Nature inspired us to figure out ways to solve the problems we faced. Birds inspired us to fly, beavers gave us ideas on how to build dams (大坝) and even tiny white ants demonstrated building ideas that we could use. By means of
Bats (蝙蝠) can use
Spider (蜘蛛) silk is one of the strongest materials in nature, believed to be five times
Even plants can inspire invention.
Students should
A freezing downpour washed the street in front of the small-town bar. I sat gazing into the watery darkness, alone as usual. I had been in that old bar for half an hour, quietly drinking, when my thoughtful eyes finally focused on a medium-sized lump (一团) in a puddle (水洼) a hundred feet away. For another ten minutes, I looked out through the window trying to decide if the lump was an animal or just something.
The night before, a German dog named Shep had come into the bar begging for potato chips. He was starving and just the size of the lump in the puddle. Why should a dog lie in a cold puddle in the freezing rain? I asked myself. The answer was simple: Either it wasn’t a dog, or it was, he was too weak to get up.
The wound in my right shoulder ached all the way down my fingers. I didn’t want to go out in the storm. Hey, it wasn’t my dog. It was just a stray on a cold rainy night, a lonely drifter (流浪者). So was I, I thought, as I tossed (扔) down what was left of my drink and headed out the door.
He was lying in the three inches of water. When I touched him, he didn’t move. I thought he was dead. I put my hands around his chest and raised him to his feet. He stood unsteadily, and his head hung like a weight at the end of his neck. His floppy ears were just hairless pieces of flesh dotted with open sores (伤口).
“Come on, Shep,” I said, leading him to a corner next to the bar, where he lay on the cold cement and closed his eyes. A block away I could see the lights of a late-night convenience store. It was still open. I bought three cans of dog food and fed him. He couldn’t swallow but poorly look at me. He was dying!
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。
The local vet (兽医) was still at his office, so I loaded the poor creature into a taxi and headed there.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Three days later, when I opened the door of the vet’s, Shep welcomed me with wild enthusiasm.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________3 . Birds that migrate long distances tend to be more likely than others to break up with their partners, according to an analysis of 232 species conducted by Sun Yat-sen University.
About 90 per cent of bird species are socially monogamous (一夫一妻制的), which means once they form pairs, they will stay together for life. However, some do end up getting “divorced” and move onto new partners.
To identify reasons that lead to bird break ups, Liu Yang at Sun Yat-sen University in China and his colleagues studied 232 species in one of the world’s largest bird databases, Birds of the World. They found that species that migrate particularly long distances to obtain food typically have higher rates of breaking up.
Great blue herons, for example, migrate more than 3000 kilometres and have a divorce rate of 100 per cent. This may be because travelling further makes it harder for a pair to return home at the same time, says Liu Yang. “If you’re the one who gets back first, it’s risky waiting for your partner because you don’t know if it’ll show up — it may have died or been blown off course,” Liu adds. Finding a new partner may seem a safer bet even if it requires energy to please a new mate, he says.
Liu and his team members acknowledge that it makes sense for birds with long migrations to have higher divorce rates, but there are exceptions.
Black-tailed godwits, for example, migrate more than 1000 kilometres from Iceland to the UK or southwest Europe each year but have relatively low divorce rates. This seems to be due to a super ability to keep pace with their partners. Although members of a pair will follow separate migration paths and typically end up more than 900 kilometres away from each other, they are somehow able to return to Iceland at almost the same time, which reduces the risk of break-ups. “But most birds are not able to do that — it’s pretty amazing.” Liu concludes.
1. What can be inferred from Paragraph 2?| A．Most bird species have more than one partner for life. |
| B．Few bird species are devoted to their partners. |
| C．Most bird species have higher rates of breaking up. |
| D．Most bird species tend to have only one partner. |
| A．Because the bird pairs choose different migration routes. |
| B．Because they get tired of their partners. |
| C．Because they are impatient with waiting. |
| D．Because it is safer for them to move onto a new partner. |
| A．They have a higher divorce rate than great blue herons. |
| B．The nearly same returning time reduces the risk of their divorce. |
| C．It is typical of them to migrate at the same speed with their partners. |
| D．They set a good example of romance for other birds. |
| A．Migration Linked to Bird Divorce | B．Reasons for Bird Migration |
| C．Bird Migration with Long Distances | D．Birds — with High Rates of Divorce. |
4 . Zo Trisha Prinsloo cares about the beaches of Cape Town, South Africa. She leads cleanups there. She set up a group called Save a Fishie years ago! It has picked up plastic bottles, food containers, and other waste. “My main goal is to constantly remove anything and everything I can off our beaches,” she says, “and to try to prevent litter from being taken out to sea.”
Lately, however, Prinsloo has noticed an increase in a certain kind of plastic waste. It’s from PPE (personal protective equipment). Her group Save a Fishie saw eight different kinds of gloves” during a cleanup. I find masks more and more regularly, too,” she said.
People everywhere are wearing PPE to protect themselves from COVID-19. But when PPE isn’t thrown out the right way, it pollutes the environment and endangers wildlife. Each year, at least 8 million tons of plastic enter the world’s oceans. Now this waste includes more PPE. Last year, the Ocean Conservancy led by its chief scientist George Leonard held its annual International Coastal Cleanup. “We’ve found tens of thousands of PPE waste, and more of it is being put into oceans. PPE waste is a significant threat to oceans,” Leonard said. PPE waste can hurt ocean animals that can eat it or get tangled (缠绕) in it. Sue Schwar manages South Essex Wildlife Hospital in the UK. Her team saved a seagull. Its legs got tangled,” she said. Thankfully, the staff was able to untangle the bird and set it free.
PPE will continue to be common until COVID-19 ends, but there’re steps you can take to reduce its environmental impact. Wear clean reusable masks and deal with them carefully before throwing them into rubbish bins to make sure animals won’t get tangled up. Put used PPE in a bin with a safe lid (盖子). This is important when the bin is outside because masks and gloves can be carried away by the wind.
1. Why did Prinsloo set up Save a Fishie?| A．To clean up the beaches. | B．To offer free PPE to people. |
| C．To stop people producing rubbish. | D．To help fight against COVID-19. |
| A．Ocean animals also need PPE. | B．PPE waste is a growing problem. |
| C．Ocean environment depends on PPE. | D．PPE can help protect people greatly. |
| A．What to do to reduce rubbish. | B．Where to put rubbish bins. |
| C．How to solve the PPE problem. | D．When to wear masks and gloves. |
| A．A biography. | B．A diary. | C．A novel. | D．A magazine. |
5 . Blue and green honey may look cool, but beekeepers in northeastern France are not happy about their strange-looking new product.
Over the past few months, beekeepers in Ribeauville, a town located in the Alsace region, have noticed that bees there have been making honey in many strange colors. Bees have been returning to apiaries (蜂房)with different colors coating their bodies. The colors then end up polluting the honey.
A recent research showed that a nearby M&M’s factory is behind the change in color. Waste from the factory has been exposing the bees to a number of chemicals. Some of the chemicals are used in the outer shells of the candies, which come in many bright colors.
The local beekeepers do not know if the polluted honey is dangerous to eat, but they are not taking any chances. They are throwing away the candy-colored honey, which means a big loss to local businesses. “For me, it’s not honey,” Alain Frieh, leader of the town’s beekeepers union, tells the Reuters news agency. “It’s not sellable.”
The honey industry in this part of France has been suffering this year. According to Frieh, many bees died last winter or were unable to make honey because of the bad weather. This new problem of colored honey is hurting the beekeepers’ way of life even more.
The region is home to about 2,400 beekeepers and 35,000 colonies of bees, according to Alsace’s chamber of agriculture. The beekeepers harvest approximately 1,000 tons of honey each year, making the product a big part of the region’s economy.
Agrivalor is the company that processes the M&M’s factory’s waste. According to co-manager Philippe Meinrad, the company has been attempting to stop the pollution. “We discovered the problem at the same time they did,” Meinrad said. “We quickly put in place a procedure to stop it.”
1. How do local beekeepers respond to the candy-colored honey?| A．They like its strange but cool look. |
| B．They think the polluted honey is dangerous. |
| C．They require the factory to stop pollution. |
| D．They don’t want to take risks to sell the honey. |
| A．Special colonies. | B．Terrible weather. |
| C．M&M’s factory. | D．Agrivator company. |
| A．They take it seriously and they are taking measures. |
| B．They are pessimistic about dealing with the pollution. |
| C．They reject to do their part to compensate the beekeepers. |
| D．They admit the problem and have managed to stop the pollution. |
| A．A guide book. | B．A news report. | C．An advertisement. | D．A government document. |
6 . Professor Veena Sahajwalla, 2022 Australian of the year, has created a solution to our massive trash problem: waste microfactories. These little trash processors (处理器)—some as small as 500 square feet— house a series of machines that recycle waste and transform it into new materials with thermal technology. The new all-in -one approach could leave our current recycling processes in the dust.
In 2018 she launched the first microfactory, establishing a model of recycling that enables businesses and communities to develop commercial opportunities while addressing local waste problems. A second one began recycling plastics in 2019. Now, her lab group is working with university and industry partners to commercialize their patented Microfactory technology. “The small scale of the machines will make it easier for them to one day operate on renewable energy, unlike most large manufacturing plants. The approach will also allow cities to recycle waste into new products on location, avoiding the long, often international, high-emission journeys between recycling processors and manufacturing plants. With a microfactory, gone are the days of needing separate facilities to collect and store materials, extract (提取) elements and produce new products,” says Sahajwalla.
Traditionally, recycling plants break down materials for reuse in similar products-like melting down plastic to make more plastic things. Sahajwalla’s invention advances this idea by taking materials from an old product and creating something different. “The kids don’t look like the parents,” she says. Sahajwalla refers to this process as “the fourth R,” adding “re -form” to the common phrase “reduce, reuse, recycle”.
Professor Veena Sahajwalla’s programs help to develop innovation and promote cooperation with industry, ensuring that sustainable materials and processes become commercially practical solutions for dealing with waste.
1. What is the purpose of the first paragraph?| A．To introduce a new type of trash processor. |
| B．To introduce the process of recycling waste. |
| C．To prove the seriousness of the trash problem. |
| D．To show the current situation of trash recycling. |
| A．The founding of waste microfactories. |
| B．The influences of waste microfactories. |
| C．The advantages of waste microfactories. |
| D．The shocking scale of waste microfactories. |
| A．Extracting materials from the waste. |
| B．Generating new materials with waste. |
| C．Updating the whole recycling process. |
| D．Transforming waste into similar products. |
| A．A fiction novel. | B．A business report. |
| C．A science magazine. | D．A chemical textbook. |
There is so much more to learn
8 . Chinese astronauts have successfully grown rice seedlings(幼苗)aboard the Tiangong space station and this experiment may offer key insights into how astronauts can grow food to support long—term space missions, experts said on Monday. This experiment is the first to produce the complete life cycle of the plant, which begins with a seed and ends with a mature plant producing new seeds.
The breakthrough was conducted in the Wentian space laboratory, which was launched into orbit on July 24, 2022. Three astronauts were conducting the experiment smoothly and testing the plants according to the plan.
“The rice seedlings are growing very well,” said Zheng Huiqiong, a researcher of the task, adding that the experiment also contained seedlings of a small flowering plant often used by scientists to study mutations(变异). “The astronauts will keep monitoring the plants, and if it is successful, they will collect the newly produced seeds and bring them back to Earth for further studies,” she noted
The flowering stage is crucial for plant reproductive development. “We want to investigate how microgravity can affect the plant flowering time and whether it is possible to use the microgravity environment to control the related process,” she said.
Since the 1980s, China has been taking seeds of rice and other crops to space to help them mutate and produce higher yields once they were planted on Earth. But growing rice in orbit is a different challenge due to the tough conditions of space such as microgravity and lack of air.
Rice has been a main food for astronauts since the early days of space exploration. Freeze—dried chicken and rice was the menu for the Apollo 11 mission, which carried the first humans to land on the moon in July 1969.
“But if we want to land on and explore Mars, bringing food from Earth is not enough to provide for the astronauts’ long journey and mission in space. We have to find a food source for long term space explorations,” Zheng added.
1. What’s the significance of Chinese recent space rice experiment?| A．It enables human beings to move to another planet. |
| B．It helps people get a better idea of the human life cycle. |
| C．It inspires more other countries to do space explorations |
| D．It makes it possible to carry out long—term space missions |
| A．The mutation. | B．The experiment. | C．The exploration. | D．The space mission. |
| A．To promote genetic changes and increase crop harvest. |
| B．To figure out how to create an earth—like environment. |
| C．To study the impact of microgravity on crop growth. |
| D．To develop new crop species with strong ability to adapt. |
| A．A medical report. | B．A fashion magazine. |
| C．A science newspaper. | D．A history book. |
9 . On February 17th, the Clermont County Animal Shelter, Ohio, shared a story. A woman met with her missing dog Will again.
While
Hannah explained in her Facebook post that Will, a six-year-old went missing from her home in 2019. Although her family looked everywhere, they couldn’t
A shelter volunteer said, “Just yesterday we
It was nothing short of a
| A．commenting on | B．checking out | C．speaking of | D．looking for |
| A．celebration | B．adoption | C．demonstration | D．recommendation |
| A．dynamic | B．lovely | C．familiar | D．friendly |
| A．shelter | B．describe | C．forget | D．locate |
| A．received | B．forwarded | C．left | D．delivered |
| A．duties | B．achievements | C．owner | D．appearance |
| A．possibly | B．obviously | C．actually | D．typically |
| A．hesitation | B．guilt | C．anger | D．panic |
| A．popular | B．thankful | C．supported | D．reunited |
| A．guess | B．know | C．discuss | D．doubt |
| A．heartwarming | B．mind-bending | C．convincing | D．entertaining |
| A．danger | B．need | C．happiness | D．uncertainty |
| A．sharing | B．reading | C．revising | D．saving |
| A．connection | B．treasure | C．wonder | D．success |
| A．excited | B．motivated | C．amused | D．urged |
10 . TerraCycle is a company that has recycled and upcycled (升级改造) just about any garbage it can get its hands on. It upcycles things like pens and markers into dust bins and picnic tables and cigarette ends into railroad ties.
Now, TerraCycle wants to help families waste even less with a new book Make Garbage Great: The TerraCycle Family Guide to a Zero-Waste Lifestyle. The book is part wake-up call, part history lesson, part how-to, and part DIY arts and crafts instruction.
In an effort to help people do what they can to curb their contribution to the tons of waste created every day, Make Garbage Great gives the history of various materials, discusses why those various materials are a problem, and gives tips and DIY projects to recycle or upcycle each material.
There is a chapter each on plastics, metals, paper, glass, wood, rubber and organics. Each chapter is filled with tons of tips and ideas for reducing the amount of waste you create and for responsibly handling the waste you end up creating in your home. If you’re a conscious consumer, some of the information you may already know, but there are also tips in this book that will help you recycle more than you thought you were able to. It has information on where you can take old sneakers, pillows, and all that electronic waste that seems to pile up quicker and quicker each year.
Whether the book inspires you to get a little clever at dealing with your waste or simply inspires you to think before you buy or before you throw, anyone who is concerned about the amount of waste our culture creates will find some ideas here. Even the physical book itself is a bit of an inspiration. It’s printed on tree-free paper and is a reminder that there is usually a sustainable (可持续的) alternative to many of the products that we waste.
1. What is the book intended to do?| A．To advertise for the company. |
| B．To help families make money. |
| C．To instruct people to learn arts. |
| D．To help families reduce waste. |
| A．It is intended for housewives. |
| B．It is environmentally friendly. |
| C．It is well received all over the world. |
| D．It is not different from other paper books. |
| A．Positive. | B．Negative. |
| C．Doubtful. | D．Objective. |
| A．Live A More Healthy Life? |
| B．Want A Zero-waste Lifestyle? |
| C．TerraCycle — A Responsible Company |
| D．Make Garbage Great — A Key to Success |
