1 . Summer floods are an annual occurrence for many cities across China. According to the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters, in 2012, urban flooding affected 184 cities, while in 2013 the number was 234, and last year it was 125, it said. Now, new measures are being introduced to reduce loss of life and the economic damage caused by flooding.
One of the most effective measures to increase the efficiency of storm drains in cities would be to reduce the storm-water runoff and raise the levels of water filtration（过滤）and conservation in urban areas, experts said. To solve the problem of urban flooding once and for all, the central government has decided to push forward the "Sponge City" program, which in part borrows the experiences of low-impact development from the United States and Canada in recent years.
The program will allow at least 60 percent of rainwater to soak into the ground, rather than being discharged into rivers. The level of filtration could be further raised in some areas with low levels of rainfall to increase the use of rainwater. The project includes the development of residential communities with storage ponds, filtration pools and wetlands, plus roads and squares built with materials that will allow storm water to soak into the ground more effectively, according to the guideline.
"It would require a major shift in ideas about urban construction. Rainwater should be regarded as a resource, rather than a burden to be dealt with. Concepts of urban construction should shift from the destruction of the ecosystem to its renewal," Chen Zhenggao, Minister of Housing and Urban-rural Development, told a work conference in May. "If the urban runoff cannot be effectively filtered into the ground, the floods that follow will cause the direct loss of life and property," he said. He also believes low-impact development represents the future of the country's urbanization drive. "It（the dealing with storm water）is an issue of public security. Thus it should be a compulsory requirement when new urban areas are being planned and built," he said.
1. The purpose to build a "Sponge City" is to________.| A．reduce the storm-water runoff in urban areas |
| B．raise the levels of water filtration and conservation |
| C．address the problem of urban flooding permanently |
| D．achieve low-impact development with borrowed experiences |
| A．At most 60% of rainwater is to soak into the ground. |
| B．The level of filtration could be increased in areas with more rainfall. |
| C．Residential communities should be replaced by ponds, pools and wetlands |
| D．Roads should be built with materials allowing water to soak into the ground |
| A．Floods take place because of the shift of the ecosystem |
| B．Floods will not happen when, urban runoff is filtered into rivers. |
| C．New urban construction concept means replacement of the ecosystem. |
| D．Low-impact urban development is a must to solve the issue of public security. |
| A．Summer floods have always been an issue for cities |
| B．"Sponge City" program is set to soak up urban floodwater. |
| C．Rainwater should be regarded as a resource rather than a burden. |
| D．Low-impact development can change the situation of urban ecosystem |
2 . Now Sea World on the Gold Coast is the only dolphin park in Australia to continue keeping dolphins in captivity. This wouldn't have been possible without thousands of warm-hearted supporters being a voice for dolphins protection over many years.
In August last year, Ben Pearson, our head of campaigns in Australia and New Zealand, appeared before the NSW upper house inquiry into the use wild animals for entertainment to put forward our case for ban on captive Dolphin breeding in the state. “If a dolphin were bred today, it may still be alive in 2070. This regulation frees future dolphins from being kept in lockdown at a time when the public acceptability of keeping dolphins in captivity for entertainment is declining. As the tide turns against using marine mammals in captivity for entertainment, conversation about what will happen to the dolphins at Sea World needs to start now. First step is a ban on further breeding,” Ben Pearson said.
Major travel brands including Tripadvisor and Booking. com have already committed to stop selling tickets to dolphin shows and encounters. As well as these great changes for dolphins from the travel industry, Canada recently passed a ban on keeping dolphins and whales for entertainment. This is part of a global movement towards better treatment of these wild animals, which includes the nations of Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, India, Luxembourg, Norway, Switzerland, and the UK.
Dolphins are magnificent, intelligent animals. They belong in the wild and should not be bred in captivity for entertainment. In their natural environment, dolphins swim freely in 100 square kilometres of ocean, sometimes more, but the average dolphin in captivity has a fraction of that space. Together, we can make this the last generation of dolphins in captivity.
1. What makes Sea World on the Gold Coast the only dolphin park?| A．Dolphins take too long a time to feed. |
| B．People's awareness of protecting dolphins. |
| C．Sea World on the Gold Coast has enough money. |
| D．Dolphins in Sea World on the Gold Coast like people's voice. |
| A．Wave. | B．Support. | C．Opinion. | D．Doubt. |
| A．More parks for dolphins will be built. | B．More dolphins will be kept in parks. |
| C．Wild animals will live a better life. | D．More countries will feed wild animals. |
| A．Make Dolphins Live Freely | B．Protect Sea World on the Gold Coast |
| C．Change the Ways of Entertainment | D．Prevent People from Feeding Animals |
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修改：在错的词下画一横线，并在该词下面写出修改后的词。
If you had lived long ago, we would have heard many different story about the dangerous wolf.According to most stories， hunger wolves often kill people for food. Even today, the stories of the “big bad wolf'” will not disappear. But the fact is that wolves are afraid people, and they seldom travel in areas when there is a human smell. When wolves eat another animals, they usually kill the very young, or a sick and injured. The strongest survived. No kind of animal would have survived through the centuries whether the weak members had been lived. That has always been a law of nature.
4 . Craig grew up on “a gentleman's farm” in Colorado with horses, cows, and chickens. When he was 18, Craig was already running some of the businesses. He planned to earn a business degree in college, but on a fateful trip to Florida, he visited a friend who worked as a grounds-keeper at a zoo. “I just wanted to say hi, but he showed me around, and in the back, I saw lions and tigers in these cages that were so small that you 'wouldn't want to keep a dog in them,” he says. The animals were surplus(过剩)and would likely be euthanized(使安乐死).
When a sad Craig returned to Colorado, he called the Denver Zoo about taking the animals, but Denver's zookeepers also had a surplus. Then it occurred to him: Perhaps he could bring the animals to the family farm. He was only 19, but he studied local regulations and formed a nonprofit organization. He next wrote zoos nationwide offering to help if they planned to euthanize animals.
After about five years, he bought a second, larger property before moving to the shelter's current location northeast of Denver. The goal, he says, is to provide the animals with plentiful space and to treat them with dignity and respect. “We have prides of lions that live together, just like they would in the wild,” he says. “They're wandering free and playing and doing what they want. We just give them medical care and food.”
Craig opened the shelter to visitors in 2002. Although he was originally unwilling, Craig now sees it as an opportunity to educate more people. “We want the public to know, if they hear about some guy driving around in his Ferrari with a tiger or a lion, they should say, What are you doing? That animal is going to end up dead or in some dirty roadside zoo.” The shelter receives 150,000 guests a year. Given his goal of treating the animals with respect-the shelter prohibits feeding and hands-on human contact -visitors observe the animals from a 30-foot-high, 1.5-mile-long elevated walkway.
1. What made Craig decide to help animals?| A．The need to run his farm. |
| B．The influence from his friend. |
| C．The concern for animals to be euthanized |
| D．The plan to earn a business degree from a college. |
| A．To draw visitors. |
| B．To play with animals. |
| C．To live a comfortable life. |
| D．To offer animals more space. |
| A．By riding a car. |
| B．By taking an elevator. |
| C．Through contact with animals. |
| D．From the passage above the ground. |
| A．Admirable. | B．Well-paid. | C．Boring. | D．Appealing. |
5 . Poaching and habitat loss have threatened Africa's two species of elephants, taking them closer toward the edge of disappearance, according to a new report released by the International Union for Conservation of Nature(IUCN).
Before this update, Africa's elephants were grouped together and were evaluated as vulnerable by the IUCN. This is the first time the two species have been sorted separately. In the past, elephants were mostly considered as either Asian elephants or African elephants. Forest and savanna elephants were typically classified as subspecies of African elephants.
The African forest elephant is now listed as critically endangered and the African savanna elephant as endangered. The number of African forest elephants fell by more than 86% over a 31 -year assessment period. The population of African savanna elephants dropped by at least 60% over the last 50 years, according to the IUCN, which tracks the assessment risk of the world's animals. Africa currently has an estimated 415,000 elephants, counting the two species together.
Both elephant species experienced significant population decreases because of poaching. Although it peaked in 2011, illegal hunting still happens and continues to threaten elephant populations. African elephants also face continued habitat loss as their land is converted for agriculture or other uses.
There is some good conservation news, the IUCN points out. Anti-poaching measures, combined with better land use planning to support better human-wildlife relationships, have helped conservation efforts. Some forest elephant population figures have stabilized in well-managed areas in Gabon and the Republic of Congo and savanna population figures have remained stable or have been growing, particularly in the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area in southern Africa.
But with constant demand for ivory and increasing human pressures on Africa's wild lands, concern for Africa's elephants is high, and the need to creatively conserve and wisely manage these animals and their habitats is more severe than ever.
1. What can be inferred from the new report about African elephants?| A．They are divided into three kinds. | B．They are dying out. |
| C．Their threat is mainly from poaching. | D．Their population has grown in Africa. |
| A．The detailed number of African elephants. | B．The similarities of African elephants. |
| C．The different types of African elephants. | D．The present situation of African elephants. |
| A．Expanded. | B．Protected. | C．Transformed. | D．Forbidden. |
| A．Hopeless. | B．Optimistic. | C．Uncertain. | D．Worried. |
6 . If your cellphone suddenly stops working, don't blame the service provider. The malfunction(故障) might have been caused by something bigger—a solar storm. Experts expect that the earth will see more solar activities in the near future. The malfunction of electronic devices is just one of the effects.
Sunspots(太阳黑子) serve as an indicator(标志) of the sun’s activity. For the past two years, sunspots have mostly been missing. Their absence, the longest in nearly 100 years, has taken even sun watchers by surprise.
When the number of sunspots drops at the end of each 11-year cycle, solar storms die down and all become much calmer. This "solar minimum" doesn’t' t last long. Within a year, sunspots and solar storms begin to build toward a new crescendo—the next solar maximum.
What's special about this latest cycle is that the sun is having trouble starting the next solar cycle. The sun began to calm down in late 2007, so no one expected many sunspots in 2008. They should return in 2010. Scientists have predicted that the next solar cycle could be the most active on record: more sunspots and more solar storms. However, sunspots are mostly missing now
Since the earth is in close contact with the sun, strong solar activities can bring trouble to our life. People of the 21st century rely on high-tech systems for the basics of daily life. Air travel and radio communications can be affected by strong solar activities. A big solar storm could cause 20 times more economic damage than Hurricane Katrina.
What the sun will do next is beyond our ability to predict. Most astronomers think that the solar cycle will go on but at low level. However, there is also evidence that the sun is losing its ability to produce sunspots. By 2015, they could be gone altogether.
1. The sun watchers feel surprised at| A．the longest sunspots' absence | B．the largest sunspot number |
| C．the malfunction of electronic devices | D．the serious damage by sunspots |
| A．small number | B．high level |
| C．usual cycle | D．fresh start |
| A．Solar activities do no harm to our daily life |
| B．Hurricane Katrina is also a type of solar storms |
| C．It's difficult to predict sunspots. |
| D．From now on there're no sunspots. |
The Xi’an City Wall is the most complete city wall that has survived China’s long history. It
We accessed the wall through the South Gate. The wall is 12 meters high and from here you can see streams of people moving inside and outside the City Wall.
After
We
8 . Tropical rainforests are disappearing at an alarming rate, and according to a new report by Rainforest Foundation Norway, humans are to blame. The world's dependence on coal, farming. soy. palm oil and mining has resulted in two-thirds of Earth's tropical rainforests being completely destroyed, and the remaining ecosystems being put closer to a tipping point.
Tropical rainforests once covered 14.5 million square kilometers of Earth's surface, but now, just one-third of that remains intact. Of the original area tropical rainforests once occupied, 34% is completely gone and 30%is suffering from degradation. All that remains is roughly 9.5 million square kilometers, and45% of that is in a degraded state, the report says.
Researchers blame human consumption for the loss. While agriculture has always been a driving factor of rainforest loss, the report said that energy consumption, international trade and the production of soy and palm oil, logging and mining have been the largest threats over the past century. A significant number of U. S. commodities rely on resources from tropical rainforests. The country heavily relies on palm oil, rubber and cocoa, all of which come from forests around the world. Oftentimes, these resources are harvested from illegally deforested lands.
Tropical rainforests are home to more than half of the Earth's biodiversity and have more carbon in living organisms than any other ecosystem. Along with supporting significant animal life, tropical rainforests are also essential to slowing down global warming. “These highly specialized ecosystems are suffering from constant abuse, through our bottomless appetite for land and resources,” said Anders Krogh, who authored the report. “We expect that upcoming UN climate and biodiversity summits provide specific targets and measures to protect intact tropical rainforests.”
The rescarchers also believe that the loss of tropical rainforests puts the whole world at risk of future pandemics. “Massive deforestation is violating nature's natural virus protection systems.” Krogh said. “The aftermath of COVID-19 should bring rainforest protection to the top of the agenda of all policy makers and world leaders concerned about preventing the outbreak of new pandemics.”
1. What is the purpose of the numbers in paragraph 2?| A．To point out the threat to the current ecosystem. |
| B．To exhibit the forest coverage rate on Earth. |
| C．To present the process of rainforest degradation. |
| D．To highlight the severe destruction of rainforests. |
| A．It displayed the richness of rainforest resources. |
| B．It stressed the effects of farming on tropical rainforests. |
| C．It explained the relationship between humans and nature. |
| D．It showed human's excessive consumption of rainforest resources. |
| A．Human diet. | B．Social structure. |
| C．Global climate. | D．Economic development. |
| A．Rainforest protection demands immediate attention. |
| B．Deforestation will affect the future generations. |
| C．Rainforest loss has brought about new pandemics. |
| D．Deforestation has accelerated the spread of the virus. |
