1 . National Bird Day

National Bird Day is a holiday which has been celebrated on January 5th. The purpose of this holiday is to bring attention to the situation of our friends—birds. This holiday is also a good day to appreciate the beauty and the diversity of these creatures.

However, National Bird Day shouldn't be confused with Bird Day—one of the oldest bird holidays. Bird Day is a holiday that is celebrated annually in the United States on May 4th since the late 19th century.

History

National Bird Day is a holiday which has been celebrated for over a decade now. Bird Day, on the other hand, goes back a lot further. According to the Library of Congress, Bird Day was established by Charles Almanzo Babcock in 1894.

Facts About Birds

According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, there are almost 10,000 different species of birds. But almost 900 of them are on the verge of extinction(濒临灭绝).

Customs, Traditions, and Celebrations

National Bird Day can be celebrated in many different ways. Participants can watch birds, and they can take part in one of the activities for the protection of birds. In schools across the US, children often are given the task of researching into birds on this day or drawing a nice picture of birds for the classroom.

1. What can we learn about National Bird Day?

A．It is celebrated earlier than Bird Day every year.

B．It is celebrated all over the world.

C．It is one of the oldest bird holidays.

D．It is set up earlier than Bird Day.

2. How many species of birds are dying out?

A．0.8%.	B．0.9%.
C．8%.	D．9%.

3. What do American children usually do National Bird Day?

A．Buy some birds.	B．Feed some birds.
C．Study some birds.	D．Set some birds free.

2 . A months-long rescue operation to save giraffes from Longicharo Island’s rising water in Kenya recently concluded after delivering the last two stranded giraffes to safety at the Ruko Community Wildlife Conservancy. Save Giraffes now partnered with Northern Rangelands Trust and local conservation agencies to transfer the Rothschild’s giraffes, one of the most endangered populations of giraffe.

To get the giraffes from the sinking island to the mainland nearly one mile away, community members built a “giraft”, a custom-made ship with tall sides, supported by 60 empty drums. The giraffes were transferred one at a time. “Water levels in Lake Baringo have been rising for some time, but in 2020 the rate of rise increased — flooding lakeshore homes, businesses, and threatening the lives of a small group of Rothschild’s giraffes on Longicharo Island, in Ruko Conservancy,” Northern Rangelands Trust said in a statement.

“At last, they can safely breed (繁殖) and bring back the population of the free-ranging Rothschild’s giraffes to their former home ranges in Baringo. It’s such a relief for all involved to have gotten them safely across to the mainland and we are sure they’re enjoying the space in their new home,” he said.

Rothschild’s giraffes were once widespread across Kenya, Uganda and southern Sudan, but numbers have decreased by 80%, leaving only 3,000 in the wild today. But there is hope, given by innovative (创新的) conservation teamwork such as this.

“Working with the communities in the area over the next several years, we will keep this combined group of giraffes safe, and as they breed, their numbers will grow over time, eventually rejoining their cousins in Uganda,” Save Giraffes Now said in a statement.

1. What does the underlined word “stranded” in paragraph 1 mean?

A．Weak.	B．Trapped.
C．Lonely.	D．Frightened.

2. What can we infer about the community?

A．It is short of advanced equipment.

B．It operates very efficiently.

C．It works with the local government.

D．It aims to save all endangered animals.

3. Where did the Rothschild’s giraffes use to live?

A．Near Lake Baringo.

B．On Longicharo Island.

C．In Kenya, Uganda and southern Sudan.

D．At the Ruko Community Wildlife Conservancy.

4. What is the main idea of the text?

A．The giraffes are endangered in Kenya.

B．Two giraffes have been saved in Kenya.

C．The Rothschild’s giraffes are finally found.

D．The population of giraffes decreased.

3 . Ten years ago, I saved my dog Rudy from a shelter, We’ve had a(n) ________ relationship ever since. As a single woman in my 50s, I’ve found his ________ really meaningful. We do everything together. ________ , every night we have a little bedtime snack and then I get in my bed and he gets in his right next to mine. But a year ago suddenly Rudy ________. Every night when I got in bed he’d jump up on my bed and start tonguing my face. I would make him get off but every night he ________ the same tonguing.

Then it suddenly ________ me that he was tonguing the same spot on my jaw (下颌) over and again. I ________ my jaw: No pain. Nothing unusual. But it was so out of ________ for my dog that I decided to just trust him. I went to see a (n) ________ to clear my doubt but still felt ________ telling her I came just because of a dog. The doctor ________ to do some tests. Well, it turned out that there was a tumor (肿瘤) in my jaw. It couldn’t be felt from the outside but ________ Rudy knew it was there. Though I have ________ now, the doctors said if I’d waited until the tumor was ________ enough to be felt, it would probably have been deadly. ________ my dog saved my life!

1.

A．awkward

B．challenging

C．special

D．confusing

2.

A．attention

B．personality

C．impression

D．company

3.

A．Ever since

B．For example

C．At times

D．After all

4.

A．changed

B．improved

C．pretended

D．wondered

5.

A．tried out

B．put off

C．stuck to

D．gave up

6.

A．hit

B．warned

C．annoyed

D．disappointed

7.

A．treated

B．raised

C．felt

D．cleaned

8.

A．control

B．character

C．order

D．shape

9.

A．advisor

B．senior

C．partner

D．doctor

10.

A．angry

B．silly

C．curious

D．confident

11.

A．refused

B．happened

C．agreed

D．promised

12.

A．obviously

B．actually

C．hopefully

D．naturally

13.

A．fallen ill

B．got better

C．worked out

D．stood up

14.

A．fat

B．risky

C．soft

D．big

15.

A．Buying

B．Trusting

C．Testing

D．Accepting

4 . When my friend offered me a spider plant sprout, I decided to try something I'd never done before: commit to becoming a plant person. After doing research and changing my perspective, I can proudly say I am succeeding.     1    .

Start with Easy Plants

    2    . Just water and sunlight, right? Apparently not. I focused my efforts on easy plants, which have basic needs, and aren't as temperamental as some other plants.

Research

It might seem like a pain but doing a little research can be the difference between your plant surviving and thriving. Looking up how much sunlight the plant needs, how often to water it,     3     and if it requires any special care can help you to be a good plant person.

    4    

Too much water can drown the plant. Not watering your plant enough can cause it to dry out and die very quickly. You'd better make a watering schedule to make sure you don't over or under water your plants.

Cater to the Plant

Just after a few weeks, I noticed the plant leaves were losing their green color. I found spider plants don't do well with intense afternoon sunlight. So I completely rearranged all my plants in my living room to cater to their specific sunlight needs.     5    .

A．Do It with Love

B．Plants Need Watering Every Day

C．Create a Watering Schedule

D．what temperature it does best in

E．Now my plants are thriving more than ever

F．Like taking on any major project, it's best to start simply

G．Here are some tips to take on house plants when you do not have a green thumb

5 . 阅读下面材料,在空白处填入适当的内容(1个单词)或括号内单词的正确形式。

The topic of this programme is environmental     1    (protect). We human beings     2    (do) a lot of things at the cost of the environment to develop economy quickly in the past few years. I do think it is time for us to understand     3     importance of protecting the environment and do something about it. Today I would like     4    (introduce) some simple but useful ways that we can follow     5     (easy) in our daily life. Firstly, turn off lights if it is unnecessary. Then, go out     6     environment﹣friendly ways such as by bus, by subway or by bike. We can even walk to work when possible,     7     is really helpful for both of our budget and health. Thirdly, take a cloth bag when we go     8    (shop). Please don't use plastic ones. Of course the public should raise environmental awareness and realize     9     is our duty to protect the environment. Last but not least, the government should make laws to guide people's     10     (behave).

6 . I have worked as a keeper at the National Zoo, Paris for 11 years. Spot and Stripe are the first tiger cubs that have ever been born here. Globally, a third of Sumatran cubs in zoos don't make it to adulthood, so I decided to give them round-the-clock care at home.

I've got two children—the younger one, Kynan, was extremely happy about the tigers arriving - but all of us really looked forward to being part of their lives and watching them grow. I wasn't worried about bringing them into my home with my wife and kids. These were cubs. They weighed about 2.5 kg and were so small that there was absolutely no risk.

As they grew more mobile, we let them move freely around the house during the day, but when we were asleep we had to contain them in a large room, otherwise they'd get up to mischief. We'd come down in the morning to find they'd turned the room upside down, and left it looking like a zoo.

Things quickly got very intense due to the huge amount of energy required to look after them. There were some tough times and I just felt extremely tired. I was grateful that my family was there to help. We had to have a bit of a production line going, making up “tiger milk”, washing baby bottles, and cleaning the floors.

When Spot and Stripe were four months old, they were learning how to open doors and jump fences, and we knew it really was time for them to go. It was hard for us to finally part with them. For the first few days, Kynan was always a bit disappointed that the cubs weren't there.

I'm not sad about it. I'm hands-on with them every day at the zoo, and I do look back very fondly on the time that we had them.

1. Why did the author bring the tiger cubs home?

A．To ensure their survival.	B．To observe their differences.
C．To teach them life skills.	D．To let them play with his kids.

2. What do the underlined words “get up to mischief” mean in paragraph 3?

A．Behave badly.

B．Lose their way.

C．Sleep soundly.

D．Miss their mom.

3. What did the author think of raising the tiger cubs at home?

A．Boring.

B．Tiring.

C．Costly.

D．Risky.

4. Why did the author decide to send Spot and Stripe back to the zoo?

A．They frightened the children.	B．They became difficult to contain.
C．They annoyed the neighbours.	D．They started fighting each other.

7 . Most of us like visiting the hills during the holiday season. The pure air, the greenery, and the simple living of the people in these regions is what attracts us. While the increase in the number of tourists visiting the hills has done wonders for the local economy, the pollution levels, especially the plastic waste, is also increasing rapidly.

In an attempt to maintain the beauty and the greens in the Himalayan region, Pradeep Sangwan started an organisation, which he named ‘Healing Himalayas’.

While in college, Pradeep took an interest in long hiking, and that was the beginning for him. He says, “Movies of Bollywood plays a huge role in making the hills popular. Movies of friends going on holidays to hike and finding themselves on these adventures have inspired many to come here. But when we arrived at Himalayas, things were different”.

Along with a group of volunteers, Pradeep set out with jute bags (麻袋) to return with piles of waste. He says, “A few months ago, we found that we had collected around 4,00,000 kilos of waste. This number would have gone up now.” The waste that is collected is sent to two recycling plants in the state, where electricity is produced.

Healing Himalayas conducts special activities, mass clean-ups and events in the community and schools to create awareness about the maintenance and restoration of the environment.

His quest is to ensure that people enjoy the place as it is, without spoiling it. In an interview, he offers a few tips to travellers, such as carrying your own bottle of water and completely avoiding using straws.

1. What inspired Pradeep to go adventure in Himalayas?

A．Indian films	B．Serious pollution
C．Adventurous books	D．Beautiful scenery

2. The underlined word in paragraph 4 probably means _________.

A．living things with leaves and roots	B．factories or buildings
C．useful and scientific methods	D．advanced machines

3. According to the passage, which of the following is true?

A．Pradeep calls on people not to climb Himalayas.

B．The number of waste has decreased due to their work.

C．Tourists made few contributions to local economy.

D．It is vital to raise people’s awareness of protecting environment.

8 . When thinking about intelligence, we often place humans at the top of the ranks. However, there is a species whose intelligence is far more advanced and perhaps more similar to humans than we'd thought - crows （乌鸦）.

In 2002, a crow named Betty wowed Oxford University by picking up a piece of wire in her cage and bending it at one end using another object to shape the wire into a hooked (钩状的)tool. The hooked tool was then used to lift a small container containing a pig's heart from inside a plastic tube for the bird to eat. Many years later, researchers found that bending tools was in fact, not that unusual for New Caledonian crows.

Part of the Corvid family of birds, the brains of New Caledonian crows and others within the family have been studied more closely. Corvids have shown amazing cognitive（认知的）abilities. Unlike humans, corvids do not have a neocortex—a brain structure that allows for advanced cognitive development. Instead, their brains are filled with neurons(神经元)which have enabled the birds to have similar mental capacities.

According to a paper published earlier this year, New Caledonians are fastidious about the type of plant stem （茎）used to make their hooked tools and are able to figure out what the best plant stem is for them. They are capable of looking for that plant stem even when it is disguised(伪装) with leaves from a different plant species. Crows are also able to apply their abilities to advanced problem-solving. Through only learning individual steps of a challenge, a crow successfully solved it by arranging the steps in the correct order. This shows the bird's ability to make judgements through context. Crows also seem to use their cleverness for fun, much like humans do, as young birds love to play.

New Caledonian crows have emotions and memories and are cognitively skilled animals. They just might not be so different from us humans after all!

1. How did Betty surprise the scientists?

A．She made a hooked tool.

B．She escaped from her cage.

C．She managed to lift a heavy container.

D．She showed great interest in a pig's heart.

2. What do we know about New Caledonian crows?

A．They remain unknown to humans.

B．They are quite different from other corvids.

C．Their brain structure is similar to that of humans.

D．Their cognitive abilities are decided by neurons.

3. What does the underlined word “fastidious” in paragraph 4 mean?

A．Guilty.	B．Hesitant
C．Picky.	D．Curious.

4. What is the text mainly about?

A．The intelligence of crows.

B．The survival skills of crows.

C．The development of the crow family.

D．The emotions and memories of crows.

9 . Nalini Nadkarni didn’t play with Barbies as a girl. She was too busy climbing the maple trees in her front yard in Bethesda.

“When I was growing up in Bethesda, we tried to live simply,” Nadkarni, a University of Utah biology professor who studies rainforest canopies, said. “And a Barbie didn’t quite fit in with living a simple life.” Instead, said Nadkarni, she and her sisters were encouraged by their parents to create their own fun. For Nadkarni, that meant tree climbing.

Nadkarni is doing research in Costa Rica on trees. It has never been more important, Nadkarni said, to share what she has learned with a new generation.

“In 2003, I’d been thinking of ways to help get girls more interested in science, and I looked to my young daughter. I knew that girls wanted to play with Barbies and look like Barbies,” Nadkarni said. “But what if Barbie had field clothes on and came with a little booklet about canopy plants?” Mattel, the company that makes Barbies, wasn’t interested in her idea, but she persisted. She finally created her own treetop dolls. Mattel agreed that she could produce the dolls on a small scale.

Last year, Nadkarni was thrilled to learn that National Geographic was working with Mattel to come up with a new line of adventure dolls, and that they wanted her advice.

Since sales of the explorer Barbies began in the summer, Nadkarni said, she has heard from girls coast to coast, thanking her for her work in rainforests and asking questions about how they can make a difference to help trees in their own communities.

“When I started hearing from these young kids, I realized they truly understood the terrible situation our forests were in,” she said. “They really care, and they want us grown-ups to do something to save our environment. I love climbing trees and learning all I can about them. But getting children excited about protecting our forests is one of the most important things I do.”

1. What can we learn about Nadkarni when she was a child?

A．She found joy in climbing trees.	B．She used to play with Barbies.
C．Her parents were strict with her.	D．She was asked to behave like a boy.

2. Why did Nadkarni want to work with Mattel?

A．To amuse her daughter.	B．To attract girls to Barbies.
C．To represent her scientific achievements.	D．To fire girls’ enthusiasm for science.

3. What kind of feeling is expressed in the last paragraph?

A．Regret.

B．Delight.

C．Nervousness.

D．Astonishment.

4. What can we infer from the text?

A．Nadkarni created the explorer Barbies.

B．Girls thanked Nadkarni for the new dolls.

C．The explorer Barbies have a great influence on girls.

D．Young kids don’t care about the environment.

10 . Dogs for Adoption

Willing to give a homeless dog the forever loving home? Please check out the dogs available.

Sam

Sam is about 7 years old and weighs 9 pounds. He was abandoned and is very scared right now. He had to have most of his teeth pulled so a soft food diet will be required. He will need a secure environment and a lot of patience.

Russell

Russell is about 5 years old and weighs only 6 pounds right now. He is very thin and needs to gain a couple of pounds. His back legs are wobbly (不稳的) from being hit by a car when he was younger. He is a happy, energetic boy who loves the yard. He loves to play with toys and small gentle dogs.

Penny

Penny is a young girl. She is about 5-6 pounds currently and expected to be in the large size range when full grown. She s good with other dogs, kids and cats. Kids 8 and up are recommended. She’s now working on house training and their puppy manners.

Juliet

Juliet is about 3 years old. She loves nothing better than to sleep next to you, preferably on your pillow. She likes to go outside in the yard to explore, but prefers company until she’s comfortable. She prefers to be the only dog so she will need a home with no other animals.

If you are interested in meeting or adopting, the first step is to visit our website to complete an application form. No application, no appointment. Please allow our team up to two business days to review and approve your application.

1. What do Sam and Russell share?

A．A lively personality.	B．A large size.
C．An unfortunate experience.	D．A good training.

2. Which dog is not a proper choice if you already have a dog in your home?

A．Sam.

B．Russell.

C．Penny.

D．Juliet.

3. What should you do first if you want to adopt one of the dogs?

A．Submit a form.	B．Send an email.
C．Review your application.	D．Meet the dog.