2 . It’s 2076 and the skies are looking decidedly milky. On windy plains and in parts of the seas that have been turned over to wind farms, a different kind of tower has been built alongside the turbines (涡轮). They take in CO₂ out of the atmosphere. Vast parcels of land have been given over to forest. Trees are grown, harvested and burned for energy in power plants that don’t let CO₂ escape to the atmosphere. Instead, emissions are captured and driven underground. Powdered minerals are put into the water to absorb CO₂ and reduce ocean acidification.

All these technologies are a desperate action to reverse more than two centuries of greenhouse gas emissions. But they are not entirely up to the task and, anyway, we are still releasing greenhouse gases. “I think it’s very likely that in 60 years we’ll be using both technologies,” says John Shepherd of the University of Southampton, UK. He is referring to the two flavors of geoengineering: absorbing CO₂ out of the air and using a sunshade to reflect some of the sun’s rays back out into space.

There is no denying that climate talks are going too slowly and not so smoothly. Even if industrial emissions were to drop rapidly — a big if — some sections pose an intractable problem. We have no real replacement for aeroplane fuel and feeding people demands intensive agriculture, which accounts for a quarter of global emissions.

Computer models suggest there will be winners and losers. While a sunshade could lower global average temperatures to pre-industrial levels, there would be regional differences. Northern Europe, Canada, Siberia and the poles would remain warmer than they were, and temperatures over the oceans would be cooler. Global warming is predicted to make wet regions wetter and dry ones drier. Models suggest a sunshade would correct this, but, again, not in a uniform way.

Shepherd fears all this will feed into international arguments. He imagines some kind of global council where governments seek a climate that meets their needs. Some might prefer a slightly warmer temperature, for tourism or agriculture. But nations whose coral reefs (珊瑚礁) draw in visitors will probably want more CO₂ absorbing technologies.

In spite of all these concerns, most scientists hold that revolutionary technology and people’s awakening can shine a light on solutions in ways that are impossible now. There is undoubtedly a long way to go when we address problems facing mankind, but we can always anticipate something.

1. What is described in the first paragraph?

A．Future scenery and farming methods.

B．The development of transport technology.

C．The serious pollution problem in the very near future.

D．Future technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

2. The word “intractable” in paragraph 4 most probably means “______”.

A．solvable	B．untypical
C．tricky	D．existing

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

A．climate talks haven’t achieved the expected results

B．industrial emissions will decrease greatly in 60 years

C．technologies to reduce CO2 emission aren’t used properly for now

D．sunshades outshine intensive agriculture at capturing CO2 emissions

4. What is the main idea of the passage?

A．Effective CO2 absorbing technologies have come into wide use.

B．With greenhouse gas reduced, global warming can be addressed.

C．Future climate will improve with human efforts but threats still remain.

D．Future climate will restore to a normal state with advanced technology.

3 . An interesting study found capuchin monkeys (僧帽猴), like humans, are guided by social emotions. Try paying one monkey with grapes and another with cucumbers for the _______ amount of work and you may be surprised at the results! The monkey who got the cucumbers will probably _______ working for you. He may even throw out the cucumbers, even though monkeys are usually _______ to receive them, says Sarah Brosnan, a psychology professor at Georgia State University.

That experiment by Brosnan and Frans de Wall published in 2003 in Nature was one of the first to show that animals may have an assessment for _______ — a moral sense that many researchers previously thought only humans possessed. Since then, many results have suggested that animals — particularly those that depend on _______ for their survival may have an inborn sense of justice.

Social animals, which are interdependent for a living, will _______ share rewards with others who worked toward the same goal. “The built-in sense didn’t develop first in humans. It’s possibly something that began in social species, and _______ to us.” Brosnan said in an interview.

One study _______ that some animals particularly the ones that hunt together divide up the rewards. Another study even finds that animals will occasionally deliver a better reward to a partner than they themselves _______. In research by Brosnan and her colleagues published in American Journal of Primatology, two capuchin monkeys had to work together to pull a plate of food to their cages. But before they began pulling, the monkeys had to decide which one would get a grape and which one would get an apple slice. ________ fighting over the grape or always letting the leading monkey eat it, the animals generally vary roles on the way, so they both earned some grapes and some apple slices, Brosnan found. In cases where the ________ monkey always got the good food, the other monkey were likely to give up participating. More often than not, it preferred to ________ a reward than be paid unfairly.

According to Brosnan, that tendency to share rewards fairly probably developed as a result of the way capuchins work together to hunt. “If we are hunting and I am not giving you much of the kill, you would be better off finding another ________,” she says.

However, interpreting animal behavior through human eyes can be ________, observes Marc Hauser, a Harvard psychology professor and evolutionary biologist. In the cucumber-grape study, for example, the monkeys could have ________ the cucumbers simply because they were annoyed that they didn’t get a grape once they saw it.

1.

A．various

B．enormous

C．equal

D．superb

2.

A．risk

B．restart

C．quit

D．fancy

3.

A．mature

B．content

C．passive

D．shocked

4.

A．stability

B．reputation

C．endurance

D．fairness

5.

A．necessities

B．rewards

C．emotion

D．cooperation

6.

A．naturally

B．barely

C．surprisingly

D．occasionally

7.

A．evolved

B．communicated

C．delivered

D．referred

8.

A．denies

B．predicts

C．indicates

D．suspects

9.

A．discover

B．receive

C．expect

D．present

10.

A．Instead of

B．Thanks to

C．Regardless of

D．Prior to

11.

A．diligent

B．dominant

C．generous

D．outgoing

12.

A．save

B．admire

C．share

D．refuse

13.

A．partner

B．role

C．hunt

D．task

14.

A．critical

B．pessimistic

C．problematic

D．marvellous

15.

A．set aside

B．thrown away

C．held onto

D．aimed at

4 . Science may never know the secrets to memories of the California sea hare, a foot-long sea snail. But a research team claim to have made progress in _______ the simplest kind of memory a mollusk (软体动物) might form, and, with a swift injection, managed to _______ one sea snail’s memory to another.

The kinds of memories that start a defensive reaction in the snails are encoded not in the _______between brain cells, but in RNA molecules (分子), according to David Glanzman, a biologist at UCLA. To _______ the idea, Glanzman implanted wires into the tails of California sea hares and gave them a series of electric shocks. The procedure made the animals so _______ that when they were touched, they contracted parts of their bodies intensely. Glanzman compares the reaction to being nervous after an earthquake: the memory of the event causes a(n) _______ response to any loud noise. After sensitizing the sea snails, Glanzman took RNA out from them and _______ it into new sea snails to see what would happen. He then found the new ones are _______ sensitized, suggesting the “memory” of the electrical shocks had been transplanted. According to Glanzman and his research team, the experiment shows that _______ parts of the memory trace are held in RNA, rather than in the connectivity of brain cells.

However, the work has not yet found widespread ________. “Further work needs to be carried out to determine whether these phenomena are obvious and what is the ________ of such phenomena,” said Prof Vann at Cardiff University. “While a sea snail is a fantastic model, we must be very ________ in drawing comparisons to human memory processes, which are much more complex.”

Tomás Ryan at Trinity College Dublin, is ________. “This work takes us down an interesting road, but I have doubt about it and I don’t think they’ve transplanted a memory,” he said. “This work tells me that maybe the most basic behavioral responses involve some kind of change in the animal.”

________, Ryan added that such creative thinking about memory was in great need: “In a field full of acceptance but lacking ________, we need as many new ideas as possible.”1.

A．deleting

B．disturbing

C．refreshing

D．understanding

2.

A．transfer

B．adjust

C．compare

D．relate

3.

A．connections

B．conflicts

C．secrets

D．distances

4.

A．promote

B．test

C．eliminate

D．impose

5.

A．sensitive

B．adaptable

C．strong

D．relaxed

6.

A．necessary

B．peaceful

C．unconscious

D．impossible

7.

A．plunged

B．invested

C．translated

D．injected

8.

A．crazily

B．dangerously

C．scarcely

D．equally

9.

A．optional

B．essential

C．memorial

D．virtual

10.

A．association

B．recognition

C．innovation

D．publication

11.

A．depth

B．application

C．basis

D．description

12.

A．imaginative

B．careful

C．ambitious

D．speedy

13.

A．supported

B．persuaded

C．unappreciated

D．unconvinced

14.

A．Nevertheless

B．Eventually

C．For example

D．As a result

15.

A．expression

B．likelihood

C．suspicion

D．disturbance

5 . 听下面一段较长对话，回答以下小题。1.

A．To help the man learn more about the gardener.

B．To show the value of taking advice in gardening.

C．To publicize the attractiveness of Dorset Gardens.

D．To inform people of more guidelines for gardening.

2.

A．By attending a college course.	B．By visiting Kew Garden.
C．By listening to talks on gardening.	D．By reading Margery Fisher’s book.

3.

A．It was full of creative angles.	B．It made her famous in the town.
C．It occupied a rather small area.	D．It was near her house in Somerset.

4.

A．Because it’s full of plants given by her friends.

B．Because it’s visited and appreciated by tourists.

C．Because it’s where she spends much time with others.

D．Because it’s an outdoor classroom for biology students.

6 .

A．Give the cat away.	B．Choose a good name for the cat.
C．Learn to care for the cat.	D．Hide the cat in the dormitory room.

7 . 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. existing   B. matters   C. plunging   D. identifying   E. regulatory   F. removal G. failure   H. race     I. reached   J. increased     K. declined

Reasons to be Hopeful

The climate emergency is the biggest threat to civilization we have ever faced. But there is good news: we already have every tool we need to beat it. The challenge is not    1    the solutions, but rolling them out with great speed.

Some key sectors are already racing ahead, such as electric cars. They are already cheaper to own and run in many places—and when the purchase prices equal those of fossil—fuelled vehicles in the next few years, a critical tipping point will be    2    .

Electricity from renewables is now the cheapest form of power in most places, sometimes even cheaper than continuing to run    3    coal plants. There's a long way to go to feed the world's huge energy demand, but the    4    costs of batteries and other storage technologies seem promising.

And many big companies are realizing that a    5    to invest will be far more expensive as the impacts of global heating destroy economies. Even some of the biggest polluters, such as steel, have seen the green writing on the wall.

Stopping the    6    of forests requires no technology at all, but it does require government action. While progress is poor, countries such as Indonesia have shown    7    action can be effective. Protecting and restoring forests, particularly by empowering local people, is a strong tool.

In the climate crisis, every fraction of a degree    8    and so every action reduces people's suffering. Every action makes the world a cleaner and better place to live-by, for example, cutting the air pollution that ends millions of lives a year.

The real fuel for the green transition is a combination of those most valuable and intangible of commodities: political will and skill. The supply is being    9    by demands for action from youth strikers to chief executives, and must be used to face down powerful vested interests (既得利益者), such as the fossil fuel, airlines and cattle industries. The     10    for a sustainable, low-carbon future is on, and question at core is how much faster we need to go.

8 . Directions: After reading the passage below, 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. species	B. informed	C. awareness	D. indicate
E. additional	F. figures	G. advanced	H. sticking
I. state	J. reliance	K. based

Sensors for Houseplants

Over the past two years Jasmin Moeller, a 38-year-old in Germany, has been buying more houseplants, making her feel more comfortable.

Actually, the fact that people have spent much more time     1     at home has started a trend to bring more nature inside. In the UK, the latest     2     show that 2021 houseplant sales were 29% higher than in 2020. It is a similar picture in other countries, with sales of houseplants in the US rising by 18% last year, for instance.

Yet it is one thing to buy a houseplant and quite another to successfully look after it. Luckily, some     3     sensors for indoor plants may help those without professional skills in gardening. These devices, usually solar powered and connected wirelessly to a user’s smartphone, should be inserted into the soil next to the plants. Then, they show in real time the     4     of the plants.

A sensor made by German firm Greensens has approximately 5000 plant     5     on its app database. Like a traffic light system, the app uses red, yellow and green faces to     6     how plants are doing. For example, red reveals that the plant is dying, while green means it’s in perfect condition. Besides, users are regularly     7     of what they should do with plants.

Another app released by German business Fyta tells users how their plants are by analyzing the uploaded pictures of the plants. It also includes     8     content other apps rarely offer, such as cultural history of some plants, so users can learn more about their plants.

However, Botanist Silver Spence is worried that     9     on these sensors may affect users’ gardening skills negatively. And David Anglov recommends that amateurs try their best to establish their own     10     of what a plant needs in various situations through careful observation.

Back in Germany, Ms Moeller says she is sure that the sensors are helping her improve gardening skills.

10 . From Smells to Soundtracks

When a young sawfly, a bee-like insect, is threatened by its attackers like ants, it emits a mixture of unpleasant smells to defend itself. These emissions can seriously annoy a potential enemy.

Scientists wanting to study these smelly compounds—to understand which aspects of them discourage attackers and why—face great challenges. Meetups between sawflies and ants in a lab are difficult to carry out. There are also a very limited quantity of the insects’ emissions. On the side, Jean-Luc Boevé, a zoologist who studies insects, from the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, is an amateur musician and composer. He decided to try a different way—the sound approach. “To be honest, I considered this project so unpractical myself that I set it aside,” he said. It was months before Boevé and his partner, Rudi Giot, finally made a resolution to get started on it.

They chose 16 sawfly species’ emissions to translate into sounds. First, they figured out which molecules (分子) were present in each smelly compound and in what amounts. Then they assigned various characteristics of those molecules matching properties of sound. For example, smaller molecules like a kind of acid found in vinegar, a sour-tasting liquid, evaporate (挥发) quickly, so Boevé and Giot assigned them sounds with higher pitch ( 音 高 ). Larger molecules were given lower-pitched sounds. In all, the scientists created individual audio descriptions for 20 molecules. Then they combined the sounds of each molecule present in a sawfly’s smell to construct the insect’s soundtrack. If a molecule was of higher proportion in an emission, they assigned it a higher volume. In such a case, the smaller a molecule is, the higher its pitch will be; and the higher the proportion of a molecule is, the higher its volume will be.

To test out the audio descriptions they created, Boevé and Giot examined people’s reactions to the soundtracks and compared them to ants’ reactions to the original smells. They played the 16 emission soundtracks and the 20 molecule sounds through speakers to about 50 study participants. Then the scientists measured how far people backed up to get to a “comfortable position” away from the noise. Most of the study volunteers told the researchers that the high pitch, as well as the high volume, was what made them withdraw. “Ants and volunteers moved away from a chemical and its matching soundtrack respectively,” the researchers wrote.

Boevé said he hoped the process would give other zoologists a new way to compare sawflies’ chemical defenses with those from other insects. It may also offer researchers clues about which molecules fight off enemies most.

1. What do we know about Boevé from paragraph 2?

A．He was devoted to the research for several months.

B．He started a new approach after months’ hesitation.

C．He came up with a creative idea thanks to a composer.

D．He was faced with difficulties in studying rare sawflies.

2. What can be concluded in terms of the sound approach?

A．The volume of sounds is based on the proportion of molecules.

B．Smaller molecules and lower pitch share similar characteristics.

C．Audio descriptions of the molecules can be divided into 16 kinds.

D．Participants were required to compare the sounds with the smells.

3. From paragraphs 4 and 5, we can learn that ________.

A．the soundtracks are more than what humans are likely to bear

B．the ants dislike the sounds as much as humans hate the smells

C．humans’ reactions to the sounds resemble ants’ responses to the smells

D．other zoologists are looking for innovative ways of studying molecules

4. This passage is mainly intended to ________.

A．explain ways to transfer smells into soundtracks

B．introduce research on sawfly’s effect on humans

C．demonstrate a scientific study on insects’smells

D．test out people’s reaction to various soundtracks