
| C．To compare John’s different jobs. | D．To erase doubts about John’s invention. |
| A．Nature can repair itself. | B．Organisms need water to survive. |
| C．Life on Earth is diverse. | D．Most tiny creatures live in groups. |
2 . You’ve heard that plastic is polluting the oceans — between 4.8 and 12.7 million tonnes enter ocean ecosystems every year. But does one plastic straw or cup really make a difference? Artist Benjamin Von Wong wants you to know that it does. He builds massive sculptures out of plastic garbage, forcing viewers to re-examine their relationship to single-use plastic products.
At the beginning of the year, the artist built a piece called “Strawpocalypse,” a pair of 10-foot-tall plastic waves, frozen mid-crash. Made of 168,000 plastic straws collected from several volunteer beach cleanups, the sculpture made its first appearance at the Estella Place shopping center in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
Just 9% of global plastic waste is recycled. Plastic straws are by no means the biggest source (来源) of plastic pollution, but they’ve recently come under fire because most people don’t need them to drink with and, because of their small size and weight, they cannot be recycled. Every straw that’s part of Von Wong’s artwork likely came from a drink that someone used for only a few minutes. Once the drink is gone, the straw will take centuries to disappear.
In a piece from 2018, Von Wong wanted to illustrate (说明) a specific statistic: Every 60 seconds, a truckload’s worth of plastic enters the ocean. For this work, titled “Truckload of Plastic,” Von Wong and a group of volunteers collected more than 10,000 pieces of plastic, which were then tied together to look like they’d been dumped (倾倒) from a truck all at once.
Von Wong hopes that his work will also help pressure big companies to reduce their plastic footprint.
1. What are Von Wong’s artworks intended for?| A．Beautifying the city he lives in. | B．Introducing eco-friendly products. |
| C．Drawing public attention to plastic waste. | D．Reducing garbage on the beach. |
| A．To show the difficulty of their recycling. |
| B．To explain why they are useful. |
| C．To voice his views on modern art. |
| D．To find a substitute for them. |
| A．Calming. | B．Disturbing. |
| C．Refreshing. | D．Challenging. |
| A．Artists’ Opinions on Plastic Safety |
| B．Media Interest in Contemporary Art |
| C．Responsibility Demanded of Big Companies |
| D．Ocean Plastics Transformed into Sculptures |
3 . Early fifth-century philosopher St．Augustine famously wrote that he knew what time was unless someone asked him．Albert Einstein added another wrinkle when he theorized that time varies depending on where you measure it．Today's state-of-the-art atomic（原子的） clocks have proven Einstein right．Even advanced physics can't decisively tell us what time is, because the answer depends on the question you're asking．
Forget about time as an absolute．What if，instead of considering time in terms of astronomy,we related time to ecology？What if we allowed environmental conditions to set the tempo（节奏） of human life？We're increasingly aware of the fact that we can't control Earth systems with engineering alone，and realizing that we need to moderate（调节）our actions if we hope to live in balance．What if our definition of time reflected that？
Recently，I conceptualized a new approach to timekeeping that's connected to circumstances on our planet，conditions that might change as a result of global warming．We're now building a clock at the Anchorage Museum that reflects the total flow of several major Alaskan rivers，which are sensitive to local and global environmental changes．We've programmed it to match an atomic clock if the waterways continue to flow at their present rate．If the rivers run faster in the future on average，the clock will get ahead of standard time．If they run slower，you'll see the opposite effect．
The clock registers both short-term irregularities and long-term trends in river dynamics．It's a sort of observatory that reveals how the rivers are behaving from their own temporal frame（时间框架），and allows us to witness those changes on our smartwatches or phones．Anyone who opts to go on Alaska Mean River Time will live in harmony with the planet．Anyone who considers river time in relation to atomic time will encounter a major imbalance and may be motivated to counteract it by consuming less fuel or supporting greener policies．
Even if this method of timekeeping is novel in its particulars，early agricultural societies also connected time to natural phenomena．In pre-Classical Greece，for instance，people“corrected”official calendars by shifting dates forward or backward to reflect the change of season．Temporal connection to the environment was vital to their survival．Likewise，river time and other timekeeping systems we're developing may encourage environmental awareness．
When St．Augustine admitted his inability to define time， he highlighted one of time 's most noticeable qualities：Time becomes meaningful only in a defined context．Any timekeeping system is valid，and each is as praiseworthy as its purpose．
1. What is the main idea of Paragraph 1？| A．Timekeeping is increasingly related to nature． |
| B．Everyone can define time on their own terms． |
| C．The qualities of time vary with how you measure it． |
| D．Time is a major concern of philosophers and scientists． |
| A．present an assumption | B．evaluate an argument |
| C．highlight an experiment | D．introduce an approach |
| A．Those who do not go on river time will live an imbalanced life． |
| B．New ways of measuring time can help to control Earth systems． |
| C．Atomic time will get ahead of river time if the rivers run slower． |
| D．Modern technology may help to shape the rivers’ temporal frame． |
| A．It is crucial to improve the definition of time． |
| B．A fixed frame will make time meaningless． |
| C．We should live in harmony with nature． |
| D．History is a mirror reflecting reality． |
4 . California has lost half its big trees since the 1930s, according to a study to be published Tuesday and climate change seems to be a major factor(因素).
The number of trees larger than two feet across has declined by 50 percent on more than 46, 000 square miles of California forests, the new study finds. No area was spared or unaffected, from the foggy northern coast to the Sierra Nevada Mountains to the San Gabriels above Los Angeles. In the Sierra high country, the number of big trees has fallen by more than 55 percent; in parts of southern California the decline was nearly 75 percent.
Many factors contributed to the decline, said Patrick McIntyre, an ecologist who was the lead author of the study. Woodcutters targeted big trees. Housing development pushed into the woods. Aggressive wildfire control has left California forests crowded with small trees that compete with big trees for resources(资源).
But in comparing a study of California forests done in the 1920s and 1930s with another one between 2001 and 2010, McIntyre and his colleagues documented a widespread death of big trees that was evident even in wildlands protected from woodcutting or development.
The loss of big trees was greatest in areas where trees had suffered the greatest water shortage. The researchers figured out water stress with a computer model that calculated how much water trees were getting in comparison with how much they needed, taking into account such things as rainfall, air temperature, dampness of soil, and the timing of snowmelt(融雪).
Since the 1930s, McIntyre said, the biggest factors driving up water stress in the state have been rising temperatures, which cause trees to lose more water to the air, and earlier snowmelt, which reduces the water supply available to trees during the dry season.
1. What is the second paragraph mainly about?| A．The seriousness of big-tree loss in California. |
| B．The increasing variety of California big trees. |
| C．The distribution of big trees in California forests. |
| D．The influence of farming on big trees in California. |
| A．Ecological studies of forests. |
| B．Banning woodcutting. |
| C．Limiting housing development. |
| D．Fire control measures. |
| A．Inadequate snowmelt. | B．A longer dry season. |
| C．A warmer climate. | D．Dampness of the air. |
| A．California’s Forests: Where Have All the Big Trees Gone? |
| B．Cutting of Big Trees to Be Prohibited in California Soon |
| C．Why Are the Big Trees Important to California Forests? |
| D．Patrick McIntyre: Grow More Big Trees in California |
5 . Slowness has been a sweeping trend in sustainability. Slow food celebrates local produce and traditional cooking methods; slow fashion is made with a focus on people and the planet. You may have even heard of the slow city, a campaign to restore local cultures and turn cities back to their natural environments.
Slow design developed from the larger slow movement. Although the term was only recently introduced, the idea of thoughtful design looks back to a time when buildings and furniture were made with great craftsmanship (手艺) and by hand-before the mass-produced throwaway furniture took over. You can think of the term “slow” as a celebration of timelessness: both the timelessness of a piece and the timelessness of the relationship between that piece and its owner.
One example of slow design today is what’s been dubbed the brown furniture revival (复兴). Brown furniture refers to the heavy wooden furnishings that were popular in your grandparents’ day but suddenly fell out of style at the turn of the century. Brown furniture is often associated with dark woods, such as trees like mahogany, walnut, and teak, that take decades to reach maturity and true craftsmanship to transform into functional pieces.
Today’s furniture industry is dominated by the $13.1 billion-and-growing global ready-to-assemble(RTA) furniture market. RTA furniture is usually constructed from low-quality fiberboard, which lasts a small part of traditional furniture’s lifespan (寿命).The weight of furniture landfilled in 2018 was 9. 7 million tons, 4. 5 times what was landfilled in 1960.
In a less direct way, the idea of timelessness also lends itself to a lower environmental impact. Besides their demonstrated physical durability, slow materials and design are meant to outlive trends and never be thrown out simply because they’re out of style.
As second-hand shopping becomes more appealing to today’s young generation-because of its low environmental impact and affordability-the brown furniture of yesteryear is making a comeback.
1. Why is the first paragraph written?| A．To explain a new term. |
| B．To present the topic of the text. |
| C．To provide background information. |
| D．To highlight the importance of slowness. |
| A．Known as. |
| B．Mistaken for. |
| C．Compared to. |
| D．Connected with. |
| A．It is out of date. |
| B．It has a long lifespan. |
| C．It is heavy and expensive. |
| D．It has bad effects on the environment. |
| A．Grandparents are buying new furniture. |
| B．The brown furniture will soon be mass-produced. |
| C．The young generation favors second-hand shopping. |
| D．Materials for slow design furniture are more available. |
6 . Koko the gorilla knew over 1,000 signs based on American Sign Language, and used them to do everything from asking for food to joking around. Her trainer and long-term companion, Penny Patterson, thought Koko went further still, signing in novel ways and showing complex emotions. According to Ms Patterson, when a cat that Koko loved was killed in an accident, Koko signed: “Cat, cry, have-sorry, Koko-love.” When Koko died last month, some of her obituaries (讣告) mourned the gorilla who had “mastered American sign language.”
Then came the backlash, from linguists and experts in sign languages. Sign languages have complex grammars, equivalent to spoken tongues in expressiveness. Koko’s ability, it was pointed out, fell well short of a fluent human signer. Moreover, Ms Patterson was her interpreter, a role that invited the question of how much she was inferring what Koko “must have meant,” and explaining away random signs. It was hard to be sure: Ms Patterson preferred speaking to journalists over sharing her video and raw data about Koko with fellow researchers.
There is no doubt that animals communicate. Animals from one region can share sounds that differ from groups in another, leading researchers to talk of animal “dialects.” Then there are the remarkable achievements of Koko and her primate predecessors, including a chimp delightfully named Nim Chimpsky. Yet there is an important distinction between communication and language. Take the misleading term “body language.” It is sometimes claimed that words convey just 7% of meaning, and that body language and tone of voice do the rest. This wildly overstretches an old study which found that most emotional messaging — as opposed to the propositional kind — comes from tone and body language, especially when a neutral word such as “maybe” was used. But try conveying a fact like “It will rain on Tuesday” with your eyebrows, and the difference becomes clear. Language allows for clear statements, questions and commands.
Nim Chimpsky’s near-namesake, Noam Chomsky, has argued that people have a kind of “universal grammar”, and that all humankind’s languages are mere variations on a theme. Mr Chomsky has changed his mind repeatedly on what constitutes the core of human language, but one obvious candidate is syntax — rules, not just words, which allow the construction of a huge variety of meaningful utterances (所说的话). This capacity may even be infinite. Any statement in English, for example, can be made longer by adding “He said that …” at the beginning. This property is called recursion: a simple statement (“It’s cold”) is embedded in a more complicated one (“He said that it’s cold”). Human syntax also allows for hypotheticals (“If she hadn’t arrived …”), talking precisely about events distant from the present, and so much more.
That gorillas lack syntax should not blind humans to their magnificence. But the fact that Koko could communicate should not mislead observers into thinking she possessed language.
1. Which statement about KOKO the gorilla is true?| A．Koko’s ability was similar to a fluent human signer. |
| B．Koko could ask for food using sign language. |
| C．Koko was able to show complex feelings using sign language. |
| D．Koko was killed in an accident. |
| A．approval | B．bias | C．opposition | D．evidence |
| A．Koko was not as expressive as a human signer |
| B．Koko seldom needed an interpreter |
| C．Koko was able to communicate with journalists |
| D．Koko failed to speak several animal “dialects” |
| A．Humans can express past events using language while apes cannot. |
| B．Tone and body language play a dominant role in human communication. |
| C．Words enable humans to convey clear meanings. |
| D．Gorillas are still magnificent in terms of their ability to communicate. |
| A．Nim Chimpsky and Noam Chomsky — Who Has the Upper Hand? |
| B．Syntax — What Separates Humans and Apes. |
| C．Koko the Gorilla — A Magnificent Communicator. |
| D．Great Apes — Language and Communication Are Not the Same Thing. |
7 . Wild animals are equipped with a variety of techniques to avoid becoming lunch for a bigger animal, also known as a predator (捕食者) in nature. The most well-known methods include the classic fight and flight as well as freeze.
A team of researchers wondered whether closeness to people might impact those survival strategies. “We often see that animals are more tolerant around us in urban areas, but we don’t really know why.” says evolutionary biologist Dan Blumstein. “Is it individual plasticity, meaning individuals change their fear of us and that leads to tolerance? Or can there be an evolutionary factor involved?”
To find out, Blumstein and his colleagues combined information from 173 studies of over 100 species, including mammals, birds, fish and even mollusks. It turns out that regardless of evolutionary ancestry, the animals react in a similar way to life among humans: they lose their anti-predator characteristics. That pattern is especially pronounced for plant-eating animals and for social species. This behavioral change is perhaps unsurprising when it’s intentional, the result of domestication or controlled breeding. But it turns out that urbanization alone results in a similar change, though around three times more slowly.
The main point is: we’re essentially domesticating animals by urbanization. We’re selecting for the same sorts of characteristics that we would if we were actually trying to domesticate them. If the urbanization process helps animals better co-exist with people, it could be to their benefit. But if it makes them more defenseless to their nonhuman predators, it could be a real problem. Either way, these results mean that city living has enough of an influence on wild animals that evolutionary processes kick in. Those reductions in anti-predator characteristics become encoded in their genes. We’re changing the population genetics one way or another.
What the researchers now wonder is whether the mere presence of tourists in less urbanized areas can cause similar changes in wild animals. If so, serious questions exist for the idea of ethical, welfare-oriented eco-tourism. If we wish to help animals keep their anti-predator defenses, the researchers say, we might have to intentionally expose animals to predators. It’s just yet one other way that we’re changing the world around us.
1. The research led by Blumstein is aimed at ________.| A．determining how animals’ survival is impacted by individual plasticity |
| B．studying how living among humans affects animals’ survival strategies |
| C．comparing the effectiveness of different survival techniques |
| D．finding out which evolutionary factor impacts animals’ survival methods |
| A．Controlled breeding of animals. | B．Banning the operation of eco-tourism. |
| C．Planned selection of favorable genes. | D．Eliminating domestication. |
| A．Urbanization has made wild animals more alert. |
| B．Urbanization has brought concrete benefits to animals. |
| C．City living has led to animals’ genetic variations. |
| D．City living has helped to preserve animal species. |
| A．expose the fox to the urban environment repeatedly |
| B．train the fox to co-exist with the less aggressive predators |
| C．intentionally get the fox accustomed to the presence of humans |
| D．purposefully adapt the fox to predator related environment |
Your Cat Might Not Be Ignoring You When You Speak
Every cat owner has a story to tell of being blanked by their cat. We call to our cat, it turns away, and some of us might be left
A study by French researchers
“We found that hearing their owners using a high-pitched voice, cats reacted more than when hearing their owner speaking normally to another human adult,” said Charlotte de Mouzon, an author of the study. “But it actually didn’t work when it came from a stranger’s voice.”
So the researchers for the latest study went to the cats’ homes and played recordings of different types of speech and different speakers. At first, there was concern from Dr. de Mouzon and her team for lack of reaction from the cats, but upon analysis of the film recordings, delicate reactions
In the study, there were a few cases
9 . Human beings have somehow managed to engineer the night to receive us by filling it with light. This kind of control is no different from the feat ( 壮 举 ) of damming a river. Its benefits come with
For most human history, the phrase “light pollution” would have
We’ve lit up the night as if it were a(n)
It was once thought that light pollution only affected astronomers, who need to see the night sky in all its glorious clarity. Unlike astronomers, most of us may not need a
In a very real sense, light pollution causes us to
| A．consequences | B．achievements | C．agreements | D．circumstances |
| A．Randomly-designed | B．Well-designed | C．Poorly-designed | D．Economically-designed |
| A．appealed | B．adapted | C．objected | D．amounted |
| A．come under criticism | B．made no difference | C．come into effect | D．made no sense |
| A．making do with | B．fed up with | C．identifying with | D．overflowing with |
| A．visit | B．greet | C．feel | D．smell |
| A．independent | B．disconnected | C．unoccupied | D．excluded |
| A．exposed | B．captured | C．dismissed | D．frustrated |
| A．clear | B．comprehensive | C．traditional | D．critical |
| A．Subsequently | B．However | C．Therefore | D．Similarly |
| A．Reviewing | B．Embracing | C．Denying | D．Regulating |
| A．light | B．rhythm | C．status | D．dawn |
| A．emerging from | B．withdrawing from | C．messing with | D．coinciding with |
| A．keep track of | B．lose sight of | C．catch hold of | D．let go of |
| A．measured | B．neutralized | C．undergone | D．supervised |
10 . On a dark night, 11-year-old Joe was playing hide-and-seek with his friends in the backyard when he thought he saw Magellan—a huge housecat. However, when the cat suddenly jumped on his head, Joe found it turned out a young cougar. He backed away from the animal, then turned and ran inside the house.
Cougar encounters like this one are becoming increasingly common in the U.S. Most people assume that’s because cougar populations are growing, or because the big cats are coming into closer contact with the expanding web of human suburbs. But Professor Robert Wielgus at Washington State University argues that poorly designed hunting policies might be causing an increase in cougar-human conflicts.
Wielgus’s research teams have been fitting the big cats with radio collars and monitoring their movements. They find that the cougar population is actually declining rapidly and almost no male cougars are over four years of age. And a study shows that the heavily hunted area has five times as many cougar complaints as the lightly hunted area—even though the density of cougars is about the same in both areas.
Wielgus suspects that hunting policies, which allow older males to be killed to keep cougar populations in check, were the culprit and teenage cougars in the heavily hunted area may be responsible for most of the trouble. To test his theory, he adds two more groups of cougars to the tracking program—one in a heavily hunted area and another in a comparable but lightly hunted area. He concludes that heavy hunting indeed almost wipes out older males and the population structure in the heavily hunted area shifts toward younger animals.
With these findings, Wielgus believes without adults to keep them under control, the disorderly teens are more likely to come into conflict with humans, farm animals and pets.
Wielgus’s ideas don’t sit well with everyone. “Hunting definitely does cause lots of teenage males to flow in, but I don’t yet see solid proof that they are more likely to cause trouble than older cats,” says the University of Montana’s Robinson. “In many cases, the new arrivals have been squeezed out of remote wilderness habitat and forced into areas where they are more likely to encounter humans. I think humans are primarily responsible for all the interaction you see. We’re moving into these areas where cougars and deer are,” according to Alldredge, a researcher at the Colorado Division of Wildlife.
We may not understand what makes 18-year-old males more likely than 48-year-old men to do dangerous things, Wielgus says, but we know that the world would be a different place, if teenagers were in charge.
1. The passage begins with a story to ________.| A．lead into the topic | B．describe an incident |
| C．show the author’s attitude | D．warn of the dangers of cougars |
| A．effect | B．evidence | C．cause | D．target |
| A．Alldredge agrees hunting results in the arrival of lots of teens. |
| B．Robinson doubts whether age is a key factor in human-cougar conflicts. |
| C．Alldredge believes killing older males may cause a bigger threat. |
| D．Robinson holds humans are to blame for the fall of older males. |
| A．Driving teenage cougars back into their natural habitat. |
| B．Getting people to move out of the areas where cougars are. |
| C．Forbidding children to play in the backyard by themselves. |
| D．Changing hunting policies to ensure a healthy cougar population. |
