1 . Farmers in southern Italy are cultivating tropical fruits like avocados and mangos. Tropical creatures such as the rabbitfish are ____ in Mediterranean nets. And the winemakers in southern France are worried that their grapes may become extinct. Fifty years ago all this would have been _____ , but since the early 1980s rising temperatures have forced some farmers to ____ grapes for some tropical fruits.

Italy and France have long been proud of their cuisines. Both countries jealously ____ the rules that say   only ham made in Parma, a province in northern Italy can be called “Prosciutto di Parma”, and only fizzy wine made in Champagne can be called champagne.

Roquefort, that most ____ of blue cheeses, was given special protection by the parliament of Toulouse in 1550. The fact of having been grown somewhere famous has traditionally been seen as a guarantee of ____ .

But climate change could ____ that. Take polenta(意大利玉米糊), a popular Italian dish consisting almost entirely of ground corn. High temperatures and drier weather have already reduced corn yields in southern Italy.

If this pattern continues and spreads ____ , will Italian polenta-makers have to order their corn from elsewhere? And what about durum wheat, which grows ____ in Mediterranean lands and is used to make pasta, flatbreads and couscous? Modelling suggests that durum yields will sharply fall there if the temperature keeps on rising.

So should we worry about the future of spaghetti? Gabriele Cola, a researcher at Milan University, is   ___ about the short term. “I don’t see crops at serious risk, because farming is more ____ and technologically capable, so it can always respond to changes,” he says.

Increased irrigation(灌溉) can ____ the effects of drought. Scientists may also breed more resistant varieties of crops. But ____ deeper change seems likely. If temperatures continue to rise, farmers in northern   Europe may find they can grow southern staples( 主食 ); polenta may ____ northern Europe. Meanwhile, the Italian southerner may also have to ____ if tropical fruits continue to spread there.

1.

A．taking over

B．turning up

C．getting off

D．holding back

2.

A．unnoticeable

B．respectable

C．unthinkable

D．believable

3.

A．switch

B．cultivate

C．trade

D．supply

4.

A．revise

B．bend

C．break

D．guard

5.

A．celebrated

B．publicized

C．introduced

D．favored

6.

A．yield

B．quality

C．origin

D．price

7.

A．revise

B．activate

C．upset

D．achieve

8.

A．backwards

B．outwards

C．northwards

D．downwards

9.

A．plentifully

B．especially

C．frequently

D．specifically

10.

A．concerned

B．optimistic

C．disappointed

D．romantic

11.

A．harvested

B．qualified

C．achieved

D．informed

12.

A．generate

B．sustain

C．reverse

D．maintain

13.

A．in this respect

B．in the long run

C．in an instant

D．in other words

14.

A．invade

B．survive

C．represent

D．engage

15.

A．adapt

B．invest

C．resist

D．imitate

2 . How did Cape Town, South Africa, get into a Day Zero situation—when the city’s taps would go dry because its reservoirs (水库)would become dangerously low on water? The city gets its water from six reservoirs in Western Cape province, which usually ____________ during the rainy season, from May through August. But since 2015 the region has been suffering from the worst drought (干旱)in a century, and the water in those reservoirs____________ tremendously. Compounding the problem, Cape Town’s population has grown substantially, increasing ____________ . The city actually did a pretty good job by reducing leaks in the system, a major cause of water waste, and has even won awards for its ____________ policies. But the government of South Africa was slow to declare a national disaster in the areas hit hardest by the drought, paving the way for the recent ____________.

Cape Town is not ____________ . Since 2014 southeastern Brazil has been suffering its worst water shortage in 80 years,___________ decreased rainfall,   forestation and other factors. And many cities in India do not have access to municipal water for more than a few hours a day, if at all.____________ , the city of Shimla ran out of drinking water in May, urging locals to beg tourists to stay away from the popular Himalayan summer resort.

In the U.S., the situation is somewhat better, but many urban centers still ____________ water problems. Californians recent multiyear drought led to some of the state’s driest years on record. Since about half of the state’s urban water usage is for landscaping, it was able to cut back on that fairly easily. But cities that use most of their water for more essential uses, such as drinking water, may not be so ____________ .

____________ , steps can be taken to avoid urban water crises. In general, a “portfolio approach” that relies on multiple water sources is probably most ____________ . Cape Town has already begun implementing a number of water projects, including tapping groundwater and building water-recycling plants. Many other cities will need to repair existing water infrastructure (基础建设)to cut down on leakage. City leaders should be thinking about meeting long-term needs rather than just about ____________ requirements. Good organization and financial accountability are equally critical. And planning efforts should include diverse stakeholders (利益相关者)from the community. One major challenge is providing services to informal areas, which develop without any government foresight. Such regions often ____________ basic resources一a well-planned water supply among them. The global community has an opportunity right now to take action to prevent a series of Day Zero crises. If we don’t act, many cities may soon face a time when there isn’t a drop to ____________ .

1.

A．take over

B．fill up

C．make off

D．set out

2.

A．decreased

B．rose

C．remained

D．drowned

3.

A．likelihood

B．proportion

C．demand

D．efficiency

4.

A．architecture

B．agriculture

C．economy

D．conservation

5.

A．policy

B．growth

C．crisis

D．change

6.

A．enough

B．possible

C．difficult

D．alone

7.

A．making up for

B．resulting from

C．taking advantage of

D．looking into

8.

A．In a word

B．By comparison

C．What’s worse

D．For example

9.

A．avoid

B．solve

C．discuss

D．face

10.

A．passive

B．purposeful

C．adaptable

D．reliable

11.

A．Similarly

B．Fortunately

C．Initially

D．Alternatively

12.

A．questionable

B．memorable

C．effective

D．confusing

13.

A．daily

B．legal

C．maximum

D．normal

14.

A．neglect

B．lack

C．provide

D．find

15.

A．drink

B．pour

C．place

D．record

3 . Are you worried about the planet and tired of waiting around for things to change? Go ahead and take a closer look at the various options available to volunteer for the environment!

Sustainable Agriculture If you decide to volunteer for a sustainable agriculture project, you’ll definitely learn some interesting sustainable farming techniques. You will be learning these techniques from locals or teaching them to the local farmers so they can implement these techniques on their own. Best Places to Volunteer: Central or South Africa, India, Nepal, Indonesia and the Philippines.

Marine Conservation Volunteers for marine conservation should naturally be attracted to water. It’s important that you don’t fear diving and have a strong interest in learning to dive during your stay. While volunteering, your task as a volunteer will be to help research, maintain and grow the unique marine biology. Best Places to Volunteer: The Bahamas, Cuba, Peru, South Africa, Indonesia, Spain and Italy.

Nature Conservation Conservation projects are dedicated to protecting the natural environment of a specific location. Tasks here may vary greatly depending on the program but it will require volunteers to study the environment and learn about the local wildlife species. You’ll be monitoring the environment and retrieving data while taking action to preserve the local species of fauna and flora. Best Places to Volunteer: Madagascar, the Maldives, South Africa, New Zealand and Russia.

Renewable Energy and Water Projects focused on energy and water create ways for communities to access sustainable energy and water sources. These programs are dedicated to designing system improvements and creating a sustainable supply of energy and water. It’s important for conservation volunteers to evaluate the needs of the community and implement actions to solve these issues. Best Places to Volunteer: Peru, Costa Rica, El Salvador, India and Cameroon.

Requirements: With so many subcategories and such a wide array of organizations, the required skill set will vary for each program. English is the main language on all projects so it’s important that conservation volunteers have a good understanding of English. For projects in South America, you will find it helpful to have a basic knowledge of Spanish.

1. If you want to volunteer for three projects in the same country, which country is the best choice?

A．Peru.

B．Indonesia.

C．South Africa.

D．India.

2. Which of the following statements is TRUE?

A．Volunteers can learn farming techniques by implementing these techniques on their own.

B．Volunteers need to study the environment and perform the same natural conservation tasks.

C．Volunteers should assess the requirements of the community before implementing actions.

D．Volunteers can sign up for marine conservation project even if they are afraid of the water.

3. What is required in common to be a volunteer in any of the above programs?

A．Farming techniques.	B．Marine biology.
C．Data retrieving.	D．The English language.

5 . 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.

Meet the Islands

Located 86 km north-east of Bougainville in the South Pacific, the Carteret Islands of Papua New Guinea are composed of low-lying islands     1     (distribute) in a horseshoe shape, with a total land area of 0.6 square kilometers and a maximum elevation of 1.5 meters above sea level.

The Carteret Islands are believed     2     (inhabit) for more than one thousand years. Few places are as calm, peaceful and beautiful as the seaside here on a calm day. People are very     3     (welcome), gentle, and calm. There’s no phone network, shops, computers, roads, cars, or motorbikes. Food is cooked on open fires. People here live sustainably. They don’t overfish or pollute, making no contribution to the warming of our planet. However, they are feeling the consequences of the climate change.

Now, as the land     4     (swallow) by the rising sea, the islanders are faced with an uncertain future. Storms and high tides wash away homes, destroy vegetable gardens and pollute fresh water supplies. The trees on the island are also being impacted by the saltwater. The beach exists     5     fertile soil once did.     6     the coral and seagrasses die, so do the breeding areas for fish. Many seawalls have been built     7     with little success. The islands have gradually become uninhabitable.

The Carteret islanders are labelled as the world’s first official climate-change refugees, as they are forced to abandon their homelands     8     food shortages, rising sea levels, sinking shorelines, and the dangers of storms and tides. In front of     9     is the choice whether to stay and watch the islands shrink and slowly disappear or try to rebuild their community somewhere else. Yet, the relocation is not a move embraced by most, and some are unhappy living away from their home, and have returned after struggling to adapt. On the other hand, relocation will be a great challenge to the preservation of the identity and culture of the Carteret islanders.

The Carteret Islanders’ story illustrates how small island states and coastal communities fall victim     10     rising sea levels caused by climate change. The Carteret Islanders, with a carbon footprint among the lowest in the world, will be among the first to have to leave their homes because of rising seas caused by emissions from other nations.

6 . More than three billion people rely on the ocean to make a living, most of whom are in developing countries. As the global population increases, the demand for seafood is expected to rise, too.

Although ocean ecosystems are stretched to the limit by climate change, overfishing and more, studies nevertheless suggest that seafood can be expanded sustainably to meet future food demands. Success will depend on small-scale fisheries. These fisheries can be remarkably efficient. Almost everything that hand-to-mouth fisheries catch is consumed. By contrast, around 20% of the fish caught by industrial ships is estimated to be wasted, mainly because of unwanted by-catch.

Small fishers rarely have the right resources to expand their operations, or even to survive. If they do scale up, they might lose some of their current advantages or engage in the same harmful practices as do large commercial fisheries. Managed with care, however, small fisheries could provide win-wins for livelihoods and the environment.

Most nations already have management policies for marine ecosystems that provide for small-scale fisheries. But small-scale fishers’ rights to access are often poorly defined, ineffectively enforced or unfairly distributed (分配). Government subsidies (补贴) also require reform. One estimate found that large-scale fishers receive about 3.5 times more subsidies than small-scale fishers do. Instead, subsidies and other funds should be directed towards small-scale fishers to let them expand their access to markets, while keeping them from adopting the negative practices of large-scale operations.

The total global loss and waste from fisheries is estimated at between 30% and 35% annually primarily due to a lack of technology, good manufacturing practices, and infrastructure such as decent roads and cold storage. Public and private investment in cold-storage facilities and processing equipment could help. One promising strategy is to pair international or national funding with direct contracts for feeding programmes linked to schools, hospitals and similar facilities. Such arrangements would provide small fisheries with large, consistent markets and storage infrastructure that boosts local consumption and does not incentivize (刺激) overfishing.

Moreover, simple incentive programmes could be conducted by funders, managers and local governments trying to promote sustainable fisheries. For example, local markets could display a rating system for individual fishers or small fisheries. This could include various elements of sustainability other than environmental ones — such as providing information on the type of fishing equipment, location of the catch and freshness. Promoting the rating as a social responsibility concept would inform consumers of the need to support sustainable fisheries.

Anyway, only joint problem-solving efforts can deliver seafood protein, sustainably, to a world that increasingly needs it.

1. The passage mainly tells us that ________.

A．small fisheries can help the world if managed with care

B．the global demand for seafood is increasing dramatically

C．small-scale fisheries need to be commercialised urgently

D．people in developing countries are more reliable on fishing

2. Small-scale fisheries are more efficient because ________.

A．what they catch is hardly wasted	B．their by-catch accounts for a larger share
C．they catch fish by industrial means	D．their operation is limited within a small area

3. What can be inferred about small fisheries’ current situation?

A．They gain no support from governments.	B．They are expanding to meet local demands.
C．They have little access to good resources.	D．They impact marine ecosystems negatively.

4. To promote sustainable fisheries, which of the following is one of the author’s suggestions?

A．To initiate a rating system for small fishers to evaluate the local markets.

B．To provide technology for small fisheries to boost their fishing efficiency.

C．To inspire a sense of social responsibility in large-scale fishers and consumers.

D．To facilitate direct cooperation between small fisheries and feeding programmes.

7 . For most birds, eyes are essential to life on the fly. _________ when studying how birds might adapt to our quickly changing world, ornithologists (鸟类学家) have largely overlooked eye size in favor of traits such as wing length and beak shape. Now, though, a lost “treasure trove” (宝库) of avian (鸟的) eyeball measurements offers a new view.

In 1982 University of Chicago graduate student Stanley Ritland carefully _________ the eyeballs of nearly 2,800 species. He never published his data, but Ian Ausprey, a graduate student at University of Florida, has just given it a second look. His analysis _________ previous work in Peru showing that smaller-eyed birds adapt better to changing habitats.

“We’re able to show strong correlations between eye size, the type of _________ the birds use, as well as their food-searching behavior,” Ausprey says. Ritland’s measurements indicated an inverse relation between eye and _________ size. Birds with smaller eyes tended to be _________, traveling across many habitats; larger-eyed species had _________ ranges, concentrated around the equator (赤道) and often covered by dense forest shade. The study suggests that smaller-eyed birds can _________ handle varying light levels as they travel, whereas larger-eyed birds struggle with bright light outside of their dim woodlands.

Ausprey had already seen this _________ in Peru’s mountainous cloud forests. In these biodiversity hotspots, he says, “eye size is __________ related to how birds respond to agricultural disturbance.” Larger-eyed birds tend to __________ from brightly-lit agricultural and deforested landscapes; smaller-eyed birds adapt. The new study __________ Ausprey’s Peru observations to a wider variety of birds elsewhere, including parrots and woodpeckers.

Allison Shultz, an ornithologist involved in the research, praises it for highlighting the importance of birds’ light __________. Her own work has found a link between bird coloration and environmental light, and she looks forward to future research exploring how light pollution and deforestation might further shape bird eyes. “I’d be very curious if we’re actually seeing eyes __________ to better match newer light environments,” Shultz adds.

Ausprey says the study underscores the importance of __________ habitats across the light-availability spectrum (光谱), especially areas of dense rain forests, to protect birds with eyes of all sizes from habitat loss.

1.

A．So

B．Yet

C．Instead

D．Even

2.

A．measured

B．observed

C．tracked

D．recognized

3.

A．rejects

B．opposes

C．supports

D．overthrows

4.

A．habitat

B．tool

C．direction

D．source

5.

A．body

B．city

C．prey

D．range

6.

A．picky

B．stationary

C．migratory

D．inflexible

7.

A．looser

B．tighter

C．wider

D．longer

8.

A．roughly

B．carelessly

C．routinely

D．effortlessly

9.

A．play out

B．pull out

C．take out

D．hold out

10.

A．logically

B．strongly

C．indirectly

D．negatively

11.

A．survive

B．recover

C．reproduce

D．disappear

12.

A．compares

B．owes

C．expands

D．contributes

13.

A．exposure

B．level

C．nature

D．distinction

14.

A．enlarging

B．dropping

C．evolving

D．lifting

15.

A．locating

B．disrupting

C．adapting

D．conserving

8 . 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. expanding                    B. alternative                    C. bridge                           D. recycled E. contributed                    F. concerns                    G. encouraging              H. landscape I. marine                           J. dispose                           K. widening

Food delivery apps are changing the way we eat

It’s raining, it’s dinnertime, and the fridge is nearly empty. Years ago, we made do; today, we order food through our phones. Within twenty minutes, we get whatever it was we were craving, we’re warm and dry, and there’s not a single dish to wash afterward.

Food delivery apps have altered the     1     of how eat, particularly in big cities. The industry is a complex machine; there’s Meituan, Ele.me, Hema…the list goes on. These companies are     2     and changing at a rapid rate, bringing on the rise of virtual restaurants and ghost kitchens, and customers who will never step inside a brick-and-mortar shop（实体店）.

Of course, these apps bring all types of cuisines around the city to our fingertips, but it comes at a cost. And one of the real environmental     3     lies in all that plastic and excess food.

In the US alone, packaging accounts for 30 percent of municipal solid waste. In 2017, that meant 80.1 million tons. Food delivery systems are likely     4     this huge number to rise. Durable materials like the plastics serveware is made from, are difficulty to     5     of.

Restaurant delivery is a global phenomenon – as is the impact on the environment. Meituan, one of the leading Chinese delivery platforms, delivered 6.4 billion food orders in 2018. It is estimated that China     6     1.6 million tons of packaging waste(containers, utensils, plastic bags) in 2017, nine times more than in 2015.

In the EU, University of Manchester researchers estimate, over two billion single-use takeaway containers are used every year. Most of those are not     7    . According to the European Commission, packaging, which includes plastic utensils, plates, and straws, make up 70% of all     8     pollution found in European seas.

Plastic bans,     9     packaging materials, and other efforts to cut down on waste are on the rise. Food delivery apps should, too, do their part to raise awareness for plastic pollution and     10     the gap between food waste and hunger.

9 . 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.

There are many reasons why some cats are bad-tempered; their temperament can be influenced by their upbringing or they are simply born that way. However, even the sweetest, most affectionate cats can suddenly become bad-tempered and behave out of character. According to veterinarian Dr Katrina Warren, the problem can generally be solved, but you’ll need to look for underlying issues.

Changes in a cat’s behaviour can often be explained by a health problem. Pain can cause cats to behave very differently, and it’s easy to mistake a problem as behavioural, when in fact it is medical. Should you observe a significant change in your cat’s behaviour, then a visit to the vet is the best place to start? Watch out for changes in eating, drinking or litter-box habits. Also hiding and avoiding being touched. Be sure to report all changes to your vet. There are many cat health problems that can be readily treated to ease symptoms and pain for your cat.

It pays to remember that cats don’t like to share or queue. Sharing of ‘resources’ such as litter trays and foodbowls can cause stress and anxiety for many cats. It’s always a good idea to provide each cat with their own litter box, food, water bowls and bed as a minimum. One litter box for each cat plus a spare is even better, as are multiple sleeping spots and extra scratching posts. A lack of space to hide from or avoid other cats, competition for territory and lack of individual attention can also add to household friction. If your cat is feeling anxious, offering it an elevated place to sit, such as a climbing tree, can be helpful.

Moving to a new house, the arrival of a new baby, new pets and other types of change can seriously impact cat behaviour. Cats are creatures of habit and tend to be territorial, so a change in routine may cause them to react in a number of ways, including withdrawal or aggression. Try to keep your cat’s environment as calm as possible and make sure there are places where they feel safe. Sometimes confining them to a single room with a litter box, bedding and home comforts can help them to settle.

Some cats simply do not like being touched and handled. These are often cats that received limited socialisation with humans when they were kittens. These cats do best in a quiet household without children and need understanding and patience to help build their confidence.

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