1 . Scientists have long believed that Mars was wet around three billion years ago and then lost much of its water. But a new study presents evidence of water activity from about 700 million years ago, posing a new puzzle about Mars and its history for scientists to crack in their future studies.
The new study is based on data from China’s Zhurong rover (“祝融号”火星车), part of the Tianwen-1 mission that touched down on the surface of Mars in May 2021. In particular, the scientists used data the rover gathered during its first 92 Martian days, at its landing site in Utopia Planitia. Yang Liu, a researcher from the Chinese Academy of Sciences(CAS), and his colleagues analyzed data from three different instruments on Zhurong. Those instruments studied minerals that suggest the presence of a large quantity of liquid water at the site about 700 million years ago, which scientists previously thought was dry.
“This is a very interesting result. We have very little recorded evidence of young liquid water systems on Mars. And for the ones we have, they were usually in the form of salt minerals,” says Dr. Scheller, a scientist at the California Institute of Technology. He explained Zhurong’s instruments spotted water molecules locked away in the rock, which was different from other young liquid water environments that have been observed.
“One of the major things we’ll have to find out and that I look forward to seeing from the Zhurong rover is how extensive these ‘young’ water-bearing minerals are,” Dr. Scheller said. “Are they common or uncommon in these ‘young’ rocks?” Zhurong has now covered about two kilometers during its more than 350 Martian days and has analyzed a range of features on its travels, meaning more new Martian insights are likely still to come from the rover.
NASA has so far sent its Mars rovers to ancient landing sites, dating back to more than 3.7 billion years ago. Zhurong is not just an extra set of wheels on Mars, but a powerful suite of instruments exploring a new, geologically young site to open new windows of opportunity for research on Mars.
1. What does the underlined word “crack” in paragraph 1 mean?| A．Keep. | B．Doubt. | C．Solve. | D．Create. |
| A．The inaccuracy of data gathered on Mars. |
| B．Functional limitations of instruments on Mars. |
| C．Main reasons for the failure of the Tianwen-1 mission. |
| D．The misconception of past thinking about Martian water. |
| A．The result has been recorded by many scientists. |
| B．Zhurong’s wide analyses will bring more surprises. |
| C．Salt minerals are younger than water-bear ing minerals. |
| D．Young water-bearing minerals are common in young rocks. |
| A．Ancient. | B．Common. | C．Alarming. | D．Promising. |
Jessica and I wanted a dog more than anything else on Earth. At night, after Mom and Dad had gone to bed, Jessica and I would sneak out our bedroom windows and we’d sit together on the roof and talk about dogs. Sometimes, we had an argument about what our ideal dog would be. But it didn’t really matter — any dog or puppy (小狗崽) would do.
One summer night, as we sat together on the roof, Jessica saw something. “What’s that?” She pointed down toward a dark shadow on our driveway. The moon was up, and everything looked either black or milky. All I saw was darkness. Then the shadow moved. For one astonished second, Jessica and I just stared at each other. Then we scrambled down onto the porch. There in our yard stood a dog. A big, black dog with long hair. Jessica made a little kissing noise and held out her hand. And the dog came to us slowly, taking a few steps forward, then a step back, not sure whether to trust us, I guess.
“She’s a female,” said Jessica.
“Oh,” I said, pulling back and looking. The dog was so skinny and her coat was full of dirt. She must be a homeless dog.
“What can we give her?” I asked. Then I had a thought. “Bread! I’ll get her a big loaf of bread.” So, Jessica waited with the dog, and I sneaked into the kitchen to fetch the bread.
The dog got the bread and ran into the shadows and disappeared. We smiled at each other in the moonlight, our insides full of excitement. “We’re going to have a dog!” I whispered.
On the following nights, the dog, who we named “Shadow”, would come and Jessica and I would prepare food for her. But we never saw her eating anything, and each time she got the food she would run away into the darkness quickly.
“Why didn’t she eat?” I was curious. “And she is still so skinny.”
“We can look into the case,” Jessica said. So, we decided to find out the truth.
One night, we followed Shadow secretly at a distance.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Finally, we had a dog in our home and it was one of the puppies.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________3 . For nearly as long as the modern computer has existed, it has been used to forecast the weather. First used during World War II to simulate (模拟) nuclear weapons, computers were soon adopted to simulate the future state of the atmosphere, creating the modern discipline of weather prediction. Although that discipline has grown ever more complicated and now produces reliable forecasts several weeks in advance, its approach remains the same: using large amounts of calculating power to solve equations (方程).
Over the past year, artificial intelligence (AI) has begun to change that. Tech companies including Google and Nvidia have trained AI models to predict the weather up to 10 days in advance, with an accuracy equaling or even topping traditional models—and with far less calculation overhead. Rather than solving equations, these AI models predict the near future based on patterns learned through training on 40 years of past weather, which is recorded by the traditional model of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), the world’s top weather agency. Once trained, the AI models can work out a forecast on a computer in 1 minute rather than taking 2 hours to run on a supercomputer.
ECMWF has already begun to produce its own AI forecast, and other weather agencies are eager to catch up. The new models aren’t perfect. They struggle to predict certain essential features—hurricane intensity, for example. But AI forecasters will only improve as they begin to learn from direct weather observations collected by sensors, not just data already passed through existing models. Besides, their speed could allow agencies to run them over and over, as they capture in the atmosphere the full spread of uncertainty, be it necessary or unnecessary for weather prediction.
No one expects traditional weather prediction to disappear. Another branch, climate models, an extension of weather forecasting, for example, rely on equation solving just as traditional weather models do. But in the long term, the output of climate models may itself become training data for a climate forecasting AI, which might ultimately do a better job than the traditional models.
1. How do AI models predict weather?| A．By running on a supercomputer. | B．By recording traditional models. |
| C．By working on the existing data. | D．By making massive calculations. |
| A．They may be overly operated. | B．They may be slow to respond. |
| C．They may confuse natural disasters. | D．They may bring unfair competitions. |
| A．They lack accurate data. | B．They need intensive training. |
| C．They work in a traditional way. | D．They determine weather forecasting. |
| A．How Can AI Aid Atmosphere Study? |
| B．Should We Trust AI to Predict Hurricanes? |
| C．Weather Forecast Is Having an AI Moment |
| D．Tech Giants Are Competing in Data Collection |
| A．Waste recycling. | B．Beach cleaning. | C．Tree planting. |
5 . Wondering what you can do to celebrate Earth Day on April 22? You’ve come to the right place. We’ve gathered a comprehensive list of Earth Day activities, both fun and environmentally-conscious, to help raise awareness and make a difference. If you’re ready to learn more about joining the global celebration, initiating real change, and doing your part to save our planet, read on!
·Walk or ride your bike.
·Use a refillable water bottle.
Consider going with a stainless-steel refillable bottle for a super long-lasting option.
·Plant a tree.
Pick a tree species that’s native to where you live. If you’re unsure, ask an employee at your local nursery or garden department. Choose the best planting spot to meet the tree’s needs, dig a properly sized hole, and water the tree well to give it a good start.
·Visit a local farmer’s market.
Eating locally grown food is much better for the environment. For example, locally-grown food doesn’t have to be transported long distances to end up on grocery store shelves.
·
See if your community is holding an environmental fair. If your community doesn’t have one planned, consider starting one yourself! It’s the perfect day to get together for a fun and educational celebration of the Earth. Any money raised can go towards a local environmental restoration project or group.
| A．Attend a local Earth Day event. |
| B．Educate your community on environmental awareness. |
| C．Going car-free for the day will reduce harmful carbon emissions. |
| D．That means your money won’t be wasted on unnecessary spending. |
| E．If physically doing this is unrealistic for you, there are other choices! |
| F．Normally, plastic water bottles end up in garbage cans after a single use. |
| G．You’ll also be giving back to your community by supporting local farmers. |
Recently
In line with the agreement, both parties are
The San Diego Zoo is one of the world’s top five
One day my mom and I read a story on a magazine called Humane Society News. A wild dog named Solo died for lack of medical care after he was ill. I knew how sad the story was because my own dog, Kela, had recently died. My world had ended when I lost Kela. She had been my best friend since I could remember. The article continued to tell about wildlife rehabilitators. They nursed the sick animals back to health, but as more and more animals were rescued, the medical expense became a big burden for them. I immediately determined to do something for them. I may be a kid, but why can’t I do a fund-raiser to help save more dogs?
My mom thought it was hard for an eleven-year-old girl to raise, but she told me to go ahead and try it anyway. I realized that I needed a name for the fund-raiser and thought since I was trying to protect dogs’ life, I would call my program Help Dogs. I decided that pet stores would be really good places to go with donation boxes and Help Dogs flyers (传单). I used little green Chinese take-out boxes, decorated with a picture of Tiko, one of the dogs I chose to help, and me. I wrote on each box “Help protect the life of dogs by donating a dollar”. I thought my actions might not raise much money for the dogs, but they can at least increase people’s awareness of wild animals protection.
One afternoon, after all the boxes had been distributed throughout our community, I got a call from a local newspaper reporter who had seen one of my flyers. The reporter decided to do an article about Help Dogs. After the article came out, I waited for a few days before checking to see if there were any donations.
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。
I was really nervous when I finally went to collect the money.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________I realized many people feel the same way as I did but didn’t know how to help.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________8 . For uncounted generations, trillions of coral polyps (珊瑚虫) have lived and died, leaving behind a material called limestone. Throughout History, limestone was used to construct the Great Pyramid of Egypt, as well as many churches and castles.
Indeed, a living coral reef is remarkable, a “city beneath the sea” filled with a rich variety of life. Most coral reefs can be found in warm, shallow oceans. They occupy just a small part of the ocean floor, but host 25 percent of all ocean life. Each reef is full of colorful fish as well as coral that forms wonderful patterns. In addition to their beauty, the reefs are an important food source for fish, and for. humans.
Threats to coral reefs
Reasons for hope
These threats to coral reefs are very serious, but there is reason to hope that they will survive. If we take steps toward coral reef conservation, it is likely that these tiny creatures — which survived natural threats for millions of years — will be able to rebuild. As conservationist Robert Richmond says, “
| A．A diversity of life |
| B．A city above the sea |
| C．Given a chance, they can come back |
| D．Yet the greatest limestone structures in the world are built underwater |
| E．Various human activities can cause great harm to the world’s coral reefs |
| F．As a result, the fish became stunned, which makes them easy to collet. |
| G．This kills most living things nearby and causes damage to the reef’s structure |
Homegrown nature documentary “Snow Leopards and Friends” is the first Chinese factual film about snow leopards (雪豹).
It
It took director Xi Zhinong and the photographers six years
Many of the movie’s viewers were touched by the power and
10 . Scientists have long considered the question of whether and how plants communicate. For years, the topic sparked controversy. Books like 1973’s The Secret Life of Plants suggest that plants grow well if you sing or play classical music. Such statements were later debunked: Any evidence that music helps plants grow is not convincing at all. Still, researchers firmly believe there is some sort of communication going on between plants.
Plant communication is a complicated topic. What we do know is that plants have a wide range of mechanisms for communicating with each other and their surroundings. “It’s quite clear that plants are not just unresponsive victims, but that they are very aware of nearby things,” says Richard Karban, an entomologist at the University of California. “And they respond to reliable information.”
When a plant sends out chemicals in the air in response to a perceived threat, other sensitive leavcs on that same plant, as well as the leaves of their neighbors, perceive those signals and subsequently increase their own defenses. Karban’s research, for instance, shows that plants sound the alarm when they’re attacked by pests, so that other plants respond by growing faster and stronger. Even other species, like tobacco, can sense and react to the alarm.
In a study published in the journal Cell this March, Lilach Hadany, a professor at Tel Aviv University, put tomato and tobacco plants in an isolated box and then recorded ultrasonic (超声的) sounds. They experimented with, cutting stems or leaving them without water to simulate drought. The researchers found that the plants emitted (popping and clicking sounds at around 60 decibels in response, approximately as loud as human chatter. These sounds were at an ultrasonic frequency that humans can’t naturally hear, however. Hadany’s team even matched different sounds to the plants’ environment. And each type of stress could be matched with a specific, identifiable sound.
“We don’t know if they’re using the sound, or if the sounds are emitted in a completely passive way due to physiological changes,” Hadany says. “But we do know they are in the air, and they contain information.”
1. What does the underlined word “debunked” in Paragraph 1 mean?| A．Confirmed. | B．Ignored. | C．Disproved. | D．Promoted. |
| A．Plants can make no response to their attackers. |
| B．Chemicals are sent by plants to attack the perceived threat. |
| C．Plants rely little on their neighbors’ information to survive. |
| D．The alarm sounded by one plant travels beyond plants and species. |
| A．The sounds are loud enough to scare away pests. |
| B．The sounds are produced when plants are in danger. |
| C．The sounds can be heard by man without equipment. |
| D．The sounds can be matched to the human environment. |
| A．To inform readers. | B．To compare things. |
| C．To warn readers. | D．To advertise things. |
