1 . A multinational team of astronomers, led by Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science (WIS), has captured a “once-in-a-lifetime” supernova and mapped it in “unprecedented” detail, the WIS said in a statement on Wednesday.
A supernova is a massive star explosion that occurs when a star burns through its fuel at the end of its lifespan, resulting in a brilliant burst of fiery plasma in vibrant colors radiating with the brightness of a hundred million suns. As described in the journal Nature, the team used NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope to witness in real-time one of the closest supernovae in decades, a red supergiant star exploding in a neighboring galaxy, Messier 101.
The researchers were able, for the first time, to closely follow a supernova while its light emerged from the circumstellar material in which the exploding star was embedded. They then acquired data on the star from times before its demise when it was just a red supergiant star, thus creating the most complete portrait of a supernova, a composite of its last days and death.
The team also found a gap between the mass of material ejected from the star during the explosion and its original mass, suggesting that the supernova left behind a black hole into which the missing mass was swallowed. The researchers concluded that “this study presents a unique opportunity to better understand the mechanisms that lead to the conclusion of a star’s life and the eventual formation of something entirely new.”
1. What is a supernova according to the passage?| A．A star’s natural aging process. |
| B．A brilliant burst of fiery plasma. |
| C．A collision between two stars. |
| D．A black hole swallowing matter. |
| A．Through a ground-based telescope. |
| B．By the Weizmann Institute alone. |
| C．Using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. |
| D．By mapping it in unprecedented detail. |
| A．It left behind a neutron star. |
| B．Its light emerged from circumstellar material. |
| C．It exploded in the Messier 101 galaxy. |
| D．Its mass was similar to that of a red supergiant. |
| A．It was ejected into space. |
| B．It formed a new star. |
| C．It was swallowed by a black hole. |
| D．It turned into circumstellar material. |
1. Which of the following countries has NOT found mad cow disease yet?
| A．England. | B．Japan. | C．China. |
| A．By using MBM (meat-and –bone meal) with different plants. |
| B．By eating infected (感染) meal. |
| C．By importing foreign cattle. |
| A．Because it’s a great waste of money. |
| B．Because doing this can keep the disease from spreading in China. |
| C．Because we must use our own feed. |
1. What are sharks famous for?
| A．Their large bodies. | B．Their high intelligence. | C．Their attacks on sea creatures. |
| A．20 m. | B．10 m. | C．2 m. |
| A．Escape from danger. | B．Find their food. | C．Kill their enemies. |
| A．In warm waters of oceans. | B．In cold areas of oceans. | C．In warm lakes. |
4 . Watford and her family have lived in Curtis Bay, Baltimore for generations. Her community has faced environmental injustice. Heavy industries continued to move in her community. As a result, her neighbors have had to live with serious respiratory (呼吸的) problems.
When she knew a plan to build the nation’s largest trash-burning incinerator (焚化炉) less than a mile away from her high school, she realized she had to take action. The incinerator was being sold wrongly as clean, renewable energy equipment but actually it would be a source of brain-damaging chemicals and would release 200 million tons of greenhouse gases per year, both worse than coal burning. Watford felt she had a responsibility to warn her community to work together to shut this plant down.
She co-founded Free Your Voice (FYV), a 10-person student organization devoted to community rights and social justice. Together, they decided to start a campaign to take down Energy Answers, the incinerator’s developer. They went door-to-door talking to neighbors and organizing protests.
When it was discovered that Baltimore City Public Schools (BCPS) was going to be a customer of Energy Answers, the organization fought with the board and presented their case, urging BCPS to withdraw from the project. BCPS was convinced to cancel their contract, which in turn inspired 22 other customers to do the same. Without any financial gain, Energy Answers had no market to move forward with its plan.
Watford continues to work with Curtis Bay residents toward fair development. They have a vision for the future which includes building a zero-waste movement, a solar farm, and green jobs. She wants the entire human family to join the fight for environmental justice because survival as a species depends on our ability to take action.
1. What caused respiratory problems in Watford’s community?| A．Poor medical care. | B．Terrible environmental conditions. |
| C．Constant bacterial infection. | D．Unbalanced distribution of resources. |
| A．Unfavourable. | B．Doubtful. | C．Unclear. | D．Indifferent. |
| A．BCPS lost financial support. | B．Energy Answers stopped its plan. |
| C．The investors found new market. | D．Many customers revised their contracts. |
| A．A teenage hero against urban pollution |
| B．A teenage hero fighting for an advanced city |
| C．A battle for Baltimore’s sky by a teenage hero |
| D．The social justice challenge for a teenage hero |
1. What did the woman watch?
| A．A soap opera. | B．A documentary. | C．A news program. |
| A．President Barack Obama’s schedule. |
| B．The release of CO2 by power plants. |
| C．A plan to fight against global warming. |
| A．Indifferent. | B．Positive. | C．Negative. |
| A．Go to have supper. | B．Go to have a drink. | C．Keep talking at home. |
I was eight years old when my mother was told that she would never walk again without calipers (双脚规形夹) , and she wished to visit doctors in London.
The day before we boarded the ship, father committed (托付) his pet dog, Spider to his friend Sandy while we were overseas. We didn’t know how long my mother’s treatment would take or how long we would be away.
Six weeks later, an air-letter arrived from Sandy, saying that Spider had run away just two weeks after we had sailed and that despite many efforts, the dog was never found. I will always remember my father’s eyes watery as he read this news. Though my mother and I tried to comfort him, we knew in our hearts how useless that was.
We sailed back to Australia two years later. My father immediately began his own search for Spider. After many false calls, we had to accept the fact that the dog was gone.
One cold winter’s Saturday morning eight months after our return, my father had a call from Gin Gin, an old lady 375 kilometers away. On the phone she said she had been putting food out “for a very yellow old dog” in the night for weeks and “it was just glimpses of the similar dog in the shadows” in her disused tennis court.
That was enough for my father to drive five and a half hours to see this yellow dog. Sadly, Gin Gin told us the yellow dog hadn’t been around for a few days. My father had a strange look in his eyes.
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。
Then, he put two fingers to his lips and did his special whistle for Spider.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________It was him, my father’s long-lost friend, Spider.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________7 . Each fall, millions of butterflies across the U. S. and Canada fly up to 4, 000 km to central Mexico. Travelers can see the butterflies overwintering on the Western Monarch Trail, a 465-mile, road trip-friendly conservation initiative that links over a dozen stops along the route.
Helping the butterflies
Organizers created educational panels in English and Spanish explaining the butterflies’ annual traveling and their trouble. The signs also outline ways travelers can help the butterflies recover, such as by supporting chemical-free farms and planting native nectar (花蜜) gardens.
Why butterflies fly to the California coast
Many stops in Pismo State Beach Monarch Butterfly Grove and Andrew Molera State Park, are overwintering sites where, from October to February, travelers can see thousands of butterflies gathering in forests in areas with mild temperatures, dappled (斑驳的) sunlight, high dampness, and little to no wind.
Other sites, like the San Luis Obispo Botanical Garden and Avila Valley Barn, growflowers that provide sugary, high-calorie food for the butterflies to eat. Butterflies settling here demonstrate how vital nectaring plants are to their survival.
How to explore the Western Monarch Trail
The butterflies’ behavior varies at different times of day and depending on the weather. In the mornings, while temperatures are still cool, step out of the cabin (木屋) in the Fernwood Resort where you stay overnight, you’ll find many butterflies hanging together on the branches and trunks of trees at the overwintering sites. As the day starts to heat up-typically by late morning or early afternoon — you’ll be amazed at the phenomenon “sunburst” — the butterflies start flying around in search of nearby nectar. Keep your eyes skyward. Don’t grab your camera. Just be in the moment.
1. What’s the Western Monarch Trail initiative aimed at?| A．Providing a travel route. | B．Encountering butterflies. |
| C．Promoting organic farming. | D．Advocating species conservation. |
| A．It holds many nectar gardens. |
| B．It’s pleasant throughout winter. |
| C．It has sufficient food for butterflies. |
| D．It’s home to butterflies all year around. |
| A．Signs to guide the route. |
| B．Cameras for recording videos. |
| C．Ready shelters to stay overnight. |
| D．Experience of watching “sunburst” at dawn. |
8 . A study was carried out as a cooperation program among researchers at the universities of Turku (Finland), Sydney (Australia) and Cordoba (Spain). Those researchers used artificial nests (人工鸟巢) to test two methods for reducing the nest predation (捕食) of endangered ground-nesting birds.
Predator control is a common challenge in areas where many animals, such as ground-nesting birds, cannot bear the impact of the increased number of predators. For example, in areas that have fewer top predators, the red fox population can be overly large for the areas they live in. Besides, predator control by hunting can be hard and cannot be carried out everywhere or at any time, for example, during the birds’ nesting season. In such cases, the foxes can cause a decline in the populations of some birds.
In the first experimental sites, the researchers spread waterfowl’s smell in wetland areas. With the chemical camouflage (伪装), the researchers studied whether predators might fail to find the artificial bird nests. In other areas, the researchers used eggs giving off an unpleasant smell which could cause discomfort with the goal of making predators believe that the bird eggs were not eatable. The researchers also used control sites which they visited as frequently as the experimental sites to stop predators from making the right choices.
The study showed that the chemical camouflage especially decreased the predation of the artificial bird nests by red foxes. “Unlike other predators, red foxes were more easily deceived into not eating bird eggs than some other predators. We found red foxes might rely more on their sense of smell to find bird nests. The chemical smells could make most of them think the food they found could not be eaten,” explains Senior Researcher Vesa Selonen from the University of Turku.
“Our results are interesting as they show that these approaches could reduce the nest predation of endangered birds. We’re wondering whether the results we observed with the artificial nests can also lead to the protection of real bird nests and a larger number of young birds,” says Professor Toni Laaksonen from the University of Turku.
1. What does the author want to show by mentioning predator control?| A．The number of red foxes is out of control. |
| B．The living areas of ground-nesting birds are limited. |
| C．Predator control and hunting should be applied together. |
| D．New solutions for fighting predation are necessary. |
| A．Driving away the smart predators. |
| B．Causing the bird eggs to be unsuitable for eating. |
| C．Making the wetland areas attractive to the predators. |
| D．Confusing the predators about the location of nests. |
| A．Forced. | B．Raised. | C．Cheated. | D．Frightened. |
| A．Put their research methods into practice. |
| B．Search for new sites to continue the experiments. |
| C．Perfect their methods to study birds’ nesting behavior. |
| D．Develop more methods of designing artificial nests. |
9 . In South Africa, the African Penguin Nest Project team made up of researchers and wildlife protectors from around the world has designed handmade ceramic (陶瓷的) nest boxes over the last five years to protect endangered penguins from the warming weather caused by climate change.
In the past, the seabirds laid their eggs in holes dug into centuries old layers of their own waste. But in the late 1800s, most of the waste was collected as plant food by traders. Since then, many penguins have nested in the open, exposing them to heatstroke and their eggs to their enemies. “We have put this species at risk of extinction, mainly because of human desires,” said Shaun Welman, a zoologist at Nelson Mandela University. The population of these seabirds in Africa has fallen from 3 million to 48,000 since 1900, according to reports.
But thanks to the team, more than 1,500 ceramic nests have been made and placed across five different penguin colonies (群落) in South Africa. The structures are able to stand up to higher temperatures than traditional holes and outperformed cement (水泥) and fiberglass models, according to a study co-authored by Welman.
The ceramic nests are built by hand. The 72-hour process requires a high level of attention to details to make sure the raw materials are combined successfully. A number of air holes designed to give out heat and keep penguins cool are drilled into the top of the nests, says Kevin Graham, leader of the African Penguin Nest Project.
Having spent three years researching and testing the nests, Graham placed the first 200 structures in two South African penguin colonies in 2018. Within the first month, researchers discovered eggs in 40%of the nests in one colony and 25%of the nests in the other.
“If everything goes well and these nests continue to work, we can keep giving them homes,” said Graham. “Each one we build is eco-friendly.” He added, “We can’t solve the population decline with just the nests, but at least we can give them a place to raise kids.”
1. What led to the fall in penguins’ population at first?| A．Sea pollution. | B．Human activity. |
| C．Climate change. | D．Introduced pests. |
| A．They are easier to build and repair. |
| B．They are more environmentally friendly. |
| C．They can better protect penguins from the heat. |
| D．They can better stop the eggs from being attacked. |
| A．The ceramic nests are effective. |
| B．The penguins’ eggs are hard to find. |
| C．The ceramic nests need improvements. |
| D．The two colonies have different living habits. |
| A．To offer suggestions on wildlife protection. |
| B．To find out the threats African penguins face. |
| C．To show the achievements of an African project team. |
| D．To introduce a handmade nest benefiting penguins. |
10 . Tropical (热带的) forests could become so hot that some kinds of leaves will no longer be able to conduct photosynthesis (光 合 作用), according to a study. The photosynthetic machinery in tropical trees begins to fail at about 46.7℃ on average. The research suggests that forests may be nearing dangerous temperature sooner than expected. Models predict that once we hit a global temperature increase of 3.9℃, these forests might experience mass leaf damage.
Chris Doughty, an associate professor at Northern Arizona University and the lead researcher of the study, said the leaf-warming experiments had revealed a nonlinear rise in temperatures. “We were really surprised that when we warmed leaves by 2, 3 or 4℃, the highest leaf temperatures actually increased by 8℃. This shows a concerning nonlinear feedback that we were not expecting.” said Doughty. “If we adopt a do-nothing response to climate change and tropical forest air temperatures increase by greater than 4℃, there could be massive leaf death.” he added.
Avoiding high emissions (排放) in the first place is key to stabilizing temperatures. “We should do all we can to avoid high-emissions. Under low-emissions, almost all tropical forest tree leaves can avoid death from overheating and the trees will survive,” said Simon Lewis, a professor of global change science at University College London. “Yet what the study doesn’t look at is heatwaves. We still might see tree deaths from overheating for limited periods during heatwaves under lower emissions.”
Researchers suggest that the damage is not yet unchanged. “Vote for people who are serious about addressing climate change and transferring to low-carbon economies, ”Disney, one researcher, advocated. More generally, we can all recognize the importance of supporting those countries and people who live in and rely on tropical forests economically, But the serious changes to tropical forests don’t just affect the local people it’s a global issue.
1. Which of the following can best replace the underlined word “nonlinear” in Paragraph 2?| A．Global. | B．Dramatic. | C．Steady. | D．Minor. |
| A．Planting more trees. | B．Exploring heatwaves. |
| C．Conducting researches. | D．Pursuing low emissions. |
| A．Promoting global efforts. |
| B．Seeking economic support. |
| C．Helping tropical countries. |
| D．Boosting low-carbon education. |
| A．Global warming harms trees. |
| B．Tropical forests lose functions. |
| C．Tropical leaves struggle in heat. |
| D．Forests near dangerous temperature. |
