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

A. chaos        B. consume        C. plentiful       D. discharge        E. evolutionarily     F. extent G. freeze   H. mechanism       I. novel          J. subsequently     K. unstable

Science in Images

Oyster mushrooms feature in cuisines around the world, but they should be off the menu for hungry worms -- which these delicious mushrooms will kill and eat. Now researchers finally know how they do it.

A study published in Science Advances details how oyster mushrooms use a particular poisonous substance to freeze and get rid of mushroom-eating roundworms called nematodes (线虫). The mushrooms, which grow on nutrient-poor dead wood, then     1     the worms for nutrition.

“Nematodes happen to be the most     2     animals these mushrooms encounter. So I think,     3    , this cross-kingdom interaction is very interesting,” says study senior author.

The study team of geneticists, biochemists and biologists had previously found that oyster mushrooms release an unidentified poisonous substance that will somehow     4     the worms within minutes and cause a chemical element to flow into their cells, killing them. This     5     differs from those used by other meat-eating mushrooms and could be unique to oyster mushrooms.

For their new work, the researchers grew and analyzed samples of the mushroom’s tissue, finding no noticeable poison even when they broke it up. They reasoned that whatever was killing the worms must be a kind of     6     compound that disappears into air when disturbed. When they damaged the oyster mushroom tissue again and     7     analyzed the nearby air, they finally found a nerve gas that turned out to be contained with tiny, special-shaped structures on the mushroom surface. When nematodes touch the mushrooms, these structures     8     their gas, disturbing the worms’ cell walls to cause immobility and death. The worm is then digested by the mushrooms.

Before this study, “we underestimated the     9     to which wild mushrooms defend against or consume nematodes,” notes Nick Talbot, a geneticist at Sainsbury Laboratory in Norwich, England. The study demonstrates “a very     10     approach,” he adds. “These organisms are really difficult to work on, and Dr. Hsueh is showing that you can do some really amazing work with them.”

2 . 听下面一段独白，回答以下小题。1.

A．They have been sent to wildlife parks for protection.

B．Their habitats have been well-protected.

C．They have been taken care of by locals.

D．Their population has almost doubled.

2.

A．She fought against illegal hunting.	B．She helped to cure their disease.
C．She improved their living conditions.	D．She was engaged in preserving forests.

3.

A．To teach people how to treat gorillas.	B．To boost the economy of Uganda.
C．To better the Batwa people’s lives.	D．To raise funds for wildlife protection.

3 .

A．The harm done by single-use plastics.

B．The topic for the woman’s composition.

C．Environmental issues.

D．Some recent hot news.

4 .

A．She agrees with the man’s plan.

B．She is concerned about the weather.

C．She considers it unwise to go outside.

D．She has a better plan than having a picnic.

5 . Keeping a bit of the outdoors inside is nothing new, but houseplant collections have become a popular social media trend — which means that more people than ever are discovering the comfort and beauty that caring for plants brings.

    1     Exposure to greenery, whether you have indoor plants, take walks outside or tend to a garden, has been found to have multiple mental-health benefits, such as lowering stress, decreasing feelings of depression, increasing sociability, restoring focus, improving cognitive performance, improving mood and increasing self-esteem.

“One study showed that patients at a hospital who had plants in their room reported less pain, lower blood pressure, less fatigue and less anxiety than patients without plants in their rooms,” says Jenny Seham, a New York-based psychologist. She explains: “Cortisol, the stress hormone, has been shown to lower with plant interaction, reducing fatigue, irritability (易怒) and blood pressure.”

Research has also shown that having plants and gardening increase productivity and levels of serotonin, the neurotransmitter responsible for lifting our mood.     2     And it is also opposed to dwelling on the past or worrying about the future.

Before you fill your space with greenery, consider how you’ll interact with your plants.     3     Can you care for them daily?

If you have a small space or aren’t sure how much time you’re willing to invest in “plant parenting.” Start slow. “    4     It can engage you by its smell or colour, creating a positive mood response with every interaction,” says Seham.

A．For instance, is there enough space for plants in areas where you spend a lot of time?

B．Half the fun of gardening is that you never know exactly what’s going to come up.

C．It’s a feel-good hobby that’s supported by science.

D．While indoor gardening can boost your feelings of wellbeing, help reduce stress and promote relaxation, it’s not, of course, a substitute for a trained mental health professional.

E．The theory is that plant care helps us focus on the present moment and provides a feeling of accomplishment.

F．Just one plant can make a difference.

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

A. arrives       B. observable   C. boundless.       D. contained. E. distancing. F. expansion G. lies       H. parallel       I. perceiving       J. threads       K. volume

What Comes After Space?

Looking at a clear night sky you witness the vastness of space, which holds everything humans know to exist. To find out what     1     beyond a good place to start is to determine where the universe ends. However, the problem is that scientist are uncertain about where space ends or whether it ends at all.

The     2     universe

The furthest humans can see out into space,using all the technology currently available to us,is 46 billion light years (alight year is the distance that light can travel in one year,and is equivalent to about 9. 5 million million kilometres). The     3     of space that humans can see is called the visible universe. Beyond this, it remains a mystery whether it’s an expanse of more galaxies and stars or possibly the edge of the universe. Some think that the universe is     4    , meaning space goes on forever in every direction. In this case,there is nothing after space,because space is everything.

Moving further away

Experts have captured images of the entire Earth from space,and some astronauts have personally witnessed its beauty from orbit. Perhaps     5     the limits of the universe would also be possible too, if only humans knew where to go to look for it.

Another challenge is the universe’s rapid     6    . As galaxies move further away their light   takes longer to reach us. Eventually, some galaxies may be so distant that their light never     7    . This might imply that any edge— and whatever is on the other side — is increasingly     8     itself from us. Regardless of these uncertainties, scientists still spend a lot of time thinking about what comes after space.

Many universes?

It’s possible that there isn’t just one universe, and that our universe is just one small part of a “multiverse”. Perhaps our universe is     9     within its own distinct region of space, separated from others by vast expanses of nothingness. Or maybe     10     universes exist pressed tightly against each other. Getting an idea of the universe’s true shape may help astronomers find out whether it has an edge. What comes after that could be an even great mystery.

7 . 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.

8 . 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.

Does Recycling Work For Plastic?

Dealing with plastic waste is always a tough problem. According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), half of the world’s plastic waste ends up in a landfill, 19% burned, and another 22% escapes waste management systems and goes into uncontrolled dumpsites.

So environmentalists suggest plastic waste should be recycled properly, which proves an effective way to handle other waste like paper, cardboard, metal and glass. However, a new study by Greenpeace, and reporting in the Boston Globe, suggests that recycling plastic is a “myth” and raises a major question about the future: does recycling work? Unfortunately, the short answer is “not really.”

There’s been a lot of debate over what really happens to recycled plastic. But scientists say that recycling plastic waste has mostly failed because it’s very difficult to collect and nearly impossible to sort. Because plastic is often made from harmful materials, it can be harmful to the environment to reprocess.

Much of the solution falls on big companies to change the way they do business. The way forward seems to be mostly to cut down on companies’ reliance on plastic packaging, and to move toward reusable packaging and packaging-free alternatives. Above all, companies need to phase out all single-use plastics. For the consumer, living more plastic-free is the only real solution available. Avoiding drinks in plastic containers, using a travel mug or reusable water bottle, bringing your own reusable bag, buying in bulk and cutting back on pre-packaged foods are all a good start.

But in the end, corporate America needs a deeper commitment to the plastic waste problem. “Companies must take action now to get rid of single-use plastics and packaging and not rely on false solutions such as recycling,” says Greenpeace.

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9 . Do animals have feelings?

People often assign feelings to animals. That zoo polar bear’s vacant stare must mean he’s sad. The uh-oh expression a dog flashes after knocking over the garbage indicates shame. But scientists haven’t determined whether these human-like expressions really mean anything. After all, it’s very difficult to read a dog’s mind.

Scientists believe that certain brain cells in humans called spindle cells (棱形细胞) are responsible for human social behavior and the interplay between thoughts and feelings. Studies have revealed that chimpanzee, dolphin and whale brains also possess spindle cells.     1    

Even animals that don’t have spindle cells, such as dogs, have shown behaviors that can suggest a human-like social sense.     2     Scientists report that this shows dogs are sensitive to human social cues and are able to correctly interpret them. Still, this only proves that dogs know how to find food, not that they have feelings.

Observations of apes have also revealed behavior that appears to represent various human-like desires. In some tests, chimpanzees demonstrate what looks like altruism (利他主义) helping their own kind and even other species without the expectation of a reward.

    3     In a recent study, a Barnard College researcher tested dogs to see if their guilty looks were linked to actual bad behavior. Dogs were tempted with a treat and told by their owners not to eat it. The dog’s owners weren’t allowed to see whether their pets had eaten the treat or not, but were told either that they did or that they didn’t, and were then instructed to scold the dogs that disobeyed. The experimenters noted that scolded dogs showed a guilty look whether or not they had actually done wrong.

    4     A guilty look suggests a feeling of guilt in a human but not necessarily in a dog, according to the Barnard research. Similarly, even apparent empathy (共情) behavior might not actually mean these feelings are present in the brains of animals.

A．Although these are all animals that can act people-like, the presence of these cells does not mean that the animals have feelings.

B．Anyone who claims to know what animals feel doesn’t have science on their side.

C．In recent experiments, dogs have shown that they know to follow a human’s pointed finger to find a food treat.

D．Many people think that empathy is a special emotion only humans show.

E．Other experiments have cast doubt that animal behavior can reliably signify an underlying feeling.

F．This illustrates the difficulty in accurately interpreting animal behavior as a marker of human-like feelings.

10 . The term “seal” is often used to refer to both seals and sea lions, but there are several characteristics that set seals and sea lions apart.

Seals and sea lions are both in the order Carnivora and suborder Pinnipedia, thus they are called “pinnipeds.” Pinnipeds are mammals that are well-adapted for swimming. They usually have a streamlined barrel shape (桶形) and four flippers at the end of each limb (四肢). They also give birth to live young and nurse their young. Pinnipeds are protected by a thick layer of fat under their skin and fur to keep them warm in water. There are three families of pinnipeds: the Phocidae, the earless or true seals; the Otariidae, the eared seals, and the Odobenidae, the walruses.

Characteristics of Phocidae (Earless or True Seals)

Earless seals have no visible ear flaps, although they still have ears, which may be visible as a dark spot or small hole on the side of their head. 

“True” seals:

 Have no external ear flaps.

 Swim with their hind flippers. Their hind flippers always face backward and are furred.

 Have front flippers that are short, furry and thick in appearance.

 Can be found in both marine and freshwater environments.

Characteristics of Otariidae (Eared Seals, Including Fur Seals and Sea Lions)

One of the most noticeable features of eared seals is their ears, but they also move around differently than true seals.

Eared seals:

 Have external ear flaps.

 Are only found in marine environments. 

 Swim with their front flippers. Unlike earless seals, their hind flippers can turn forward, and they are able to walk, and even run, on their flippers. The “seals” you may see performing at marine parks are often sea lions.

 May gather in larger groups than true seals. Sea lions are much more vocal than true seals, and make a variety of loud, barking noises.

Characteristics of Walruses

Wondering about walruses, and how they differ from seals and sea lions? Walruses are pinnipeds, but they are in the family, Odobenidae. One obvious difference between walruses, seals and sea lions is that walruses are the only pinnipeds with tusks—a pair of long pointed teeth. These tusks are present in both males and females.

Other than tusks, walruses have some similarities to both seals and sea lions. Like true seals, walruses don’t have visible ear flaps. But, like eared seals, walruses can walk on their flippers by rotating their hind flippers under their body.

1. According to the passage, which of the following statements about pinnipeds is true?

A．Pinnipeds are good swimmers.

B．Pinnipeds are afraid of cold weather.

C．Pinnipeds are of the Phocidae family.

D．Seals and sea lions are pinnipeds, while walruses are not.

2. One way to distinguish a sea lion and a true seal is that ________.

A．the sea lion cannot play ball	B．the true seal cannot hear well
C．the sea lion doesn’t have ear flaps	D．the true seal can’t walk with hind flippers

3. Which of the following picture best illustrates a walrus?

A．	B．
C．	D．