1 . Antarctica (南极洲) is a great, icy land, surrounded by the huge Southern Ocean. The ice in Antarctica doesn’t just cover the land. There’s also a large area of sea ice, which floats (漂浮) on the ocean’s surface.

Scientists have been measuring the area of the sea ice in Antarctica since 1979. For most of this time, Antarctica has seemed to be almost not influenced by the changing weather conditions experienced in other parts of the planet. In fact, until recent years, Antartica’s sea ice area mainly set records for growing.

That began to change around 2016. Now, for several years, the area of Antartica’s sea ice has been getting smaller. This year, the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) reported that Antartica’s sea ice reached its maximum on September 10 — almost two weeks earlier than normal. And the sea ice was at a new record low — not just by a little bit, but by a lot.

The last time Antartica’s low sea ice set a record at the end of winter was in 1986. And this year, there’s about 1.03 million square kilometers less sea ice than in 1986. It’s hard to picture such a large area, but it’s around 1.6 times the size of France.

Scientists are still trying to understand what is driving the change in Antarctica. Ted Scambos, a research scientist at the University of Colorado, says, “Antarctica’s ice levels have always changed some, but the situation this year is pointing towards warmer ocean conditions around the area.”

The new low record has scientists worried. The sea ice is important, because it helps cool the planet. When it’s frozen, sea ice reflects sunlight back out into space. But when the sea ice melts (融化), the water left behind is darker, and takes in and keeps more heat.

1. What did NSIDC find about the sea ice in Antarctica this year?

A．It protected the wildlife in the ocean.	B．It grew and covered a wider area.
C．It turned out to be difficult to observe.	D．It reached a new record low level.

2. Why does the author mention France in paragraph 4?

A．To present the total area of the country.

B．To introduce a new topic for discussion.

C．To show the sharp loss of Antarctica’s sea ice.

D．To explain the position of the wonderful land.

3. What causes the change in Antarctica according to Ted Scambos?

A．Low rainfall.	B．Rising temperatures.
C．Cold weather.	D．Short summer months.

4. What can we know about Antarctica’s sea ice?

A．It’s key to the earth’s cooling system.	B．It’s just a short-term problem.
C．It reminds us to find water resources.	D．It offers humans a bright future.

3 . 阅读下面短文，在空白处填入1个适当的单词括号内单词的正确形式。

The first domestic chickens we have found lived no earlier than 3,670 years ago, suggesting they have a far shorter history than we thought. These birds don’t seem to have been raised for their meat,     1     (make) it unclear what drove domestication. The chickens alive today descend from a wild bird native to South-East Asia     2     (call) the red jungle fowl, but exactly     3     domestication occurred was unclear. Some researchers have estimated that the first domestic chicken lived more than 6000 years ago, while others claim     4     (find) chicken bones at 10,000-year-old sites.     5     analysis by Ophelie Lebrasseur at the Centre for Anthropobiology and Genomics of Toulouse in France and her team concludes that the     6     (early) clear evidence of domestic chickens appeared between 1,650 BC and 1,250 BC at a site called Ban Non Wat in central Thailand. Not only     7     (be) chicken bones superabundant at the site, but there are signs that people were buried with the birds,     8     Lebrasseur says makes a domestic relationship clear. Lebrasseur and her team suspect chicken domestication might have been triggered by the       9     (appear) of cereal fanning in South-East Asia. “This created a more open, less tree-covered environment, which is actually an environment where red jungle fowl thrive,” she says, “And they could have fed     10     the waste from human societies.”

4 . Steve Forest is a scientist. He’s standing on an island off the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula. Below him are several hundred penguins and their children. Forrest’s job is to count every one of them. It's snowing. There is a big wind, too. And their children won’t stay still. Penguins are great climbers. So Forrest and the team members must be too. And penguins aren't always clean.

Forrest has been coming to Antarctica every January for six years. He's helping count the area’s penguins. This will help researchers better understand the Antarctic environment. There used to be lots of penguins in Antarctica, “It's all because of climate change,” Heather J. Lynch says seriously. She is leading the research team. The team member Noah Strycker adds, “We know climate change is hitting the Antarctic Peninsula harder than anywhere else in the world. We are following the situation closely.”

Scientists think that warming waters do harm to krill, the tiny animals that penguins eat. This is bad for the sea life. But krill are hard to study, so researchers pay attention to penguins. They’re easier to follow. They return to the same place each year to lay eggs. If penguins aren't doing well , krill probably aren't either. “Penguins give us an idea about what is going on in the sea around us,” Forrest says.

This year, Lynch’s research team uses a drone to help them. They fly it over an area to take pictures to count penguins.

Counting penguins is quite necessary. The more we learn, the more we know about krill and the ocean animals that depend on them. When we understand them, we can start fixing them. We should consider carefully what Lynch says: “What’s happening in the Antarctic is happening everywhere.”

1. What is required of scientists like Forrest according to Paragraph 1?

A．Being clean.	B．Being good at math.
C．Being cool-headed.	D．Being skilled in climbing.

2. What's the point of counting penguins in the Antarctie?

A．To protect this animal species from extinction.

B．To help find out how many krill might be living

C．To have a better knowledge of the Antarctic environment

D．To collect first-hand data for analyzing global warming.

3. What does the underlined word “them” in the last paragraph refer to?

A．Scientists.

B．Krill.

C．Penguins.

D．Ocean animals.

4. What can be inferred from the text?

A．Penguins lay eggs in the same place on the island every year.

B．The penguin population is increasing due to climate change.

C．The penguin population determines the krill population.

D．Climate change is most obvious in the Antarctic Peninsula.

5 . Margot doesn’t have a garbage can. It doesn’t need one because Margot simply doesn’t cause anything to get thrown away. The restaurant doesn’t allow any type of single use plastic. Margot, which opened last year, is one of the small but growing restaurants around the world aiming to avoid not only food leftovers, but also any garbage.

“Food waste has been increasing as an issue for restaurants over the last 10 years,” says Calvin Brown. He runs the Sustainable Restaurant Association. Based in the United Kingdom, the organization helps food business become more environmentally responsible. He says that food waste contributes to releasing the greenhouse gas, so there is strong motivation to reduce waste and help the environment.

In the USA, food waste and packing account for nearly half of the material sent to landfills. Restaurants from McDonald’s to Starbucks are addressing this issue with “no straw Mondays” and limits on single-serving plastic, but a handful of restaurateurs are trying to get rid of rubbish entirely. There’s also economic case to be made for waste reduction. One study shows that restaurants save seven dollars for every dollar invested in anti- waste methods.

Avoiding food waste is the first and perhaps most obvious challenge for sustainable restaurants. Doug McMaster, chef at Silo in London, only serves a set menu. This removes the worry that one particular item won’t sell well, and will spoil in the refrigerator. Compost (堆肥) is a necessity as well. Nolla (meaning “zero” in Finnish) in Helsinki, Finland is giving compost to its suppliers as well as its diners. Nolla also has food- tracking software more commonly used among corporate food service companies to keep track of what sells and what rots.

Sometimes restaurants call themselves environmentally friendly, but they might just be using the label. Calvin offers some pointers on what to look for to make sure a restaurant is truly committed to sustainability.

1. What does Margot feature?

A．Its large size.	B．Its opening hours.
C．Its zero-waste goal.	D．Its plastic garbage cans.

2. What is paragraph 3 mainly about?

A．Ways of packaging food.

B．The issue of investing in services.

C．The importance of environmental protection.

D．Efforts of some restaurants to reduce rubbish,

3. Which of the following does Nolla try to do?

A．Only serve a set menu.

B．Hardly use refrigerators.

C．Supply compost to its customers.

D．Keep track of diners’ preferences.

4. What does Calvin think restaurants should do?

A．Expand food business.

B．Use eco-friendly labels.

C．Save money on dealing with kitchen garbage.

D．Contribute to sustainable development of the food industry.

7 . 随着社会的发展，环境的恶化，栖息地遭到破坏，人类的捕杀等原因，许多野生动物处境十分危险，请以How to protect wild animals为题写一篇作文。
注意：词数100左右，可适当发挥
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

8 . Trillions of evolution’s wonders, red-eyed periodical cicadas (蝉) that have pumps in their heads and jet-like muscles in their bodies, are about to emerge in numbers not seen in decades and possibly centuries. Crawling out from underground every 13 or 17 years, with a collective song as loud as jet engines, the periodical cicadas are nature’s kings of the calendar. These black bugs with bulging eyes differ from their greener cousins that come out annually. They stay buried year after year, until they surface and take over a landscape.

This spring, an unusual cicada double population is about to invade a couple of parts of the United States in what University of Connecticut cicada expert John Cooley called “cicada-geddon”. The last time these two broods (a group of creatures) came out together was in 1803. Thomas Jefferson, the then president, wrote about cicadas in his Garden Book but mistakenly called them locusts (蝗虫). Usually mistaken for hungry and unrelated locusts, periodical cicadas are more annoying rather than causing great economic damage. They can hurt young trees and some fruit crops, but it’s not widespread and can be prevented.

The largest geographic brood in the nation—called Brood XIX and coming out every 13 years—is about to march through the Southeast, having already created countless boreholes in the red Georgia clay. It’s a sure sign of the coming cicada occupation. “They emerge when the ground warms to 64 degrees, which is happening earlier than it used to because of climate change,” scientists said. “The bugs are brown at first but darken as they mature.”

Soon after the insects appear in large numbers in Georgia and the rest of the Southeast, cicada cousins that come out every 17 years will inundate Illinois. They are Brood ⅩⅢ. “And when you put those two together… you would have more than anywhere else any other time,” University of Maryland entomologist Paula Shrewsbury said. “These two broods may actually overlap—but probably not interbreed-in a small area near central Illinois.”

1. How are periodical cicadas different from their greener cousins?

A．They appear once a year.	B．They look more beautiful.
C．They have stronger muscles.	D．They have a longer life circle.

2. What is a common belief on periodical cicadas?

A．They are a type of locusts.	B．They have underestimated advantages.
C．They are Thomas Jefferson’s inspiration.	D．They only eat young trees and fruit crops.

3. What can be inferred about Brood ⅩⅨ?

A．The red Georgia clay is more beneficial to them.

B．Climate change may be confusing their schedules.

C．The adult ones only live 4-6 weeks before they die.

D．They are expected to be found throughout the world.

4. What can best replace the underlined word “inundate” in the last paragraph?

A．Strike out.

B．Give up.

C．Flood into.

D．Jump at.

9 . A tree-planting initiative in Kenya has seen over 30,000 trees being planted. The Green Generation Initiative is a Kenyan charity that has been planting trees to counter climate change and the reduction in forest in the East African nation since 2016.

Founded by climate activist Elizabeth Wathuti when she was fifteen years old, the initiative’s primary focus is on developing young climate activists through environmental education in schools and addressing food insecurity in the region through planting fruit trees. Since its foundation, over 30,000 trees have been planted in Kenya, while thousands of school children have not just planted trees but adopted them to ensure that young people learn the importance of acting as a guardian over the health of the environment. The trees have recorded a survival rate of over 98 percent, as they remain tended to from young trees to maturity.

Speaking to world leaders at the recent United Nations Climate Conference in Glasgow (COP26), Elizabeth issued a serious warning on the threat of climate change. Over two million of Kenyans are facing climate related starvation. In 2025, half of the world’s population will be facing water shortage. The climate crisis will displace 80 million people in sub-Saharan Africa alone.

Elizabeth said, “I have been doing what I can. Inspired by the great Wangari Maathai, I founded a tree growing initiative that enhances food security for young Kenyans.” So far, they have grown 30,000 fruit trees to maturity, providing desperately needed nutrition for thousands of children. “Every day we see that when we look after the trees, they look after us. We are the adults on this Earth right now, and it is our responsibility to ensure that the children have food and water,” she added.

1. What is the initiative intended for?

A．Making policies.	B．Raising money.
C．Educating adults.	D．Fighting climate change.

2. What crisis are Kenyans encountering at present?

A．Hunger.

B．Sickness

C．Water shortage.

D．Economic risks.

3. What has been achieved since 2016?

A．3,000 trees have been planted.

B．Green awareness has been raised.

C．80 million people have been saved.

D．School education has been guaranteed.

4. Which of the following can best describe Elizabeth Wathuti?

A．Friendly and talented.	B．Caring and responsible.
C．Honest and determined.	D．Ambitious and humorous.