1 . When 62-year-old fisherman Kpana Charlie has finished placing the day’s catch in his nets, he likes to sit on his wooden chair and let his mind go back to his childhood. Back then, his home on Sierra Leone’s Nyangai Island seemed like a paradise (天堂).

He spent endless hours playing with his friends on the island’s shining white beaches. He liked to kick around a soccer ball on the sports field in his village, and in mango season, he would shake the trees to collect their colorful fruit. Whenever he wanted to avoid doing his homework, he could simply disappear into the thick forest that covered much of the island.

Today, Nyangai is disappearing, swallowed up by the sea. As recently as ten years ago, it still measured some 2, 300 feet from end to end. What’s left today is a patch of (一片) sand which is 300 feet long and 250 wide. The forests are gone, flooded by saltwater. The soccer field lies under water for 22 hours of the day. And the land on which Charlie’s family home once stood, the home he was born in, has been disappearing under the waves. In as little as two years, Charlie fears, Nyangai may no longer exist at all.

With nearly a third of its population living in coastal areas, and its heavy reliance on agriculture and fishing, Sierra Leone has been treated as one of the world’s most vulnerable countries to the effects of climate (气候) change.

Gabriel Jaka, head of operations for the country’s Meteorological Agency, says the reason for Nyangai’s troubles is clear. “We’re seeing a significant sea-level rise and these people don’t have any proper defenses,” he says. “All they have are sandbags. If we don’t act now, the effects on people are just going to get worse.”

1. What do the figures in paragraph 3 show?

A．Nyangai is large in area.

B．Nyangai has a long history.

C．Nyangai is being destroyed by humans.

D．Nyangai is suffering a lot from a sea-level rise.

2. What does the underlined word “vulnerable” in paragraph 4 mean?

A．Far-reaching.	B．Protected.
C．Easy to be attacked.	D．Difficult to keep in touch with.

3. How does Gabriel Jaka feel about people’s future life in Nyangai?

A．Worried.	B．Calm.
C．Unconcerned.	D．Hopeful.

4. What’s the purpose of the text?

A．To introduce a poor fisherman.

B．To call for actions to fight climate change.

C．To present a fisherman’s old hometown.

D．To show the destruction of the forest.

2 . 听下面一段独白，回答以下小题。
1. What does the man do?

A．An animal keeper.

B．A zoo manager.

C．A park cleaner.

2. What happened that evening?

A．A lion escaped into the zoo.

B．A lion escaped from the zoo.

C．A hurricane blew a lion away.

3. Where was the lion that afternoon?

A．In the zoo.

B．In the police station.

C．In a lady’s garden.

4. What was the lion doing when the keepers saw it?

A．Eating in the bushes.

B．Sleeping in the garden.

C．Playing in the park.

3 . 听下面一段独白，回答以下小题。
1. Which season is it now?

A．Spring.

B．Summer.

C．Winter.

2. What day is it today?

A．Monday.

B．Tuesday.

C．Wednesday.

3. What will the highest wind speed be during the week?

A．30 km per hour.

B．35 km per hour.

C．50 km per hour.

4. How many centimeters of snow will fall on Friday?

A．2.

B．8.

C．10.

4 . A petting zoo is also called a children’s zoo. It is a place with domesticated (家养的) animals and some wild species.     1     However, in traditional zoos where wild animals are usually viewed from behind safe enclosures (围场), contact is impossible.

Petting zoos have a long history. In addition to independent petting zoos, many general zoos have a petting zoo. In 1938, the London Zoo included the first children’s zoo in Europe and the Philadelphia Zoo was the first in North America to open a special zoo just for children.     2     All these zoos make children play with animals.

Some petting zoos are also mobile (流动的) and will travel to a home for a child’s party or event. One of the first mobile petting zoos in Australia was Kindifarm. Because of its popularity, many Australians use the term “kindy farms” to describe petting zoos. In Australia, mobile petting zoos are allowed in schools and child care centers.     3    

Petting zoos are popular with small children, who like feeding the animals. Food is supplied by the zoo.     4     Foods often fed to animals include grass.

    5     Many animals can carry diseases. Touching animals may lead to a person catching their diseases. As a result, it’s recommended that people should carefully wash their hands before and after touching the animals, even if the animals are healthy and well cared for.

A．Not all animals are friendly.

B．It may help improve animals’ health.

C．After all, some foods don’t suit animals.

D．Visitors can feed them and even touch some of them.

E．People should protect themselves from the health effects of petting zoos.

F．For many children, these petting zoos give them the first chance to see and touch animals.

G．During the 1990s, Dutch cities began building petting zoos in many neighborhoods.

5 . Dairy (奶品场) packaging has been changing a lot for so many years. Now, businesses are using technology to create more sustainable (可持续的) packaging options along the whole supply chain.

Ian Olmstead, program manager at Dairy Australia, says, “We’re trying to make sure the plastics we use are designed in a way that allows them to be recycled. Then we have partnerships in place that support the processes for recycling, and seek to increase the food-grade recycled content that can be used again in dairy packaging.”

Brownes Dairy — Australia’s oldest dairy has worked with Tetra Pak to make its next change. Brownes’ senior marketing manager, Nicole Ohm, says it has been important to create a product that not only is recyclable, but starts life in a sustainable way, too. “The start of life is just as important as the end of life,” she says. “Being able to make an effective change at the start of life just makes for a greener result.”

Milk packaging is made of three covers. Recyclable cardboard sits in the middle, with polyethylene (聚乙烯) plastic on both sides acting as a protection. Historically, these outer covers have been made from plastic, but Brownes’ new packaging will use a renewable resource: sugarcane, a kind of plant. “The plant-based protections behave in the same way,” Ohm says, “and so does the recyclability.” “Being Australia’s oldest dairy carries a level of responsibility,” Ohm says. “Even though we are very old, we are not at all traditional—we are very advanced.”

When it comes to plastic packaging, the dairy industry faces many challenges. Recyclable material must be food safe, for example. And one plastic milk bottle might contain a number of different plastics, from the bottle itself to its cover. Even the glue on the label becomes part of the recycling challenge that needs to be got over.

Dr Stephanus Peters is a managing partner at PEGRAS, a global technical solutions consulting company. Peters explains the problem PEGRAS has been asked to solve: make it easier to take away non-recyclable parts from milk bottles to avoid pollution. “You always have a little bit of glue left,” he says. “We have to take away the glue before the bottle can be recycled. If successful, this advance could be used in every industry.”

1. What change does Nicole Ohm expect to happen in dairy packaging?

A．It will be of excellent quality.	B．It will help keep the milk fresh.
C．It will reduce the cost of products.	D．It will be environmentally friendly.

2. What advantage does Brownes’ new milk packaging have over the old one?

A．It has more covers.	B．It is much more protective.
C．It uses plant-based materials.	D．It has a renewable middle cover.

3. What is one challenge faced by the dairy industry?

A．The recycling may require a lot of steps.	B．The recycling may cause more pollution.
C．The recycling may take a mass of money.	D．The recycling may impact on food safety.

4. What is PEGRAS trying to do?

A．Set up a plastic-free dairy business.	B．Make its company a sustainable one.
C．Rid packaging of non-recyclable parts.	D．Come up with a type of recyclable glue.

6 . Since childhood, London-based artist Josh Gluckstein has been fascinated by the incredible diversity of our planet’s wildlife and inspired to make sculptures of animals from found materials. He often uses abandoned or recycled materials like clothing from junk shops or wood from old furniture. An important aspect of his practice is concern for the environment. “I have traveled through Asia, Latin America and East Africa, and have been fortunate enough to have some incredible wildlife encounters,” he says. “However, on my travels, even in the most remote locations, I was shocked by the huge amounts of plastic waste.”

Mach of the garbage that washes up on shorelines around the world is due to an unregulated (未受监管的) system in which richer countries export waste to developing countries because it is often cheaper than developing better infrastructures (基础设施) to handle it. Many of the thousands of shipping containers exported each year are often dumped illegally.

“I remember going to the Galapagos Islands and visiting a beach famous for a large population of sea lions. It was indeed incredible to see them in the wild, but on every inch of sand not covered by sea lions, there were plastic bottles and cans. It was a heartbreaking sight. I knew I wanted to create artworks that didn’t create waste or harm our planet,” Gluckstein says.

Gluckstein hopes his works will raise people’s awareness about the importance of protecting endangered species. His new series called “Gold” focuses on illegally hunted animals by applying gold leaves to their bodies. He plans to donate some of the sales of his sculptures to the world Wide Fund for Nature.

1. What do Gluckstein’s sculptures focus on?

A．Fashion.

B．Animals.

C．Sports.

D．Travel.

2. What does the underlined word “dumped” in paragraph 2 probably mean?

A．Poured,

B．Protected.

C．Sold.

D．Used.

3. What does Gluckstein mainly want to say in paragraph 3?

A．Where he has toured.	B．How sad he was.
C．How he found sea lions.	D．Why he created eco-friendly sculptures.

4. What does Gluckstein expect of his works?

A．They can bring him financial benefits.

B．They can make him famous as an artist.

C．They can help protect endangered animals.

D．They can improve people’s ability to appreciate art.

7 . The oceans play a crucial role in lightening global warming by absorbing carbon dioxide emissions. However, in a study conducted by the University of Texas, researchers found that the oceans’ capacity to absorb carbon dioxide (CO₂) would reach its maximum by 2100 and decrease to half of its current efficiency by 2300, based on a climate simulation (模拟) that was set for a worst-case emissions scenario (设想).

The decline happens because of a surface layer of low-alkalinity (碱度) water that can hinder the ability of the oceans to absorb CO₂. Alkalinity affects how much CO₂ can dissolve in seawater. Although the emissions scenario used in the study is unlikely because of global efforts to limit greenhouse gas emissions, the findings reveal a previously unknown tipping point that if activated would release an important brake on global warming.

“We need to think about these worst-case scenarios to understand how our CO₂ emissions might affect the oceans not just this century, but next century and the following centuries. Climate simulations had previously shown that the oceans slow their absorption of CO₂ over time, but none had considered alkalinity as an explanation. We recalculated pieces of a 450-year simulation until we hit on alkalinity as a key cause of the slowing.” said Megumi Chikamoto, who led the research at the University of Texas Institute.

The effect begins with extreme climate change, which slows ocean currents. This leaves the surface of the oceans covered in a warm layer of fresh water that won’t mix easily with the cooler, more al kaline waters below it. That means more of it is left behind in the atmosphere. This in turn produces faster warming, which sustains and strengthens the low-alkalinity surface layer. Co-author, Pedro DiNezio, said that the discovery was a powerful reminder that the world needs to reduce its CO₂ emissions to avoid crossing this and other tipping points.

1. What may happen after the year 2300?

A．More CO₂ will be absorbed by the oceans.

B．The oceans will lose all their current efficiency.

C．The world will face even more severe warming.

D．The oceans will be less crucial to global warming.

2. What does the underlined word “hinder” in paragraph 2 probably mean?

A．Improve.

B．Weaken.

C．Protect.

D．Control.

3. What does Megumi Chikamoto say about the oceans?

A．Finding why they slow CO₂ intake is hard.

B．Their ability to absorb CO₂ is at their maximum.

C．They will decide on the future of human beings.

D．They will slow down CO₂ absorption very quickly.

4. Where is this text probably taken from?

A．A biology textbook.	B．A government report.
C．Science fiction.	D．An environmental journal.

8 . 阅读下面短文，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

13-year-old twin brother and sister Zhao Ziqian and Zhao Qinman are from Dongguan, Guangdong Province. They enter the waters off Xinbu Island in Haikou     1     (participate) in a swimming challenge across the Qiongzhou Strait,     2     lies between the island province of Hainan and the Leizhou Peninsula in Guangdong.

On Aug. 21, 2023, the twins     3     (successful) swam across the country’s Qiongzhou Strait, becoming the first set of twins to achieve the swimming feat (功绩). They were also the first     4     the 84th batch (批) of challengers to reach the shore in the attempt to swim across the Qiongzhou Strait, which is about 20 kilometers at its     5     (narrow) point. A total of six challengers from Dongguan took part in the activity. They entered the waters off Xinbu Island,     6     (begin) their challenge at 4:34 a.m. on Aug. 21 under the     7     (guide) of local teams.

According to Zhao Ziqian, the older brother, challengers could fuel their body with bottled water, bananas, chocolate and other food     8     (throw) down to them from protecting ships every 40-60 minutes.

The twins’ parents     9     (stay) with them and cheered them on throughout the journey. Their father, a former soldier, said he sent his children to swimming classes to help them build toughness     10     that he would continue to strengthen their physical fitness.

9 . 听下面一段独白，回答以下小题。
1. How much may fish in the oceans shrink by in the coming decades?

A．14%.

B．20%.

C．25%.

2. What is the main reason for the decrease in fish size in the oceans?

A．Water pollution.

B．Global warming.

C．Overfishing.

3. How did the researchers feel about the decrease in fish size in the oceans?

A．Angry.

B．Puzzled.

C．Astonished.

4. What should people do to prevent the decrease in fish size in the oceans?

A．Control fishing.

B．Prevent the movement of fish.

C．Stop producing greenhouse gases.

10 . 阅读下面材料，在空白处填入适当的内容（1个单词）或括号内单词的正确形式。

Yuanmingyuan — garden of all gardens     1    (burn) and fell into ruins in 1860. Recently my classmates had a discussion about     2     it should be rebuilt or not. Supporters of rebuilding the garden say only by doing so can we see the     3     (origin) sight of the garden, which reflects the Chinese civilization. And it will be another place of interest for     4     (visitor). If it is party rebuilt, it will provide a comparison and help us remember the history. Those     5     disagree think it more reasonable     6     (keep) the garden like this. The ruins will remind us     7     the past. We should never forget the history. Other buildings like the Palace Museum and the Summer Palace can also be symbols of the Chinese culture, so it isn’t     8     (necessity) to rebuild this garden. Some also worry that the environment will be destroyed when the construction goes on in this district.     9     (person), it is advisable to rebuild Yuanmingyuan, which will add beauty to the city. What’s more, the new scenic spot will no doubt promote     10     economic development of the local.