1. Why was Kaavan sent to Pakistan?
| A．He was given as a gift. |
| B．A zoo there wanted to train him. |
| C．A female elephant there needed a companion. |
| A．He was homeless. | B．He lost his friend. | C．He was kept in chains. |
| A．2016. | B．2020. | C．2021. |
1. Where is Destiny’s community located?
| A．Near the waterfront. | B．In the northern part. | C．In the city center. |
| A．Her high school is closed. |
| B．She has breathing problems. |
| C．The air in her neighborhood is poor. |
| A．Disapproving. | B．Unclear. | C．Supportive. |
| A．Making a survey. | B．Conducting an interview. | C．Holding a press conference. |
3 . Lying in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, the fishing village Huatulco is home to nine bays, 36 beaches and thousands of baby turtles that apparently needed me. I had three open days on my calendar, and a desire to save some turtles. And so, away I went to Huatulco with Wildcoast, a group of champions-for-change who were protecting coastal and marine ecosystem in the U. S. and Mexico.
I was taken to La Escobilla to experience Wildcoast in action. Just one hour north of Huatulco, this protected beach is where mass turtle nesting happens. This natural phenomenon lasts just four days during rainy season, hundreds of thousands of female sea turtles swinging their way ashore to lay their eggs.
Between threats of dogs, crabs, development and oil spills, the little creatures have the whole world against them. As recently as 2002, turtles hunting was not only a common practice, but an important part of the culture and diet in the Oaxaca communities. Luckily, Wildcoast rescues turtle eggs and recreates habitats by monitoring temperatures and humidity. Thanks to their efforts, the sea turtles have made a major comeback, with now over 72 million turtles being born on the beaches that Wildcoast protects.
I got to hold 50 of the tiny creatures in a bowl. Despite an average laying of 100 eggs, just one in 1, 000 baby turtles will make it to adulthood. Gazing into the bowl, I so badly wanted them to taste the sea and find shelter somewhere deep in the ocean. Finally, it was time to liberate those little creatures. Out spilled the creatures, some moving full steam ahead while others barely paddled in place. Literally, hundreds of them began to spread out across the beach.
With each set of waves, we witnessed the survival of the fittest, some pushing past the whitewash while others crashed back to shore. Their fight for life made my eyes wet. A flock of birds were ready to dive into the sea for their moving targets. “One in 1, 000.” Nature was cruel and compassionate at the same time. After 30 long minutes, the last creature made his way to the sea.
1. The baby turtles are threatened by various factors except ________.| A．the cruel hunters | B．the rapid development |
| C．the extreme weather | D．the oil-polluted ocean |
| A．With slow pace and fear. | B．With all energy and enthusiasm. |
| C．With full caution and curiosity. | D．With great satisfaction and responsibility. |
| A．One baby turtle in 1,000 can make his way to the sea. |
| B．Thousands of baby turtles were crashed back to shore. |
| C．The struggle of baby turtles for life touched the author. |
| D．Baby turtles can hardly survive the harsh living conditions. |
| A．Think twice before you leap. | B．God helps those who help themselves. |
| C．Cease to struggle and you cease to live. | D．When the buying stops, the killing can too. |
The woods surrounding the Audubon Society were November dark with its sky overcast with gloomy clouds. The branches shut out the day light and the wind howled horribly around the woods.
Ruby sighed and packed up his bag on the shoulders. “Least it has stopped raining. It won’t take long,” Ruby comforted his brother Henry. “Dad said he’d pick us at the gift shop.”
Henry ignored him with a frown and stomped(踩踏)up the path, his shoes slipping on the wet rocks. He was annoyed that their dad had practically forced them to go on a hike in the bird habitat outside town. “It will be good for you both,” Dad had encouraged, handing them his binoculars. “You’ll get some fresh air and maybe see some cool birds.”
As the boys climbed, the trees grew closer together. The only sounds were the dripping of rain from the trees and the rustle(沙沙声)of small birds among the forest. At the top of the slope, they stopped to catch their breath. A single black feather floated down onto the path. Rubylooked up. On a nearby branch, a black crow(乌鸦)stared down at them.
“Shoo!” shouted Ruby, waving his arms, frightened by the bird’s black eyes. It opened its sharp beak(鸟喙)and let out a loud and horrible squawk. “It’s watching us as if we were worms or something.” Ruby pushed his brother along the path. “Just a stupid crow.” But as he walked, Ruby couldn’t shake the feeling that they were being watched.
“Ruby? ” called Henry, panic shaking his voice. To their horror, on the path, a line of more crows blocked their way and the branches on both sides were filled with numerous birds, their evil eyes glancing at them. They fluttered their wings frantically, ready to attack the boys.
注意:
1. 续写词数应为150左右;
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
The boys froze, frightened by the hundreds of greedy eyes.
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At that urgent moment, a familiar car pulled into the path.
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5 . People who work with octopuses(章鱼)or who spend a lot of time in their company describe the sense that when you look at an octopus, there is something looking back. Given this feeling as a starting point, how do you begin to explore the consciousness(意识)of an animal so unlike ourselves?
Imagining an octopus’s inner life is a hard thing to do from our human standpoint. When you picture the tips of your suckered limbs moving, what do you imagine it feels like? “The octopus’s arms are, in some ways, more like lips or tongues than hands,” says Godfrey-Smith, a professor of history and philosophy of science. “There’s a great deal of sensory information that’s coming in every time the animal does anything. That’s very different from our situation.”
Take a closer look at the octopus’s nervous system, and things get even stranger. The octopus’s arms have more autonomy than our human arms and legs do. Each has its own minibrain, giving it a degree of independence from the animal’s central brain. Our own nervous system, however, is highly centralized, with the brain the center of sensory integration, emotion, movement, behavior and other actions.
The closer you look at the octopus’s body and nervous system, the harder it becomes to grasp—or believe you are grasping—what it might be like to be an octopus. However hard it might be to do, it’s worth trying to understand whether octopuses have consciousness, and what it’s like if they do, says Godfrey-Smith. This is why the octopus is such an interesting case. Octopuses are different enough from us that a lot of our assumptions about them have to be questioned—and even our assumptions about ourselves. “By asking whether octopuses are conscious like us, we might be asking a question that doesn’t make a lot of sense because we don’t fully know what it’s like to be conscious,” says Godfrey-Smith.
1. What does the author try to do in paragraph 1?| A．Introduce his special feeling about studying octopuses. |
| B．Share his unique experience of working with octopuses. |
| C．Inspire the readers’ interest in learning about octopuses. |
| D．Show the meaning of studying consciousness of animals. |
| A．Their structure. | B．Their function. |
| C．Their movement. | D．Their number. |
| A．By listing statistics. | B．By analyzing causes. |
| C．By giving examples. | D．By making comparisons. |
| A．Octopuses are really similar to humans in some way. |
| B．More work is needed to study octopuses’ consciousness. |
| C．Most assumptions about octopuses are completely wrong. |
| D．It makes no sense to research if octopuses are conscious. |
6 . Sixteen miles off the windswept coast of northern Scotland, the future of renewable energy is taking shape. Turning rhythmically in the breeze, the five enormous turbines of the Hywind Scotland wind farm look like any other off-shore wind project, except one major difference — they’re floating.
While conventional offshore turbines sit atop mental and concrete towers fixed into the seabed, Hywind’s turbines rest on floating steel structures that rise and fall with waves. Carefully balanced, they remain upright despite the waving conditions. This simple sounding, yet extremely complex design is changing the way green developers view offshore wind.
It could prove to be an important development as the world attempts to meet the net zero carbon emission targets that countries committed to in the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. The energy department as a whole currently accounts for around three quarters of all the greenhouse gases emitted by human activity.
To cut those emissions, green electricity will need to be at the main source of global energy, according to the International Energy Agency. It says that by 2024, half of the world’s energy needs will have to be met by electricity produced in a net zero way.
With growing numbers of electric vehicles, combined with increased demand for electricity to replace fossil fuels in domestic and industrial uses, electricity networks will also need to become far more flexible with more ways to generate and store energy. It means that by 2045, our energy network could look thoroughly different to the way it does today. Projects like Hywind’s floating wind farm offer a present-day glimpse of what the future could look like.
While floating turbines overcome some of the issues that make offshore wind farms in deep waters impossible, there are still challenges to be overcome. There are some concerns about what impact large wind turbines might have on the marine environment. The price of floating wind projects is also still high — costing almost twice as much per megawatt hour of electricity produced compared to bottom-fixed offshore wind. But those costs are expected to drop as the technology becomes increasingly advanced, as has been seen with other wind energy projects, helping pave the way towards net zero emissions, and a future powered by carbon-free fuel.
1. Which of the following words can replace the underlined word “emitted” in the third paragraph?| A．Released. | B．Replaced. | C．Wasted. | D．Influenced. |
| A．Disapproving. | B．Objective. | C．Doubtful. | D．Indifferent. |
| A．To share his research on energy. | B．To call on people to save energy. |
| C．To replace the traditional fossil fuels. | D．To introduce a clean renewable energy. |
Why do ducks swim in a row? This phenomenon is so common
If you have ever been to a pond, you’ve likely seen a group of ducklings swimming behind their parent in
A study
Naval architect, Zhiming Yuan
8 . Marco Springmann and his colleagues, at the Oxford Martin School’s Future of Food Programme, built computer models that predicted what would happen if everyone became vegetarian by 2050. The results indicate that if the world went vegan (严格的素食主义者), the greenhouse gas emissions declines would be around 70%.
In the US, for example, an average family of four emits more greenhouse gases because of the meal they eat than from driving two cars---but it is cars, not steaks, that regularly come up in discussions about global warming.
Food, especially livestock (牲畜，家畜) also takes up a lot of room. 68% of agricultural land in the world is used for livestock. When these lands become grasslands and forests, they would capture carbon dioxide and further ease climate change.
However, if the whole world went vegan, there would be negative effects too. First, it is necessary to keep livestock for environmental purposes. “I’m sitting here in Scotland where the Highlands’ environment is very man-made and based largely on grazing by sheep,” says Peter Alexander, a researcher in socio-ecological systems modeling at the University of Edinburgh. “If we took all the sheep away, the environment would look different and there would be a potential negative impact on biodiversity.”
Plus, meat is an important part of history, tradition and cultural identity. Numerous groups around the world give livestock gifts at weddings, celebratory dinners such as Christmas with turkey or roast beef.
And nowadays, moderation in meal-eating’s frequency and portion size is key to solving these conflicts. “Certain changes would encourage us to make healthier and more environmentally friendly dietary decisions,” says Springmann, “like putting a higher price lag on meat and making fresh fruits and vegetables cheaper.”
In fact, clear solutions already exist for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the livestock industry. What is lacking is the will to carry out those changes.
1. What can we infer from the underlined sentence in the second paragraph?| A．Driving cars is more dangerous than eating steaks in the US. |
| B．Our dietary choices affecting climate change is often underestimated. |
| C．People compare the greenhouse gas emissions of the cars and steaks. |
| D．Cars affect the global warming more seriously than the steaks. |
| A．It is hard to please all. |
| B．Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. |
| C．One cannot see the wood for the trees. |
| D．Everything is a double-edged sword. |
| A．A biology textbook. | B．A health magazine. |
| C．A scientific journal. | D．An educational review. |
9 . Stripy and Jake are baby bears. They are fed by bottle and play around happily. Other bear orphans are sitting in the trees when Ben Kilham goes into their area.
Kilham, an American bear whisperer, lives in the woods of New Hampshire. His life work is all about understanding black bears, winning him not just international fame, but also greater insight into humankind.
From the bear photos and paintings on the wall to the three little wooden bears welcoming visitors at the entrance, everything in his home shows his passion. So does the nearby 3-hectare area. This is where he cares for orphan baby bears that are entrusted (委托) to him each year by the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department. With their mothers perhaps shot dead or knocked down by a car, Kilham cares for the baby bears. He makes sure they grow up safe and well, before releasing them back into the wild at the age of 18 months.
In addition, he observes adult bears in the wild. His dedication to black bears has made him such an expert that China asked for his help with the giant panda. After a quarter of a century of study, Kilham has no doubt that bears are as close to humans as great apes, even though, as he says, “apes are our closest genetic relatives.”
Kilham has released 165 bears back into the wild and recorded more than 1,500 black bear interactions in nature. Recently his work led to a PhD in environmental sciences. He has written articles in National Geographic and a popular book, Among the Bears, which came out in 2002.
His goal is to raise awareness of caring about bears feared and hunted in the United States. Around 10 to 15 percent of New Hampshire’s 5,000 to 6,000 bears are killed every year in the hunting season.
“Bears are not interested in people. They are afraid of us. We can live very easily with bears; it’s a matter of educating the public,” says Kilham.
1. What is Ben Kilham’s daily job mainly about?| A．Studying different kinds of wild animals. |
| B．Protecting humans from being hurt by bears. |
| C．Training bears to communicate with humans. |
| D．Taking care of baby bears that lost their mothers. |
| A．Devotion. | B．Exposure. |
| C．Contribution. | D．Assistance. |
| A．To call on people to protect the environment. |
| B．To tell people to keep away from black bears. |
| C．To tell people about Ben Kilham and his studies. |
| D．To introduce Ben Kilham and his book—Among the Bears. |
1. What does the man say about the winter in New Work City?
| A．The air is heavy. | B．The wind is strong. | C．It's cold and wet. |
| A．It's hot in the summer. |
| B．It's very changeable. |
| C．It rains all the year round. |
| A．He speaks highly of New York City. |
| B．He doesn't like New York City very much. |
| C．He's leaving New York City because of the weather. |
