1 . People flood into cities for understandable reasons: more job opportunities, more cultural diversity and larger communities. Yet living in a concrete-walled, green-poor, urban environment takes away from our-very essence our fundamental need to be close to nature. We can’t quite break the link with our evolutionary (进化的) past and part ways with our origins. Surrounding ourselves with walls and ‘screens, we tend to pay a price, often with our health and quality of life.

In Japan, a populous country with vast expanses of green forests, an ancient tradition, known as shinrin-yoku, or forest bathing, tries to balance out the pressure from urban living. It’s the practice of spending prolonged periods of time with trees to gain from their many health benefits. In a book hitting shelves this month, Forest Bathing: How Trees Can Help You Find Health and Happiness, Dr. Qing Li, the world’s foremost expert in forest medicine, introduces readers to the valuable practice of forest bathing. The book features more than 100 color photographs of forests around the world. One may reject this kind of book as yet less convincing, but the point is that Li has not just practiced forest bathing, but has also studied its impact on people’s health through numerous scientific studies. He has data to support his claims, collected in a long list of expert-reviewed articles at the end of the book.

The book lists studies that consistently show-a substantial, reduction of stress hormones (应激激素). Essential tree oils found in forest air increase energy levels by more than 30 percent and improve a general state of well-being, including improvement in sleep.

Scientific results apart, the, concept of forest bathing shouldn’t be so surprising. Who hasn’t felt an inner sense of well-being when walking along a quiet forest path? Stepping into a forest, away from the artificial sounds and smells of urban life, does feel like pushing a life reset button, reestablishing a connection with our deepest needs.

To celebrate this wonderful book and. what seems to be a rediscovery of forest bathing in our life, I’m going to go now—to take: my forest bath.

1. What is stressed in paragraph 1?

A．The harm of electronics.

B．The downside of city life.

C．The consequences of lack of workout.

D．The reasons for pursuit of urban living.

2. What’s the book aimed at?

A．Promoting a lifestyle.

B．Presenting research results.

C．Stating the significance of walks.

D．Appealing for forest conservation.

3. Which of the following can best describe Dr. Li’s book?

A．One-sided.	B．Sharply worded.
C．Evidence-based.	D．Widely recognized.

4. How is the benefit of forest bathing further proved in paragraph 4?

A．Through clinical cases.

B．Through practical experience.

C．Through official statistics.

D．Through Japanese experts’ studies.

2 . 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。

More than 500 years ago, explorers sailed to the Americas. They    1     (bring) a few four-legged passengers along with them: pigs. Today, there are     2     (near) six million wild pigs, also known as boars (野猪),    3     (run) free in the US.

Boars can cause a lot of damage to crops and soccer fields.They eat baby birds and turtle eggs. Every year, they cause $1.5 billion in damage. People do all they could to stop them,     4    boars keep going strong.

Texas is home to half of the country’s boar population. Some     5     (county) offer hunters $5 for every boar tail they bring in. High-tech means are also used     6     (battle) the wild pigs. The latest is a steel (钢) cage     7    hangs off the ground— officials lay a track of tasty corn leading to     8    cage. Special cameras record the boars approaching. Officials watch from afar. At just the right moment, the officials press a button on an app. The cage drops and traps a dozen boars all at once.

But boars are smart. They’ve learned ways to avoid getting     9     (catch). They know that humans hunt in daylight. Now the animals sleep during the day and eat at night, when it’s much    10     (safe). Until we find a way to outsmart them, boars will keep pigging out on farms and gardens.

3 . You have probably eaten a hot dog, but have you ever spotted a sundog? This isn’t your pet dog napping in the sun!

A sundog is a weather event that causes two bright bursts of rainbow colored light to appear on either side of the sun. You would see them around 3 o’clock and 9 o’clock. Sundogs can be very beautiful, with a red glow closest to the sun and a white in the center. The scientific name for sundogs is parhelia, which comes from a Greek word meaning “beside the sun”.

Conditions need to be just right for sundogs to appear. Sunlight passes through high clouds that spread out like feathers in front of the sun. These clouds contain flat, six-sided ice crystals (晶体). If the crystal drifts toward the ground, with the larger face facing the Earth, light is refracted (折射). These crystals then separate the light, forming a sundog.

Sundogs can be seen during any season but are most often seen during the winter months when the sun is lower in the sky. You are also more likely to see them early or late in the day, when the sun is near the horizon. Sundogs have been spotted around the world, across North America, Europe, and Asia, at the South Pole and in the far north. Scientists have even predicted what sundogs might look like on other planets.

Throughout history, sundogs have been used to predict weather because they indicate snow or rain on its way. Some people believed that sundogs were a sign of good luck, while others saw them as a warning from God. Shakespeare described sundogs in poems as frightening.

Ready to try out your weather detective skills? First, use your hand to block the center of the sun to protect your eyes. Search for clouds in a winter sky and a circle or burst of light around the sun. Be sure to show off your sundog smarts to your friends and family — you’ll be their top dog!

1. What can be inferred about a sundog from the passage?

A．It leads the sun to produce crystals.	B．It forms under strict circumstances.
C．It causes the appearance of rainbow.	D．It separates the sun from high clouds.

2. Which of the following conditions is most suitable for observing a sundog?

A．One summer midday in China.	B．One late winter night in America.
C．One winter morning in Europe.	D．One summer morning in the Arctic.

3. Why is Shakespeare mentioned in the 5th paragraph?

A．To convince readers of the beauty of sundogs.

B．To illustrate the wide range of topics of his poems.

C．To help readers understand the function of sundogs.

D．To show impressions of sundogs vary among viewers.

4. What tone does the writer use in the last paragraph?

A．Confident.

B．Encouraging.

C．Worried.

D．Fearful.

4 . In the third grade, ten-year-old Jane read a book about poaching (偷猎) the endangered tigers and cutting down forests at will. She told her friend Holt about it and she really wanted to help save the tigers.

Despite being in elementary school, the two girls have organized fundraisers(资金筹集).During their first year, the girls raised $1,500 to save tigers. “We went to a zoo and asked if we could help and it became this huge fun thing. We never expected it to get so big,” the girls said.

When Jane and Holt pitched their ideas in the zoo to ask for funds, their table was packed with zoo guests all afternoon. This year’s goal is $2,500. Whatever they raise will be matched by the Zoological Society and all be donated(捐赠) to the Tiger Protection Fund.

On top of helping the animal, the girls would also be excited about their names to be proudly posted at the zoo’s entrance on a sign with other donors. “If we get our names on it, it’s going to feel like being famous, and it’s going to be like a dream come true for us,” Jane said. They said they were close to their goal and the zoo couldn’t be happier.

“Their awareness of what’s happening to tigers and their wanting to educate people on what’s happening to tigers are unbelievable,” Kassner, an animal expert, said. “Three kinds of tigers have already died out and the remaining six are all endangered. The ‘Tiger Girls’ are bringing a big and positive effect and won’t be stopping anytime soon.”

“I’m so happy that we’ve come this far. We can do this now though we’re only fifth graders and just imagine what we can do in the future,” Holt said.

1. What led Jane to have the idea of saving tigers?

A．The support of her school.	B．Her teacher’s encouragement.
C．The suggestion from her friend.	D．Her personal reading experience.

2. What does the underlined word “pitched” in paragraph 3 mean?

A．Investigated.

B．Accepted.

C．Publicized.

D．Considered.

3. What does Kassner think about the two girls?

A．They have made a great difference.

B．They succeed in stopping people poaching.

C．They enable people to focus on school education.

D．They realized the dream of becoming well-known.

4. Which of the following can best describe the two girls?

A．Proud and traditional.	B．Creative and confident.
C．Serious and humorous.	D．Courageous and curious.

5 . Lufinha has crossed the Atlantic Ocean in a small boat powered only by the sun and wind. He used kites to move the boat and solar power to use lights and equipment on the boat. He expects his trip will earn him a Guinness World Record for Fastest Solo Atlantic Crossing by Kite Boat. He also hopes to help people understand the need to protect the oceans.

The kite-powered boat reached top speeds of over 30 kilometers per hour. Lufinha traveled 6,400 kilometers in 25 days. The 38-year-old set out from Cascais, near Lisbon, Portugal on November 3, 2022, and arrived in Martinique on December 20, Lufinha was not at sea for all that time, however. He made a planned stop at the Canary Islands on November 8. But he had to stay longer than planned because of the powerful storm and he remained there until November 30.

Lufinha made the crossing completely alone in a 7.2-meter-long and 5.6-meter-wide trimaran, a boat which has three long, thin parts, with a small room for sleeping and shelter. Lufinha used a hand pump (抽水机) to produce water for drinking and cooking. He said, “I have two such water makers, which I can pump and every hour I can make around four liters of water.” The water pump has a special filter (过滤器) to remove salt from the sea water. Lufinha used the water to add to dried food he carried with him on the boat.

He called his trip “a big learning experience”. It was a big test of his adaptability. He learned most of all to look at his problems relatively. He had so many problems all of the time, such as kites getting torn and kites exploding (爆炸). And the only way not to suffer was to think, “It could be worse.” He said his way of thinking during the difficult crossing helped him get through it hour by hour, day by day, week by week until he finished this Atlantic crossing.

1. What’s one of the purposes of Lufinha’s trip?

A．To set a new world record.

B．To map out a new sailing route.

C．To check his boat’s performance.

D．To collect money for the local charity.

2. Why did Lufinha stay longer than expected at the Canary Islands?

A．His boat broke down halfway.

B．He took the wrong sailing direction.

C．His water pumps required replacing.

D．He was overtaken by terrible weather.

3. What was Lufinha’s biggest gain from the trip?

A．He developed his own independence.

B．He discovered how to obtain drinkable water.

C．He learned to view problems more positively.

D．He mastered more advanced sailing techniques.

4. Which of the following can best describe Lufinha?

A．Strict and honest.	B．Calm and curious.
C．Determined and brave.	D．Outgoing and generous.

6 . For sharks, the Mesoamerican Reef, which stretches over 600 miles, is a busy highway. Sharks use it to find their way and it provides them with food and habitat.

But as with on-land highways, this superhighway can be dangerous. Overfishing, commercial development and illegal practices are endangering the species. “We’re seeing a continued decline in shark populations. Our goal is to turn that round.” says Rachel Graham, founder of Mar Alliance, a non-profit organization focused on conserving sharks.

By monitoring sharks, Mar Alliance can collect important knowledge on the species to help inform conservation and push for political action. But rather than acting in opposition to the local fishing community, MarAlliance enlists their help.

“They are the ones who are on the sea every single day,” says Graham, “and they’re the ones who decide the species’ future.”

MarAlliance employs up to 60 fishermen across its range, mostly on a project basis, training them to collect data, record and release fish. Not only does this provide an alternative income to fishing communities, making them less dependent on natural resources, but it also teaches them about the benefits of a healthy ocean ecosystem and how to fish sustainably.

Among them, Ivan Torres, who used to catch sharks to sell locally as food, has learned how critical they’re to the whole ecosystem, saying he’d never fish sharks any more.

If this attitude change continues to spread throughout fishing communities, Graham has hope for the shark populations. “The primary threat to sharks is unquestionably overfishing,” she says, “By reforming the industry, populations can bounce back.”

In 2020, Belize outlawed the use of gillnets, large panels of netting of trapping large sealife. The ban’s impact is already noticeable with a recorded 10-fold increase in shark populations.

But such regulations need to be copied along the whole superhighway for long-lasting impact, and countries need to find a sustainable balance between fishers and the fished. “We need to find a win-win strategy between fisher livelihoods and shark survival,” Graham emphasizes. “I hope that through education and providing an economic alternative for fishing communities, MarAlliance will help ensure safe passage for sharks along the reef”.

1. Which of the following best describes the Mesoamerican Reef for sharks?

A．Romantic but messy.	B．Vital but insecure.
C．Adventurous but beautiful.	D．Unfamiliar but reliable.

2. What does the underlined “they” in paragraph 4 refer to?

A．MarAlliance.	B．The fishers.
C．Monitoring authorities.	D．The sharks.

3. What contributed to Ivan’s attitude shift apart from education?

A．A stricter fishing ban.	B．The insurance payout he earned.
C．An offer of extra work.	D．The fishing communities’ intervention.

4. What is mainly stressed in the last paragraph?

A．Solution to overfishing.	B．Difficulties facing MarAlliance.
C．Impact of existing regulations.	D．Features of international cooperation.

7 . A method to transform a commonly thrown-away plastic to a resin (树脂) used in 3D- printing could allow for making better use of plastic waste.

A team of Washington State University researchers developed a simple and efficient way to transform polylactic acid(PLA), a bio-based plastic used in products such as plastic tableware and food packing to a high-quality resin. Yu-Chung Chang, a postdoctoral researcher on the work said they made stronger materials just straight out of waste, and they hoped that would provide people with the stimulation to upcycle this stuff instead of just throwing it away.

PLA is rarely recycled because like most plastics, when it’s melted down and reformed, it doesn’t perform as well as the original version and becomes less valuable.

“But once you look into it, it turns out that it can take up to 100 years for it to break down in a landfill,” Chang said. “In reality, it still creates a lot of pollution. We want to make sure that when we start producing PLA millions of tons, we will know how to deal with it. ”

In their study, the researchers developed a fast method to recycle PLA breaking the long chain of molecules (分子) down into simple monomers (单体)-the building blocks for many plastics. The entire chemical process can be done at mild temperatures in about two days. The chemical they used to break down PLA, aminoethanol, is also inexpensive.

“If you want to rebuild a Lego castle into a car, you have to take it apart brick by brick, Chang said. “That’s what we did.” Once PLA was broken down to its basic building blocks, the researchers rebuilt the plastic and created a type of liquid resin that is commonly used as printing “ink” for 3D printers. When used in a 3D printer and cured into plastic pieces the product was equal or better than commercially available resins.

The researchers have applied for a temporary patent and are working to further improve the process. They are also looking into other applications for the upncycling method.

1. What’s the main purpose of the researchers work?

A．To expand the use of 3D printing	B．To make better use of plastic waste.
C．To call on people not to throw away plastic.	D．To show off their high-technology methods.

2. What does the underlined phrase “this stuff” in paragraph 2 refer to?

A．The high-quality resin.	B．Polylactic acid.
C．The upcycling method.	D．Plastic food packing

3. Why does the author mention “a Lego castle” in the last but one paragraph?

A．To illustrate the process of remodeling	B．To explain how to deal with Lego bricks
C．To show the difficulties of their research.	D．To offer a model for the better improvement

4. What might be the best title of the text?

A．The Inexpensive Chemical Used to Break Down the PLA

B．Newly-developed 3D Printer for More Plastic Applications

C．New Way Found to Turn Plastic Waste Into Valuable Products

D．The Upcoming Age of New Plastic Without Pollution to the Environment

8 . Sharks are among the best swimmers on the planet, but a new research suggests that even they sometimes “hold their breath” while diving deep underwater. The reason is that sharks are cold-blooded and their body temperature matches the waters they swim in. To do deep dives, they must maintain body heat, and the best way to do that is to close their gills (鳃).

Royer, a leading researcher at the University of Hawaii, set out to study the diving habits of hammerheads sharks. They’re known for swimming in warmer coastal waters, but earlier studies showed they can also dive to over 800 meters below the surface. At those cold depths, the water temperature falls to as low as 5℃.

For these sharks, the fall in temperature is a matter of life and death. Because a shark can’t produce its own body heat, it begins to freeze the deeper it goes. Its muscles, eyes and brain become sluggish (迟钝). If it gets too cold, it can’t swim. And if it stops swimming, water doesn’t go across its gills. It can’t breathe and will eventually drown (溺亡).

How is it that hammerheads are able to go down into these deep depths and survive? To find out, Royer and his colleagues caught the fish and attached an electronic sensor to each shark. The sensor would release itself from the shark’s body after several weeks. The data they found amazed them: The sharks dived, spent just a few minutes at depths and then they shot towards the surface. They closed their gills and kept water out of their gills so that their body wouldn’t cool down.

“Unlike animals with lungs, the sharks don’t return to the surface to breathe. Instead, they simply go to a depth where it’s warm enough for them to feel comfortable and reopen their gills. Hammerheads are probably not the only species doing so. Our work is another example of how new electronic sensors help to explain the extraordinary ability of these animals across 400 million years of changing ocean environments,” Royer said.

1. What does the new research focus on concerning the sharks?

A．Their hunting habits.	B．Their basic types.
C．Their special behaviors.	D．Their body structures.

2. What does the underlined word “that” in paragraph 1 refer to?

A．Keeping body heat.	B．Holding their breath.
C．Swimming on the surface.	D．Diving deep in the sea.

3. What does paragraph 3 mainly tell us about hammerheads sharks?

A．How their gills work in the sea.

B．How the temperature drop affects them.

C．Why they can survive the terrible environment.

D．Why they can protect themselves from the cold.

4. What can we know from Royer’s words?

A．Hammerheads depend on their lungs to breathe.

B．The diving strategy may not be unique to hammerheads.

C．It’s hard for hammerheads to adapt to the cold conditions.

D．It’s common for hammerheads to stay long at great depths.

9 . The honeybee waggle dance has been celebrated as a most complex animal communication system. A study uncovered its new property that bees must partially learn the dance from watching experienced dancers, a discovery that torpedoes the general perception that the dance is wholly inborn. A dancer bee relays information to follower bees about the target location by adjusting herself while shaking her stomach, allowing for impressive flexibility in the angle, duration and her enthusiasm. Her body’s angle corresponds to the sun’s position relative to the nest entrance.

The distance information is conveyed by the dance duration. And the more energetic and passionate the dance, the better the food. She’ll waggle in a straight line for seconds before circling back to repeat the dance, creating the figure eight pattern.

This bee waggle dance system was long assumed to be natural behavior, but researchers made a breakthrough through an experiment. They created territories of newborn bees completely separated from mature ones. When the newborn started visiting flowers and producing their first waggle dances, they consistently made more errors in the way they reported the angle and distance to the food source than bees raised in mixed-aged territories and thus exposed to the waggle dance since they were born. They also generated looser figure eight patterns, making it harder for the follower bees to get the message. Even when placed back into a territory with mature bees, they never seemed to learn how to communicate information correctly.

These results suggest every honeybee is born with a waggle dance model that gives them a basic understanding of how to dance. By watching their elders, they’ll acquire new rules on how to generate the dance unique to their territory.

This is the first known example of such complex social learning of communication in insects and is a form of animal culture, strikingly similar to the way human language generates new languages to shape itself around the local conditions. While the waggle dance is second to human language in terms of the ability to communicate diverse information through random symbols, the newly-discovered property makes it even more language-like and just that much more mind-blowing.

1. What does the underlined word “torpedoes” mean in paragraph 1?

A．Illustrates.

B．Overturns.

C．Fits in with.

D．Gives rise to.

2. On what basis do the follower bees judge the target food’s quality?

A．The dancer’s physical angle.	B．The dancer’s dance duration.
C．The dancer’s dance liveliness.	D．The dancer’s body flexibility.

3. What can we infer about young bees from paragraph 3?

A．They’re absolutely ignorant of the waggle dance.

B．They can’t survive but for contact with mature bees.

C．They enhance dance routines by autonomous trial and error.

D．They can master the local dance by following elders from birth.

4. What does the underlined word “it” in the last paragraph refer to?

A．The waggle dance.	B．Human language.
C．The new property.	D．Diverse information.

10 . 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。

Dongying city in China’s Shandong Province has witnessed(目睹) ecological improvements in the Yellow River Delta, thanks to various    1    (effect) measures to improve wetland restoration and protection.

Years ago, the wetlands there    2    (threaten) due to less water from the river and other factors.    3    (protect) the wetlands ecosystem, the Yellow River Delta National Nature Reserve was established in 1992. Since then, the city    4    (carry) out several management projects and restored the biotic(生物) population in the zone.

Dongying has been adopting a comprehensive wetlands restoration model by giving high     5    (prior) to protecting the nature reserve and letting nature restore     6    (it). Over the past three years, it’s transferred(转运) 469 million cubic meters of water to the nature reserve,    7    has recovered the ecological functions of the wetlands there.

Last year, Dongying built a real-time monitoring network for bird species at the nature reserve, which helps ensure that birds are free    8    disturbance of human activity and puts the habitats of cranes and other species under key protection. As a result, the nature reserve has seen    9    obvious increase in the variety and number of bird species. Home to 371 bird species, it’s become an important stop, wintering ground and breeding place for migratory birds. Dongying is currently working to build the Yellow River Estuary National Park, which will cover 3,523 square kilometers,    10    (include) land area and sea area, to explore pathways for the protection of Delta ecology.