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.

2. Why did John put the sludge into the tanks?

A．To feed the animals.	B．To build an ecosystem.
C．To protect the plants.	D．To test the eco-machine.

3. What is the author’s purpose in mentioning Fuzhou?

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.

4. What is the basis for John’s work?

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.

2. Why does the author discuss plastic straws in paragraph 3?

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.

3. What effect would “Truckload of Plastic” have on viewers?

A．Calming.	B．Disturbing.
C．Refreshing.	D．Challenging.

4. Which of the following can be the best title for the text?

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．

2. The author raises three questions in Paragraph 2 mainly to________．

A．present an assumption	B．evaluate an argument
C．highlight an experiment	D．introduce an approach

3. What can we learn from this passage？

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．

4. What can we infer from this passage？

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 . 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.

2. What does the underlined word “dubbed” mean in paragraph 3?

A．Known as.

B．Mistaken for.

C．Compared to.

D．Connected with.

3. What can be inferred about RTA furniture?

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.

4. What is good news for the brown furniture revival?

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.

5 . 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

2. Which of the following practices may contribute to animals losing anti-predator characteristics?

A．Controlled breeding of animals.	B．Banning the operation of eco-tourism.
C．Planned selection of favorable genes.	D．Eliminating domestication.

3. Which of the following statements is Blumstein likely to agree with?

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.

4. The animal rescue center spotted an injured fox a year ago and has since nursed it back to health. Before releasing it back to the wild, the center should probably ________.

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

6 . 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.

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     1     (wonder) why we didn’t get a dog. But your cat may be listening after all. More than that, it     2     (care) more than you may think.

A study by French researchers     3     (publish) last month in the journal Animal Cognition found that not only do cats react to what scientists call cat-directed speech — a high-pitched (高音的) voice similar to     4     we talk to babies — they react to who is doing the talking.

“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.”

    5     studies involving dogs, analyzing cat behavior is difficult, which is part of why humans understand them less. Cats are often so stressed by being in a lab     6     meaningful behavioral observations become impossible. And forget about trying to get a cat     7     (sit) still for an M.R.I. scan (核磁共振扫描) to study its brain function.

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     8     (notice). “It could be just moving an ear or turning the head to the speaker or even freezing what     9     were doing,” Dr. de Mouzon said.

In the study, there were a few cases     10     cats would approach the speaker playing a voice and meow. “In the end, we had really clear gains in the cat’s attention when the owner was using cat-directed speech,” Dr. de Mouzon said.

7 . 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_________ — called light pollution — whose effects scientists are only now beginning to study. Light pollution is largely the result of bad lighting design. _________ lighting washes out the darkness of night, altering light levels and light rhythms to which many forms of life, including ourselves, have_________. Wherever man-made light spills into the natural world, some aspects of life-migration, reproduction, feeding-is affected.

For most human history, the phrase “light pollution” would have_________. Imagine walking towards London on a moonlit night around 1800, when it was Earth’s most populous city. Nearly a million people lived there, _________ candles, torches and lanterns, as they always had. Only a few houses were lit by gas, and there would be no public gaslights in the streets or squares for another seven years. From a few miles away, you would have been more likely to_________ London than to see its dim collective glow.

We’ve lit up the night as if it were a(n) _________ country. As a matter of fact, among mammals (哺乳动物) alone, the number of species active at night is astonishing. Light is a powerful biological force, and on many species it acts as a magnet attracting them to it. The effect is so powerful that scientists speak of songbirds and seabirds being_________ by searchlights on land or by the light from gas flares on marine oil platforms, circling and circling in the thousands until they drop.

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_________ view of the night sky for our work. __________, like most other creatures, we do need darkness. __________ darkness is pointless. It is as essential to maintaining our biological welfare as__________ itself; the price of modifying our internal clockwork means it doesn’t operate as it should, causing various physical discomforts. So fundamental are the regular rhythms of waking and sleep to our being that__________ them is similar to altering our center of gravity.

In a very real sense, light pollution causes us to__________ our true place in the universe, to forget the scale of our being, which is best__________ against the dimensions of a deep night with the Milky Way — the edge of our galaxy — arching overhead.

1.

A．consequences

B．achievements

C．agreements

D．circumstances

2.

A．Randomly-designed

B．Well-designed

C．Poorly-designed

D．Economically-designed

3.

A．appealed

B．adapted

C．objected

D．amounted

4.

A．come under criticism

B．made no difference

C．come into effect

D．made no sense

5.

A．making do with

B．fed up with

C．identifying with

D．overflowing with

6.

A．visit

B．greet

C．feel

D．smell

7.

A．independent

B．disconnected

C．unoccupied

D．excluded

8.

A．exposed

B．captured

C．dismissed

D．frustrated

9.

A．clear

B．comprehensive

C．traditional

D．critical

10.

A．Subsequently

B．However

C．Therefore

D．Similarly

11.

A．Reviewing

B．Embracing

C．Denying

D．Regulating

12.

A．light

B．rhythm

C．status

D．dawn

13.

A．emerging from

B．withdrawing from

C．messing with

D．coinciding with

14.

A．keep track of

B．lose sight of

C．catch hold of

D．let go of

15.

A．measured

B．neutralized

C．undergone

D．supervised

8 . 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

2. The underline word “culprit” in Para. 4 is closest in meaning to ________.

A．effect

B．evidence

C．cause

D．target

3. Which of the following is true?

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.

4. What might Wielgus suggest to reduce cougar attacks?

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.

9 . What do you know about fashion? The fashion industry, which has become one of the most _________ to the planet, is having a moment of punishment. But which changes make a difference, and which ones just _________ in the wash? In fact, the fashion industry is second only to the oil industry, the most environmentally unfriendly industry.

A friend of mine _________ an antique clothes store in the north of London. Business has been good for many years, which makes her acquire a large fortune. Every few weeks, she visits a vast storehouse on the edge of the city to go through piles of clothing. Most of it is _________, but if you know what you are looking for, there are raw diamonds. The storehouse has a long history. It was once a clearing house for the low-quality wool scraps(碎料) that were used to make cheap clothing for the _________ in Victorian Britain. A century on, _________ has changed. Nowadays, it is full of modern-day inferior products, all _________ cheap clothing made for the masses around the world. Except that this stuff is going to be burned or buried, not being reused.

The items are the products of an industry that, in the past 30 years, has become one of the most successful and also most _________ on the planet. Known as fast fashion, it has filled our wardrobes(衣柜) with cheap and cheerful clothes. But after three decades of continuous growth, the model is in _________ with fundamental environmental limits and there is widespread agreement – even from within the industry – that it is time to ____________. Otherwise, “Fast fashion” creates a mountain of unsellable, cheap clothing that ends up in a terrible place.

“The fashion industry represents a key environmental ____________,” says Kirsi Niinimäki at Aalto University in Espoo, Finland. “Eventually, the long-term stability of the fashion industry ____________ the total abandonment of the fast-fashion model.” Like fast food, fast fashion is all about instant ____________ on the cheap.

One wonders: What can we do about it? Don’t you have any clothes on? It’s not that ____________. More importantly, don’t waste, learn to control your desires and ____________ falling into this “Fast fashion” lifestyle. As the guardian columnist Lucy Seagal once said, the “Fast fashion” industry is profit-driven, but consumers who have experienced “over-consumption” will naturally grow tired of it, and the market will have its choice.

1.

A．convincing

B．interesting

C．confusing

D．damaging

2.

A．carry out

B．come out

C．set out

D．break out

3.

A．builds

B．runs

C．supports

D．controls

4.

A．expensive

B．useless

C．worthless

D．attractive

5.

A．businessmen

B．children

C．locals

D．masses

6.

A．little

B．few

C．much

D．many

7.

A．on behalf of

B．in the form of

C．for the sake of

D．in terms of

8.

A．effective

B．destructive

C．preventive

D．alternative

9.

A．quarrel

B．argument

C．fight

D．conflict

10.

A．tell the truth

B．hit the brakes

C．pave the way

D．break the ice

11.

A．threat

B．effect

C．problem

D．protection

12.

A．results from

B．consists of

C．brings about

D．relies on

13.

A．ambition

B．action

C．satisfaction

D．attraction

14.

A．far

B．extreme

C．bad

D．complex

15.

A．enjoy

B．imagine

C．miss

D．avoid

10 . I’ve been in an 18-year love-hate relationship with a black walnut tree.

It’s a unique tree. In late September or early October, falling fruits as hard as baseballs threaten the skulls (头骨) of you, your children, your neighbors and those that reside next door to them. Umbrellas in the yard are a must while dining in early August, and as for me, I wear my bike helmet while working in the garden.

The black walnut also releases a chemical substance through its roots as a competitive strategy. It’s poisonous to several common plants. There have been many new plant varieties that I brought home with hopes that maybe the black walnut would accept them, but they failed to flourish.

What does work are native plants that naturally grow in the area. Native plants are important to have around since they provide beneficial pollinators (传粉者) like birds, bees and butterflies with seeds and contribute to a healthy and biodiverse environment. Native plants for this area are generally easy to grow, so they experience less stress.

Have I thought of getting rid of this giant pain in my tiny backyard? Yes, however, getting rid of this tree standing at 50 feet with an 87-inch trunk is next to impossible. It’s also protected under the law. Rightfully so. Trees are important to the urban forest and for all of those that inhabit it.

Sometimes I think about my life without the black walnut. I can’t imagine a spring without the birds who arrive every year and loudly sing their songs before dawn. I’d miss falling asleep on lazy weekend afternoons as I look up into its leaves.

Every spring, I wonder what the season holds: What are the chances of being knocked unconscious while barbecuing? Like any good relationship, I’ll never be pleased. I’m stuck with this tree, so I’ll listen to its needs and give it the space it requires. In return, my walnut offers a habitat for wildlife and a reminder.

1. Why does the author wear a bike helmet while working in the garden?

A．To protect the injured skull.	B．To prevent herself from sunburn.
C．To avoid being hit by the nuts.	D．To reduce the chance of getting bitten by bees.

2. What is the tree’s survival strategy?

A．It attracts beneficial pollinators.

B．It lets out poison to drive away pests.

C．It produces a chemical fatal to some plants.

D．It competes for nutrition with similar species.

3. Which of the following DOESN’T account for the author’s love-hate relationship with the tree?

A．The volume of its fruits may bring inconvenience.

B．The tree outcompetes the native plants in the garden.

C．The tree is home to numerous birds and other creatures.

D．The presence of the tree takes up much space of the garden.

4. The author most probably got a reminder from the tree that ________.

A．it’s better to give than to take

B．trees and plants have their own ways to flourish

C．even a good relationship is not always trouble-free

D．acceptance, instead of resistance, is the better way to be