1 . The part of the environmental movement that draws my firm’s attention is the design of buildings. Today, thousands of people come to ________ building conferences, and the idea that buildings can be good for people and the environment will be increasingly ________ in years to come. Back in 1984 we discovered that most manufactured products for decoration weren’t designed for ________ use. The “energy-efficient” sealed commercial buildings constructed after the 1970s energy crisis ________ indoor air quality problems caused by materials such as paint, wall covering and carpet. So for 20 years, we’ve been looking for ways to make these materials ________   for people and the planet.

Home builders can now use materials, such as green paints, that release significantly ________   amounts of chemical compounds, which people believe don’t ________ the quality of the air.   ________, our basic design strategy is focused not simply on being “less bad” but on creating ________ healthful materials that can be either safely returned to the soil or ________ by industry again and again. For example, the world’s largest carpet manufacturer has already ________ a carpet that is fully and safely recyclable.

Look at it this way: no one ________ to create a building that destroy the planet. But our current industrial systems are basically causing these conditions, whether we like it or not. So   ________ of simply trying to reduce the damage, we are ________ a positive approach. We’re giving people high-quality, healthful products and an opportunity to make choices that have a ________   effect on the world. It is not just the building industry, either. Entire cities are taking these environmentally positive approaches to design, planning and building.

1.

A．commercial

B．green

C．traditional

D．simple

2.

A．efficient

B．changeable

C．influential

D．effective

3.

A．relevant

B．indoor

C．flexible

D．forward

4.

A．revealed

B．displayed

C．exhibited

D．discovered

5.

A．careful

B．comfortable

C．stable

D．safe

6.

A．reduced

B．revised

C．delayed

D．defined

7.

A．destroy

B．deny

C．dissolve

D．depress

8.

A．Anyway

B．Besides

C．Anyhow

D．However

9.

A．exactly

B．completely

C．partially

D．superficially

10.

A．restored

B．regain

C．reused

D．retain

11.

A．developed

B．stretched

C．researched

D．constructed

12.

A．sets off

B．sets about

C．sets out

D．sets up

13.

A．instead

B．because

C．out

D．regardless

14.

A．adjusting

B．adopting

C．adapting

D．admitting

15.

A．functional

B．sensible

C．beneficial

D．precious

3 . As plastic waste increases rapidly around the world, an essential question remains unanswered: What harm, if any, does it cause to human health?

A few years ago, as microplastics began turning up in the organs of fish and shellfish, the concern was focused on the safety of seafood. Shellfish were a particular worry, because in their case, unlike fish, we eat the entire animal — stomach, microplastics and all. In 2017, Belgian scientists announced that seafood lovers could consume up to 11,000 plastic particles (粒子) a year by eating mussels (贻贝), a favorite dish in that country.

By then, however, scientists already understood that plastics continuously fragment small pieces in the environment, tearing over time into fibers even smaller than a strand of human hair — particles are so small that they easily fly in the air. A team at the U.K.’s University of Plymouth decided to compare the threat from eating polluted wild mussels in Scotland to that of breathing air in a typical home. Their conclusion: People will take in more plastic by breathing in or taking tiny, invisible plastic fibers floating in the air around them—fibers from their own clothes, carpets, and soft covering on furniture — than they will by eating the mussels.

So, it wasn’t much of a surprise when, in 2022, scientists from the Netherlands and the U.K, announced they had found tiny plastic particles in living humans, in two places where they hadn’t been seen before: deep inside the lungs of surgical patients, and in the blood of unknown donors. Neither of the two studies answered the question of possible harm. But together they signaled a shift in the focus of concern about plastics toward the cloud of dust particles in the air, some of them are so small that they can get into deep inside the body and even inside cells, in ways that larger microplastics can’t.

Dick Vethaak, a professor of ecotoxicology (生态毒理学), doesn’t consider the results alarming, exactly—“but, yes, we should be concerned. Plastics should not be in your blood.” “We live in a multi-particle world,” he adds, referring to the dust, pollen (花粉), and smog that humans also breathe in every day. “The trick is to figure out how much plastics contribute to that particle burden and what does that mean.”

1. What does the word “fragment” in para. 3 probably mean?

A．break into

B．take in

C．pick out

D．make up

2. The study done by a team at the U K.’s University of Plymouth shows that ________.

A．microplastics from things in our daily life ant more poisonous

B．people eating polluted mussels are more likely to get diseases

C．invisible plastic fibers are more harmful to the environment

D．the influence of microplastics in mussels is less than thought

3. It can be inferred from the passage that ________.

A．microplastics in polluted wild mussels can cause serious diseases

B．there’s no need to worry about the plastics found in human blood

C．we can avoid breathing particles by figuring out particle burden

D．more attention should be paid to the dust particles than plastics

4. Which of the following might be the best title for the passage?

A．Are Microplastics Harmful to Us?

B．Should Microplastics be in Our Blood?

C．Can Microplastics Get into Our Bodies?

D．Do We Know Anything about Microplastics?

4 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passages 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.

Lovely Team Members

I fell in love with rhinos when I worked in a zoo in the 80s, and spent much of the next 20 years as the keeper of the largest captive (圈养的) group of rare black rhinos.

Being aggressive and stupid is     1     impresses urban residents about rhinos, but I discovered a group of sensitive, affectionate animals.     2     (weigh) over a ton, black rhinos are unexpectedly alert and have an unpredictable nature. However,     3     care and reassurance (安慰), they can be very trusting.

In the past few years, the number of rhinos has dropped dramatically, during     4     time I have helped look after rhinos being moved to reserves. Last year, I helped on a project to fly five black rhinos to the Serengeti National Park, where they had to be kept captive for a few weeks before     5     (release) into the wild. They lived in “bomas” wooden enclosures with “bedrooms”.

A couple of weeks before their planned release, the sky was filled with smoke and the flames were blowing over it.     6     (make) sure everything was fine, we rushed toward the bomas. I was terrified that the rhinos     7     (catch) fire, so my initial response was to release them. But I couldn’t, because they     8     (not fit) with transmitters (发射器). If I let them out, we would have great difficulty tracking them down. So I dashed back to the bomas and called the rhinos to their “bedrooms”. To my surprise, they moved without hesitation and were     9     (panicky) than I had thought. After half an hour, the wind changed direction and the fire began to die down.

That we and the rhinos had escaped unscathed (未受伤的) was a miracle. The relationship we had built with those lovely animals proved crucial.     10     it, all our work would have been for nothing. The teamwork of everybody there played a large part too and the rhinos were very much part of that team.

5 . Peter and Minke van Wingerden have created something wild: a herd of cows floating on the sea. The Dutch husband-and-wife team’s experiment on sustainable agriculture, called Floating Farm, can be found in the port of Rotterdam. The modernist structure houses 40 cows, who collectively produce some 200 gallons of milk a day. In addition to helping nourish (滋养) the local community, the waterborne farm is playing a part in the global conversation about how the climate crisis is pushing farmers to reconsider how—and where—they produce food.

Floods, extreme heating, droughts and even rising night temperatures have sent the food system off balance. The race to outsmart the constant attack of extreme weather has made the world of farming unrecognizable from what it was only decades ago. A team of scientists in Mexico is developing wheat types that can adapt themselves to different climates, while Jack’s Solar Garden in Longmont, Colorado, is a testbed for the emerging method of solar farming.

Rotterdam has already established itself as one of the most climate-adaptive places in the world. Everything from office buildings to entire neighborhoods are built on water in the city, which is 90% below sea level. The Wingerdens’ Floating Farm was a new but necessary attempt. Should a weather crisis arise, a waterborne farm isn’t necessarily stuck in place. A former property developer with a background in engineering, Peter found his inspiration for the Floating Farm in a climate disaster in New York City, where Hurricane Sandy prevented the delivery of fresh food to millions.

The Wingerdens’ model is ripe for reproduction—which is exactly what the Floating Farm’s team of 14 are working on now. Plans are under way for a floating vegetable farm to move into the space next to the current Floating Farm. Permit applications are also out for similar structures in Dubai, Singapore and the Dutch cities of Haarlem and Arnhem.

The new projects will apply lessons learned from Floating Farm. “You need to build a house in order to know how to build a house,” Peter says. The biggest obstacles he sees ahead, however, are not financial or physical, but rather political and administrative. “One of the biggest challenges we come across worldwide is regulations. Cities need to have disruptive thinking, cities need to have disruptive departments, and cities need to have areas where you can say: OK, this is the experimental zone.” Because what Peter and his team are pulling off is of a different order than the typical sustainability measures. “We are not innovative,” he says. “We are disruptive.”

1. Which of the following is TRUE about the Floating Farm?

A．It is the first modern farming attempt to fight climate change.

B．It is a model of new agriculture in the age of climate crisis.

C．It has outsmarted other forms of farming like solar farming.

D．It copies a similar structure in Dubai ready for reproduction.

2. It can be inferred from the passage that ___________.

A．90% of the population in Rotterdam live below the sea level

B．The New York City is working hard to fight climate change

C．The local community will not be fed without new farming

D．Waterborne facilities are necessary to the future of Rotterdam

3. The phrase “disruptive thinking” in the last paragraph means “thinking __________”.

A．in a daring and unusual way	B．in a focused and logical way
C．in a careful and detailed way	D．in a rude and unpleasant way

4. Which of the following might be the best title of the passage?

A．Is Rotterdam Built on Water?

B．Can Floating Farming Survive?

C．Are Cows at Sea the Future of Farming?

D．Is Extreme Weather Affecting Agriculture?

6 . Otters, are cute, this no one can deny. They have big eyes, short and flat noses and claws (爪子) like tiny hands. They look even cuter when they wear hats and throw food balls into their mouths as if they were bar snacks, like Takechiyo, a pet otter in Japan. Documenting Takechiyo’s funny behavior has earned his owner nearly 230,000 followers on Instagram, a photo-sharing app.

Takechiyo’s fame reflects a craze across east and South-East Asia for keeping the cute creatures as pets. Enthusiasts in Japan visit cafés where they pay to hug them; Indonesian owners parade their pets around on leads or go swimming with them, then share their pictures online. But these enjoyable photos mask a trade that is doing a lot of damage. Even before they became fashionable companions for humans, Asia’s wild otters faced plenty of threats. Their habitats are disappearing. They have long been hunted for their coats, or killed by farmers who wish to prevent them consuming fishes. The pet trade, which began picking up in the early 2000s but appeared to speed up a few years ago, has made things worse. The numbers of wild Asian small-clawed otters and smooth-coated otters, two species that are in highest demand, have declined by at least 30% in the three decades to 2019.

The international agreement that governs trade in wildlife, known as CITES, now prohibits cross-border trade in these species. But laws banning ownership are often poorly implemented, as in Thailand, or full of holes, as in Indonesia. And the otter-keeping craze has been dramatically improved by the internet, says Vincent Nijman of Oxford Brookes University. In 2017 TRAFFIC, a British charity that monitors the wildlife trade, spent nearly five months looking at Facebook and other social-media sites in five South-East Asian countries. During that time, it found around 1,000 otters advertised for sale online.

In any case, otters do not even make particularly good pets. Every year the Jakarta Animal Aid Network, a charity in Indonesia’s capital, receives some ten otters from people who have struggled to look after them. Faizul Duha, the founder of an Indonesian otter-owners’ group, admits that his two animals emit a “very specific” (read: fishy) smell. They bite humans and chew on furniture. Their scream can be heard blocks away. And their cages need cleaning every two-to-three hours. That is how often they empty their bowels (肠道).

1. The function of the first paragraph is to ________.

A．present the main idea	B．introduce the main topic
C．set readers thinking	D．illustrate the writer’s point

2. According to the passage, which of the following mainly drives the otter trade?

A．The demand for pet otters.	B．The disappearance of otters’ habitats.
C．The popularity of otter coats.	D．The decrease of fishes.

3. It can be inferred from the passage that ________.

A．the laws that prohibit cross-border trade are strict in Asia

B．social media plays a significant role in the online otter trade

C．people usually give up otters because they are endangered

D．otters are suitable pets because they are friendly to humans

4. The purpose of the writing is to ________.

A．advertise for a photo-sharing app

B．introduce the popularity of pet otters

C．discourage the illegal otter pet trade

D．describe the characteristics of otters

7 . “It’s a windy day in Laguna San Ignacio, and the waves seem to come from all directions,” said Sara Clemence in Bloomberg Businessweek. My children and I are riding on a 18-foot boat—small enough that we can reach down into the water if a gray whale swims up alongside. And then we see what we’ve come for: a heart-shaped shower of water and a dark mass rushing below it. As instructed, we splash (溅泼) the water strongly to signal the huge whale, which turns out to be a mother with her weeks-old baby. The baby soon swims beneath our boat, emerges to blow mist in my face, then “lies onto its side like a 2-ton puppy.” Leaning down, I touched its skin gently. “It feels electric. Also, a bit like petting a hard-boiled egg.”

San Ignacio is one of very few places where a person can pet a whale. The whales come each year to the coast of Baja California to give birth and to mate. If you’re lucky, you can “shake hands with a leatheryfin (鳍)” or even “plant a kiss on a cold, salty cheek.” I usually worry about such interactions, because wild creatures can become deeply stressed by human contact. But boat numbers are strictly limited in these protected waters.   And any whale that approaches a boat does so on its own terms. Like that baby whale: “We see him a few times, and he seems to like being petted and splashed.”

So we are two species, connecting through touch, but also through eye contact: “More than once, after nosing around our boat, a young gray turns on its side so one dark, baseball-size eye is looking up at us.” Whalers   used   to   call   gray   whales   “devil   fish”   because   these   magnificent   creatures   turn   violent   when threatened—“or, say, when their babies are harmed.” That makes it feel even more of a blessing when, on our third day there, a large mama whale approaches the boat. “I’m splashing when I feel her nose press up into my hand.” Though she’s “wiser and apparently more alert” than her child, “she still decides to trust us.”

1. Which of the following statements is true according to the passage?

A．The writer was on a whale-touching trip.

B．The writer’s boat went down with a huge wave.

C．The baby whale splashed water all over the writer.

D．The mother whale’s skin felt as hard as a boiled egg.

2. By “does so on its own terms” (in paragraph 2), the writer means whales in San Ignacio are ______.

A．mad with too many visitors	B．ready for hands-on attention
C．restricted in swimming routes	D．enclosed in their safety zones

3. Gray whales got the name of “devil fish” from their ______.

A．strange appearance	B．inborn violence
C．surprisingly enormous size	D．fierceness in danger

4. The writer’s implied purpose in the passage is to ______.

A．popularize the knowledge of whales	B．show admiration for whales’ motherhood
C．share an experience of the sea voyage	D．advocate harmony between man and nature

8 . In just a few decades the United States could eliminate fossil fuels（矿物燃料）and rely 100 percent on clean, renewable energy. That's the vision of, a Stanford engineering professor who has produced a state-by-state road map of how the country could rid itself of coal oil, natural gas, and nuclear power.

By 2050, Jacobson expects the nation's transportation network - cars, ships, airplanes - to run on batteries or hydrogen produced from electricity. He sees the winds blowing across the Great Plains powering vast stretches of the country's middle while the burning sun helps electrify the Southwest. "There's no state that can't do this," Jacobson says.

Today only 13% of U. S. electricity comes from renewables（再生性能源）. Jacobson's goal would be one of the nation's most ambitious undertakings. This transformation would cost roughly $15 trillion, or $47,000 for each American, for building and installing systems that produce and store renewable energy.

What would it take? Seventy-eight million rooftop solar systems, nearly 49,000 commercial solar plants, 156,000 offshore wind turbines（风力涡轮机）, plus wave-energy systems. Land-based wind farms would need 328,000 turbines, each with blades longer than a football field,. These farms would occupy as much land as North Carolina.

For now, he says, prospects are encouraging. Thanks in part to government funding and large-scale production, costs are falling. The amount of power generated nationwide by wind and solar increased 15-fold each between 2003 and 2013. This summer Barack Obama moved to reduce carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants, and Hawaii committed to having all its electricity provided by renewables by 2045.

Still, many experts aren't convinced. “It has zero chance,”Stephen Brick, an energy fellow with the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, says of Jacobson's plan. Political, regulatory, and social barriers are huge, especially in a nation where the energy systems - and much of its political influence - is rooted in the oil, gas, and coal industries. Some critics are concerned about whether the resulting grid（输电网）would be reliable. And neighborhood battles would likely occur over wind farms and solar plants. Even outspoken scientist James Hansen, who warned the government a quarter century ago about climate change, insists that nuclear power is essential to rid the country of fossil fuels.

Yet Jacobson’s work at least offers a starting point. Scientists and policymakers may keep arguing about solutions, but as Obama points out, the nation must continue its march toward a clean-energy future even if it's not yet clear how that will look in 35 years. “If we don't do it,” he said this summer, “nobody will.”

1. Which of the following does Professor Mark Jacobson engage in?

A．Organizing projects to build and install solar energy systems state by state.

B．Persuading the U. S. President to realize his renewable energy goal.

C．Outlining a plan detailing how energy in the U. S. could be carbon free by 2050.

D．Arguing about opportunities and obstacles of his plan.

2. Which of the following is the major obstacle to the transformation from fossil fuels to renewables?

A．The huge investment in solar and wind projects.

B．The unshakeable foundation of traditional energy systems.

C．The job losses in oil and coal industries.

D．The inevitable land-use battles between states.

3. It can be inferred from the passage that ________.

A．one state of the U. S. will be first to become carbon free before 2050

B．developing clean-energy industry will drive the world's market

C．fossil fuels will soon be eliminated in the U. S.

D．there will be no vacant land for wind farms

4. Many experts suspect Jacobson's plan in that the plan ________.

A．has no scientific grounds	B．unreasonably excludes nuclear power
C．will be eventually lacking in funds	D．is not feasible in some aspects

5. What is the best title for the passage?

A．The Coexistence of Fossil Fuels and Renewables

B．A Blueprint for a Carbon Free America

C．One Man's Dream: Determination and Innovation in Energy Future

D．Professor and his Solar and Wind Technology

10 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passages 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.

When scientists accidentally killed     1    turned out to be the world’s oldest living creature, it was bad enough. Now, their mistake has been worsened after further research found it was even older – at 507 years.

The ocean quahog, a type of deep-sea clam, was dredged (捕捞) alive from the bottom of the North Atlantic near Iceland in 2006 by researchers. They then put it in a fridge-freezer,     2    is normal practice, unaware of     3    age. It was only when it was taken to a laboratory     4    scientists from Bangor University studied it and concluded it was 400 years old.

The discovery made it into the Guinness Book of World Records. However, by this time, it was too late for Ming the Mollusc(软体动物),     5    (name) after the Chinese dynasty     6    its life began. Unfortunately, researchers who calculated Ming’s age killed it instantly by opening its shell.

The researchers opened the ancient clam up to judge its age by counting growth rings inside. But the rings were so close together     7    scientists ended up having to count the rings on the outside to be accurate,     8    (lead) CBS journalists to point out that if scientists had just started there, Ming could have lived on. Now, after examining the quahog     9    (closely), and     10    (use) more advanced methods, the researchers have found the animal was actually 100 years older than they first thought.

Dr Paul Butler, from the University’s School of Ocean Sciences, said: “We got it wrong the first time and maybe we were a bit hasty publishing our findings back then. But we are absolutely certain that we’ve got the right age now.” The mollusc was born in 1499 – just seven years after Columbus discovered America and before Henry VIII had even married his first wife, Catherine of Aragon in 1509.