1 . In September, a tragedy happened on the west coast of Tasmania, Australia. As many as 380 pilot whales became stranded (搁浅) in shallow water there and later died. This might have been Australia’s largest stranding event on record, the BBC reported.

But mass whale stranding is not uncommon. For centuries, it has happened all over the world and has puzzled scientists. Scientists say the cause is often unknown. But they have offered many different explanations.

Some say the whales chase small fish for food and end up in shallow water because they are not paying attention to where they are going.

Others think the stranding has something to do with Earth’s geomagnetic field. They say that a geomagnetic compass in whales’ brains controls their position. Unusual changes in Earth’s magnetic field can affect the whales’ compasses and send them in the wrong direction.

Another explanation suggests that mass stranding is caused by the close relationships that whales have. Pilot whales travel in large groups. One lead whale might mistakenly lead the whole group to shallow water. “And if one gets into trouble, the others will not leave,” said Sheryl Gibney, a leading biologist from New Zealand. “Some will come in and try to help, they get trapped on the beach, then more will come.”

The whales are trapped by mistake or out of sympathy. Once they get stranded, they will likely die. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the US, less than 10 percent of all stranded whales survive.

1. What do we know about the stranding?

A．It happened on the east coast of Australia.	B．It is commonly seen in September each year.
C．It caused the death of over 300 pilot whales.	D．It broke a world record.

2. What does the word “chase” in Paragraph 3 mean?

A．run after

B．give up

C．help with

D．compete against

3. According to Gibney, what will other whales do if their lead whale gets in trouble?

A．They will change their direction.	B．They will stay and try to help it.
C．They will push it near the beach.	D．They will travel with another group.

4. What is the story mainly about?

A．How human activity has affected whales.

B．What might cause whale strandings.

C．How whales find their direction while traveling.

D．What scientists are doing to save stranded whales.

5. Where is the passage from?

A．Travel journal

B．Tourism magazine

C．News website

D．Science textbook

2 . Green Living Solutions for Small Budgets

There are plenty of major environmental changes you can make when you have an unlimited budget.     1     Make a few small, inexpensive changes to cut your carbon footprint and save some money in the process.

    2     It might make the biggest eco- change. Living in the smallest amount of square footage that works for your family means you'll need less heat, have room for less stuff, and are more likely to find a home in an urban area that lets you live without a car.

Want to cut your home utility bill(水电账单）？    3     Wear another sweater to stay cozy even after you drop the temperature a few degrees. You can also invest(投资） in a high-tech system that will automatically adjust the heat when you're out of the house. It's costly but can save your money in the long run.

Maybe selling your car altogether isn't entirely practical, but cutting out the number of trips you take in it is an easy way to save money. Invest in a used bike,buy a public transit pass, and plan your weekend trips according to neighborhoods.     4    

Growing all your food can end up being a major investment.     5     Spend a few dollars on seeds and dirt, and you'll have fresh and free vegetable dishes.

A．Then turn down the heat.

B．Just keep it simple and affordable.

C．But not all the big impacts come from big spending.

D．Each can help you save on gas and other related costs.

E．This has proved effective in various aspects of your life.

F．The most effective way is to start with the size of your home.

G．But even a small garden can help you cut your budget on food.

3 . 假定你是高二学生李华，你的英国朋友Jim在给你的邮件中提到他对你所在的城市正在实行的垃圾分类(garbage classification)很感兴趣，请给他回信，介绍相关信息。内容包括:
1. 垃圾分类的益处；
2. 你周边的实施情况；
3. 你的感受。
注意:
1. 词数100左右；
2. 可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯；
Dear Jim,
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Yours,

Li Hua

4 . When the leaves begin to change their colors and the birds head south, we know the season is starting to change. On September 7 comes White Dew (白露), the 15th solar term (节气) of the year. It indicates (标志着) the beginning of the cool autumn. As the temperature falls, white dew is often seen on the grass and trees at night.

For w riters and poets, autumn is a difficult season to describe. It ’s the end of the summer, and therefore a little sad. The days seem to get shorter, and when you wake in the morning, t here’s mist(薄雾) and it’s cooler. Winter is just around the corner.

American writer Ernest Hemingway wrote in his book A Moveable Feast (《流动的盛宴》), “You expected to be sad in the fall. Part of you died each year when the leaves fell from the trees and their branches (枝条) were bare (光秃秃的) against the wind and the cold, wintry light. ”

But on the other hand, autumn has its good side. There are so many changes at this time of year, such as the colorful leaves and cooler nights. French w riter Albert Camus even thought autumn was a second spring,   “when every leaf is a flower.” This view is also found in the most famous autumn poem in English literature, To Autumn by John Keats. In that poem, Keats says that autumn has its own songs, just like spring.

Another theme of this season is wisdom (智慧). The arrival of autumn is thought to be similar to a person becoming mature (成熟的).

The great Irish poet W.B. Yeats used this idea in his poem The Wild Swans at Coole (《库尔的野 天鹅》), writing about the changing seasons in Coole Park in the west of Ireland. Seeing and counting 59 swans, he remembers first making the count as a young man. Seeing the swans do the same thing for all those years, he’s reminded (提醒) that even though we get older, our hearts always stay the same age.

1. What can be concluded about White Dew ?

A．It is often ignored by w riters and poets.	B．It is the time of year with the most rainfall.
C．It is when the temperature begins to drop.	D．It indicates the end of the autumn.

2. A Moveable Feast was mentioned to ______.

A．point out that autumn is very cold	B．present the sad part of autumn
C．show that winter w ill soon come	D．express sadness about the end of life

3. What does “this idea” in the last paragraph refer to?

A．Autumn is an important season for man.	B．We can always stay young at heart.
C．Autumn is related to one’s grow ing old.	D．Nature is full of lessons to be learned.

4. What’s the article mainly about?

A．The solar term White Dew.	B．Why autumn is a sad season.
C．Autumn weather and activities.	D．Famous writers’ description of autumn.

5 . 假设你是星光中学的李华，将参加主题为“Let’s Ride B.icycles”的英语演讲比赛。请撰写一份演讲稿，主要内容包括：
1.目前汽车带来的空气污染和交通堵塞等问题。
2.骑自行车的益处，如能环保有利健康等。
参考词汇：低碳生活（low-carbon life）   节能 (energy saving)
注意：1.词数：100词左右；
2.演讲稿开头和结尾已给出，不计入总词数。

Good morning, everyone!

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

That’s all! Thank you for your listening!

6 . Hashtag, a pet dog as a gift from a friend to     1     (bright) up my day, saved my life — not once, but twice.

My husband and I had been expecting the exciting     2     (arrive) of him for months before Hashtag came into our home in the winter. I was struggling with depression and suddenly I had something else     3     (require) my attention. I had been overcome by negative thoughts completely, but now I had     4     sense of purpose. I couldn’t give up. Once realizing that, I became     5     (energy). I focused on giving him training and affection, and walking with him. Finally, I got over my depression 18 months later. There’s no doubt     6     Hashtag played an important role in my recovery. Then, last December, we     7     (sleep) deeply when a fire started in our living room. Barking downstairs     8     (unusual), Hashtag woke us up and allowed us     9     (grasp) the seriousness of our situation.

Within moments, we were standing outside. There’s no telling what could have happened     10    Hashtag’s warning. I don’t have the words to describe how grateful I feel for the warning to him.

7 . Though plastic shopping bags are cheap and useful, they cause widespread pollution. Now, we may have an unlikely helper to help clean up our garbage — a small wax worm.

The worm’s hidden skills were discovered by accident. About two years ago, Federica Bertocchini, a developmental biologist at the Spanish National Research Council and an amateur beekeeper, was cleaning out bees’ nest that had been filled with worms. She removed the worms and put them in a plastic bag while doing the cleaning. After finishing, she went back to the room where she had left the worms, and found they had escaped from the bag. When she checked, she saw that the bag was full of holes.

Realizing she may have made an important discovery, Bertocchini teamed up with other researchers to conduct further research. They began by placing 100 worms on some plastic bags and discovered that over a 24-hour period, the worms managed to chew through 92 milligrams of plastic. The researchers make an appropriate judgment that at this rate, the group of worms could   degrade (降解) an average-sized 5.5-gram plastic bag within a month. To rule out the possibility that chewing was causing the degradation, the researchers spread the soft wet substance inside the body of some recently dead worms on a sheet of plastic. Sure enough, even the liquid was able to eat through the material, confirming that the worms have plastic-digesting enzymes (酶).

While the news is certainly encouraging, not everyone is convinced. The Michigan State University’s Ramani Narayan believes the tiny pieces of microplastics released by the plastic-eating worms would pick up harmful substances and transport them up the food chain, causing, even more, harm to the environment and human health. Susan Selke, director of Michigan State University School of Packaging, is concerned that the worms will not be able to survive in an oxygen-free landfills where large amounts of waste material are buried under the earth.

However, Bertocchini is not planning to transport worm armies to landfills. Instead, the researcher wants to identify the enzyme that helps degrade the plastic. The researcher says, maybe we can find the molecule (分子) and produce it on an industrial level, rather than using a million worms in a plastic bag.

1. What did the experiment of using dead worms find out?

A．Worms’ chewing may cause the degradation.

B．A plastic-eating chemical exists in wax worms.

C．Dead worms are effective in dealing with plastic.

D．It takes a long time for worms to degrade plastic.

2. What is Ramani Naravan's attitude to Bertocchini's finding?

A．Objective

B．Convinced

C．Questioning.

D．Optimistic.

3. What might Bertocchini focus her later research on?

A．The structure of plastic-degrading enzymes.

B．The use of other worms in disposing plastic.

C．Wax worms’ adaptability to the landfill environment.

D．The chance of producing wax worms on a large scale.

4. What is the best title for the text?

A．Can wax worms save the environment?

B．Wax worms have an appetite for plastic.

C．Why do wax worms have plastic-eating skills?

D．Hungry worms join the fight against plastic pollution

8 . Jadav Payeng, an Indian, has been planting a tree every day since he was just 16 years old. Now, almost 40 years later, he has created a ______ of 1,360 acres on what was once a _____ land.

Growing up on Majuli, the world’s largest river island, he once ______ hundreds of animals dying from drought among the ______ greenery on the island, so he was ______ to plant one tree every day.

After almost four ______ of growth, his forest is now home to hundreds of elephants, tigers, deer and birds. Payeng says he has lost ______ of how many trees he has planted—but he ____ there are now thousands of trees providing ______ to the wildlife.

“It’s not as if I did it ______,” Payeng said. “You plant one or two trees, and they have to seed. And once they seed, the wind knows how to plant them, the birds here know how to ____ them, cows know, elephants ______, and even the river knows. The entire ______ knows.”

Island locals used to call Payeng “crazy” for his ______, but since he was accidentally ___ by a wandering wildlife journalist in 2007, the “Forest Man of India” has been ______ as a role model for protecting the environment.

Payeng doesn’t plan on ______ any time soon—he wants to continue planting trees “until his last ______”. He hopes to one day ______ the entire island with 5,000 acres of trees. “Nature is everything. It ______ me. It gives me power…As long as it survives, I survive.”

1.

A．lake

B．forest

C．park

D．hole

2.

A．big

B．fertile

C．poor

D．flat

3.

A．witnessed

B．imagined

C．reported

D．rescued

4.

A．remote

B．amazing

C．fresh

D．decreasing

5.

A．delighted

B．moved

C．determined

D．convinced

6.

A．decades

B．years

C．months

D．weeks

7.

A．interest

B．count

C．control

D．sight

8.

A．argues

B．dreams

C．hopes

D．believes

9.

A．food

B．care

C．water

D．shelter

10.

A．by accident

B．by myself

C．by mistake

D．by all means

11.

A．eat

B．pass

C．repair

D．sow

12.

A．know

B．work

C．rest

D．run

13.

A．village

B．ecosystem

C．planet

D．desert

14.

A．confidence

B．position

C．ambition

D．experiment

15.

A．discovered

B．connected

C．decided

D．regarded

16.

A．ordered

B．observed

C．praised

D．studied

17.

A．stopping

B．returning

C．hiding

D．waiting

18.

A．purpose

B．view

C．breath

D．picture

19.

A．tighten

B．restart

C．arrange

D．save

20.

A．improves

B．inspires

C．changes

D．forbids

9 . 阅读下面短文，根据所给情节进行续写，使之构成一个完整的故事。

“I'm going to miss you so much, Poppy, "said the tall, thin teenager. He bent down to hug his old friend goodbye. He stood up, hugged his parents, and smiled, trying not to let his emotions(情绪)get the better of him.

His parents were not quite able to keep theirs under control. They had driven their son several hours out of town to the university where he would soon be living and studying. It was time to say goodbye for now at least. The family hugged and smiled through misty eyes and then laughed.

The boy lifted the last bag onto his shoulder, and flashed a bright smile.” I guess this is it, “he said.” I'll see you back home in a month, okay？"His parents nodded, and they watched as he walked out of sight into the crowds of hundreds of students and parents. The boy's mother turned to the dog, “Okay, Poppy, time to go back home.”

The house seemed quiet as a tomb without the boy living there. All that week, Poppy didn't seem interested in her dinner, her favorite toy, or even in her daily walk. Her owners were sad too, but they knew their son would be back to visit. Poppy didn't.

They offered the dog some of her favorite peanut butter treats. They even let her sit on the sofa, but the old girl just wasn't her usual cheerful self. Her owners started to get worried. "What should we do to cheer Poppy up？"asked Dad. “We've tried everything.”

“I have an idea, but it might be a little crazy, “smiled Mom.” Without anybody left in the house but us, this place could use a bit of fun. Let's get a little dog for Poppy."

It didn't take long before they walked through the front door carrying a big box. Poppy welcomed them home as usual, but when she saw the box, she stopped. She put her nose on it. Her tail began wagging(摆动)ever so slowly, then faster as she caught the smell.

注意:
1. 所续写短文的词数应为150左右；
2. 至少使用5个短文中标有下划线的关键词语；
3. 续写部分分为两段，每段的开头语已为你写好；
4. 续写完成后，请用下划线标出你所使用的关键词语。
Para 1. Dad opened the box and a sweet little dog appeared.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Para 2. A few weeks later, the boy arrived home from university.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

10 . Have you ever wondered what wild animals do when no one is watching? Scientists have been able to record the “private” moments of wildlife with leading-edge technology. Low-cost, dependable and small modern cameras are of big help.

Cameras placed in hard-to-reach places have taken videos of everything from small desert cats to later snow loving felines (猫科) in the northern Rocky Mountains. These cameras are important tools to learn new information on wildlife.

Some videos help scientists see the effects of climate change. For example, the desert animal javelin and the tree-loving coatimundi have been caught on cameras north of their normal home. This could mean global warming is enlarging their living area northward.

Researchers use cameras along with global positioning systems, or GPS. They attach GPS devices (设备) to mule deer and antelope in and around Yellowstone National Park. Then they can record their movements, or migrations (迁移) . These cameras can be left in very rural (荒野的) areas for days, weeks or even month. They can provide information on how many animals are moving over a given period of time.

Rural video can show details about animal behavior, such as the calls made by migrating. Also some cameras record animal life and show everything from bison in Saskatchewan, Canada, to the underwater weed forest off California’s Channel Islands.

However, rural cameras have their problems too. Animals such as wolverines and bears sometimes attack them. Scientists do not know if the attacks are the result of anger or interest. Also, the devices have become popular tools to help hunters look for animals. Some people argue that it is unfair to use the cameras that way. Even with such problems, rural cameras are clearly an important scientific tool in researching wild animals.

1. Which of the following helps scientists know about climate change?

A．How active animals are.	B．What animals eat.
C．Where animals go.	D．When animals move.

2. Where are the cameras fixed?

A．Under water	B．In the field
C．On GPS devices.	D．On wild animals.

3. What may be the disadvantage of the rural cameras?

A．They affect animals' search for good.

B．They make wild animals puzzled.

C．They make animals attack one another frequently.

D．They might bring danger to animals.

4. Which of the following can be the best title for the text?

A．Cameras Record Animals in the Wild	B．Every Coin Has Two Sides
C．Animals No Longer Have Secrets	D．An Invention Makes Animals Mad