1 . For some people, there’s no better companion than mans best friend-a dog. This four-legged pet can bring comfort and joy and provide much- needed exercise for you when it needs walkies! This probably explains why dog ownership increased last year because people spent more time at home during he CovID-I9 lockdown.
However, as demand for a new dog increased, so did the price tag. Popular breeds, such as Cockapoos and Cocker Spaniels, saw even sharper price increases, and puppies have been selling for $3,000 or more.
Animal welfare charities fear that high prices could encourage puppy farming, smuggling (走私) or dog theft. An investigation found some breeders have been selling puppies and kittens on social media sites--something charities have called “extremely irresponsible”.
But despite some new owners purchasing a dog legally, maybe from a rescue center or registered breeder, they’ve proved to be ill-prepared for life with a new pet, and the pet itself has found it hard to come to terms with life in a new home.
Looking to the future, there are concerns about the welfare of these much-loved pets. Lan Alkin manager of the Oxfordshire Animal Sanct uary in the UK, notes: “At the moment, the dogs are having a great time, but separation anxiety could still surface when people go back to work.” And Cliare Calder from the UKs Dogs Trust rescue charity says, “The economic situation also means that some people may find they can’t afford to look after a dog.” The message is not to buy a dog in haste and to pick one that fits into our lifestyle.
1. The greater demand for dogs can cause the following problems except ________.| A．illegal trade of dogs | B．less dog farming |
| C．high prices of dogs | D．online sale of dogs |
| A．Fit in with | B．Go in for | C．Make up for. | D．End up with |
| A．Despite the problems, dogs are living happily. |
| B．The writer has a positive attitude towards dogs future. |
| C．Experts are worried that dogs will be unaffordable to people. |
| D．The writer advises people to think twice before keeping dogs as pets. |
2 . It was two in the morning. A koala(考拉)was caught in barbed(带刺的)wire on a fence. A phone rang in the home of Megan Aitken in a suburb of Brisbane, Australia. She ran a volunteer organization devoted to rescuing wild koalas. Before she was even told the location, she had thrown her clothes on over her nightdress.
When Aitken arrived on the scene, Jane Davies and Sandra Peachey, two other volunteers were already there. The koala was holding on tightly to a chain-link fence. Its fur was caught in barbed wire Standing in the bright light of car headlights, Aitken put on heavy leather gloves. Despite their cute appearance, koalas can be fierce if they feel threatened. They will fight and bite，and Aitken has the scars to prove it. Next，she placed a cage on the ground near the animal and opened up a thick blanket. Then the three rescuers rapidly got to work. Davies threw the blanket over the animal. Peachey opened the cage, while Aitken firmly grasped the koala through the blanket, freed it from the fence, and dropped it into the cage. “Well done, ladies!” Aitken shouted.
Looking down at the koala they had just rescued, Aitken checked the animal's physical condition. In an event that the koala was sick or injured, it must be taken to an animal hospital nearby. However provided it was healthy, like this one in most cases, it would be released somewhere near the place it was found. This was because koalas lived within such a small area and fed in the same trees over and over. However, this was a highly populated suburb with few areas with trees, so finding a suitable area was not easy. The women studied a map with flashlights.
“This is the whole problem,” Aitken said, “There are so few places left for the koala,” In the end, they took the animal to a small park nearby. Standing back, they opened the cage, and the koala dashed up a tree. “Good luck, little one,” prayed Aitken.
1. What did the volunteers use the blanket for?| A．To cover the chain-link fence. | B．To avoid the koala's attack. |
| C．To keep the koala stay warm. | D．To help calm the koala down. |
| A．The koalas have special living habits. |
| B．The number of trees is declining rapidly. |
| C．The government requires rescuers to do so. |
| D．The volunteers make their decisions randomly. |
| A．Barbed fences do harm to wild koalas. |
| B．Wild koalas are in danger of extinction. |
| C．Rescuing trapped wild koalas needs great efforts. |
| D．The living environment for wild koalas is worsening |
3 . What would happen if the Amazon rainforest disappeared?
The Amazon rainforest is one of the most amazing places on earth. It covers 40% of South America, drives the South American economy and stores 86 billion tons of carbon. That would otherwise be polluting our atmosphere. However, about 750, 000 square kilometers of rainforest have been destroyed since 1978, all thanks to humans. If this continues, the Amazon rainforest could disappear within 100 years.
How bad would that be for our planet? Well, let's take a look. For starters, we'd be losing a huge amount of our planet's biodiversity. The Amazon rainforest has more plant and animal species than any other ecosystem on the land. If we destroy the Amazon, we will be destroying all that diversity too, and ruining an entire ecosystem at the same time.
That would have huge effects on earth. We'd all quickly realize how much we have been relying on the Amazon's resources for food and medicine. Most people are surprised when they find out that hundreds of drugs have come from things in the Amazon rainforest.
So who knows what other important treatments we could lose without the rainforest? But the most critical problem we would face if the Amazon completely disappeared would be a faster pace of climate change. If the Amazon rainforest continues to wither and die, it will stop being a source of oxygen. Some experts believe that if this happens, we would lose the battle against climate change. But it is not all doom and gloom.
There is still hope for the Amazon rainforest. Through studies conducted over the past several decades, researches have found that rainforests may be able to survive human-caused destruction even without human help. A rainforest can start growing again if it has enough seedlings. However, this can only be successful if the rainforest isn't always under attack. So what can you do to help?
1. The destruction of the Amazon rainforest is mainly caused by .| A．human activities | B．climate change | C．atmosphere pollution | D．the government |
| A．The variety of species will decrease. | B．Some important medicine may be lost. |
| C．We cannot get some food from the rainforest. | D．The speed of climate change will slow down. |
| A．Disappointed. | B．Hopeful. | C．Pessimistic. | D．Indifferent. |
| A．Previous studies of tropical rainforests. | B．Serious attacks made by human beings. |
| C．Individual's actions to protect the rainforest. | D．Various reasons for the damage to the rainforest. |
4 . A road running through Accra, Ghana's capital, looks like any other blacktop（柏油路）. Yet what most drivers don't realize is that it is made from plastics—melted bags, bottles, and snack wraps--that otherwise would have ended up in a landfill.
In a developing nation, “it's difficult to recycle plastic,” noted Heather Troutman, program manager of the Ghana National Plastic Action Partnership. “It's expensive, and much easier just to burn it. But if you could put value on recycled plastic, it won't get buried or burned.”
First appearing two decades ago, plastic roads are being tested and built in more and more countries as the world's plastic pollution problem becomes more serious. India has built over 60,000 miles of these roads. The technology, meanwhile, is gaining ground in Britain, Europe, and Asia. Several countries—South Africa, Vietnam, Mexico, the Philippines, and the United States, among them—have built plastic roads recently. Roads containing waste plastic have the potential to perform as well or better than traditional roads. They can last longer, are stronger and more durable（更耐用的）in respect to loads, car tolerate wide temperature changes, and are more resistant to water damage and cracking.
Troutman views plastic roads as “a promising advance,” especially in a country like Ghana with more road projects in the future. And yet, with the prediction that by 2050 the world will produce over three times as much plastic waste as it ever has, she stresses it is vital to curtail Ghana's all unnecessary use of plastics. “This is the first step,” she noted. “If we keep pumping out more and more plastic, we'll never be able to manage it in a sustainable way.”
1. Why it's hard to recycle plastics in Ghana?| A．The plastics are hard to break down. |
| B．The country lacks related technology. |
| C．The whole recycling process costs much. |
| D．The government advocates burning plastics. |
| A．They are mainly promoted by India. |
| B．They are able to stand extreme weather. |
| C．They are being tested for better functioning. |
| D．They are becoming popular in some countries |
| A．Reduce. | B．Cover. | C．Reward. | D．Delay. |
| A．Tolerant. | B．Flexible. | C．Hopeful. | D．Pessimistic. |
5 . The over 48,000 orange trees that are distributed at all corners of Seville, Spain, not only fill the city's air with the pleasant smell of their flowers in spring, they also produce over 16, 500 tons of fruit every winter. Though that makes the city Europe's top orange-producing city, the fruit is too sour to be consumed fresh. While some of the produce is used to make orange juice, most of it ends up in Seville's landfills. However, that may change soon thanks to a creative idea to use the oranges to produce clean energy.
In the pilot program, juice from 38. 6 tons of oranges will be left to ferment (发酵)in an existing biogas facility. The juice is fructose (果糖)made up of very short carbon chains, and the energetic performance of these carbon chains during the fermentation process is particularly high. The gas released from the fermented liquid will be used to drive a generator to produce clean power. The officials estimate the test run will generate about 1,500 kWh of energy—enough to run a water purification plant. "It's not just about saving money. The oranges are a problem for the city, and we're producing added value from waste,M said Benigno Lopez, the head of Emasesa's environmental department.
If successful, by 2023, the city hopes to recycle all the oranges and add the electricity generated back to its grid (电网). In trial runs, 1,000 kilos (2,200 pounds) of oranges produced 50 kWh of clean energy一enough to meet the daily electricity needs of five homes. The project team estimates that if all the fruit is recycled, it will produce enough energy to power as many as 73,000 residences.
The latest effort is among the many programs implemented in Spain to achieve the country's goal of switching its electricity system to renewable sources by 2050—and if everything goes according to plan, fully decarbonizing its economy shortly after that.
1. What problem does Seville face?| A．It is short of energy. | B．Most oranges are wasted. |
| C．Fruit production is falling. | D．Trees take up much space. |
| A．Fructose. | B．Carbon chains. | C．Clean power. | D．Gas. |
| A．Conducted. | B．Assumed. | C．Popularized. | D．Completed. |
| A．To prove a theory. | B．To raise a problem. |
| C．To introduce a project. | D．To comment on an idea. |
6 . Experts studying the state of the Australian reef system-one of the seven natural wonders of the world-reported that it is disappearing faster than thought.
“We found the number of small, medium and large corals on the Great Barrier Reef has declined by more than 50 percent during the so-called bleaching episodes (白化期） since the 1990s,"said Terry Hughes of the University of Queensland, Australia. “The decline occurred in both shallow and deeper water and across nearly all species-but especially in branching and table-shaped corals.”
Branching and table-shaped corals provide build structures on the reef that are important for other sea life, such as fish. Their loss is reducing population sizes and sea food productivity. When ocean temperatures are too high, corals drive away their colorful symbiotic algae (共生藻类） that provide them with food-turning them a bleached white. If the ocean cools quickly enough, the algae can return. But if it stays too hot for too long, the corals begin to starve.
＂Both small and large reefs have become increasingly rare," said paper author Andy Dietzel of Queensland's ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies. “This indicates declines in reproduction, recovery potential of coral populations.”
The Great Barrier Reef consists of more than 2,900 individual reefs and some 900 islands-and is bigger than the entirety of the UK. The natural wonder is home to around 1,625 species of fish and 30 different types of whale and dolphin.
＂We used to think the Great Barrier Reef was protected by its size," commented Professor Hughes." But our results show even the world's largest and relatively well-protected reef system is increasingly compromised and in decline.”
1. What can we learn about the bleaching episodes from the passage?| A．The decline of corals occurred in all species. |
| B．Corals will never come back to life once bleached. |
| C．Reefs have increased in Australia with climate change. |
| D．The Great Barrier Reef plays a vital role in sea ecosystem. |
| A．Ambiguous. |
| B．Concerned. |
| C．Optimistic. |
| D．Indifferent. |
| A．A magazine. |
| B．A textbook. |
| C．A tourist brochure. |
| D．A science report. |
