1 . Parrots are prey animals, which means that other predators (捕食者) in the wild, such as hawks or snakes, are looking to make them into a meal. This one factor influences parrots’ behavior in your house more than any other.
Parrots are most easily hurt when feeding on the ground. Membership in a group plays an important function in ensuring their safety and improving their chances of survival from attacks by predators. The most common predators of parrots include hawks, snakes, cats, monkeys, and bats. Some predators make attacks only during the day while others hunt in the night.
As prey animals, parrots are constantly watching out for danger and they instinctively (本能地) react to risks. Their first choice is to take flight. However, if this is not possible, they will fight with their powerful beaks to defend themselves.
Because their biggest enemy is the hawk, parrots are especially reactive to quick movements from above and behind. For this reason, it is wise to avoid quick, sudden movements near your bird. This is a built-in reaction not subject to logic or reason. Simple and relatively harmless household objects can draw extreme fear responses from a bird. For example, a balloon may represent a hawk or a vacuum hose (吸尘器软管) may be the same as a snake in your bird’s mind.
As prey animals, parrots are often frightened by exposure to new household items or strangers. It is important to expose your bird to safe experiences and changes starting at a very young age to build flexibility and improve their adaptability. Variety in diet and toys, travel, and exposure to new people and places all help to make your bird more flexible and adaptable to change.
1. What is important for parrots to better survive from attacks in the wild?| A．Living in a group. | B．Growing beautiful feathers. |
| C．Feeding on the ground. | D．Avoiding coming out at night. |
| A．To attack back. | B．To get away. |
| C．To protect the young. | D．To play dead. |
| A．It may explode suddenly. | B．It may be in a strange shape. |
| C．It may have a strong color. | D．It may move around quickly. |
| A．To explain wild parrots’ behavior. | B．To give advice on raising a parrot. |
| C．To call for action to protect animals. | D．To introduce a study on bird ecology. |
2 . Bella, a 14-year-old cat from Huntingdon, UK, has claimed the Guinness Record for the world’s loudest purr (猫叫声) by a domestic cat, with a noisy purr
The Spink family has had Bella for almost 15 years, and they’ve always
One day, they decided to put Bella’s purring to the test―they
Measuring sound with a smartphone app and having it measured by a sound engineer can bring about totally
The standardized class-1 sound meter recorded Bella’s
It’s important to note that while Bella has
| A．produced | B．measured | C．supplied | D．analyzed |
| A．respected | B．preferred | C．recommended | D．supposed |
| A．account for | B．wonder at | C．agree with | D．work out |
| A．celebrate | B．promote | C．debate | D．complain |
| A．downloaded | B．invented | C．restored | D．contrasted |
| A．benefit | B．pressure | C．result | D．purpose |
| A．attempt | B．donation | C．performance | D．system |
| A．useless | B．available | C．different | D．possible |
| A．confirmed | B．formed | C．improved | D．destroyed |
| A．specifically | B．slightly | C．gracefully | D．impressively |
| A．normal | B．straight | C．peak | D．major |
| A．regard | B．switch | C．beg | D．claim |
| A．set | B．carved | C．sought | D．mixed |
| A．option | B．trend | C．object | D．title |
| A．professional | B．meaningful | C．astonishing | D．demanding |
1.对该主题的理解；
2.本市的有效做法；
3.你的倡议。
注意：1.词数100左右；
2.短文的题目已为你写好。
A Dream City at One with Nature
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________注意:
(1) 内容具体, 可适当增加细节, 以使行文连贯;
(2)80词左右。
参考词汇: 雾霾 n. haze
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5 . Recycling is a way to take rubbish and turn it into new products. It’s helpful to our environment. There are a number of different recycling steps that allow materials to be used more than once.
All kinds of materials can be recycled. Some of the most common things in use today include recycling plastic, glass, metals and paper. Things made of these materials include soda cans, plastic milk boxes, newspapers, computers and cardboard boxes.
There are a number of advantages for recycling. These include: Landfills—Recycling materials means less rubbish and saves space in landfills. Resources—When we use materials again, this means we can take fewer resources from the earth. Pollution—in general, recycling materials can produce less pollution, helping to keep our environment clean.
Be sure to recycle everything you can in your house and school. There is almost a “recycle” rubbish can around. Be sure to drop your used aluminum (铝) cans and plastic bottles there. At home, be sure to put paper things like the newspapers, paper boxes, and homework pages into the recycling box.
Plastics are usually marked with an identification code that shows a recycling symbol and a number from 1 to 7. This shows that the type of chemicals or materials is used in making the plastic. Used paper can be recycled around seven times.
It is high time we set up a recycling station in every street, across the city and the country, so the cleaners can transport the rubbish smoothly. This is the only way out for handling rubbish without causing danger to the environment and our health. For ourselves, our children and our children’s children, let’s take action NOW!
1. From the first paragraph, we know that ________.| A．we can make more money from recycling | B．recycling is helpful to our environment |
| C．recycling is common and popular | D．there is too much rubbish around us |
| A．less rubbish | B．more space | C．less pollution | D．much waste |
| A．Paper. | B．Plastics. | C．Glass. | D．Metal |
| A．处理 | B．生产 | C．收购 | D．变卖 |
| A．We should recycle everything in our daily life. | B．Many resources can be saved by recycling. |
| C．We should take action to recycle rubbish. | D．Recycling stations should be set up in the street. |
内容包括：
1.你身边的环境问题;
2.相应的解决办法。
注意：1.词数80左右;
2.可适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。
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7 . Plant biologists have found a way that may enable poor farmers to do away with the need to purchase expensive hybrid seeds every year. Researchers at the University of California report that they have solved a long-standing problem of hybrid seeds by making exact clones of the hybrid plants from seeds.
For long, many crops have been grown from high-yielding, anti-disease or climate-tolerant hybrid seeds. But the seeds of hybrid crops do not produce plants with the same qualities during reproduction and hence farmers cannot save the seeds for the next growing season. They end up paying for new hybrid seeds each sowing season. The discovery, long sought by plant researchers, could make it easier to grow desirable high-yielding crops and make them available to the world’s farmers. Farmers could thus replant seeds from their own hybrid plants and enjoy the benefits of high production year after year, the scientists report.
While the discovery would help farmers, it would also impact the commercial interest of the hybrid seed industry. Siddiq, a former Deputy Director General in the Crop Science Division of the ICAR, said at first sight, this might seem like a setback for hybrid seed companies but there would be plenty of things they can still do. “Rice is grown over such a vast climatic and geographical range that specialized hybrids would have to be developed for each region,” he said. The companies, he said, would continue to improve their hybrids. “It will be interesting to see how all this plays out in the years to come.”
Currently, the high costs of producing hybrid seeds are a major barrier to farmers in developing countries, especially South Asia and Africa. Siddiq said if efficiently used, this method could potentially be a game-changer for poor farmers, who would need to purchase hybrid seeds just once and plant the progeny(后代) seeds from their own harvest in the following seasons.
1. What problem do the researchers aim to solve?| A．Farmers’ income. | B．Farmers’ costs. |
| C．Hybrid seeds’ cloning. | D．Hybrid seeds’ climate tolerance. |
| A．They have a pretty long growth cycle. |
| B．They tend to be affected by various diseases. |
| C．They have stricter requirements for sowing time. |
| D．They fail to reproduce plants with the same quality. |
| A．Hopeful. | B．Concerned. | C．Doubtful. | D．Anxious. |
| A．The future of the hybrid seed industry. |
| B．The drawback of cloning hybrid seeds. |
| C．A method of cloning hybrid plants from their seeds. |
| D．A means of promoting the specialized hybrid seeds. |
Stepping outside the railway station early
Yet, the breath taking beauty
After 1966, the year of the worst flooding in Venice’s history, the Italian Government started a project to save the city.
But Venice still needs attentive care. The city remains threatened on several fronts—mass tourism, the possible damage of city development
9 . A team of psychologists led by Dr. Karen McComb at the University of Sussex in the UK have discovered an effective way for humans to communicate with cats through slow blinking (眨眼睛), similar to how cats interact with each other.
Dr. McComb and her team conducted two experiments to study this phenomenon. In the first study, owners were instructed by researchers Tasmin Humphrey and Andrew Wood to slowly blink at their cats from a distance while being recorded. Humphrey and Wood found the cats were more likely to respond with slow blinking of their own compared to when no interaction took place.
To follow up on these findings, McComb, Humphrey, and Wood designed a second experiment without considering the exsisting relationship between humans and cats. Researchers, including McComb, performed the same slow blinking action. Like in the first experiment, the cats in this study also responded more favorably to slow blinking by returning the gesture and more readily approaching an extended hand, according to Humphrey’s analysis.
The slow blink expression involves partially closing the eyes briefly, copying a relaxed, friendly facial expression in humans. McComb notes that for cats, it appears to signal good intentions as constant staring could be seen as threatening. Wood says that cats may have developed this language to acknowledge humans who react positively to the signal. Being able to effectively communicate acceptance in this subtle cat way seems to strengthen the bond between cats and their owners, McComb adds.
McComb, Humphrey and Wood hope their findings can provide insight into cat behavior and thinking. They also aim to apply this knowledge of cross-species communication to evaluate cat health in various places like veterinary (兽医的) clinics and shelters, according to Humphrey. A deeper understanding of how cats interpret and respond to humans can improve our ability to properly care for household and outdoor cat populations, McComb concludes.
1. How was the second experiment different from the first one?| A．It recorded the interactive behavior of cats. |
| B．It required cat owners to blink from a distance. |
| C．It studied how cats communicate with each other. |
| D．It focused on how cats react to strangers’ slow blinking. |
| A．To attract their owners’ attention. |
| B．To show friendliness to other animals. |
| C．To respond to humans’ positive reactions. |
| D．To send out a signal for help to their partners. |
| A．Improving cat behavior and habits. |
| B．Assessing health conditions of cats. |
| C．Developing ways to treat cats’ diseases. |
| D．Helping cat owners train their cats quickly. |
| A．Humans can communicate with cats by blinking slowly. |
| B．Extending hands to cats can strengthen the bond with them. |
| C．Cats respond favorably to humans’ friendly facial expressions. |
| D．Understanding cat signals improves humans’ ability to care for them. |
10 . The boulders (巨石) look generally unremarkable, besides the fact that they stretch up and down the ridge in a curved line. Most people who don’t know their story would probably choose to look at the sweeping view of San Jose below them instead.
The timeworn line of boulder, is part of a system of stone walls, the remains of which stretch along the East Bay Hills all the way from Grimly Peak in Berkeley to where I watched a man tie his shoes at the Sierra Vista Open Space Preserve above East San Jose.
They exist only in sections, and some are better preserved than others — where I found the man, the walls are short and thick and half-sunk into the earth, hut further north at Ed R. Levin County Park in Milpitas, they remain almost perfectly assembled and stand several feet tall.
The first recorded mention of the walls is from an article in the San Francisco Chronicle from 1896. “Half a mile east of Grizzly Peak stand the remains of stone walls which have long baffled the researchers. By whom they were built, when and why is an unsolved mystery,” the article stated. The unnamed author went on to write a generally-accepted theory of the walls that they were constructed by “some long-forgotten race, possibly Aztec”.
Of course, the people who originally inhabited the hills and the land surrounding them are far from forgotten. The Ohlone people thrived in the area for thousands of years until they were largely displaced by European settlers — however, there’re no records of them constructing stone walls.
“Some of my colleagues have heard the rocks were placed there by Spanish settlers clearing their fields, and there have been speculations that it could have been part of Indigenous practice,” said Charlotte Graham, a spokesperson for the Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority. “We’ve also heard it could be a natural occurrence.”
However, there isn’t enough evidence on the walls to be entirely certain. A study dated lichen (地衣) on the walls in Berkeley as being from 1851 to 1880, though other sections of the walls haven’t been tested, and there’re few historical accounts on their presence.
1. How may most people never hearing about the boulders react when seeing them?| A．Ignore them. | B．Collect them. |
| C．Post the photos of them online. | D．Report them to the government. |
| A．The one along the East Bay Hills. |
| B．The one near Grizzly Peak in Berkeley. |
| C．The one at Ed R. Levin County Park in Milpitas. |
| D．The one at the Sierra Vista Open Space Preserve. |
| A．Prevented. | B．Confused. | C．Annoyed. | D．Inspired. |
| A．Functions of stone walls | B．Newly-found boulders |
| C．The history of boulders | D．Stories behind mystery walls |
