1 . Many people learn at an early age to associate the color red with danger. So might it make sense to print medication
“People are not
The researchers found that when the screen was red, subjects performed better on detail-oriented tasks. In one test,
In other tests, creative abilities seemed to be
Researchers concluded from the tests that seeing red causes people to take the extra time to think
| A．instructions | B．symptoms | C．warnings | D．treatments |
| A．create | B．relax | C．decorate | D．design |
| A．skies | B．medication | C．colors | D．paint |
| A．danger | B．detail | C．emotions | D．vigor |
| A．distracted by | B．aware of | C．content with | D．curious about |
| A．cognitive | B．intelligence | C．mental | D．memory |
| A．on one hand | B．at the same time | C．for example | D．that is |
| A．grey | B．blue | C．green | D．white |
| A．proven | B．acquired | C．recognized | D．enhanced |
| A．more abstract | B．more positive | C．more innovative | D．more valuable |
| A．practical | B．academic | C．economical | D．profitable |
| A．critically | B．logically | C．carefully | D．independently |
| A．painting | B．memorizing | C．designing | D．brainstorming |
| A．Unless | B．When | C．Since | D．Though |
| A．turn up | B．stir up | C．set off | D．give off |
2 . Conservationists go to war over whether humans are the measure of nature’s value. New Conservationists argue such trade-offs are necessary in this human dominated era. And they support “re-wilding”, a concept originally proposed by Soule where people reduce economic growth and withdraw from landscapes, which then return to nature.
New Conservationists believe the withdrawal could happen together with economic growth. The California-based Breakthrough Institute believes in a future where most people live in cities and rely less on natural resources for economic growth.
They would get food from industrial agriculture, including genetically modified foods, desalination intensified meat production and aquaculture (水产养殖), all of which have a smaller land footprint. And they would get their energy from renewables and natural gas.
Driving these profound shifts would be greater efficiency of production, where more products could be manufactured from fewer inputs. And some unsustainable commodities would be replaced in the market by other, greener ones-natural gas for coal, for instance, explained Michael Heisenberg., president of the Breakthrough Institute. Nature would, in essence, be decoupled from the economy.
And then he added a warning: “We are not suggesting decoupling as the pattern to save the world, or that it solves all the problems.”
Cynics (悲观者) may say all this sounds too utopian, but Breakthrough maintains the world is already on this path toward decoupling. Nowhere is this more evident than in the United Sates, according to Iddo Wernick, a research scholar at the Rockefeller University, who has examined the nation’s use of 100 main commodities.
Wernick and his colleagues looked at data carefully from the U.S. Geological Survey National Minerals Information Center, which keeps a record of commodities used from 1900 through the present day. They found that the use of 36 commodities (sand, iron ore, cotton etc.) in the U. S. Economy had peaked.
Another 53 commodities (nitrogen, timber, beef, etc.) are being used more efficiently per dollar value of gross domestic product than in the pre-1970s era. Their use would peak soon, Wernick said.
Only 11 commodities (industrial diamond, indium, chicken, etc.) are increasing in use (Greenwire, Nov. 6), and most of these are employed by industries in small quantities to improve systems processes. Chicken use is rising because people are eating less beef, a desirable development since poultry cultivation has a smaller environmental footprint.
The numbers show the United States has not intensified resource consumption since the 1970s even while increasing its GDP and population, said Jesse Ausubel of the Rockefeller University.
“It seems like the 20th-century expectation we had, we were always assuming the future involved greater consumption of resources,” Ausubel said. “But what we are seeing in the developed countries is, of course, peaks.”
1. What does the underlined word “trade-offs” refer to in the first paragraph?| A．The difficult situation of economies growth. |
| B．The profitability of import and export trade. |
| C．The balance between human development and natural ecology. |
| D．The consumption of natural resources by industrial development. |
| A．They believe that mankind should limit economic growth. |
| B．They believe that mankind is the master of the whole universe. |
| C．They believe that mankind should live in forests with rich vegetation. |
| D．They believe that mankind will need more natural resources in the future. |
| A．Natural resources cannot support economic development. |
| B．All resource consumption in developed countries has reached a peak. |
| C．More resource consumption will not occur in a certain period of time. |
| D．Excessive resource consumption will not affect the ecological environment. |
| A．Urbanization and re-wildness. |
| B．Human existence and industrial development. |
| C．Commodity trading and raw material development. |
| D．Socioeconomic development and resource consumption. |
3 . More than a score of Australian rare mammals have been killed by wild cats. These predators, which arrived with European settlers, still threaten native wildlife — and are too plentiful on the mainland to eliminate, as has been achieved on some small islands which were previously filled with them. But Alexandra Ross of the University of New South Wales thinks she has come up with a different way to deal with the problem. As she writes in a paper in the Journal of Applied Ecology, she is giving feline (猫科的) — awareness lessons to wild animals involved in re-introduction programs, in order to try to make them cat-conscious.
Many Australian mammals, though not actually extinct, are restricted to fragments of cat-free habitat. This will, however, put the forced migrants back in the sights of the cats that caused the problem in the first place. Training the migrants while they are in captivity, using stuffed models and the sorts of sounds made by cats, has proved expensive and ineffective. Ms Ross therefore wondered whether putting them in large natural enclosures with a scattering of predators might serve as a form of training camp to prepare them for introduction into their new, cat-ridden homes.
She tested this idea on a type of bandicoot (袋狸) that superficially resembles a rabbit. She and her colleagues raised two hundred bandicoots in a huge enclosure that also contained five wild cats. As a control, she raised a nearly identical population in a similar enclosure without the cats. She left the animals to get on with life for two years, which, given that bandicoots breed four times a year and live for around eight years, was a considerable period for them. After some predation (扑食) and probably some learning, she abstracted 21 bandicoots from each enclosure, attached radio transmitters to them and released them into a third enclosure that had ten hungry cats in it. She then monitored what happened next. The outcome was that the training worked. Over the subsequent 40 days, ten of the untrained animals were eaten by cats, but only four of the trained ones. One particular behavioral difference she noticed was that bandicoots brought up in a predator-free environment were much more likely to sleep alone than were those brought up around cats. And when cats are around, sleeping alone is dangerous. How well bandicoots that have undergone this extreme training will survive in the wild remains to be seen. But Ms Ross has at least provided reason for hope.
1. What can be learned from the first paragraph?| A．The feline-awareness lessons have proved ineffective. |
| B．There are too many wild cats to be killed in Australia. |
| C．Different ways have been tried to hunt and kill wildlife. |
| D．Native wildlife has been threatened by a growing population of wild cats. |
| A．Australian mammals restricted to certain areas |
| B．The wild cats tracking down the mammals |
| C．Wild animals involved in the program |
| D．The predators captured by the animal trainers |
| A．They were both closely monitored. | B．They had 200 bandicoots in total. |
| C．They had similar natural environment. | D．They both had wild cats in them. |
| A．Untrained bandicoots failed to identify cats. |
| B．Training bandicoots prepared them to fight cats. |
| C．Sleeping alone in the wild was dangerous. |
| D．Bandicoots could be trained to avoid predators. |
4 . The world is wasting the opportunity to “build back better” from the Covid-19 pandemic, and faces disastrous temperature rises of at least 2.7°C if countries fail to strengthen their climate commitments, according to a report from the UN.
Tuesday’s publication warns that countries’ current commitments would reduce carbon by only about 7.5% by 2030, far less than the 45% cut, which scientists say is needed to limit global temperature rises to 1.5℃, the aim of the Cop26summit that opens in Glasgow this Sunday.
António Guterres, the UN secretary-general, described the findings as a “thundering wake-up call“ to world leaders. while experts called for action against fossil fuel companies.
Although more than 100 countries have promised to reach net zero emissions around mid-century, this would not be enough to avoid climate disasters, according to the UN emissions report, which examines the shortfall between countries’ intentions and actions needed on the climate. Many of the net zero commitments were found to be unclear, and unless accompanied by strict cuts in emissions this decade would allow global heating of a potentially disastrous extent.
Guterres said: “The heat is on, and as the contents of the report show, the leadership we need is off. Far off. Countries are wasting a massive opportunity to invest Covid-19 finance and recovery resources in sustainable, cost-saving, planet-saving ways. As world leaders prepare for Cop26, this report is another thundering wake-up call. How many do we need?”
Inger Andersen, the director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said: “Climate change is no longer a future problem. It is a now problem. To stand a chance of limiting global warming to 1.5℃, we have 8 years to almost halve greenhouse gas emissions: 8 years to make the plans, put in place the policies, carry them out and deliver the cuts.The clock is ticking loudly.”
Emissions fell by about 5.4% last year during Covid lockdowns, the report found, but only about one-fifth of the economic recovery spending goes towards reducing carbon emissions. This failure to ”build back better“ despite promises by governments around the world cast doubt on the world’s willingness to make the economic shift necessary to settle the climate crisis, the UN said.
In the run-up to Cop26, countries were supposed to submit national plans to cut emissions - called nationally determined contributions (NDCs) - for the next decade, a requirement under the 2015 Paris climate agreement. But the UNEP report found only half of countries had submitted new NDCs, and some governments had presented weak plans.
1. Why were the findings described as a “thundering wake-up call” in Para. 3?| A．Because the world has failed to deliver on its current promises. |
| B．Because the serious problems were brought about by global fossil fuels. |
| C．Because a global temperature rise of at least 2.7°C would be a disaster. |
| D．Because the opportunities presented by covid-19 have been wasted. |
| A．New plans will be made to protect the environment. |
| B．Measures will be taken to reduce emissions in the coming ten years. |
| C．Transitions will be made in response to the global climate crisis. |
| D．Global sustainable environmental resources will be greatly developed. |
| A．To show the number of alarm clocks required. |
| B．To inquire the number of the countries attending the meeting. |
| C．To explain the reason for the world’s wasting chances. |
| D．To stress the need to save energy and reduce emissions. |
| A．Few countries have submitted plans to reduce the emissions. |
| B．Most of the countries work under the Paris Climate Agreement. |
| C．Plans to cut emissions of many countries are far from satisfactory. |
| D．Much progress in reducing emissions has been made these years. |
5 . The best ideas are often so smart, so simple and so clearly needed; it’s strange to discover they don’t already exist. So it is with Farm My School, a program that’s turning underused land at secondary schools into commercially achievable, regenerative market gardens farmed by and for local communities.
Co-founded by permaculturist Ben Shaw and regenerative educator James McLennan, Farm My School connects local people and organizations through volunteering that helps establish a school’s market garden. Students learn about community networks, healthy eating, ecological responsibility, waste reduction and climate relief while helping with food production. Schools integrate all these into their courses while producing vegetable boxes every week that feed local families, supply the school’s food needs and ultimately pay the farmer’s salary.
Farm My School has gained the extraordinary enthusiasm of the locals, who answered an online shout-out to buy tickets to the program’s launch event at Bell Secondary School last October. Called Build A Farm in a Day Festival, the event featured workshops by Ben and James to share the skills required to build what they say is the world’s largest no-dig garden. “It was such a powerful event, and I think that comes down to people wanting to act now,” says James. “We charged for the experience and 600 guys turned up! They didn’t even need free drinks to get excited. We were gardening till midnight. It was amazing. We’ve got true community buy-in.”
Volunteers have since begun beneficial planting throughout the school. Next steps include further discussions with local communities, employing a farmer, and bringing in a teacher to develop courses. “We’ve seen this huge push towards seeing schools as regenerative spaces, not just for planting but for kids to be more connected to the outside world, and really seeing the school in a whole new light,” James says. “For us, the big excitement is that by allowing a professional farmer to take the responsibility of growing food, it’s not only on the school to look after that farm anymore, which eventually makes it much more sustainable,” adds Ben.
1. Why was Farm My School founded?| A．To raise the income of the local people. |
| B．To advocate a commercial farming plan. |
| C．To provide free food for local communities. |
| D．To turn underused campus land into market gardens. |
| A．By developing program-based courses. |
| B．By organizing voluntary work in communities. |
| C．By offering them part-time jobs in the market gardens. |
| D．By encouraging them to produce daily vegetable boxes. |
| A．Competition. |
| B．Investment. |
| C．Support. |
| D．Protection. |
| A．It brings in money to support the school. |
| B．The school farm will be able to last long. |
| C．The local people will take care of the farm. |
| D．Students connect more with the outside world. |
6 . An exhibition of vivid photographs and a restored documentary give fresh insight into the Antarctic explorer, who died a century ago.
One hundred years ago, the leader of the last great expedition of the heroic age of polar exploration died from a heart attack as his ship, Quest, headed for Antarctica. The announcement of the death of Ernest Shackleton on 30 January 1922 was greeted with an outpouring of national grief.
This was the man, after all, who had saved the entire crew of his ship Endurance — which had been crushed and sunk by ice in 1915 — by making a daring trip in a tiny open boat over 750 miles of polar sea to raise the alarm at a whaling station in South Georgia.
It remains one of the greatest rescue stories of modern history and led to the idolising of Shackleton in the United Kingdom, a reputation that survived undamaged for the rest of the century. As his contemporary Raymond Priestley, the geologist and Antarctic explorer, later put it: “When disaster strikes and all hope is gone, get down on your knees and pray for Shackleton.”
And here and now in 2022, his death is being marked with an elaborately illustrated exhibition — Shackleton’s legacy and the power of early Antarctic photography — which opens at the Royal Geographical Society (RGS), and which includes a range of images and artefacts from his expeditions. Additionally, a digitally remade version of South, a documentary film of Shackleton’s 1914-16 Endurance expedition, is being screened at the British Film Institute.
The film and most of the exhibition’s finest images are the handiwork of Frank Hurley, who sailed with Shackleton and who was one of the 20th century’s greatest photographers and film-makers. Both film and exhibition feature striking camera work and provide vivid accounts of the hardships that Shackleton and his men endured as they headed off to explore Antarctica.
Even after he survived the great expedition, he still longed for another trip to Antarctica, and after long negotiations set sail in Quest, from England, with the aim of circumnavigating (环航) Antarctica, Shackleton was by now very ill and had suffered at least one heart attack. On 2 January 1922, he wrote in his diary: “I grow old and tired but must always lead on.” Three days later he had a major heart attack and died a few hours later. He is buried on South Georgia, scene of his greatest triumph.
“Shackleton was an inspirational leader. He had an innate sense of what was possible and achievable. He also had a huge personality but led by example. At the same time, he was sensitive to the needs of the individuals he was leading. For example, after Endurance broke up, his men had lost their protection and shelter. Their social fabric had been destroyed. There would have been disagreement. Yet Shackleton succeeded in keeping them together and made sure they survived.”
1. People were overcome with grief when Ernest Shackleton died because .| A．it was a huge pity that such a brave explorer should have died from a heart attack |
| B．he was the man that wrote about one of the greatest rescue stories of modern history |
| C．he came to his entire crew’s rescue and symbolised hope in extreme circumstances |
| D．there was no one to pray to anymore when disaster came and there was no hope |
| A．It presents Shackleton’s 1914-16 Endurance expedition with powerful Antarctic photos. |
| B．It celebrates the 100th anniversary of the great explorer Ernest Shackleton’s birth. |
| C．It consists of vivid photographs, artefacts, and documentaries of Ernest Shackleton. |
| D．It is created by Frank Hurley, who witnessed Shackleton’s heroic acts with his own eyes. |
| A．He was the leader of a heroic exploration to the South pole, who died from a heart attack off shore. |
| B．He saved the crew members of the sunken Endurance by travelling to raise the alarm in a tiny boat. |
| C．He is universally recognised as the greatest Antarctic explorer who has enjoyed enduring fame. |
| D．He was inspirational, practical, responsible, sensitive towards his men, but had a strong character. |
| A．What they wore would not be accepted by others upon returning. |
| B．They could no longer socialise with others even if they went back. |
| C．The ship could not keep them together even if they survived. |
| D．They could not function socially as they had when there was shelter. |
7 . Why Do Cats Love Boxes So Much?
There is an object that’s pretty much guaranteed to arouse your cat’s interest. That object, as the Internet has so thoroughly documented, is a box. Any box, really. Like many other really strange things cats do, science hasn’t fully cracked this particular feline (猫科的) mystery.
The box-and-whisker plot
Understanding the feline mind is extremely difficult. Still, there’s a sizable amount of behavioral research on cats who are, well, used for other kinds of research. These studies have been taking place for more than 50 years and they make one thing quite clear:
This is likely true for a number of reasons, but for cats in stressful situations, a box or some other type of separate enclosure can have a strong impact on both their behavior and physiology.
Ethologist Claudia Vinke of Utrecht University in the Netherlands is one of the latest researchers to study stress levels in shelter cats. Working with domestic cats in a Dutch animal shelter, Vinke provided hiding boxes for a group of newly arrived cats while keeping another group from them entirely.
The ‘If it fits, I sits’ principle
Some feline observers will note that in addition to boxes, many cats seem to pick other odd places to relax. Some curl up in a bathroom sink.
So there you have it: Boxes are insulating, stress-relieving, comfort zones—places where cats can hide, relax, sleep, and occasionally launch a surprise attack against the huge, unpredictable apes they live with.
| A．Your furry companion obtains comfort and security from enclosed spaces. |
| B．Others prefer shoes, bowls, shopping bags, coffee mugs, empty egg cartons, and other small, enclosed spaces. |
| C．She found a significant difference in stress levels between cats that had the boxes and those that didn’t. |
| D．A box, in this sense, can often represent a safe zone, a place where sources of anxiety, hostility (恶意), and unwanted attention simply disappear. |
| E．So rather than work things out, cats tend to simply run away from their problems or avoid them altogether. |
| F．Thankfully, behavioral biologists and veterinarians have come up with a few interesting explanations. |
8 . AI-based Conservation Efforts
When an endangered seabird hits a power line, it makes a sound “very much like the laser sound from Star Wars,” says conservation (野生动物保护) biologist Marc Travers. He should
His team recorded 600 hours of audio and sent the recordings to Conservation Metrics, a company that assists conservation efforts with AI resources. Conservation Metrics used a program to “listen” to the recordings and
In large national parks and wildlife reserves, poachers (偷猎者) are a danger for animals both big and small. Some animals are worth a lot of money on the black market. Park guards are left with an impossible task because there is too much land to
We still face many challenges to
| A．assume | B．know | C．hope | D．lead |
| A．frequently | B．directly | C．violently | D．rarely |
| A．imitate | B．locate | C．count | D．present |
| A．puzzling | B．demanding | C．disturbing | D．uplifting |
| A．justice | B．proof | C．image | D．wisdom |
| A．In theory | B．By definition | C．On the contrary | D．By many measures |
| A．monitored | B．enclosed | C．requested | D．overlooked |
| A．decline | B．expansion | C．climb | D．quality |
| A．supply | B．renew | C．lack | D．invent |
| A．Obviously | B．Fortunately | C．Interestingly | D．Initially |
| A．give away | B．sort through | C．get over | D．make up |
| A．exclusive | B．delicate | C．effective | D．special |
| A．convey | B．mark | C．cover | D．hide |
| A．emergence | B．movement | C．evolution | D．existence |
| A．recover | B．reverse | C．remove | D．reveal |
9 . In 2004, Pen Hadow became the first person to trek (跋涉) to the North Pole alone, without being resupplied on the way. That meant swimming through unimaginably cold waters, and risking encounters with polar bears. Just eight months later, he made a similar trip to the South Pole. Now he is back in the Arctic again, preparing for an expedition (远征) he says is even more ambitious. Explorers are confident, driven individuals. They have to be. This time, however, more significance is attached. Pen and two colleagues will set out on a three-month, 1000-kilometre trek to the North Pole, taking detailed measurements of the thickness and density of the ice. Nobody has ever done this before, and he knows the results will be of vital significance to the scientific community. This will be the truest picture yet of what global warming is doing to the ice that covers the polar region.
Pen and his wife, Mary, live in the country with their two children. “It’s much harder to be away from them this time,” he admits. They were one and five when I last went, and I made a mistake in the way I said goodbye. I thought it would be a good idea to say to my son, “You’re the man of the house now, look after your mum and your sister.” He absolutely took it to heart, asking his mum how she was all the time, but the stress eventually became too much. While it was well intentioned, it was an unfair thing to do.
He is spending these last days before departure preparing his things. “Out on the ice, one is virtually unable to mend things or do anything that isn’t absolutely straightforward,” he says. With him will be Ann Daniels, one of the world’s leading polar explorers, and the photographer, Martin Hartley. They will be supported by a crew of six, flying in supplies. Being part of a team is actually more stressful to someone with his mentality, says Pen, and something else is on his mind too. “I’m going to be 47 on Thursday. I’ve done far less training than I’m comfortable with.” Why? “Organisational things always seem more urgent. So I’m almost fearful of what I’m going to ask of myself.”
Pen believes his mission reconnects exploration with the search for knowledge that drove previous generations into the unknown. “Making it to the North Pole was a personal ambition,’”he admits, “and of limited value to anyone beyond the polar adventuring community. This time, scientists will profit from the data, and we’re creating a platform in which to engage as many people as possible in what’s happening in the Arctic Ocean. This is important work, and nobody can do it but us,” he says. “Our skills, which are otherwise not that necessary, have become really relevant. Suddenly, we’re socially useful again.”
1. In the first paragraph, what do we learn about Pen Hadow’s opinion of the new expedition?| A．He feels certain that it will be stressful. |
| B．He is aware of the huge importance of its aims. |
| C．He thinks it may be harder than his previous journeys. |
| D．He is less than confident of the scientific work it involves. |
| A．He started to feel unwell. | B．He memorised his father’s words. |
| C．He was afraid of the responsibility. | D．He carried out his father’s words carefully. |
| A．Whether he will be mentally prepared |
| B．Whether he will still be fit enough to take part. |
| C．Whether the arrangements he has made will turn out well. |
| D．Whether the equipment will work properly in icy conditions. |
| A．uncertain if it will collect information. |
| B．doubtful about its long-term usefulness |
| C．pleased that more people will benefit from it |
| D．relieved that the general public will be more supportive |
10 . With billions of stars in our galaxy (银河系), many circled by planets, the chances are there should be advanced life capable of reaching out to us. Yet after decades of looking and listening, we have found
This apparent conflict is known as Fermi’s paradox- Some have used it to argue that the search for extraterrestrial(外星球的)intelligence (SETI) is sure to
But a mathematical analysis of SETI searches done so far claims that the usual explanation for the paradox— that there is nobody out there—is
Jason Wright at Pennsylvania State University and his colleagues analysed the many variables involved in SETI, which involves searching for radio signals from other
“You don’t have to do a calculation to say we’ve only just
As well as putting SETI in context, the equation can help researchers see which search techniques have been used less than others.
However, advances in
Forgan has a book coming out that discusses 66 potential
| A．nothing | B．something | C．anything | D．everything |
| A．arrive | B．join | C．fail | D．improve |
| A．possible | B．simple | C．relative | D．false |
| A．hunt | B．love | C．service | D．region |
| A．individuals | B．civilisations | C．surroundings | D．organisations |
| A．source | B．centre | C．edge | D．part |
| A．subject | B．equivalent | C．available | D．committed |
| A．remembered | B．mentioned | C．described | D．started |
| A．progressively | B．mathematically | C．synthetically | D．occasionally |
| A．For example | B．What’s more | C．In summary | D．By comparison |
| A．technology | B．computation | C．radioactivity | D．astronomy |
| A．measured | B．challenged | C．changed | D．interpreted |
| A．set off | B．sit back | C．put up | D．take down |
| A．demands | B．benefits | C．explanations | D．applications |
| A．weird | B．boring | C．exciting | D．common |
