China launched a three-member crew to its orbiting space station on Thursday as part of its
The mission
The country is planning a mission
China conducted its first crewed space mission in 2003,
1. What’s the speech mainly about?
A.Waste management. | B.Pollution control. | C.Renewable energy. |
A.Saving money. |
B.Promoting economic development. |
C.Conserving natural resources. |
A.It helps in creating energy. |
B.It protects ecosystems. |
C.It improves air quality. |
A.Using public transportation. |
B.Reducing, reusing, and recycling. |
C.Avoiding using plastic products. |
3 . When 12-year-old Erica Fernandez volunteered to help clean up the beach in her new hometown, Oxnard, California, she could barely speak English. She was just a kid helping 20 adults take care of the beach. She and her family had recently arrived in California from a small town in Mexico.
Erica started going door to door in her mainly Spanish-speaking farmworker community. “I always loved the ocean,” she says, “so it made me really sad to see this beautiful beach full of trash. That’s why I decided to help.”
Erica cared too much to stay silent. Having grown up in a tiny town in the Mexican state of Michoacán, she had a strong motivation to care for nature. “We grew our own food and raised our own animals. Taking care of nature was part of survival.” She wanted to bring that same spirit to her new life in California.
As her English improved, she talked to kids in her high school about what was going on. “I didn’t know if they would listen to me. My English wasn’t good and I was only sixteen,” she says. As she nervously approached the microphone, she was informed that time was running out. One minute and thirty seconds was all she had. “I couldn’t give my prepared speech, so I just spoke from my heart.”
The result was electrifying. When Erica was finished, people stood up and broke into applause. One of the teachers said, “I’m very moved by your words, Erica. When I was your age, I was playing video games.”
Only the second person in her family to go to college, Erica wants to become an environmental lawyer so she can fight for the environment and for the rights of communities. She wants other young people to speak out when they see something wrong, even if they feel shy about it at first. “We are the future. The future is ours.”
1. Why did the author mention Erica’s words in Paragraph 2?A.To show gratitude to her action. | B.To advocate learning from her. |
C.To clarify the reason for her help. | D.To think highly of her devotion. |
A.She was the only college student in her family. |
B.She volunteered to clean up the garbage on Spanish beaches. |
C.She spent her childhood in a small town in Mexico. |
D.She couldn’t speak either English or Spanish in California. |
A.The device disturbed her performance. |
B.The audience was greatly encouraged. |
C.It affected people’s attitude to playing games. |
D.Erica expressed her inner thoughts fluently. |
A.A geography textbook. | B.A health report. |
C.A scientific website. | D.An environmental magazine. |
4 . Waste not, Want not
Today, I live in Manhattan with my husband, Alex. I’m an IT specialist and Alex is a lawyer. Life’s good, but sometimes I look at the way we live it and think of Ellie, my grandmother. Her favorite saying was “Waste not, want not.”
Such economy seems strange, even ridiculous, in our modern throwaway society, where everything is sold in boxes.
A.Packaging is not only used to protect goods |
B.My grandparents threw almost nothing away |
C.In one week alone, we threw away five old magazines |
D.We didn’t often go shopping and then cook meals at home |
E.As young Manhattan professionals, we buy a lot of “convenience food” |
F.But we pay a high financial and ecological price for our lovely packaging |
G.If you placed all the cans used in the United States, in one year end to end |
One day my mom and I read a story on a magazine called Humane Society News. A wild dog named Solo died for lack of medical care after he was ill. I knew how sad the story was because my own dog, Kela, had recently died. My world had ended when I lost Kela. She had been my best friend since I could remember. The article continued to tell about wildlife rehabilitators. They nursed the sick animals back to health, but as more and more animals were rescued, the medical expense became a big burden for them. I immediately determined to do something for them. I may be a kid, but why can’t I do a fund-raiser to help save more dogs?
My mom thought it was hard for an eleven-year-old girl to raise, but she told me to go ahead and try it anyway. I realized that I needed a name for the fund-raiser and thought since I was trying to protect dogs’ life, I would call my program Help Dogs. I decided that pet stores would be really good places to go with donation boxes and Help Dogs flyers (传单). I used little green Chinese take-out boxes, decorated with a picture of Tiko, one of the dogs I chose to help, and me. I wrote on each box “Help protect the life of dogs by donating a dollar”. I thought my actions might not raise much money for the dogs, but they can at least increase people’s awareness of wild animals protection.
One afternoon, after all the boxes had been distributed throughout our community, I got a call from a local newspaper reporter who had seen one of my flyers. The reporter decided to do an article about Help Dogs. After the article came out, I waited for a few days before checking to see if there were any donations.
注意:(1) 续写词数应为150左右;
(2) 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
I was really nervous when I finally went to collect the money.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________I realized many people feel the same way as I did but didn’t know how to help.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________6 . Louie, a pet parrot, saved a whole family. He
“Louie is a true
Barbara took her five-year-old granddaughter
“People have
A.annoyed | B.alarmed | C.impressed | D.noticed |
A.model | B.genius | C.hero | D.pioneer |
A.awake | B.asleep | C.alone | D.afraid |
A.opinion | B.way | C.memory | D.sight |
A.survive | B.resist | C.arrive | D.respond |
A.frightening | B.shocking | C.sorrowful | D.grateful |
A.angrily | B.gently | C.secretly | D.immediately |
A.turn | B.blow | C.keep | D.put |
A.accompanying | B.saving | C.comforting | D.adopting |
A.luck | B.doubt | C.evidence | D.barrier |
A.injuries | B.losses | C.pressures | D.failures |
A.detail | B.place | C.ruins | D.rows |
A.rushed out | B.come back | C.run away | D.reached out |
A.presented | B.equipped | C.linked | D.compared |
A.replace | B.honor | C.forget | D.reward |
Giant panda Fu Bao arrived at Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport in Sichuan province on Wednesday, returning from South Korea.
According to the agreement on giant panda
In
Fu Bao’s parents reached the park in March 2016 from the giant panda center in China,
According to the giant panda center, China and South Korea
8 . Natural gas, long seen as a cleaner replacement to coal and an important tool in the fight to slow global warming, can be just as harmful to the climate, a new study has concluded, unless companies can cut the leaks (泄露), since it takes as little as 0.2 percent of gas to leak to make natural gas as big a driver of climate change as coal.
The study, which involved researchers from Harvard and Duke Universities and NASA, pokes holes in the idea that natural gas is suitable energy resources to a future powered entirely by renewables, like solar and wind. “Even if gas leaks little, it’s as bad as coal,” said Deborah, the lead researcher. “It can’t be considered a good bridge, or replacement.”
When power companies generate electricity by burning natural gas instead of coal, they produce only half the amount of planet-warming CO₂. But natural gas is made up mostly of me thane (甲烷), which is, in the short term, a far more powerful planet-warming gas than CO₂, when it escapes unburned into the atmosphere. And there’s increasing evidence that methane is leaking from gas systems in far larger quantities than previously thought.
There are other balances to consider. The CO₂ produced by coal-burning power plants lasts far longer in the atmosphere than methane, whose climate effects disappear after a few decades. So focusing on methane leaks from gas systems as a way to control carbon emissions (碳排放) means the world might reduce some short-term warming, but still face a dangerous rise in average temperatures many decades into the future. That said, with the consequences of climate change already spreading around the world, controlling methane would be a way that works faster to slow warming.
“I do hope the world pays attention to this, as I fear too many remain too concentrated on simply reducing coal use, even if it results in more gas consumption,” Deborah said. “What the world requires is to move to a 100 percent renewable energy future as soon as possible.”
1. How can natural gas contribute to global warming?A.Its huge amount of CO₂ while burning. | B.Its taking in extra heat from the atmosphere. |
C.Its leaking methane warming the planet. | D.Its combination with methane to produce CO₂. |
A.Avoid the threats of climate change. | B.Cancel out the impacts of global warming. |
C.Slow down warming more immediately. | D.Balance carbon emissions with coal burning. |
A.Lack of attention to reducing gas use. | B.Unbalanced mix of coal and renewables. |
C.Shortage of renewable energy sources. | D.Difficulty in promoting renewable energy. |
A.Is Natural Gas Better for the Climate? | B.How Can Carbon Emission be Controlled? |
C.Is Natural Gas Taking the Place of Coal? | D.How Can Methane Speed up Global Warming? |
9 . Fans of Star Wars might remember Luke Skywalker’s home planet. Called Tatooine, the planet orbits two stars. A new study suggests similar planets might be the best focus in the search for places that can host life outside our solar system.
Many suns come in pairs called binary stars. Lots of these should have planets orbiting them. That means there could be more planets orbiting around binary stars than around lone stars like our sun. But until now, no one had a clear idea about whether those planets could host life. New computer models suggest that in many cases planets like Tatooine could be fit for life.
The researchers ran computer models of binary stars arranged in thousands of ways. Each had an Earthlike planet orbiting the two stars. The team modeled different sizes and shapes of the stars’ orbit around each other. They then tracked the movement of the planets for up to a billion years of simulated (模拟) time. That showed whether the planets would stay in orbit over timescales that might develop conditions to start life. They also checked to see if the planets stayed in a habitable zone. That’s the region around a star where an orbiting planet’s temperatures are never extremely hot or cold, and water could stay liquid (液态).
“An atmosphere and oceans could make a great difference,” says Mariah MacDonald, who took part in the new modeling work. Plentiful air and water could change the picture. Adding atmospheres to the modeled planets should increase the number of stars that could host life. She hopes to build more advanced models in coming months.
“Models of planets orbiting binary stars could guide future efforts to look for them with telescopes,” says Jason Wright, who studies the physics of stars at Pennsylvania State University. “This is an under-explored population of planets. There’s no reason why we can’t go after them,” he says. “And it might be worthwhile to try.”
1. Why does the author mention Tatooine in Star Wars?A.To attract movie lovers. | B.To introduce the topic. |
C.To remember an old friend. | D.To present a newfound planet. |
A.Its preparation. | B.Its application. | C.Its process. | D.Its finding. |
A.Improve the study. | B.Lead a peaceful life. |
C.Start another project. | D.Travel into outer space. |
A.Doubtful. | B.Positive. | C.Concerned. | D.Uncaring. |
10 . As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states, if we are to avoid a world that is too hot to live in, we need to do everything we possibly can, right now, to cut greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere. The fashion industry (时装行业) contributes up to 10% of global emissions — more than international aviation (航空) and shipping combined. It also contributes to biodiversity loss, pollution, landfill issues unsafe work practices and more.
It’s not the first time that people have adapted their clothing in response to the demands of a crisis. During the second world war, clothing styles changed in the United Kingdom and Australia. To protect precious resources, shorter skirts, minimal detailing and a focus on practicability became the norm.
In our current context, the most helpful thing we can do is to buy fewer new clothes, wear them for longer and restrain our desire.
Australians buy a lot of clothes, about 56 items per year on average. That makes Australians the second highest textiles consumers in the world after the USA. The price of clothes has dropped significantly over the past couple of decades, and the number of clothes people have in their closets has grown.
The Berlin-based Hot or Cool Institute suggests a wardrobe (衣柜) of 74 garments ( including shoes but excluding undergarments) is typically sufficient for people who live in a two-season climate (in the tropics) and 85 pieces for those who live in a four-season climate, as most Australians do. If we buy 10 to 12 new items a year, we can replace our entire wardrobe in about seven years.
If we do care about sustainable (可持续的) development, that means changing those choices that are no longer suited to the climate crisis. Clothes need to reflect a person’s situation as well as their identity to “work” well. This may mean that what we wear changes as we make different buying decisions, just as people did in the second world war. We may start to look different, but that change means our values in action.
1. What does the author stress in the first paragraph?A.The consequences of greenhouse effect. |
B.The importance of reducing carbon footprint. |
C.The problems caused by the fashion industry. |
D.The necessity of developing the fashion industry. |
A.Satisfy. | B.Express. | C.Control. | D.Abandon. |
A.Limiting the number of our clothes. | B.Reducing the production of clothes. |
C.Increasing the number of our clothes. | D.Replacing our wardrobe when necessary. |
A.Shop Sensibly and Dress Properly |
B.Wear Wisely and Live Sustainably |
C.How Many Clothes Should We Buy Every Year |
D.What Should We Wear to Cut Greenhouse Gases |