1 . I was quite young when I married. My wife shared with me my love for animals and she got several
The black cat was beautiful. We named him Pluto. I liked him best so that I often fed him alone. Our friendship
One night I came home quite late from the inn. Walking with
It seemed a ring
I made my efforts to
| A．adoptive | B．adorable | C．ambitious | D．adaptable |
| A．started | B．appeared | C．lasted | D．passed |
| A．left | B．claimed | C．beat | D．defeated |
| A．regret | B．silence | C．music | D．wine |
| A．adjust | B．anger | C．arrange | D．abandon |
| A．smooth | B．flexible | C．stable | D．uncertain |
| A．avoid | B．stop | C．bend | D．accuse |
| A．actions | B．words | C．reason | D．reach |
| A．constantly | B．purposely | C．intently | D．appropriately |
| A．storm | B．thunder | C．rainbow | D．lightning |
| A．awakening | B．striking | C．knocking | D．uplifting |
| A．stressed | B．frightened | C．guilty | D．delicate |
| A．unforgettable | B．unforgivable | C．unaffordable | D．unforeseen |
| A．do away with | B．get away with | C．make up with | D．catch up with |
| A．observing | B．assisting | C．impressing | D．surrounding |
2 . Human and their inventions, such as cars or plastic, have caused most environmental pollution on Earth. Today car emissions (排放物) are a major source of air pollution leading to climate change. In the meanwhile, plastics fill our ocean, creating a significant health issue to marine (海洋的) animals.
And what about the electric light, which is thought to be one of the greatest human inventions of all time? Electric light can be a beautiful thing, guiding us home when the sun goes down, keeping us safe and making our homes bright. However, like CO2 emissions and plastic, too much of a good thing has started to influence the environment. Light pollution, the wrong use of outdoor light, is affecting human health, wildlife behavior and our ability to observe stars.
Light pollution is a global issue. This became obvious when the World Atlas of Artificial Night Sky Brightness, a computer-created map based on thousands of satellite photos, was published in 2016, which can be viewed online. The map shows how and where our globe is lit up at night. Vast areas of North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia are glowing (发光) with light, while only the most distant regions on Earth (Greenland, Central African Republic and Niue) are in total darkness. Some of the most light-polluted countries in the world are Singapore, Qatar, and Kuwait.
Sky glow is the brightening of the night sky, mostly over cities, due to the electric lights of cars, streetlamps, offices, factories, outdoor advertising, and buildings, turning night into day for people who work and play long after sunset.
People living in cities with high levels of sky glow have a hard time seeing more than a handful of stars at night. Astronomers (宇航员) are particularly concerned with sky glow pollution as it reduces their ability to view stars.
Mostly over 80 percent of the world's population, and 99 percent of Americans and Europeans live under sky glow.
1. What can we learn from paragraph 2?| A．Electric light should be not be used outdoors. | B．Electric light is the main factor to keep us safe. |
| C．Electric light has both advantages and disadvantages. | D．Electric light is the greatest human invention. |
| A．Niue. | B．Singapore. | C．Kuwait. | D．Qatar. |
| A．Keeping the streetlamps on. | B．Littering plastics about. |
| C．Driving cars around. | D．Overfishing marine animals. |
| A．Uncaring. | B．Unclear. | C．Worried. | D．Satisfied. |
3 . If you have ever found yourself concluding that intelligence is in short supply in the modern world, perhaps you are looking in the wrong place. There are still plenty of smarts to be found elsewhere.
You will be familiar with the cleverness of dolphins and chimpanzees. But what about wasps (黄蜂)? They can recognize human faces. Or mosquitoes? They can learn to avoid being killed by chemicals after a single taste.
Such an astonishing group of talent is rather unsettling, which raises fundamental questions like what actually is intelligence, how did it develop and how do the abilities of various organisms (生物) compare? Evaluating intelligence in nature is tricky, particularly in life forms that are very different from us. Now a group of neuroscientists, AI researchers and philosophers want to create a periodic table of intelligence similar to the one used to categorize the chemical elements. The chemical version sorts elements by their atomic (原子的) number or atomic mass. For intelligence, researchers are still looking for a criterion that is equally straightforward. But where to begin?
It certainly isn’t brain size, as was long thought. Behavior might be a better way to categorize cleverness. But testing for intelligence through behavior is difficult. Recognizing oneself in a mirror is seen as a sign of advanced cognition (认知). Dolphins and bats can do it — but dogs typically can’t. Does this reflect a lack of intelligence in dogs or perhaps something else, such as their reliance more on smell than vision. Likewise, many organisms live in environments that are obviously different from ours and so might use senses that we don’t even possess.
Nevertheless, the researchers behind the initiative think intelligence might become clearer through a combination of behavioral and neuroanatomical (神经解剖学的) features. “We’re going to ask, are there kinds of intelligence, and can we identify structural features that are organizational of those kinds of intelligence?” says Andrew Barron at Macquarie University. “If we can, then we are starting to identify things that can be thought of as possible dimensions of intelligence.”
1. Why are wasps and mosquitoes mentioned in paragraph 2?| A．To make comparisons between them. |
| B．To prove smarts are in short supply. |
| C．To show there are other forms of intelligence. |
| D．To illustrate their similarities with humans. |
| A．It is upsetting to see different talents in natural settings. |
| B．It is hard to compare the abilities of different species. |
| C．Life forms in the natural world are different from humans. |
| D．It requires us to answer some basic questions about intelligence. |
| A．Factors like brain size matter more. |
| B．Other features need to be considered. |
| C．Some organisms possess similar senses. |
| D．All animals show signs of advanced cognition. |
| A．Different Minds | B．Surprising Behaviors |
| C．Unique Senses | D．Diverse Species |
4 . By flying in silence, the owl (猫头鹰) holds a deadly advantage over its prey (猎物), which is thought to have no idea of its hunter’s approach until its final moments.
Researchers have spent more than 80 years trying to solve the mystery of how owls, unique among birds, slice through the air creating just a whisper of audible (听觉的) disturbance. They hope to make use of the findings to reduce the noise generated by aircraft wings, fans and wind turbine blades (涡轮机叶片).
Extensive progress has been made, including developing innovations that have reduced noise from a wind turbine by as much as ten decibels (分贝), the difference between passing car and a passing truck, according to the authors of the study, Justin Jaworski and Nigel Peake.
However, in the study, published in the Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics, they conclude that “the primary barrier to the design of owl-inspired technologies remains the lack of understanding of the essential physics of silent owl flight”. The slight swoosh (嗖) made by an incoming barn owl is below the reach of human hearing until the bird is just under one metre away, laboratory measurements have shown.
In 1934, Robert Rule Graham, a British bird enthusiast and pilot, noted three structural aspects of owl wings that may help to explain their quiet approach: an unusual “comb” structure projecting from the wing’s leading edge, a soft layer of downy feathers that covers most of the wing and a ragged fringe (外围) of feathers that line the trailing wing edge. His theory is widely cited (引用).
Some researchers found that many larger owl species, such as the barn owl, can continuously track their prey in flight by hearing alone, meaning that any aerodynamic noise does not interfere with their tracking ability. When an aeroplane lands, much of the noise comes not from its engines but from the flow of air rushing around it. The ragged, feathered fringes of the owl’s wings may help to reduce the noise.
1. What is the purpose of the researchers’ study on owls?| A．To understand the flying techniques of owls. |
| B．To increase the flying speed of aircraft. |
| C．To help hunters catch their preys with ease. |
| D．To put the secret of owls’ quiet flight to use. |
| A．compare the noise of cars with that of trucks |
| B．illustrate the great achievements of the research |
| C．show the striking difference between trucks and cars |
| D．explain there is still a long way to go in reducing noise |
| A．Lacking the source of inspiration. |
| B．Limited sense of hearing of human beings. |
| C．Failing to understand how owls fly silently. |
| D．Blindness to the structure of owls’ wings. |
| A．Owls don’t move their wings when hunting for their prey. |
| B．The flying barn owl can follow their prey just by hearing. |
| C．Much of the plane’s noise comes from its engines when landing. |
| D．The feathered fringes of the owl’s wings generate the flow of air. |
5 . Visitors won’t find many straight rows in the organic garden at Martin Luther King Middle School in Berkeley, California. Sometimes the beds look like hearts, eyes, question marks or a rainbow. And then there’s the lovely drainage ditch (水沟), called the “Middle River,” which laughing, muddy students carved right down the center of their one-acre land.
As he looks around, Kelsey Siegel, the young teacher in charge of the garden, can’t help but smile. “So many of the youth we work with have grown up in front of TV and video games; they haven’t really had this experience of playing in the mud and water,” he notes. The schoolyard farm “fills in something that’s missing in their lives.”
Before they planted their garden five years ago with the help of highly-praised chef Alice Waters, few of the students at this multicultural Northern California school had even tasted vine-ripened (藤熟的) tomatoes, let alone raised them seedlings. Teachers worried that some children weren’t eating enough fresh fruits and vegetables at home, and the school wasn’t much help either: Like many state campuses, King replaced its hot-meal cafeteria years ago with a more cost-effective outdoor “snack-shack (小吃棚).”
For Waters, the founder of Berkeley’s Chez Panisse restaurant, the thought of children having to rely on such reheated junk — right in her own backyard — was too much to stomach. The small, visionary (有远见卓识的) woman is widely regarded as the Julia Child of organic cuisine in America, the person who’s taught millions the joy of cooking simple dishes with locally grown, chemical-free produce. Waters remembers poking (戳) at mystery food in her school cafeteria as a kid. But today, she says, the spread of vending machines and fast food in America’s schools has become downright evil. “What is it, one in three kids is overweight now? It’s just horrifying,” she sighs, drinking mineral water at a quiet table downstairs in her hugely popular restaurant, about a mile from the King campus “I don’t know what has to happen before we wake up.”
1. What does paragraph 1 highlight?| A．Students’ creativity in farming the schoolyard. |
| B．Students’ knowledge of building the schoolyard. |
| C．The strange look of the organic garden. |
| D．The nice environment of the organic garden. |
| A．unnoticeable | B．predictable | C．modest | D．far-reaching |
| A．Waters preferred fast-food to her school’s mystery food. |
| B．Waters is indifferent to what is happening to children. |
| C．Waters has taught people to grow organic plants. |
| D．Waters is deeply concerned about students’ diet and health. |
| A．Field of dreams | B．Garden of pleasure |
| C．Junk-free restaurant | D．Cost-effective campus |
6 . Around 40 million tonnes of electronic waste, known as e-waste, is produced every year. This includes electrical or electronic equipment that has been discarded. But where does it all go? In the US alone, 100 million mobile phones, 41 million computers and over 20 million televisions are thrown into landfills in a year. Even for standard waste this is a big headache, because any materials that are buried in the ground can’t be easily recovered and recycled. Recycling electronics can save energy and means that less of Earth’s natural resources need to be mined.
Failing to recycle e-waste is extremely damaging the environment due to the nature of the materials used in modern devices. While heavy metals and chemicals improve a device’s safety and user experience, these components become poisonous if they’re not dealt with properly. Your old phones, Gameboys, kettles, microwaves and more can end up in landfills, leaking their harmful contents into the soil, water and air. Not only does this kill wildlife and destroy ecosystems, but the accumulation of poison can impact human health too. As heavy metals and chemicals flow into lakes and rivers, drinking water becomes polluted. These poisons spread through the soil, impacting the health of crops and animals that people also rely on.
In some western countries, e-waste isn’t hidden out of sight in landfills but is burnt in giant, open junkyards. They even ship waste electronics to other countries to deal with, and this often ends up in dumps across Africa and Asia. Workers in these places are exposed to polluted lands and chemical gas.
It is urgent that we should reduce the damaging and unsustainable side of e-waste production. Rare earth metals, some plastics and chemicals can be fed into the next generation of electronics. The steps to proper recycling of e-waste are extensive and need large investment, but more and more countries around the world are turning to e-waste recycling.
1. What does the underlined word “discarded” in Paragraph 1 mean?| A．Repaired. | B．Protected. | C．Used. | D．Abandoned. |
| A．E-waste has a permanent effect on the environment. |
| B．E-waste may do harm to both ecosystems and humans. |
| C．Heavy metals and chemicals are poisonous to the users. |
| D．Burying e-waste into landfills is an effective way to recycle. |
| A．supportive | B．objective | C．concerned | D．uncertain |
| A．Solutions to destroying e-waste. | B．Ways to recycle e-waste properly. |
| C．Applications of recycled materials. | D．Investments in restoring ecosystems. |
7 . In 2019, Air Company gained public attention when it produced vodka (伏特加) from carbon in the air, in order to reduce the amount of the harmful greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. Today, the company has begun using the same process to make fuel (燃料) for airplanes.
Air Company’s clean aircraft fuel, which was recently tested, could some day help the airline industry achieve its goal of net zero carbon emissions (排放) by 2050. Currently, the airline industry accounts for about 3% of total global carbon emissions each year, and mainly uses traditional, fossil-based fuels.
A number of producers of clean aircraft fuel have come out in recent years, many of whom use something like plant material and cooking oil. But Air Company’s production process starts by pulling harmful carbon emissions out of the air.
The company first harvests carbon, mostly from industrial settings. It then takes water, separates the hydrogen from the oxygen, and puts the carbon together with the hydrogen and other mixtures. After that, it distills (蒸馏) that solution down. The final products are ethyl alcohol (乙醇) to make the company’s vodka and other products such as perfume, as well as paraffin, which forms the basis of its aircraft fuel.
By the time a plane has flown using Air Company’s fuel, it will have given off the same amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) back into the atmosphere as was acquired to make the fuel.
“Already, some of the world’s biggest airlines are supporting Air Company’s dream. They have agreed to buy millions of gallons of its fuel in the coming years.” The company manager says, “However, to get to those large industrial markets like aircraft fuel, traditionally known as the hottest industry to get green, is a long way to go. It’s going to take time, money and effort.”
1. What can we learn from the first two paragraphs?| A．Air Company is famous for producing vodka. |
| B．Air Company no longer uses traditional fuels. |
| C．Air Company’s fuel is likely to be environmentally friendly. |
| D．Air Company accounts for 3% of total global carbon emissions. |
| A．Ethyl alcohol forming the aircraft fuel. |
| B．Hydrogen that is separated from water. |
| C．Oxygen, hydrogen, carbon and ethyl alcohol. |
| D．Mix of carbon, hydrogen and other mixtures. |
| A．Major Airlines have already put Air Company’s fuel into use. |
| B．It takes time for Air Company’s fuel to be used on regular flights. |
| C．The fuel produced by Air Company is sure to be very expensive. |
| D．Air company alone will be able to occupy the aircraft fuel markets. |
| A．Air Company: Make Air Travel Green |
| B．Air Company’s Carbon Production Dream |
| C．Air Company’s Environmental Supporters |
| D．Air Company: Make Traditional Fuels Available |
8 . Tens of thousands of honeybees in Spain’s Canary Islands can now add “survived a volcano (火山)” to their wish list.
A report on Saturday told the story of five hives (蜂箱) of honeybees that were left unattended after the eruption (爆发) of the Cumbre Vieja volcano in La Palma, which happened on September 19, for about 50 days (their beekeeper had been forced to leave the area). When the beekeeper returned, he found the hives covered in volcanic ash (灰) .
Inside the hives, however, the situation was completely different. To the beekeeper’s surprise, he found tens of thousands of live honeybees, who had managed to carry on despite the heat and harmful gases released by the volcano. They may have also gotten lucky because they were covered with light ash with small holes, which allowed air to pass through the hives.
Not all honeybees on La Palma were so lucky, though. Spanish news service EFE reported that a group of hives closest to the Cumbre Vieja had been covered completely by lava, hot volcano matter, which killed them.
Antonio Quesada, a spokesperson for the GranCanaria Beekeepers Association, said that a key part of the bees’ survival was propolis (蜂胶). Produced by bees, propolis is a sticky thing made from resins (树脂) the insects collect from plants. Often called “bee glue,” propolis is often used to smooth surfaces or cover the space in hives.
Quesada said the La Palma bees managed to seal (密封) themselves inside their hives to protect themselves from the volcanic gases, which can be harmful to people, animals, plants, and buildings. The bees also thought about food an date from the honey stores they had inside their hives.
“It’s unbelievable how such a tiny animal that has been around for hundreds of thousands of years can have that ability to survive,” Quesada said.
That’s not all they did, though. Although they sealed themselves in their hives, they made sure to leave a very small pathway to the outside so they could get out one day.
1. What might the underlined word “unattended” in paragraph 2 mean?| A．Dead. | B．Lucky. | C．Alone. | D．Homeless. |
| A．His beehives were covered with volcanic ash. |
| B．His bees remained alive under the volcanic ash. |
| C．His bees warned him of the eruption of the volcano. |
| D．His beehives remained unchanged in the volcanic lava. |
| A．They’re fearful. | B．They’re unlucky. | C．They’re honest. | D．They’re admirable. |
| A．Bees were rescued timely. | B．Bees survived a volcano. |
| C．Bees benefited from propolis. | D．A huge volcano happened. |
One day in 1964, my mother came home from work and announced that she had found a pet for the family. My sister asked what it was. My mother said it was a poodle dog named Pepe.
I couldn’t believe my sister wanted a poodle dog — especially one with such a strange name. But she had made up her mind.
Pepe arrived the next night, his short tail bobbing (摆动) happily. I remained distant, thinking poodles should have stayed in France. My sister played with him until bedtime, and he begged for more attention. I ignored him.
He was a skilled digger, so our backyard fence wouldn’t hold him. We tied him; he pulled out of his collar (颈圈). We drove stakes (木桩) into the ground; he dug them up. We put a harness on him, staked the ground and tied him to the laundry pole; he was still waiting for me at the front door at the end of the day, smiling happily.
Every day, he asked me with his eyes to play with him or take him somewhere. At night, he would wait until I fell asleep, leave his bed by the wall heater and jump onto the end of my bed.
One night, I was in a half dream state. Suddenly, my throat and my eyes hurt, and some animal was whining (哀鸣) in my ear. I opened my eyes and saw fog in my room. I wondered who left the window open. Pepe whined and nibbled (咬) on my blouse. Then I woke up and realized that it wasn’t fog in my room — it was smoke.
I couldn’t breathe standing up, so I got down on the floor and crawled (爬行) beneath the smoke. Pepe followed my every move, his curly-haired stomach struggling on the ground. If I hadn’t been so scared, I would have laughed.
注意：
1. 续写词数应为150个左右;
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
We finally arrived in the kitchen, where the smoke was very thick.
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I turned off the burner (炉子) and crawled to open the back door.
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10 . When Kyle D’Costa and his wife met Rio, a nine-month-old shih tzu (西施犬), in 2021, “it was love at first sight. “The new couple soon added a Lhasa Apso (拉萨犬) and rented a bigger flat to give the animals ”more space“.
The D’Costas and millions of other middle-class Indians, no longer pleased with new cars and other Western fancy decorations, they are rapidly acquiring pets. According to Statista, a research company, India had 19.4 million pet dogs in 2018 and may now have 31m. In 2021, Market Decipher, another research organization, valued India’s pet industry at 890’hillion dollars and said that it would continue to grow by 3 times over the next 10 years.
Actually, the pet industry is growing at a fast rate throughout the world. With rising incomes comes increased pet-ownership, especially among young professionals who tend 10 put off marriage and parenthood and to be extremely willing to enjoy the company of a dog. It is only a matter of time before marriage websites include a ”pet-friendly“ option.
As keeping pets becomes increasingly popular, so do those working in the industry. “Being in this trade was despised just five years ago,” says Chinmay, a 30-ycar-old dog trainer in Thane, Mumbai. “How will you find a girlfriend?” he recalls his relatives asking him. But dog trainers in Mumbai can these days cam 2, 400 rupees (S30) an hour —more than twice as much as piano teachers. Chinmay is now happily married to one of his customers.
Current pet-industry players are prepared and new ones stepping in. Nestle, the world’s biggest food company, Inst year bought into Purina Petcare, an Indian pet-food business. Emami, an Indian company, targeting daily goods, offers medicines for pets. Euromonitor International, a market-research company, thinks India’s pet-food industry is worth 480 million dollars and will grow to $1. 2 billion by 2025.
1. Why are the figures listed in Paragraph 2?| A．To present the benefits of raising pets. |
| B．To show the popularity of keeping pets. |
| C．To stress the significance of pet industry. |
| D．To express dissatisfaction with the situation. |
| A．Get married early. | B．Earn higher income. |
| C．Choose friendly pets. | D．Draw comfort from pets |
| A．Looked down on. | B．Done justice to. |
| C．Shown respect for. | D．Taken advantage of |
| A．India’s pet-food industry is worth $1.2 billion. |
| B．Pet-industry is changing people’s career options. |
| C．Nestlé has earned a lot in Indian pet-food business. |
| D．More companies will have a hand in the pet industry. |
