1 . You’ve heard that plastic is polluting the oceans — between 4.8 and 12.7 million tonnes enter ocean ecosystems every year. But does one plastic straw or cup really make a difference? Artist Benjamin Von Wong wants you to know that it does. He builds massive sculptures out of plastic garbage, forcing viewers to re-examine their relationship to single-use plastic products.
At the beginning of the year, the artist built a piece called “Strawpocalypse,” a pair of 10-foot-tall plastic waves, frozen mid-crash. Made of 168,000 plastic straws collected from several volunteer beach cleanups, the sculpture made its first appearance at the Estella Place shopping center in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
Just 9% of global plastic waste is recycled. Plastic straws are by no means the biggest source (来源) of plastic pollution, but they’ve recently come under fire because most people don’t need them to drink with and, because of their small size and weight, they cannot be recycled. Every straw that’s part of Von Wong’s artwork likely came from a drink that someone used for only a few minutes. Once the drink is gone, the straw will take centuries to disappear.
In a piece from 2018, Von Wong wanted to illustrate (说明) a specific statistic: Every 60 seconds, a truckload’s worth of plastic enters the ocean. For this work, titled “Truckload of Plastic,” Von Wong and a group of volunteers collected more than 10,000 pieces of plastic, which were then tied together to look like they’d been dumped (倾倒) from a truck all at once.
Von Wong hopes that his work will also help pressure big companies to reduce their plastic footprint.
1. What are Von Wong’s artworks intended for?| A．Beautifying the city he lives in. | B．Introducing eco-friendly products. |
| C．Drawing public attention to plastic waste. | D．Reducing garbage on the beach. |
| A．To show the difficulty of their recycling. |
| B．To explain why they are useful. |
| C．To voice his views on modern art. |
| D．To find a substitute for them. |
| A．Calming. | B．Disturbing. |
| C．Refreshing. | D．Challenging. |
| A．Artists’ Opinions on Plastic Safety |
| B．Media Interest in Contemporary Art |
| C．Responsibility Demanded of Big Companies |
| D．Ocean Plastics Transformed into Sculptures |
2 . Venice is suffering the worst flooding the city has experienced in 50 years. The city is “on its knees” and Venetian Mayor Luigi Brugnaro tweeted as water submerged (淹没) much of the famous historical city.
While floods are a normal part of life in Venice, they have never happened with such frequency before. Experts say that climate change is likely to blame.
Flooding is just one of the many impacts from climate change that is being experienced with more frequency and globally threatens many vulnerable (脆弱的) areas and regions. There is a threat that is not often considered.
Changes in the ocean will have a profound impact on many of these sites.
Experts say that the solutions to saving these sites will be varied, but many will be very expensive.
| A．Different ways can be used to save these sites. |
| B．Climate change will impact these sites in different ways. |
| C．It is the damage from climate change to the world’s heritage. |
| D．But putting in place protective measures has proven difficult. |
| E．Warming water threatens to kill much of the coral in the Great Barrier Reef. |
| F．Many heritage sites on land are facing the great threat posed by global warming. |
| G．Therefore, they suggest that countries should work together to protect heritage sites. |
3 . Blue whales are the largest animals on the planet, and each year they undertake (进行) one of the longest migration (迁徙). After spending the summer in the Northeast Pacific, the whales travel thousands of miles to their breeding (繁殖) grounds off the coast of Central America.
To learn more about these behaviors, William Oestreich, a PhD candidate in biology at Stanford University, and his colleagues planted an underwater microphone, or hydrophone, just outside Monterey Bay and recorded whales’ songs over five years.
Only male blue whales are known to sing, but both sexes move southward at about the same time each year. Males and females have also been spotted pairing up and feeding together shortly before the migration begins. “That gives us some confidence that the sounds that are primarily being produced by males are fairly representative of what the whole population is doing,” Oestreich says.
During the summer, the songs picked up by the hydrophone took place mostly at night. The intensity of the songs reached the highest level each year between October and November. However, as winter approached and the songs dwindled, the whales changed to singing during the daytime. In the summer, blue whales spread out over vast distances while searching for food. By eavesdropping on (窃听) their distant neighbors at night, the whales may gather information about food conditions elsewhere in their range. Knowing when other whales are on the move could guide their decision about when to stop hunting for food and start their own journey toward milder waters.
By turning in too, we might be able to forecast when the whales will arrive in areas where they’re in particular danger of running into ships, such as the Santa Barbara Channel. “There have been quite a noticeable number of deadly collisions (碰撞) between ships and blue whales,” Oestreich says. “That could be one piece of the puzzle (拼图游戏) to more dynamically (动态地) managing those habitats and shipping paths in a way that allows shipping to continue, but also in a way that is safe for these whale populations.”
1. What is the researchers’ purpose in doing the study?| A．To identify different whales’ songs. | B．To prove the function of the hydrophone. |
| C．To better learn about blue whales’ migration. | D．To search for more blue whales’ breeding grounds. |
| A．Males mostly sang at night in the summer. | B．Females occasionally sang to attract males. |
| C．Males and females migrate at different times. | D．Males and females seldom pair up before migration. |
| A．Functioned. | B．Reduced. | C．Reappeared. | D．Strengthened. |
| A．Shipping paths need reducing. | B．Avoiding collisions is possible. |
| C．Blue whales’ habitats are recovering. | D．Blue whales are in danger of extinction. |
October 27 is National Black Cat Day! In honor of that, here’s how we can protect our pets on
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In order to stay away from the seemingly faraway disaster,
6 . Japanese officials say they are pleased with the quality of the asteroid (小行星) material collected by a spacecraft and returned to Earth.
Last week, officials from Japan described the samples (样品), which were collected from the Ryugu asteroid in July 2019. Ryugu sits more than 300 million kilometers from Earth. Japan’s unpiloted Hayabusa2 spacecraft removed the material after making a hole into the asteroid.
The space agency said the July 2019 mission (任务) aimed to collect samples from below the surface of Ryugu. During an earlier operation in February 2019, Hayabusa2 collected material from a different part of the asteroid. The second collection effort resulted in sample pieces as big as 1 centimeter. The black material looked similar to charcoal and was very hard. It did not break apart when picked up or poured into another container.
Earlier this month, space officials described the samples Hayabusa2 removed on its first mission as smaller, sandy pieces. They were collected from the surface of Ryugu. Hayabusa2 was launched in December 2014 and arived near Ryugu in June 2018. The Japanese space mission aims to use the samples to learn more about how our solar system formed.
To get the second set of samples in July, Hayabusa2 used an impactor to knock the asteroid’s surface. The aim was to collect material unaffected by space radiation or other environmental conditions. The size differences suggest different hardness of the bedrock of the asteroid. One possibility is that the place of the second touchdown was a hard bedrock and larger particles broke and entered the container.
Hayabusa2 is now on another mission to a smaller asteroid, called 1998KY26. The Japanese government expects the aircraft to take 11 years to reach that asteroid. Hayabusa2’s new mission aims to study possible ways to prevent large meteorites (陨石) from hitting Earth.
1. What are these asteroid materials used to do?| A．Study how the solar system was born. | B．Determine the movement of asteroids. |
| C．Study the environment on the asteroid. | D．Uncover when the asteroid was formed. |
| A．To discover new planets. | B．To fetch more materials in space. |
| C．To travel around the solar system. | D．To explore ways to protect the earth. |
| A．They were collected in the same place. | B．They both were black and hard. |
| C．They came in different shapes. | D．They were of equal weight. |
| A．Japan Makes Progress in Studying Solar System |
| B．Japan Is Pleased with Latest Asteroid Samples |
| C．The Secret of an Asteroid Comes to Light |
| D．The Earth Faces Threats from Space |
7 . Norway aims to discover new resources beneath the sea, but its push into mining has raised environmental concerms.
Norway could license companies for deep-sea mining as early as 2023. That could place it among the first countries to harvest seabed metals. Copper, zinc and other metals are in high demand for electric vehicle batteries, wind turbines and solar energy centers. However, that could also place Norway on the front line of controversies over the environmental risks of mining the world’s unexplored seabeds.
Norway recently announced it was carrying out an environmental study needed to start mineral exploration and mining. Once that is completed, the govemment plans to have public comments on its environmental study and on a proposal to open areas for exploration and production by the end of 2022.
The demand for minerals is being driven by what are often called “clean” technologies. But the process of getting those minerals from the seabed could cause environmental problems.
Environmentalists including Britain’s David Attenborough have called for a temporary (暂时的) stop to deepseabed mining until more is known about how it affects sea life. The environmental group Greenpeace called for a total ban in a recent report. In another report, the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy, known as the Ocean Panel, also called for greater knowledge about the effects of deep-sea mining. The Ocean Panel is cochaired by Norway and has 14 member states that want to shape policy on the world’s oceans.
Norway is known as a major oil producer. But, the country of 5. 4 million people wants to find something to replace its top industry that is better for the environment and can grow in the future.
The move toward deep-sea mining follows three years of expeditions(探险). The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate, which carried out the work, said it found copper, zinc, cobalt, gold and silver. The expeditions also discovered large armounts of lithium and the rare earth metal scandium used in electronics and metal mixtures.
1. What does the underlined word “controversies”in paragraph 2 probably mean?| A．Power. | B．Benefits. |
| C．Arguments. | D．Popularity. |
| A．Decide mining areas. | B．Ask for people’s opinions. |
| C．Start seabed mining at once. | D．Take action to protect nature. |
| A．Unsupportive. | B．Positive. |
| C．Unclear. | D．Uncaring. |
| A．Earning more money. | B．Controlling the areas. |
| C．Developing clean energy. | D．Learning about sea resources. |
