1 . Chіnеѕе раngоlіnѕ ( 中华穿山甲) live in the south of the country’s Yangtze River. The long-tailed animals spend most of the daytime sleeping, curling up into a ball. They have poor eyesight so they use their well- developed sense of smell to find their diet of insects at night. Their physical appearance is marked by large, hardened, plate-like scales ( 鳞 片 ) . The scales, which are soft on newborn pangolins but harden as they grow up. Pangolins are also known as scaly anteaters (食蚁兽) and they hеlр рrоtесt trееѕ іn thе fоrеѕts.
But now they are in danger. Experts say that Chinese pangolins are functionally extinct, Beijing News reported. This suggests that there won’ t be more baby pangolins in the wild. The population of pangolins will be smaller and smaller. They can no longer play an important role in the wild.
According to a national wildlife survey, there were about 60,000 Chinese pangolins in different places, including Yunnan and Zhejiang, in the 1990s. Since then, this number has fallen by 90 percent because of hunters who kill them for their scales and meat. People use their scales in traditional Chinese medicine and it’ s believed by some that their meat is high in nutritional value. In addition, Chinese pangolins are facing a loss of their homes because of pollution and a reduction in the forest area.
The environment has changed a lot due to human activity which is mainly focused on the development of economy. What is worse, many animals like pangolins have to live in a much- polluted homeland. Their population has become smaller and smaller. It is time for us to take measures to show care to our friends, the animals.
1. What can we learn about Chinese pangolins from the first paragraph?| A．They live in a much- polluted homeland. |
| B．They are born with hard scales. |
| C．They are good for trees. |
| A．Pangolins lose their sense of smell. |
| B．Pangolins cannot give birth to new babies. |
| C．Pangolins cannot adapt to the nature. |
| A．The policy for protecting them is not strict. |
| B．There are many hunters killing them. |
| C．Air pollution is very serious. |
| A．To present the way of protecting animals. |
| B．To prove the importance of Chinese pangolins. |
| C．To raise people’s awareness of protecting pangolins. |
2 . Polar bears generally use sea ice to hunt (捕猎), but a newly discovered group has found another way. An isolated (与世隔绝的) population of polar bears has been discovered in a fjord (峡湾) in southeast Greenland, which is free of sea ice for most of the year. Polar bear generally need sea ice to survive, so the discovery is raising hopes that some kinds of the polar bears might survive the loss of sea ice caused by global warming.
Researchers found the population living in a fjord in the southeast Greenland, which is surrounded by mountains and an ice sheet to the west, and ocean to the east. The sea-ice coverage lasts for only around 100 days each year. With sea ice in the fjord becoming smaller because of global warming, the whole group were expected to die out by the end of this century.
But the isolated population has found a way to hunt without sea ice. The group, about 27 adult females, has been isolated from other polar bear populations along Greenland’s east coast for at least 200 years.
Tracking data from marked bears proves that they don’t move far. For example, when members of the group went out of the fjord, the ice on which they sat sometimes got caught in the rapid water flow. “Whenever this happened, they would get stuck and then, they would have to jump off, swim to the beach and walk back home empty-handed,” says lead author Kristin Laidre, an animal ecologist at the University of Washington in Seattle.
Though the researchers failed to video their hunting without sea ice, the existence of this small population in conditions of low sea-ice coverage suggests there is a chance that the population can survive, even as sea ice flows away to farther north each year.
1. What have the newly discovered polar bears found?| A．A place filled with ice sheets. |
| B．A way to hunt without sea ice. |
| C．A way to track sea ice flowing away. |
| D．An ice sheet caught in the rapid water flow. |
| A．They are being hunted by human. |
| B．They have lost their source of food. |
| C．They can’t stand the increasing heat. |
| D．The sea ice there is becoming smaller. |
| A．The bears can swim very far to hunt for food. |
| B．Kristin Laidre is negative about the future of the group. |
| C．Once the group went out of the fjord, they might get into trouble. |
| D．If the bears got caught in the rapid water flow, they wouldn’t go home. |
| A．Polar bear population can survive without sea ice |
| B．Sea ice is becoming smaller because of the global warming |
| C．Polar bear population may die out because of the global warming |
| D．A newly discovered polar bear population has been stuck in a fjord |
Humans are mammals (哺乳动物). Most mammals are born able to do many things. Some can walk within a few minutes of being born. They have to be able to run away if
In the first month of life, babies cannot smile or sit up. They cannot even hold up their own heads
In the next few months, babies grow a lot. They learn to roll over, support their heads, and
Babies also have to learn to use their
Babbling is
Somewhere around a baby’s first birthday he or she may stand or walk with help. Soon the baby will
The first year of a baby’s life is a time of growing and
| A．food | B．danger | C．waste | D．peace |
| A．careless | B．harmless | C．hopeless | D．helpless |
| A．of | B．for | C．without | D．by |
| A．even | B．never | C．ever | D．still |
| A．legs | B．heads | C．eyes | D．hands |
| A．keep | B．move | C．hold | D．make |
| A．why | B．how | C．which | D．where |
| A．before | B．since | C．after | D．while |
| A．look | B．show | C．run | D．sit |
| A．speaking | B．smiling | C．crying | D．learning |
4 . People have long known that dogs have a great sense of smell. But scientists weren’t sure whether stressed people had a special smell. And if they did, they weren’t sure whether dogs could detect that smell.
All day long, our bodies go through changes and produce different chemicals. They come out in our breath and sweat, slightly changing the way we smell. But it wasn’t known if stress could cause changes that could be detected. So researchers at Queen’s University Belfast, led by scientist Clara Wilson, collected breath and sweat samples(样品) from 36 different people. They got samples when the people were calm and when they were stressed.
The calm part was easy. They asked people to report their stress level, and measured their heart rates and blood pressure. The people were asked to wipe their skin with a clean piece of cloth. Then they had to put the cloth sample in a tube(管子), breathe on it hard three times, and seal the tube.
Then the scientists asked a really difficult math problem, and forced people to do it in their heads quickly. They kept telling the people to hurry up, and didn’t give them any help. That lasted for three minutes. Then the researchers collected two more sweat and breath samples. They also asked the people about their level of stress, and measured their heart rates and blood pressure. Most people said they felt very stressed. On average, the heart rate increased from about 91 beats per minute to about 105 beats per minute.
The scientists used one of the stressed samples, along with two clean pieces of cloth, to train the dogs to find the stressed smell. Then came the challenge: the dogs had three choices: a sample from a calm person, a stressed sample from that same person, and a clean piece of cloth. In all, the dogs did 720 of these tests. They correctly identified the stressed sample about 94% of the time.
The results make it clear that stress does have a smell that dogs can detect. Ms. Wilson says the news could be especially useful in training service dogs, since their job is to help relieve stress.
1. What conclusion can be drawn from paragraph 2?| A．One’s body smell almost stays the same. |
| B．Our breath and sweat contain chemicals. |
| C．Stress plays a big role in one’s body smell. |
| D．Our bodies produce chemicals only when we’re awake. |
| A．To stress people out. | B．To hold people back. |
| C．To cheer people up. | D．To keep people interested. |
| A．the difficulty of the challenge |
| B．the complexity of the experiment |
| C．the dogs finished the challenge quite well |
| D．the experiment needed to be improved |
| A．Dogs Prove to Have a Great Sense of Smell |
| B．It Turns Out That Stress Does Have a Smell |
| C．Scientists Learn That Dogs Can Smell Stress |
| D．Research Shows That Dogs Can Be Stress Relievers |
5 . There are many ecosystems that are truly suffering from damage. One of the solutions to the problem is that they can be restored (修复) by reintroducing some animal species. A study shows if you introduce right large mammals (哺乳动物), you can successfully restore a lot of the planet.
Some roles that species play in the environment are extremely important, so the loss of any of these can break the ecological balance. So on the other hand, it means that reintroducing a species can produce positive results. When a few wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone Park, it became one of the most successful examples to prove the reintroduced species did help restore the ecosystem. Dr. Carly, a scientist, along with her team, was able to identify 20 kinds of mammals that could help restore a lot of what we’ve destroyed in nature if reintroduced. The species benefit the nature in different ways like helping renew soil and grass.
The team compared environments of 500 years ago with conditions of modern environments. And they figured out that only 16% of the world still has undamaged wild mammals communities, and just 6% looks similar to what it looked like before 1500. They believed that undamaged mammals communities can easily be swollen through reintroduction program, especially in South America and northern areas of Africa.
In Europe, reintroducing wolf, bison, and reindeer could really make a great impact. However, just wolves and wild horses could make a difference to Asia. “Our recommendations may not be suitable everywhere in the world—local assessments (评估) must be made to decide whether to start a reintroduction program or not. If hunting pressures within different species, shortage of food are still problems, they need solving first. However, our findings show there are huge areas of the world that could be suitable for large mammal restoration if other problems are managed,” said Dr. Carly.
1. What role did the wolves play in Yellowstone Park?| A．Attracting some other animal species. |
| B．Keeping the balance of the ecosystem. |
| C．Creating better soil for other animals. |
| D．Preventing more visits to the park. |
| A．Planned. | B．Cut. | C．Controlled. | D．Increased. |
| A．The more species reintroduced, the better for the local area. |
| B．It is almost impossible for the damaged nature to be restored. |
| C．Reintroducing species must be based on the local conditions. |
| D．Providing enough food for reintroduced species is a challenge. |
| A．Environment. | B．Culture. | C．Health. | D．History. |
6 . The swan is a large, beautiful bird with a long neck, big white wings and wide feet. It is a great flyer because of its strong wings. It is also a good swimmer, swimming quickly and nicely through the water. But on dry land, it’s a different story—the swan’s heavy body and slow walk make it look a bit funny!
Swans live anywhere there is fresh water, like lakes and slow-moving rivers. They eat water plants and small fish. Swans are very territorial (地盘性的), which means that they protect their homes against any strangers. When swans want to look strong, they stand up tall, show their long necks and open their big wings while letting out big noises.
In spring, swans make a nest (巢) of tree leaves near the water. They often use the same nest year after year, repairing it when egg laying time comes round. The mother swan lays between five and eight eggs in the nest, and then sits on them to keep them warm and safe until about a month later, cygnets are born. Sometimes the father swan will take the first—born cygnets out onto the water while the mother stays to look after the other eggs. The cygnets are looked after by both parents, who will fight other animals, people or even boats if they think their cygnets are in danger!
1. To make them look strong, swans ________.| A．swim quickly | B．stand on one leg |
| C．move their necks often | D．open their wings |
| A．they build their nests after spring | B．they often use the same nest every year |
| C．they use the nests just for laying eggs | D．they build their nests under the water |
| A．cover the eggs with tree leaves | B．stay away and watch the eggs |
| C．stay to sit on top of the eggs | D．have the father look after the eggs |
| A．the swan nests | B．the father swans |
| C．the baby swans | D．the mother swans |
7 . With no special equipment, no fences and no watering, two abandoned agricultural fields in the UK have been rewilded (重新野化), in large part due to the efforts of jays, which actually “engineered” these new woodlands. Researchers now hope that rewilding projects can take a more natural and hands-off approach and that jays can shed some of their bad reputations.
The two fields, which researchers have called the New Wilderness and the Old Wilderness, had been abandoned in 1996 and 1961 respectively. The former was a bare field, while the latter was grassland—both lay next to ancient woodlands. Researchers had suspected that the fields would gradually return to wilderness, but it was impressive to see just how quickly this happened, and how much of it was owed to birds.
Using aerial data, the researchers monitored the two sites. After just 24 years, the New Wilderness had grown into a young, healthy wood with 132 live trees per hectare, over half of which (57%) were oaks. Meanwhile, the Old Wilderness resembled a mature woodland after 39 years, with 390 trees per hectare.
“This native woodland restoration was approaching the structure (but not the species composition) of long-established woodlands within six decades,” the researchers explained in the study.
Part of this reforestation was done by the wind, and researchers suspect that previous ground disturbance may have aided the woodland establishment—which is good news, as it would suggest that agricultural areas may be reforested faster than anticipated. However, animals—Eurasian jays, thrushes, wood mice, and squirrels—also played an important role in helping the forests take shape. This handful of species provided much of the natural regeneration needed for the forest to develop. Jays, in particular, seem to have done a lot of heavy lifting.
1. What does the underlined word “shed” in Paragraph 1 refer to?| A．Be opposed to. |
| B．Be ashamed of. |
| C．Get used to. |
| D．Get rid of. |
| A．The scale of the woodlands. |
| B．The diversity of the fields. |
| C．The rate of the changes. |
| D．The frequency of the wilderness. |
| A．The woodland restoration was approaching the structure of long-established ones. |
| B．Much of the wilderness of the fields was owed to birds. |
| C．Previous ground disturbance aided the woodland establishment. |
| D．How quickly the fields returned to wilderness over time. |
| A．The essential role of humans in the reforestation. |
| B．The factors that contribute to the reforestation. |
| C．The importance of woodland establishment. |
| D．The threats faced by a handful of wild animals. |
8 . The tradition of giving gifts didn’t start with the modern holidays we celebrate. Many ancient cultures celebrated holidays with the exchange of gifts. People who love to give gifts often can’t wait until it’s time for the recipients to open their gifts. If you’ve ever been given a gift, you know that part of the fun is the curiosity that builds as you wonder what the gift is.
The wish to hide the identity of a gift until just the right moment led people to wrap gifts long, long ago. Historians believed wrapping gifts in paper probably started not long after paper was invented thousands of years ago.
Wrapping paper like what we use today, though, is a much more recent invention. More than 100 years ago, gifts were usually wrapped in heavy brown paper. Before that, cloth was often used. The technology to mass-produce wrapping paper didn’t come along until the early 1900s. The first American gift wrap company— Hy-Sill Manufacturing Inc. — was founded by Eli Hyman and Morris Silverman in 1903. It wasn’t as easy to wrap presents back then as it is today, though, because adhesive tape (胶带) wasn’t invented until 1930.
Over the years, wrapping paper has developed into what we see in stores each holiday season. But scientists say that the United States alone produces an extra 5 million tons of waste over the holidays, most of which is from wrapping paper and shopping bags. To cut down on this waste, some people carefully unwrap presents, so that the wrapping paper can be reused. Others have started to use reusable gift bags instead of wrapping paper.
1. What is the interesting part of people giving a gift?| A．Hiding their gifts and their feelings. |
| B．Giving the recipients a surprise. |
| C．Letting the recipients open gifts at once. |
| D．Following a century-old tradition. |
| A．People didn’t know wrapping paper until 1903. |
| B．Heavy brown paper has been used to wrap gifts for 100 years. |
| C．Technology made wrapping paper widely available. |
| D．Adhesive tape was first created by gift wrap companies. |
| A．The future of reusable gift bags. |
| B．The waste produced by Americans. |
| C．Wrapping paper’s influence on the environment. |
| D．People’s admiration for wrapping paper. |
| A．The popularity of wrapping gifts. |
| B．The start of wrapping gifts in paper. |
| C．The problems caused by wrapping paper. |
| D．The story behind wrapping paper. |
9 . According to a recent study, laughter and joy may not be unique to humans. Ancestral forms of play and laughter existed in other animals long before they did in humans. Jaak Panksepp, a professor of psychobiology at Washington State University and the author of the study, says, “Human laughter has deep roots in our animal past.”
While humans are the only creatures that tell jokes, it has long been suspected that some animals like to laugh. In 1872, Charles Darwin pointed out that “very many kinds of monkeys, when pleased, make a sound, clearly analogous to our laughter.” In an experiment Panksepp had performed earlier, he found that when chimpanzees (黑猩猩) play, they make noises strikingly like human laughter, and that dogs have a similar response.
Panksepp notes that children who are too young to laugh at jokes are likely to laugh during noisy plays. Panksepp found that when young rats (老鼠) are playing, they also make sounds - they chirp (发唧唧声), although people can’t hear them. These chirps are far too high for humans to hear. Researchers must use special electronic receivers that change the chirps to sounds that humans can hear.
In studying laughter, scientists have focused mostly on related issues - humor, personality, health benefits, social theory - rather than laughter itself. New research, however, shows that circuits (电路) for laughter exist in very ancient parts of the human brain. The ability to laugh appears early in childhood, as anyone who has seen a baby laugh knows.
Some scientists say that other mammals, just like humans, have many feelings. “The recognition by neuroscientists that the brain mechanisms (机制) causing pain, pleasure and fear are the same in humans and other mammals shows our similarity to other species and extremely important.” said Tecumseh Fitch, a psychology lecturer at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. Science has traditionally held that humour is only a human quality, and many scientists believe that more research is required before rats’ chirping sounds can be considered real laughter. Panksepp believes that, through a study of laughter in rats, the human sense of humour can be more fully understood.
1. What is the finding of the recent study?| A．Animals can also play jokes on others. |
| B．Animals can hardly express happiness. |
| C．Human laughter has its origin in animal sounds. |
| D．Humans actually developed from ancient animals. |
| A．Similar. |
| B．Special. |
| C．Familiar. |
| D．Important. |
| A．They are beyond human hearing range. |
| B．They sound like young kids’ sounds. |
| C．They are made during rats’ fighting. |
| D．They may affect human feelings. |
| A．Mammals have a particularly sensitive brain area. |
| B．Humans have fully understood animals’ behaviours. |
| C．People and animals share some emotional responses |
| D．Rats’ chirps and human laughter are basically the same. |
10 . The desire for ivory products causes the killing of an elephant, but as their populations continue to fall, the hungry black market has become creative to satisfy its greed. Now, ivory hunters are setting their sights on everything. One victim of this cruel practice is the hippopotamus(河马). A new study says that arise in demand for hippopotamus’s teeth is threatening them with extinction.
In many ways, it takes a lot of effort to kill an elephant. They are legally well protected in most countries where they range and international regulations are clear. Also, smuggling(走私)large pieces of ivory internationally is easily noticed. Hippos offer a cheaper and easier ivory option. The simple truth is that they are not high on the priority list of the international conservation community. A group of wild-living African elephants will either be tracked with radio collars(项圈) or will be the focus of long-term conservation research, ecotourism or law-enforcement efforts. Not so with hippos. Unlike their famous cousins, they don’t come with a protective environment, meaning hunters can take their time.
Most elephant populations are listed under the highest level (Appendix I) of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, but hippos are listed under Appendix Ⅱ of it, meaning some trade impossible. We have created a situation where some hippos can be shot, but we have few effective ways to regulate the trade, leaving it wide open to abuse.
Having lived in Africa and worked in frontline conservation, I have seen the first-hand that in the name of art, no ivory-bearing animal is safe. I have heard the stories and seen the bodies of hippos killed by machine-gun fire, mouths open, bloody and toothless. People are working to stop this and many wildlife authorities do what they can, but until there is a real change in the demand for ivory, the hippo has joined the elephant in being in desperate need of our help.
1. What does the new study find?| A．Black marketers are hunting other animals for ivory. |
| B．Hippos face extinction due to ivory demand. |
| C．The number of elephants is decreasing. |
| D．Ivory demand is rising. |
| A．They wear radio collars. |
| B．They are the targets of ecotourism. |
| C．They live in a less protective environment. |
| D．They are well protected by clear international regulations. |
| A．by process |
| B．by analyses |
| C．by statistics |
| D．by comparison |
| A．Law enforcement. |
| B．The efforts of authorities. |
| C．Raising public awareness. |
| D．Reducing the demand for ivory |
