1 . These days more and more people tend to buy man-made trees for Christmas, because they think they are good for the environment. But is it true? Which is more environmentally friendly—real or man-made? The simple answer is: it depends.
Real trees that still have their roots have little carbon footprint (碳足迹). They can be planted, brought inside for the Christmas period and then replanted.
But things are more complex for other trees.
Britain’s Carbon Trust estimate (估计) that a two-meter tall tree that doesn’t have roots has a carbon footprint of between 3.5 kg CO2e and16 kg CO2e depending on whether it is burnt—which is less polluting——or finds its way to a landfill (垃圾填埋场). “Unfortunately, we still see a lot of trees going into landfill,” says Sophie Neuberg, a member of Friends of the Earth. “And that’s very bad for the environment because they break down very slowly and create methane which is a greenhouse gas.”
The picture for plastic trees isn’t so encouraging. The Carbon Trust estimate a carbon footprint of around 40 kg CO2e for a two-meter tree, but its beauty is that it can be reused.
“It’s a good idea to get a good quality one that you can use for many years. Someone I know has had their plastic tree for 20 years,” Neuberg says.
This tendency toward reuse of plastic treess is supported by research published by the American Christmas Tree Association (ACTA) who estimate that 85% of US families with a man-made tree will reuse it and that on average man-made trees are reused for 11 years.
Jami Warner, director of ACTA repeats Neuberg’s advice. “Quality man-made trees are very easy to break down and very easy to store,” Wrner says. “If you take good care of it you can use it season after season or you can donate it to a good organisation.”
However, if you want a truly green Christnnas, you can simply replace the tree with the plants already in your house and decorate them for Christmas.
1. Why do people tend to buy man-made Christmas trees now?| A．They think it costs less. |
| B．They find it more convenient. |
| C．They consider it more decorative. |
| D．They believe it is more eco-friendly. |
| A．Burning it. | B．Reusing it. |
| C．Throwing it. | D．Replanting it. |
| A．Buying a good quality plastic tree. |
| B．Planting a tree in a pot and reusing it. |
| C．Using plants to replace Christmas trees. |
| D．Ignoring the tradition and canceling the tree. |
| A．Business. | B．Education. |
| C．Health. | D．Environment. |
2 . A six-year-old longing to keep a unicorn in her backyard figured she’d get the hard part out of the way first.
Last November, Madeline wrote a letter to the Los Angeles County Department of Animal Care and Control with a straightforward request. “Dear LA County, I would like your approval if I can have a unicorn in my backyard if I can find one. Please send me a letter in response.”
Director Mayeda replied two weeks later. The department does in fact license unicorns, she said, under certain conditions. Those include polishing the unicorn’s horn at least once a month with a soft cloth, feeding it watermelon at least once a week, covering it with only nontoxic and biodegradable sparkles and giving it regular access to sunlight, moonbeams and rainbows. And, because unicorns are indeed very rare to find, the department is also giving Madeline a toy unicorn to keep her company during her search, as a token of appreciation.
“It is always rewarding to hear from young people who thoughtfully consider the requirements of providing a loving home for animals,” Mayeda wrote in the letter. “I like your sense of responsible pet ownership to seek permission in advance to keep a unicorn in Los Angeles County.”
Mayeda told the Washington Post that this is the first time the department has received a request for a license for a unicorn or any mythical creature. They were impressed with the first-grader for wanting to ask permission in the first place, and doing her research to work out how to go about that. She and her colleagues deal with a lot of “life-and-death” issues on the job, whether that’s seeing cases of animal abuse or animals hurting people or making decisions about having to put down dangerous or sick animals. So Madeline’s letter has considerably brightened their spirits, and she is due to visit the department this week to discuss her unicorn license application. Safe to say, she’s in for a magical surprise.
1. Why did Madeline write the letter?| A．To apply to visit a unicorn. | B．To learn to provide animal care. |
| C．To ask permission to keep a pet. | D．To figure out how to find a unicorn. |
| A．Her application was disapproved. | B．Requirements should be met for the license. |
| C．She was presented with a live unicorn. | D．Guidance was given for her search. |
| A．Imaginative. | B．Sensitive. | C．Flexible. | D．Convincing. |
| A．Because it is the first application letter for a pet. |
| B．Because animal protection is a life-and-death issue. |
| C．Because they are worn out with their daily work. |
| D．Because they are touched with the girl’s deeds. |
1.湖南地处中国中部，湘江贯穿全省。
2.湖南省有很多旅游景点，橘子洲 (Orange Island)、张家界、凤凰古城等最为著名。
3.省会城市长沙是中国历史文化名城，具有3000多年的历史。
4.气候温和，当地人热情好客。有很多特色美食，如臭豆腐(stinky tofu)、芷江鸭等
注意：1.词数80左右；
2.可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。
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The benefits of a degree are not obvious to people who live on this remote island. Families have a
Today two villages remain with a population of just 1,400. People there are used to the
5 . Elephants are often seen comforting upset individual elephants with a gentle touch of their trunks reportedly. It’s one thing to witness something that looks like comforting behavior, but another thing to prove that this is what elephants are doing. Now, scientists have shown that Asian elephants do indeed get upset when they see others in trouble, and they reach out to comfort them. Elephants, thus, join the list of other animals, including dogs, wolves and some birds, which have been shown to do so.
Elephants’ responses to stress are difficult to explore because one has to wait for opportunities for these arising naturally in the wild. However, Joshua Plotnik, a scientist at Mahidol University in Thailand got around this problem. He compared Asian elephants’ behaviors during times of stress to those during periods when little upsets them. For 1 to 2 weeks every month for nearly a year, Plotnik spent 30 to 180 minutes daily watching and recording the behavior of 26 Asian elephants living in Elephant Natural Park in northern Thailand.
Other researchers have previously shown that when upset, an elephant moves its ears and raises its tail; it may also make a low sound to show its stress. “When elephants in the park see an elephant behaving in this manner, they typically respond by feeling the same emotion,” Plotnik said, “just as we do when watching a scary movie together. If an actor is frightened, our hearts race and we reach for each other’s hands — a reaction known as ‘emotional contagion’ .”
“But more studies are needed, preferably in wild populations,” Plotnik said. “What is unclear is whether these responses primarily benefit the upset animals, or the res-ponders,” Shermin de Silva, a behavioral ecologist, said. However, the study “provides a very interesting first exploration into the behavior of elephants suffering from stress,” said Graeme Shannon, a scientist at Colorado State University.
1. What does the underlined phrase “got around” in paragraph 2 mean?| A．Overcame. | B．Faced. | C．Found. | D．Raised. |
| A．To explain a rule. | B．To present a fact. |
| C．To clarify a concept. | D．To support a conclusion. |
| A．It has some limitations. | B．It confirms a prediction. |
| C．It benefits future studies. | D．It is thought worthless. |
| A．Elephants copy comforting behavior | B．Elephants ask for comfort when in trouble |
| C．Elephants are easily in low spirits | D．Elephants understand their companions’ feelings |
6 . Automaker General Motors has announced the expectation of achieving carbon neutrality (中和) by 2040. On the way to that goal, the company hopes to get rid of automobile emissions (排放物) by 2035.
GM said it will take a science-based approach to become carbon neutral, balancing carbon dioxide emissions. Furthermore, it plans to remove gas-powered vehicle production by 2035. It intends that by 2025, 40% of its vehicles will be battery powered.
“General Motors is joining governments and companies around the globe working to establish a safer, greener and better world,” said Mary Barra, GM chairman and CEO. “We encourage others to work together and make a significant influence on our industry and on the economy as a whole.”
Transportation is the largest contributor of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, just over 28%, the Environmental Protection Agency reported. That is why GM and other industry leaders have joined the Science Based Targets initiative, which calls on businesses to take action to do with climate change.
A clear step for GM to become carbon neutral is to switch from internal combustion engines to electric vehicles. Traditional gas vehicles make up about 75% of GM’s greenhouse emissions, the company said. Their production facilities make up the other 25%, but the manufacturer aims to control the ratio (比率) by using wind and solar energy. GM said it will power its U.S. factories with 100% renewable energy by 2030 and globally by 2035.
The bigger obstacle falls on the consumer. An electric vehicle is significantly more expensive. The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) says the average electric car costs $ 19,000 more than a gasoline-powered car. But GM has spent years improving its battery technology. Maybe that’s the reason why it can get rid of automobile emissions in the next 14 years with much confidence.
1. What measure is GM taking to achieve the goal of removing carbon dioxide emissions?| A．Working with global organizations. |
| B．Cutting back on battery-powered cars. |
| C．Gaining industrial and financial support. |
| D．Reducing production of cars powered by gas. |
| A．Supportive. | B．Opposed. |
| C．Critical. | D．Indifferent. |
| A．Renewable energy. | B．Fast food. |
| C．Transportation. | D．Electric vehicles. |
| A．Consumer. | B．Environmentalist. |
| C．Producer. | D．Advertiser. |
7 . In January 2020, over a bottle of wine, Tulane University students Franziska Trautmann and Max Steitz were sharing their disappointment about having no glass recycling(回收利用) in New Orleans. They wanted to create a system that would recycle glass into something useful. With that, their grassroots glass recycling organization, Glass Half Full, was born.
In a period of a global sand shortage, Glass Half Full is creating a way to compete with sand digging and mining, which disturb ecosystems, damage coastlines, and cost millions of dollars. Louisiana, where the organization is based, loses on average a football field of coastal wetlands an hour. Glass Half Full creates sand that, among other things, is used to rebuild coastlines and prevent floods.
Glass and drink bottles are collected through a system of free drop-off collecting stations and roadside pickup. The glass is pulverized (粉碎), separated and recollected for use in varieties of projects. The sand and glass pieces are used for disaster prevention, coastal rebuild, eco-construction, and new glass products.
Founders Trautmann and Steitz also hope their project will make people think that they have the power to work to protect the environment as individuals(个人)and as a community. Trautmann said, “We always hear, ‘Oh, we can’t do anything about global warming. We can’t do anything about the environment. It’s all the big companies and the government. It’s up to them. ‘But when you collect glass over one year, you will know individuals can do something. All those little things add up to something much bigger. ”
Glass Half Full’s work is supported by a team of volunteers and crowdfunding efforts, making it truly a community effort. A successful one, too—in their very first year, they helped to recycle over 650, 000 pounds of glass.
1. What is the idea behind Glass Half Full?| A．Selling more recyclable glass. |
| B．Recycling glass into something useful. |
| C．Founding a grassroots organization. |
| D．Raising money to protect the environment. |
| A．Improve. | B．Punish. | C．Break. | D．Repair, |
| A．The result of glass recycling. | B．The reason for glass recycling. |
| C．The future of glass recycling. | D．The way of glass recycling. |
| A．Individuals can make a difference. |
| B．Global warming affects governments. |
| C．Big companies can deal with global warming. |
| D．We can do nothing about environmental protection. |
8 . Parrots live extremely long partly due to their relatively large brains, an international team of researchers has discovered. Simeon Smeele, a doctoral student at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, led the study, the results of which were published in March in the Proceedings of the Royal Society.
When it comes to lifespan (寿命), birds truly stand out. Lifespan tends to increase with an animal’s body size, roughly speaking. Thus, the bigger the animal, the longer they live. But a bird tends to live much longer than a comparably-sized mammal. One theory is that birds’ ability to fly means they are less at risk from the animals that kill them, which reduces their risk of being eaten, decreases stress, and frees up bodily resources for growth.
And among birds, parrots are the aging champions. The confirmed longest-living bird was Cookie, a Major Mitchell’s cockatoo (a species of parrot), who lived at the Brookfield Zoo in Illinois for all but one of his 83 years. Though cockatoos often weigh around a pound, they usually live for four decades. Most of the other 398 parrot species also live longer than other birds of similar size.
What sets parrots apart? In the new research, Smeele and his colleagues gathered data on over 130,000 individual parrots held in more than 1,000 zoos, representing 217 species. Through this data, they created reliable estimates of the average lifespan for each species. They next searched for a link between each species’ lifespan and its relative brain size and found a clear, positive correspondence. Parrot species with larger brains relative to their body size lived longer than species with smaller brains.
“This supports the idea that in general larger brains make species more flexible. For flexibility allows them to live longer.” Smeele said in a statement. “For example, if they run out of their favorite food, they could learn to find something new and thus survive.” He added, “All parrots have relatively large brain sizes compared to most other birds.”
Researchers have previously shown that, when trained, some parrots can recognize and understand objects, colors, and shapes, and even speak with an impressive vocabulary. They can even match five-year-old humans on basic tests of intelligence.
1. What may cause birds’ long life?| A．Their big body size. | B．Their ability to fly. |
| C．Their less adventurous nature. | D．Their slow-paced lifestyle. |
| A．They outlive other similar-sized birds. |
| B．They live longer in the zoo than in the wild. |
| C．They have an average lifespan of four decades. |
| D．They live in relatively less competitive environments. |
| A．Goal. | B．Evidence. | C．Difference. | D．Connection. |
| A．Parrots find it hard to survive nowadays. |
| B．Bigger brains give parrots more adaptability. |
| C．Parrots like to discover new things by nature. |
| D．Bigger brains aid parrots with their social ability. |
| A．Why do parrots live so long? | B．Why are parrots so intelligent? |
| C．What do parrots do for a living? | D．What are the longest living animals? |
9 . A China-led research team has completed a genetic study on penguin species to understand how they evolved from their flying ancestors 60 million years ago into the excellent swimmers today.
The study analyzed the genes of all living penguins and those that had died out, alongside their fossil data. The research provides new findings about the genetic basis for penguin evolution and its adaptation to the environments in oceans.
The study confirmed that ancient penguins originated in Zealandia, which used to be a continent in the South Pacific Ocean, about 65 million years ago. The ancestor of penguins appeared about 14 million years ago, after which global climate changes drove the penguin evolution and contributed to the formation of new species, said lead researcher Zhang Guojie from Kunming Institute of Zoology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
It also identified a series of genes that allow the bird to live both on land and in water. Over 60 million years, penguins have gradually become smaller in size, and they have evolved to be more suitable for the new environments, according to Zhang.
Researchers in the study also discovered that penguins at high latitudes (纬度), such as emperor penguins, had evolved much faster than those at low latitudes. It suggests that the extreme Antarctic environment put greater environmental stress on penguins and sped up the adaptation of the high-latitude species to extreme environments.
These findings help to understand which genes contributed to the penguin adaptations to oceans and extreme cold environments on Earth, Zhang said.
“They also demonstrated that penguins have adapted to an ever-changing world during the past 60 million years, so there is no need to worry about how the species respond to future climate changes.”
1. What do we know about the ancestors of penguins?| A．They evolved because of climate changes. |
| B．They disappeared about 14 million years ago. |
| C．They were smaller in size than penguins today. |
| D．They were excellent swimmers 65 million years ago. |
| A．The small size of penguins. |
| B．The extreme cold environments. |
| C．The stress from other species. |
| D．The ever-changing environment. |
| A．Negative. | B．Doubtful. | C．Uncaring. | D．Optimistic. |
| A．How climate changes made penguins learn to fly. |
| B．How penguins evolved to adapt to new environment. |
| C．How human activities influenced penguins’ evolution. |
| D．How penguins began to live in water 14 million years ago. |
1. What happened to the woman’s dog?
| A．It died in a crash. | B．It was stolen. | C．It got seriously sick. |
| A．It can keep her son company. | B．It can make herself happy. | C．It can watch her house. |
| A．Take it home. | B．Give the best shelter. | C．Ask her friend to help it. |
