1 .
Antarctica (南极洲) |
Weather Antarctica lies in the most southern part of the world. It is the coldest area on Earth. There isn’t much rain, but there is a lot of snow and wind. The lowest temperature was on 21 July in 1983 at -89.2℃ ! |
Population Nobody lives in Antarctica all the time! The first people to stay there for a while were fishermen in 1786. Now there are about 5, 000 scientists and researchers there in the summer |
History of exploration (探险) During 1907-1909, British explorer Earnest Shackleton explored Antarctica on foot. In 1911, two explorers — a British man named Scott and a Norwegian named Amundsen — raced 1, 400 kilometres to the South Pole (南极). Amundsen arrived first. |
Animals and birds There aren’t any large animals in Antarctica. Polar bears live at the North Pole. But there are a lot of penguins and seabirds. Every spring there are over 100 million seabirds in Antarctica. |
| A．In 1786. | B．In 1983. | C．In 1907. | D．In 1911. |
| A．Fishermen. | B．Scientists. | C．Researchers. | D．Explorers. |
| A．Penguins. | B．Seabirds. | C．Polar bears. | D．Fish. |
| A．Sunny and warm | B．Fine but cold | C．Snowy and cold |
3 . Pollution is one of the biggest problems in the world today. In many places, rubbish is thrown into lakes and rivers.
In some cities, the air is filled with pollution.
If we do not act to improve the environment, more living things will be killed by pollution.
If we can do these, we will make the world a better place to live in.
| A．This makes some old people and children ill. |
| B．As well as people, animals are also harmed by pollution. |
| C．We can make our lakes and rivers cleaner and cleaner. |
| D．It’s time for all of us to take action right away! |
| E．Because of this, these places have already been polluted. |
| F．Trees reduce dust and help keep the air clean. |
| G．A few of us should take action to protect the environment. |
| A．The radio. | B．The weather. | C．The weekend. |
5 . E-bikes are becoming more and more popular. It opens cycling to older people, those with disabilities, people who live in hilly cities where regular cycling requires serious effort.
Three things are needed to make e-bikes popular—a safe place to ride, good affordable bikes and a secure place to park. Safety comes first. For bike lanes (车道) to work, the network has to be continuous, not just forcing cyclists into the middle of a busy street. It should be well protected so that the cyclists won't feel they'll be knocked down by cars. It's necessary to provide good affordable e-bikes to customers either in physical stores or in online stores. Only in this way can people consider buying one as their means of transportation. Parking remains an avoidable problem if we want to encourage more people to ride e-bikes. In Netherlands or Copenhagen, large bike parking lots at train and bus stations encourage varieties of transport. People can easily find bike parking everywhere. This is going to be needed in other cities too for e-bikes to really become a form of transportation.
As a matter of fact, people have found that e-bikes are effective transportation choices. A recent study shows that people who ride e-bikes increase their travel distance from 2. 1 to 9. 2 km per day on average. That is sure to do good to their health. It's also believed that if just 15% of a city’s population turn to e-bikes, it would reduce the carbon emissions (排放) from transportation by 12%.
All of these lead me to conclude that e-bikes are a far better way of dealing with transportation emissions than electric cars. They won't work for everyone, but they don't have to.
1. What is the most important for cyclists?| A．Their safety. | B．Affordable bikes. | C．Good parking lot. | D．Fast transportation. |
| A．To show their good e-bikes. | B．To show their e-bikes are affordable. |
| C．To show cyclists have safe places to ride. | D．To show they offer good bike parking lots. |
| A．The rules of riding bicycles. | B．The advantages of riding bicycles. |
| C．The health benefits of riding bicycles. | D．The harmful influence of riding bicycles. |
| A．Worried. | B．Positive. | C．Doubtful. | D．Unconcerned. |
6 . Darrell Blatchley, a marine biologist and environmentalist based in the Philippine city of Davao, received a call from the Philippines, Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (渔业与水产资源局) early Friday morning reporting a death of a young whale.
When the necropsy (尸检) was performed, Blatchley told NPR, he was not prepared for the amount of plastic they found in the whale’s stomach. “It was full of plastic nothing but nonstop plastic.” he said “It was filled to the point that its stomach was as hard as a baseball.” That means that this animal has been suffering not for days or weeks but for months or even a year or more,” Blatchley added.
Blatchley is the founder and owner of the D’Bone Collector Museum, a natural history museum in Davao. In the coming days, the museum will display all the items found in the whale’s system. Blatchley and his team work with the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources and other organizations to assist in rescue and recovery of marine animals.
“Within the last 10 years, we have recovered 61 whales and dolphins just within the Davao Gulf,” he said. “Of them, 57 have died due to man whether they took plastic or fishing nets or other waste, or gotten caught in pollution — and four were pregnant.”
Blatchley said he hoped that the latest incident would launch the issue of plastic pollution in the Philippines and across the globe. “If we keep going this way, it will be more uncommon to see an animal die of natural causes than it is to see an animal die of plastic,” he said.
1. What can be inferred from the second paragraph?| A．The whale was starved to death. |
| B．The dead whale must have swallowed a baseball. |
| C．Blatchley was very shocked at what he found. |
| D．Blatchley didn’t make preparations for the necropsy. |
| A．Waste collected from the ocean. |
| B．Things found in the whale’s body. |
| C．The whole system of the whale. |
| D．Many different tools of whaling. |
| A．Worrying. | B．Indifferent. |
| C．Inspiring. | D．Mild. |
| A．A Whale Found Dead of Plastic | B．Stand Up for Protecting Whales |
| C．Plastic Threatening Our Existence | D．Natural Death or Merciless Murder |
