On a weekend in early October, Hu Wenjue and a group of children gathered in a wetland park. Hu pointed at a wild bird and spoke in a low voice while the children were listening
Hu is a pioneer in nature education in Hefei, Anhui Province. He
“Respecting the laws of nature and coexisting with nature harmoniously, we could change our lifestyle for the
In recent years, China has seen great development in nature education,
“Nature is generous to us if we give
2 . Animals can move from place to place，but plants cannot.When an animal is under attack，it can run away or fight back.Plants certainly cannot run away，and they lack teeth and claws.
Some plants have their own ways to keep animals away.For example，the leaves of the holly plant have sharp spines(刺) that discourage grass-eating animals.Holly leaves on lower branches have more spines than leaves on upper branches.
Some plants，such as the oak tree，have thick and hard leaves that make it difficult for the animals to eat.Some grasses may contain a sandy material.
Many plants also have chemical defenses.
| A．Animals are good at protecting themselves. |
| B．Eating such grasses wears down animals’ teeth. |
| C．Many plants depend on both physical and chemical defenses. |
| D．Plants have more ways to defend against the enemies than animals. |
| E．This is because the lower leaves are easier for most animals to reach. |
| F．Some plants produce chemicals that taste bitter or cause an unpleasant reaction. |
| G．But plants can defend themselves by using both the physical and chemical means. |
3 . Neal Moore was boating along New York State’s Mohawk River. Now he was
His paddle (桨) has touched 21 bodies of
At evenings, sunset often
Moore was anything but
The
On December 14, 2021, Moore made his final approach to New York City. Near the George Washington Bridge, the winds came up so strong that he
It was hard to
His mother was
| A．researching | B．approaching | C．celebrating | D．announcing |
| A．sand | B．ice | C．water | D．soil |
| A．achievement | B．goal | C．experience | D．document |
| A．shone | B．called | C．depended | D．looked |
| A．work | B．hike | C．explore | D．camp |
| A．remote | B．safe | C．beautiful | D．noisy |
| A．contrast | B．company | C．line | D．contact |
| A．remembering | B．bearing | C．demanding | D．leaving |
| A．puzzled | B．disappointed | C．determined | D．satisfied |
| A．extraordinary | B．traditional | C．reasonable | D．imaginary |
| A．inspiration | B．guidance | C．destination | D．journey |
| A．repeat | B．test | C．learn | D．tour |
| A．joined in | B．gave in | C．looked up | D．ended up |
| A．understand | B．believe | C．admit | D．predict |
| A．proud | B．sure | C．strict | D．smart |
4 . If you think about World Heritage Sites, you probably think of places connected with ancient art and culture, historical buildings and monuments. And of course, many of these are on the World Heritage List (WHL) (世界遗产名录). But the WHL contains a lot of sites that are not so obvious. Let’s look at a few of them.
Robben Island in South Africa
This island was used through the centuries a s a prison, a hospital and a military base. But it’s probably most famous as a maximum-security prison for political prisoners in the twentieth century. Nelson Mandela was one of its most famous residents. The WHL says it represents “the victory of democracy (民主) and freedom over oppression (压迫) and racism (种族主义).”
Borders of France and Spain
This is an area of great natural beauty and the mountains have many interesting geological formations. But it is also an area of small farm. People there still use a type of agriculture that used to be common in mountainous areas of Europe but that has almost complete disappeared in modern times.
The city of Brasilia, Brazil
Brasilia is a capital city that was created from nothing in 1956. The WHL calls it “a landmark in the history of town planning”. The different areas of the city and the buildings themselves were all designed at the same time carefully. Every part of the city shows the ideas of the planner and architect.
Simien National Park, Ethiopia
Simien National Park was one of the first sites to be listed in 1978. It is one of the highest mountainous areas in Africa, and the WHL calls it “one of the most spectacular landscapes in the world”. It is also important for its wildlife. The population of some rare animals is getting smaller and smaller.
1. Which of the following sites was listed on the WHL for its political symbol?| A．Simien National Park, Ethiopia. | B．Robben Island in South Africa. |
| C．Borders of France and Spain. | D．The city of Brasilia, Brazil. |
| A．Robben Island in South Africa. | B．Borders of France and Spain. |
| C．The city of Brasilia, Brazil. | D．Simien National Park, Ethiopia. |
| A．the remains of ancient cultures on the WHL |
| B．the household heritage sites on the WHL |
| C．important places of art and culture |
| D．some of the less well-known sites on the WHL |
5 . Used clothing that you no longer wear can be donated to charities. And clothing with broken zippers or missing buttons can be repaired and worn again. But what do you do when your favorite shirt is too torn to wear or your socks have too many holes?
Every year in the UK, 336, 000 tons of unwanted old clothing and shoes are thrown out and sent to landfills (废物填埋场), according to Recycle Now.
One of the best ways to deal with unwanted clothing is to make it into something completely different. You can use pieces of old cloth as filling for pillows.
Another very good way to reuse old textiles (纺织品) made of cotton like T-shirts is to cut the clothing up and use it as cleaning cloths around your home.
Besides, animal shelters are always looking for used towels and blankets to keep their animals warm.
| A．You can bring your clothing to Green Life. |
| B．Or you can turn something you like into a doll. |
| C．So you can donate your unwanted clothing to such places. |
| D．Some clothing companies have their own recycling services. |
| E．The cleaning cloths can be washed and reused, unlike paper towels. |
| F．Check to see whether certain items you are throwing out can be donated. |
| G．This leads to greenhouse gases and allows chemicals to get into the soil. |
6 . A new study from North Carolina State University found that biology textbooks have done a poor job of including material related to climate change. For example, the study found that most biology textbooks published in the 2010s included less information about climate change than they did in the previous decade--despite significant advances in our understanding of how climate change is influencing ecosystems and the environment.
“In short, we found biology textbooks are failing to share enough information about climate change, which is a generation-defining topic in the life sciences,” says Jennifer Landin, author of the study. “These books are the baseline texts for helping students understand the science of life on Earth, yet they are providing very little information about a phenomenon that is having a great impact on habitats, ecosystems, agriculture--almost every aspect (方面) of life on Earth,”
For the study, researchers investigated coverage of climate change in 57 college biology textbooks published between 1970 and 2019. The researchers found climate coverage has varied greatly over those five decades and that the amount of climate coverage in textbooks fell off in the 2010s. In addition to length, the nature of the content has also changed greatly over time.
“One of the most troubling findings was that textbooks are devoting less space to addressing climate solutions now than they did in the 1990s--even as they focus more on the effects of climate change,” Landin says. “That suggests to students that nothing can be done,which is both wildly misleading and contributes to a sense of fatalism (宿命论) regarding cli-mate change.”
“We are hoping that this study will serve as a wake-up call for publishers and instructors. We need to do a much better job of putting climate change into our courses if we want to pre-pare students to understand the role that climate change is playing in shaping life on Earth and how we study it,” Landin says.
1. What is the example in paragraph 1 used to do?| A．Prove biology textbooks’ poor performance. |
| B．Show the dissatisfaction with climate change. |
| C．Attract the attention of students studying biology. |
| D．Show the content of textbooks published in the 2010s. |
| A．No enough material about climate change. |
| B．Providing little new information about biology. |
| C．Not covering every aspect of life on Earth. |
| D．No generation-defining topics in the textbooks. |
| A．By tracking textbook publishers. |
| B．By doing surveys of students in colleges. |
| C．By observing climate change for 50 years. |
| D．By investigating college biology textbooks. |
| A．A wake up call for biology science. |
| B．A warning to take biology seriously. |
| C．A direction of studying climate change. |
| D．An alarm bell for publishers and teachers. |
7 . A new study focuses on K2-18b, an exoplanet(系外行星) discovered in 2018, which orbits a red dwarf star close enough to receive about the same amount of radiation from its star as Earth does from our sun.
Recently, scientists have discovered gas giants that have water in their atmospheres, but this is the least giant planet ever to have water detected in its atmosphere. “The water detection was quite clear to us relatively early on,” lead author Bjorn Benneke, a professor at the Institute for Research on Exoplanets at the Universite de Montreal, told Space.com in an interview.
“Studies have suggested that planets with hydrogen-rich atmospheres could host certain forms of life.” Benneke said. However, “K2-18b’s large atmosphere is extremely thick and creates high-pressure conditions, which likely prevents life as we know it from existing on the planet’s surface.” a news release reads. While these researchers found evidence for liquid water clouds on K2-18b, because of its lack of surface, rain wouldn’t pool on the planet. Without a real surface, so to speak, landing on the planet would also be nearly impossible to land on, especially because the gas is so thick and has such an incredibly high pressure that any Earth-created spacecraft sent there would be destroyed.
Benneke suggests that, possibly, this planet formed by rock absorbing large amounts of gas, “like a vacuum cleaner,” he said. The gas absorbed would have more than doubled the planet and increased its volume Warren eightfood.
To come to these conclusions, the research team analyzed data from Hubble Space Telescope observations that they made between 2019 and 2020 of the K2-18b planet passing in front of its star eight times. This type of research, Benneke said, is leading toward a final goal of “being able to study real, true earth-like planets.” We are not quite there yet, he said, but this is really exciting.”
1. Why is it impossible to land on the K2-18b?| A．It has thin gas. | B．It doesn’t have a real surface. |
| C．It has too much water. | D．It is too far from the earth. |
| A．By releasing gas itself. | B．By receiving radiation from the sun. |
| C．By taking in much gas by rocks. | D．By getting away from the red dwarf star. |
| A．Scientists are making progress in studying real earth-like planets. |
| B．It is impossible for humans to land on other earth-like planets. |
| C．Scientists have succeeded in exploring K2-18b completely. |
| D．The K2-18b planet has passed before its star eight times between 2019 and 2020. |
| A．The exploration of the outer space. |
| B．The study of solar systems’ environment. |
| C．The discovery of the K2-18b planet. |
| D．The research on the K2-18b planet. |
8 . With greater climate catastrophe (气候突变) on Earth, it is natural for us to make every effort to stop the potential floods, snowstorms, and alarming reports from scientists. For many of us (myself included), part of that means running out to buy reusable straws, organic cleaners, and packaging-free products.
However, before you are delighted at “green” purchases, take a second to consider the results of a new study from Arizona University. By comparing the shopping habits, mental health and environmental impact of young people, the researchers reconfirmed a principle: Buying less beats buying “green” stuff without effort. And that is true whether you are looking at the impact that your purchases have on the Earth or on your own happiness.
It should not come as a shock that simply consuming less is better for the planet. After all, every new item a factory yields requires some resources to produce. Take plastic bag bans for instance. If your city is getting rid of single-use shopping bags, it can be attractive to pay for a fashionable organic cotton bag hanging in the check-out line of your local supermarket. However, experts insist that growing cotton is actually no better for the Earth than producing the conventional plastic bags. Then what is your best bet for carrying your groceries if you care about sustainability? Any bag you already own.
It is not just the Earth that will be happier if you buy less. You will feel more contented too, according to the new study. “People believe that they might well be self-satisfied about becoming environmentally conscious through ‘green’ buying patterns, but it doesn’t seem to be that way”, said the lead researcher Sabrina Helm. “Reduced consumption has effects on increased well-being, but we don’t see that with ‘green’ consumption.”
“Owning every new ‘green’ product on the market might make you feel contented, but if you relieve yourself of that burden of ownership, most people report feeling a lot better,” said Helm.
1. Why does the writer mention “green” shopping habits?| A．To call on a green lifestyle. | B．To praise people’s green efforts. |
| C．To introduce a social trend. | D．To present a half true “green” truth. |
| A．The plastic bag bans are of no effect. | B．Using any bag you have is the best bet. |
| C．Reduced consumption is better for the Earth. | D．Growing cotton is far worse for the Earth. |
| A．The sense of achievement. | B．The sense of happiness. |
| C．The sense of relief. | D．The sense of security. |
| A．Less is More | B．The Greener, The Happier |
| C．Happiness Guarantee | D．What Are Green Products? |
9 . Not all birds sing, but those that do—some several thousand species—do it a lot. All over the world, as soon as light filters over the horizon, songbirds start singing. They sing to defend their territory and to impress potential mates.
“Why birds sing is relatively well-answered,” says Iris Adam, a behavioral neuroscientist at the University of Southern Denmark. The big question for her was this: Why do birds sing so much? “For some reason,” Adam says, birds have “a crazy drive to sing.” This means hours every day for some species, and that takes a lot of energy. Plus, singing can be dangerous.
“As soon as you sing, you reveal yourself,” she says. “Like, where you are, that you even exist, where your territory is —all of that immediately is out in the open for predators, for everybody.”
In a new study published in the journal Nature Communications, Adam and her colleagues offer a new explanation for why birds take that risk. They suggest that songbirds may not have much choice. They may have to sing a lot every day to give their vocal muscles the regular exercise they need to produce top-quality song.
These findings could be related to human voices too. “If you apply the bird results to the humans,” says Adam, “anytime you stop speaking, for whatever reason, you might experience a loss in vocal performance.”
To figure out whether the muscles that produce birdsong require daily exercise, Adam designed a series of experiments on zebra finches —little Australian songbirds with striped heads and a bloom of orange on their cheeks.
Through these experiments. Adam’s conclusion is that “songbirds need to exercise their vocal muscles to produce top-performance song. If they don’t sing, they lose performance, their vocalizations get less attractive to females—and that’s bad.”
This may help explain songbirds’ constant singing. It’s a kind of daily vocal practice to keep their instruments in tip-top shape. It’s a good rule to live by, whether you’re a bird or a human—practice makes perfect, at least when it comes to singing one’s heart out.
1. What does Iris Adam try to figure out?| A．Why all the birds don’t sing. | B．Why songbirds sing so well. |
| C．Why songbirds sing so much. | D．Why birds have vocal muscles. |
| A．Defending territory. | B．Impressing partners. | C．Singing all to death. | D．Threatening lives. |
| A．Regular singing helps to exercise songbirds’ vocal muscles. |
| B．Songbirds have to sing their heart out to win their partners. |
| C．Zebra finches are born to have excellent vocal instruments. |
| D．Good vocal muscles are more attractive to female songbirds. |
| A．A New Study of Songbirds | B．The Way That Songbirds Sing |
| C．Practice Makes a Perfect Song | D．The Reason Why Birds Sing Much |
10 . I was sitting at the table having breakfast. A little taste of autumn
Now I know many people would be
| A．worry | B．comfort | C．joy | D．sadness |
| A．growing | B．turning | C．falling | D．rising |
| A．large | B．nice | C．white | D．empty |
| A．listening to | B．looking at | C．shouting at | D．jumping over |
| A．near | B．away | C．far | D．up |
| A．saved | B．wiped | C．killed | D．covered |
| A．enemy | B．toy | C．bed | D．food |
| A．dangerous | B．light | C．safe | D．healthy |
| A．smiling | B．standing | C．reading | D．eating |
| A．worried | B．shocked | C．confused | D．satisfied |
| A．just | B．even | C．still | D．ever |
| A．copied | B．remembered | C．found | D．invented |
| A．pity | B．sorry | C．happiness | D．love |
| A．far | B．expensive | C．small | D．harmful |
| A．cured | B．improved | C．received | D．cleaned |
