1 . 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.

A professor of public health at UCLA says that pet ownership might provide a new form of health care. As far back as the 1790s, the elderly at a senior citizens’ home in England     1    (encourage) to spend time with farm animals. This helped patients’ mental state more than the cruel therapies     2     (use) on the mentally ill at the time. In recent years, scientist have finally begun to find proof     3     contact with animals can increase a sick person’s chance of survival and has been shown     4     (lower) heart rate, calm upset children, and get people to start a conversation.

Scientists think that animal companionship is beneficial     5     animals are accepting and attentive, and they don’t criticize or give orders. Animals have the unique ability to be more social. For example, visitors to nursing homes get more social responses from patients when they come with animal companions.

Not only do people seem     6    (anxious) when animals are nearby, but they may also live longer. Studies show that a year after heart surgery, survival rates for heart patients were higher for those with pets in their homes than those without pets. Elderly people with pets make fewer trips     7     doctors than those without animal companions, possibly because animals relieve loneliness. Staying with animals is believed to create a peaceful state of mind,     8    (result) in a favourable environment for everyone.

Research confirms that the findings concerning senior citizens can be applied to restless children. They are more easy-going when there are animals around with, with     9     company they tend to calm down more easily. They involve     10     in playing with animals and the presence of animals comforts them greatly.

2 . A rare hole has opened up in the ozone layer above the Arctic, in what scientists say is the result of unusually low temperatures in the atmosphere above the north pole.

The hole, which has been (racked from space and the ground over the past few days, has reached record dimensions, but is not expected to pose any danger to humans unless it moves further south. If it extends further south overpopulated areas, such as southern Greenland, people would be at increased risk of sunburn.

However, on current trends the hole is expected to disappear altogether in a few weeks.

Low temperatures in the northern polar regions led to an unusual stable polar vortex（极地漩涡），and the presence of ozone-destroying chemicals such as chlorine（氯）in the atmosphere -- from human activities - caused the hole to form.

“The hole is principally a geophysical curiosity." said Vincent-Henri Peuch. director of the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service. "We monitored unusual dynamic（动态的）conditions, which drive the process of chemical depletion of ozone. Those dynamics allowed for lower temperatures and a more stable vortex than usual over the Arctic, which then triggered the formation of polar stratospheric（平流层的）clouds and the catalytic（催化的）destruction of ozone."

The hole is not related to the Covid-19 shutdowns that have dramatically cut air pollution and reduced greenhouse gas emissions. It is also too early to say whether the unusually stable Arctic polar vortex conditions are linked with the climate crisis, or part of normal stratospheric weather variability.

Peuch said there were no direct implications for the climate crisis. Temperatures in the region are already increasing, slowing the depletion of ozone, and the hole will start to recover as polar air mixes with ozone-rich air from lower latitudes. The last time similar conditions were observed was in spring 2011.

While a hole over the Arctic is a rare event, the much larger hole in the ozone layer over the Antarctic has been a major cause for concern for more than four decades. The production of ozone-depleting chemicals has been dramatically reduced, under the 1987 Montreal Protocol 蒙特利尔协议），but some sources appear still to be functioning—in 2018. unauthorized emissions were detected from some areas.

New sources of ozone-depleting chemicals were not a factor in the hole observed in the Arctic, said Peuch. "However, this is a reminder that one should not take the Montreal Protocol measures for granted, and that observations from the ground and from satellites are central to avoid a situation where the ozone-destroying chemical level in the stratosphere could increase again.''

1. What is the possible meaning of the underlined word "depletion"?

A．replacement	B．consumption
C．increase	D．production

2. According to the passage, scientists are concerned about the hole because .

A．it is expected to be a threat to the mankind

B．the new hole is caused by air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions

C．it may encourage further scientific research and environmental awareness

D．it warns us of an oncoming climate crisis

3. What can be learned from the last two paragraphs?

A．The hole over the Arctic shares the same causes as the one over the Antarctic.

B．Human activities are highly responsible for producing ozone-destroying chemicals.

C．The Montreal Protocol has successfully prevented new emissions.

D．Some new illegal emissions are to blame for the hole over the Arctic.

4. The best title for the passage is probably .

A．Record-size Hole Opens in Ozone Layer above the Arctic

B．Actions Urgently Needed for a New Hole in Ozone Layer

C．Environmental Disaster and International Cooperation

D．How a Hole in Ozone Affects our Life on Earth

3 . One spring day. once the flowers have begun to open, a bee will hover (盘旋)and zip through your yard and dive-bomb your picnic table. While you're thinking about avoiding an attack, that bee is focused on something else entirely: me.

A honeybee has about six weeks to live. Today, like most days, her task is to fly as many as three miles from home, stick her long, straw-like tongue into a hundred or so flowers. When the bee has had her fill, she'll fly home. There the bee will deposit what she has got into the mouth of one of her co-workers, who will relay it to another, and so on for about 20 minutes, until the mixture is ready to be placed into the comb. Then she and her 50.000 or so mates will hover in the dark all night every night, flapping their wings to create hot, breezy conditions to remove the water from the mixture. Several sunrises later, they will seal me off in a golden cell of beeswax. In her lifetime, our bee may visit 4.000 flowers, and yet will produce only one-twelfth of a tea spoon of me.

The average American consumes nearly a pound and a half of me every year, in tea, on toast, and beyond. If I do say so myself, I am a timeless treasure. Literally—I never go bad.

Unfortunately, my good health is not guaranteed. The problem lies in the growth of industrial agriculture and the use of pest control chemicals, as well as changes in weather patterns, all of which reduce the number of flowers bees have to visit. I'd appreciate your letting your own garden grow just a little wild. My future depends on all of us fostering spring and summers wild flowers, thus helping the bees, who give so much—to you, to me—without ever asking for anything in return.

1. What does "me" refer to in the passage?

A．The flower.	B．The bee.
C．Water.	D．Honey.

2. What is the 2nd paragraph mainly about?

A．Bees' special talent.	B．Bees’ hard work.
C．Bees' living environment.	D．Bees' social behavior.

3. Which one of the following is true according to the passage?

A．A bee will always prioritize attacking picnic lovers.

B．Before "me" is sealed off in beeswax, the drying process can take a few nights.

C．The lifework of a bee satisfies the average demand of an American consumer annually.

D．Bees are more likely to visit those deliberately pest-controlled gardens.

4. What is the purpose of the passage?

A．To appeal for help for honeybees.

B．To talk about the history of a treasure.

C．To put forward techniques for gardeners.

D．To argue against the control of chemicals.

4 . 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.

Plants Scream in the Face of Stress

For the first time, researchers appear to have evidence that like animals, those plants deprived of water or     1     (force) to endure bodily harm can let out their pain. The study,     2     has yet to be published in a scientific Journal, adds another dimension to scientists     3     (grow) understanding of how plants detect and interact with their surroundings.

In recent years, it has become very clear that plants are more sensitive than researchers     4     (think). They respond when touched by insects and turn toward sources of light. "Plants are not just robotic stimulus-response devices," said Frantisek Baluska of the University of Bonn in Germany. "They're living organisms which have their own problems/'

Actually making their suffering hearable, however, is another matter entirely.     5     (test) that possibility, a team led by Itzhak Khait, a plant scientist at Tel Aviv University in Israel, placed microphones capable of detecting ultrasonic frequencies (超声波频率)four inches from tomato and tobacco plants. The researcher then either stopped watering them or cut their stems.

Measuring in the range of 20 to 150 kilohertz (千赫).the researchers found that even happy, healthy plants made the occasional noise. But when cut, tobacco plants emitted     6     average of 15 sounds within an hour of being cut     7     tomato plants produced 25 sounds.

    8     researchers aren't yet sure how plants produce these sounds, Khait and his colleagues proposed one possibility in their paper     9     as water travels through the plants' tubes, air bubbles will form and explode, producing small vibrations.

All this "screaming” caused by stress wasn't in a range detectable by human ears. But organisms that can hear ultrasonic frequencies—like mice, bats or perhaps other plants—    10     possibly hear the plants cries from as far away as 15 feet.

5 . 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.

Lower Oxygen Levels Threaten Marine Life

Oxygen in the oceans is being lost at an alarming rate, with “dead zones” expanding rapidly and hundreds more areas showing oxygen dangerously exhausted, putting sharks, tuna, marlin and other large fish species at particular risk. Dead zones, where oxygen is effectively absent, have quadrupled(翻两番) in extent in the last half-century, and there are also at least 700 areas where oxygen is at dangerously low levels, up from 45 when research was undertaken in the 1960s.

The reasons behind this environmental collapse are multiple. Among all, pollutants generated by the industrial world have been the most destructive force to cause the unbalance, including a rising tide of plastic waste, as well as other pollutants. Seas are about 26% more acidic than in pre-industrial times because of absorbing the excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, with damaging impacts on shellfish in particular.

Low oxygen levels are also associated with global heating, because the warmer water holds less oxygen and the heating causes stratification(分层), so there is less of the vital mixing of oxygen-rich and oxygen-poor layers. Oceans are expected to lose about 3-4% of their oxygen by the end of this century, but the impact will be much greater in the levels closest to the surface, where many species are concentrated, and in the mid to high latitudes.

Another major cause for lower oxygen is intensive farming. When excess artificial fertilizer from crops, or wastes from the meat industry, runs off the land and into rivers and seas, it feeds algae(藻类) which bloom and then cause oxygen consumption as they die and decay.

The problem of dead zones has been known about for decades, but little has been done to tackle it. Now is high time to take actions and help the oceans function better.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

6 . Direction: 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.increasing 　　　　B.defend　　　　 C.partially 　　　　D.depriving E.sharpened　　 　　 F.breaks 　　　 　G.endured 　　　　H.granting I.issues 　　　　　　J.activate 　　　　K.roughly

Flood-hit Venice’s shrinking population faces mounting problems

Venetians(威尼斯人) are fed up with what they see as inadequate responses to the city’s mounting problems: record-breaking flooding, environmental and safety threats from cruise ship traffic and the burden on services from over-tourism.

They feel largely left to their own devices, with ever-fewer Venetians living in the historic part of the city to    1    its interests and keep it from becoming mainly a tourist land.

The historic flooding this week---marked by three floods over 1.5 meters (nearly 5 feet) and the highest in 53 years at 1.87 meters(6 feet, 1 inch)---has    2    calls to create an administration that recognizes the uniqueness of Venice, for both its concentration of treasures and its    3    vulnerability.

Flood damage has been    4    estimated at hundreds of millions of Euros (dollars), but the true range will only become clear with time. The frustration goes far beyond the failure to complete and    5    78 underwater barriers that were designed to prevent just the kind of damage that Venice has    6    this week. With the system not yet completed or even    7    tested after 16 years of work and 5 billion Euros ($5.5 billion) invested, many are suspicious it will even work.

At the public level, proposals for better administering the city including    8    some level of autonomy(自制) to Venice, already enjoyed by some Italian regions like Trentino-Alto-Adige with its German-speaking minority, or offering tax    9    to encourage Venice’s repopulation.

Just 53,000 people live in the historic part of the city that tourists know as Venice, down by a third from a generation ago and dropping by about 1,000 people a year. That means fewer people watching the neighborhood, monitoring for public maintenance    10    or neighbors in need. Many leave because of the increased expense or the daily difficulties in living in a city of canals, which can make even a simple errand a hard journey.

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.

There’s nothing more annoying than settling down to sleep and hearing the sound of a mosquito buzzing around you.

The only thought most of us ever give to this noise is “I need to get rid of this insect, immediately”, but it turns out that the mosquito is actually quite a(n)     1     creature.

A team of scientists from Oxford University in the UK, in     2     with the Royal Veterinary College in London and Chiba University in Japan, recently published a study that found some interesting facts about the world’s most     3     insect.

By placing eight cameras inside a tiny film studio, the scientists could study several mosquitoes up close. The high-tech cameras filmed the insects at 1,000 frames per second, meaning the scientists were able to study the insects’     4     in never-before-seen detail. However, it wasn’t always straightforward.

“Recording mosquitoes during free-flight represented a huge technical challenge due to their small size,     5     wing beat frequency, and the presence of large antennae and legs that can     6     the view of their wings,” Simon Walker of Oxford University, co-author of the study, wrote.

Published in the journal Nature, the study found that mosquitoes flap their wings around 800 times a second. As a     7    , house flies flap their wings about 200 times a second, and hummingbirds 50 times a second.

Richard Bomphrey of the Royal Veterinary College, the study’s leader, believes that mosquitoes have a unique flying method that sets them apart from other flying insects.

“We predicted that they must make use of clever tricks, as the wings     8     their direction at the end of each half-stroke.” he wrote in the study.

Hopefully, the discovery of the mosquito’s special abilities will be of benefit to engineers in the future. The findings could lead to better aircraft, or even improvement to tools like lenses or pumps.

But the scientists hope their study can one day be     9     to new developments in more human-focused use.

“The more we know about mosquitoes, the better our chance of understanding their flight behavior, how they carry disease and     10     how to stop them from doing so,” Walker wrote.

8 . The company that revolutionized the delivery of information now aims to do the same with electricity, Technology powerhouse Google today announced it would spend “tens of millions” of dollars next year in research and development and investments in an effort to drive down the cost of large-scale renewable energy to make it cheaper than coal, Not only will Google be hiring engineers and energy experts for its new initiative, known as RE<C (renewable energy at less cost than coal), but it also will make investments in new companies-starting with those that focus on solar is not only critical for the environment, and high-altitude wind power. “Cheap renewable energy is not only critical for the environment but also vital for economic development in many places where there is limited affordable energy of any kind,” said Sergey Brin, Google co-founder and president of technology, in a prepared statement.

Coal supplies 40 percent of the world’s electricity and more than half of U.S. power, and if current trends continue, it is expected to grab an ever increasing share because it is a plentiful and cheap fuel for big consumers like the United States and Russia. But coal is also the worst fuel in its production of the global warming gas carbon dioxide. Google co-founder Larry Page said the company’ s goal is to produce one gigawatt (十亿瓦特) of renewable energy capacity that is cheaper than coal within “years, not decades.” Google says that’s enough electricity to power a city the size of San Francisco (about 330000 households).

Google, located in Mountain View, Calif, said it was initially working with two other California companies. They are e Solar, of Pasadena, which is specializing in solar-thermal power, using large fields of mirrors to concentrate sunlight and generate steam to run utility-scale electric turbines (涡轮), and Makani of Alameda, which is developing wind energy technology that takes advantage of the much stronger and more reliable currents available at high altitudes.

Google did not specify how much money it was putting into its projects with these companies but said they both had “promising scalable energy technologies.” This portion of the initiative will be funded through the company’s philanthropic arm, Google.org, which is not a traditional charity but can make equity (股票) investments in companies. Brin and Page have pledged (抵押) 1 percent of Google’s equity and profits toward efforts including climate change and global poverty.

The RE<C program is the latest of a series of steps Google has taken on climate change. The company says it is on track in its goal to be carbon neutral in the near future.

1. Which one of the following statements is TRUE of the coal?

A．It is a kind of controversial fuel given its large quantity and its harm to the environment.

B．It is s plentiful and cheap fuel that will surely earn more market share

C．It will be totally replaced by the renewable energy in years because it produces the worst gas-carbon dioxide

D．It is supported by some enthusiastic countries like U.S. and Russia which rely heavily on the coal

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

A．Google.org has made some crucial decisions in expanding the company

B．Google.org has focused on exploiting alternatives to traditional energy

C．Google.org is a charity organization committed to funding the projects benefiting mankind

D．Google.org is an environmental organization that specializes in promoting green fuel

3. What can Not be learned about the RE<C Programme?

A．It will come true in a few years with the efforts made.

B．It is a programme of environmental protection.

C．It is one of the measures taken to neutralize carbon.

D．It will be realized through investment in solar and wind energy companies.

4. The best title of this passage is ________.

A．Google’s RE<C Programme

B．Google, the Energy Revolutionary

C．Google, the Environmental Protector

D．Google’s Renewable Energy

9 . Directions: Read the following passage, Fill in each blank with a proper sentence given in the box Each sentence can be used only once. Note that there are two more sentences than you need.

Venice Carnival

The annual Venice Carnival is in full swing, with thousands of revelers (狂欢者) gathering the city’s canals and squares in elaborate costumes and extraordinary masks       1    .

The Carnevale di Venezia is thought to date back to the 11th century, making it one of the world’s oldest. Carnivals are held in many Catholic countries: such as Spain and Brazil, where they serve as a last chance to cat, drink end be merry before the deprivations or Lent, the 40 days of fasting (斋戒) that precede Easter.

It is thought that the masks allowed Venetians to hide their identities, allowing the poor to mix with the wealthy, breaking strict social order, even if only for a brief and controlled period.

    2     The theme of Carnival 2019 is “Tutta cope della Luna,” or “Blame the moon”, marking a half-century since man first walked on the satellite

To prevent overcrowding, authorities have installed turnstiles at the entrances to the historic St. Marks’Square, closing it off to new visitors once 23,000 revelers have entered. Costumed revelers are also searched as they enter the square.

Venice is situated across a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The islands are located in the shallow Venetian Lagoon, an enclosed bay that lies between the mouths of the Po and the Piave Rivers       3     The lagoon and a part of the city are listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Although most visitors stick to the traditional Carnival costumes of baroque gowns and be jeweled masks for women and black capes and threatening masks for men, more and more people are opting for their own unique interpretations.

Some visitors use Carnival as an opportunity to show off a fantastic creation they’ve always reamed of wearing. It doesn’t have to be Venetian       4     At Carnival, everybody is free to who-or what-they want to be. Perhaps a different gender-or even species. That’s the joy of the mask-nobody knows who or what the person wearing it was before Carnival.

A．This year’s Carnival festivities kicked off on February 16 and go on until March 5.

B．During the 18 days of Carnival, the city fills with thousands of tourists from across Italy and around the world.

C．Parts of Venice are well known for the beauty of their settings, their architectureand artwork.

D．The Italian government decided to bring back the history and culture of Venice by seeking to use the traditional Carnival.

E．It doesn’t have to be traditional.

F．Carnival virtually disappeared when Napoleon’s troops brought an end to the Venetian Republic in 1797.

10 . Questions are based on the following passage1.

A．He is an Englishman living in Sweden.

B．He prefers hot weather to cold weather.

C．He visits London nearly every winter.

D．He likes Sweden better than England.

2.

A．The long night.	B．The bad weather.
C．The gloomy winter.	D．The cold houses.

3.

A．Delightful.	B．Refreshing.
C．Painful.	D．Frustrating.

4.

A．They work hard and play hard.

B．They often stay up late reading.

C．They like to go camping in summer.

D．They try to earn more and spend more.