1 . There’s good news and bad news for flower fans this spring in Washington state.

Good news: The Tulip (郁金香) Festival in Skagit County plans to return for 2021 with new rules, and with reserved tickets available for Tulip Town.

Attendance will be limited at Tulip Town this year, but it is planning to open earlier and stay open later. As in any public place statewide, face coverings are required. As of March 7, the tulips were not yet blossoming (开花) in Skagit County. When they start to blossom each year depends on the weather in March, but mid-April is historically the peak for tulip blossoms in the gardens and fields.

Bad news: The University of Washington in Seattle is asking people to view the cherry blossoms from home again this year in order to reduce crowding. UW Video has a live webcam overlooking the campus, and there’s a virtual tour with photos from campus that will be updated throughout the blossom season.

There are dozens of different varieties of blossoming cherry and plum trees in the Seattle area, with blossoms visible from early February until May for some.

1. When is the best time to enjoy tulips?

A．In February.

B．In March.

C．In April.

D．In May.

2. Where are people advised to admire cherry blossoms this year?

A．The Port of Seattle.

B．Tulip Town.

C．UW campus.

D．The web.

3. What is the purpose of this text?

A．To educate.

B．To inform.

C．To persuade.

D．To explain.

2 . At 9 am on Wednesdays, Gaby Rountree waves goodbye to Mila as she is picked up to go to day care in Mexico City. “It has made her so independent, so friendly and so lovely with others,” Ms Rountree says joyfully. She shuts the front door and turns to homeschooling her two children. Mila is not a child, but the family dog.

Schools and nurseries have been shut in Mexico for a year owing to the pandemic. But the doggy day care is booming. Doggy carers offer claw-trims (修剪) and let beloved pets play outdoors. “Many clients now have a home office and are worried about their dogs becoming too attached to them,” explains Montserrat, an owner of a dog day-care center, as she strokes a tiny dog on her lap. The facility, in the rich neighbourhood, also has a camp where dogs can spend a relaxing weekend in the countryside.

Mexico’s rising passion for dogs has coincided (同时发生) with falling human fertility (生育能力). In the mid-1980s, a Mexican woman could expect to have four children; now, only two. In the long run, as people have grown richer and the returns to education have risen, families have shrunk. For some, a dog is a lovable substitute. The most devoted owners buy clothes and throw birthday parties for their dogs. Many restaurants welcome dogs and provide drinking water. Some restaurants even offer a full doggy menu. Parks have “doggy areas”. Pet beauty salons provide not only baths and trims but other methods of relaxation.

Mexico’s spoilt pets are probably enjoying the pandemic more than the locked-down kids. By one estimate, nearly two-thirds of the children have missed a year of school because of coronavirus. For mothers such as Ms Rountree doggy day care offers some relief from Covid-influenced hard boring work. But she will not stop worrying until her children, too, are let off the chain and back into the classroom.

1. What can be inferred from the first paragraph?

A．Ms Rountree is a well-received online teacher.

B．Mila enjoys staying with other children at the care center.

C．Ms Rountree’s children are well taken care of at the care center.

D．The doggy day care center is highly thought of by Ms Rountree.

2. What may be the direct reason for the doggy day care’s popularity in Mexico?

A．Dogs like to play at the day care.	B．Many citizens have to work at home.
C．The facilities there are accessible for free.	D．Schools and nurseries are all closed down.

3. What is the main idea of paragraph 3?

A．How Mexico becomes richer.	B．Why Mexicans love to raise dogs.
C．How Mexicans care for their dogs.	D．Why Mexico has a decreasing population.

4. What’s the present situation of the kids in Mexico?

A．They are under treatment at home.

B．They are second to the dogs at home.

C．They have to attend to their dogs at home.

D．Most of them have been away from school for a year.

5 . What does the woman recycle?

A．Plastic.

B．Paper.

C．Glass.

6 . Why Do Mockingbirds Copy?

Mockingbirds live in North and South America. They are good copycats. They imitate other birds. But they can also imitate other animals. They can even make sounds like a piano or car alarm. Mockingbirds learn to sing many songs. Some learn more than 200 different songs. They can often trick people! But mockingbirds can’t trick other birds. If they can’t trick other birds, why do they copy sounds? They do it to attract and avoid other birds!

Males are loud singers, and they sing many songs. They always sing when they want to meet females. A male bird can sing most of the day and night. The singing attracts females. But it also keeps away other males. The longer a mockingbird lives, the more songs it knows. To show this characteristic, the male mockingbird sings all the songs it knows. A female mockingbird is attracted to a male who has lived a long time.

Mockingbirds usually sing short songs. They sing each sound several times. Then they move to the next sound. Female mockingbirds sing softly and less often than males. They usually sing at their nests in the winter to keep away other birds. When another bird comes near, the mockingbird makes a loud noise to frighten it. It’s amazing that the mockingbird can copy so many songs of other birds. Some songs are not easy to learn. The mockingbird must listen well to imitate the sounds. But a mockingbird also has good eyes and a good memory. When a person comes near its nest, the mockingbird remembers that person. It knows that person’s face after many years!

1. Mockingbirds are special because they can         .

A．create songs	B．copy sounds
C．remember other birds	D．understand human’s words

2. A male mockingbird attracts the female by its         .

A．size

B．eyesight

C．memory

D．voice

3. What is the purpose of this passage?

A．To recommend a course on birdlife.	B．To call on people to protect birds.
C．To give advice on feeding birds.	D．To introduce an interesting bird.

7 . What is the woman writing about in her report?

A．A forest fire.

B．A terrible rainstorm.

C．Some lovely pet animals.

8 . Stephen Warren, study leader at the University of Washington — has been on the case of the green icebergs for more than 30 years. He first took samples from one of these green hunks of ice in 1988, near the Amery Ice Shelf, East Antarctic. Most glacial ice occurs in shades of white to brilliant blue. The bluer the ice, the older it is. Typically, compression (压缩) from accumulating layers of snow pushes air bubbles out of the ice, reducing the scattering of white light. The compressed ice absorbs most of the light except for blue — creating the blue color seen in the hearts of icebergs and glaciers.

The green ice was similarly bubble-free, and yet it looked green instead of blue. Warren and his team soon found that the green ice came not from glaciers, but from marine ice. That’s the ice from the undersides of floating ice shelves.

At first, the team thought that organic material in the marine ice was causing the green color. But further research showed that the green marine ice didn’t have a higher-than-usual amount of organic impurities. Now, a new study finds that a different sort of impurity may be the root cause of the green ice. Warren and his colleagues report that the marine ice at the bottom of the Amery Ice Shell has 500 times more iron than the glacial ice above.

This iron comes from the rocks under the Antarctic Ice Sheet, which are turned into fine powder as glaciers move over them. The icebound iron oxidizes (氧化) as it contacts seawater. The resulting iron oxide particles take on a green color when light scatters through them. When icebergs break off the larger ice shelf, they carry this iron-rich ice with them. It’s like taking a package to the post office. The iceberg can deliver this iron into the ocean far away, and then melt and deliver it to other living things that can use it as a nutrient.

1. What’s special about the iceberg found by Warren?

A．The iceberg was old.	B．The iceberg absorbed blue light.
C．The iceberg’s heart was pure white.	D．The iceberg was bubble-free and green.

2. What’s the actual reason for the green color of some Antarctic icebergs?

A．Iron dust from marine ice.	B．Impurities of marine ice.
C．Reflection of green plants.	D．Compression from layers of snow.

3. What’s the function of the iron mentioned in the last paragraph?

A．Deliver the package.	B．Oxidize the seawater.
C．Bring marine life nutrients.	D．Break off the large ice shelf.

4. What is the text mainly about?

A．A study about Antarctic.	B．The colors of icebergs.
C．The movement of icebergs.	D．The mystery of green icebergs.

9 . While Ellard Hunting and fellow researchers were out studying the weather at a field station in England, they noticed something unexpected on their instruments. Though there was no storm coming, the scientists’ electric field monitors recorded a strange increase in atmospheric electric charge(电荷) .

Nearby, honeybees that lived in on-site hives were swarming (蜂拥) as they tried to find a new home. When the team took a closer look at their data, they discovered that the swarming honeybees had created an atmospheric electric charge. The researchers shared more details about their findings in the journal Science.

“This is the first report of biology as a source of space charge.” says Hunting, a biophysicist at the University of Bristol in England. Scientists had known that individual bees carry a small charge while flying through the air, caused by the friction of their body parts against the air and each other. It’s similar to how rubbing a balloon on a piece of cloth creates static electricity (静电). Scientists believe a bee’s charge helps pollen (花粉) stick to it and signals to other bees which flowers have already been visited. But until now, researchers had never recorded such a high voltage (电压) among swarming honeybees.

In terms of electricity generation, a bees warm’s charge isn’t so impressive：It would take about 50 billion bees to power an LED light. But compared to the charges produced by common weather events, the bees’ charge density was six times greater than an electrified dust storm and eight times greater than a thunderstorm cloud.

Scientists hope to continue exploring how biology influences physics and are curious to know if something similar is happening with other wildlife, such as birds and bats.

1. What were the researchers doing when something unexpected on their instruments happened?

A．Studying weather events.	B．Testing their instruments.
C．Recording insects’ behavior.	D．Looking for honeybees’ new home.

2. What’s the function of a bee’s charge?

A．To help the bee fly fast.	B．To signal to other bees.
C．To find pollen more easily.	D．To avoid losing their way.

3. What will the scientists continue to study next?

A．The wide application of biology.	B．Measures to protect birds and bats.
C．The influences of dust storms on wildlife.	D．Whether other wildlife can produce electric charge.

4. Where is the text from?

A．A novel.

B．A fiction.

C．A magazine.

D．A leaflet.