1. What was Tom doing during the earthquake?
| A．Crying. | B．Escaping. | C．Sleeping. |
| A．He was ill. | B．He was helpless. | C．He was frightened. |
2 . Tens of thousands of nature lovers see black bears and grizzly bears each year
If a bear is coming towards you, you must first determine if the bear attack is defensive（such as when protecting young bears）or predatory（捕食性的）（such as when hunting）.
Black bears do not often challenge humans, but when they do, their attacks are usually predatory. Bears do not feel threatened when they are hunting, so playing dead will not help you stay safe. During a predatory bear attack, the first thing you should do is drop any food you have and back away. If the bear still comes towards you, make as much noise as possible by shouting and hitting objects.
| A．It is a good idea to collect some facts about bears. |
| B．Your frightening behaviour can make the bear back down. |
| C．Most walk away with exciting memories and photographs. |
| D．That turns out to be a hint in some situations but not in others. |
| E．Black bears and grizzly bears are likely to attack for different reasons. |
| F．You should learn some life-saving skills before going on a hike in the wild. |
| G．There are many ideas about how a person should react when faced with bears. |
3 . Perhaps you know northern Americans still maintain the habit of celebrating Groundhog Day when a large groundhog (土拨鼠) checks to see its shadow on February 2 and helps to predict when winter will end. But have you ever heard about how a mountain town in North Carolina uses a caterpillar (毛毛虫) known as the Woolly Worm to make similar predictions?
According to the folklore (民间传说), the amount of black on the woolly worm in autumn predicts the severity of the upcoming winter. The longer the woolly worm’s black bands (带) are, the longer, colder, snowier, and more severe the winter will be. Similarly, a wider middle brown band is a sign of a milder upcoming winter. The position of the longest dark bands supposedly indicates which part of winter will be coldest or hardest. If the head end of the caterpillar is dark, the beginning of winter will be severe. If the tail end is dark, the end of winter will be cold. In addition, the caterpillar has 13 segments (昆虫的节/段) to its body, which traditional forecasters say correspond to the 13 weeks of winter.
Scientific studies on worm forecasting are rare. American Museum of Natural History entomologist Howard Curran conducted a small trial in 1948. Having heard about the caterpillar folklore, Curran headed to Bear Mountain State Park to collect caterpillars each fall for eight years. He found that if the worms had brown markings on more than a third of their body, winters tended to be milder.
Most scientists view the folklore of caterpillar predictions as just that, folklore. “It’s a wonderful story, but I do think it was a playful trial,” says Joe Boggs, an entomologist at Ohio State University Extension who has studied woolly worms. “Curran was a real scientist. He had tons of papers published, but he never published this one — probably because he knew it wouldn’t stand up to peer review.”
Mike Peters, an entomologist at the University of Massachusetts, doesn’t disagree, but he says there could be a link between the band of a caterpillar and the severity of winter. Peters suggests that the timing of their growth and environmental conditions, such as temperature, moisture levels, and food sources, can impact the appearance of woolly worms, including their size, coloration, and band patterns. By analyzing these characteristics, researchers can potentially infer information about the weather conditions. “The band does say something about a heavy winter,” he says. “The only thing is that it’s telling you about the previous year.”
1. How do people predict the weather through caterpillars?| A．By analyzing their living habits. |
| B．By measuring the change of their size. |
| C．By calculating the number of their segments. |
| D．By studying color bands on their bodies. |
| A．His personal observations. |
| B．An investigation on the locals. |
| C．Studies by previous scientists. |
| D．Statistics collected by the museum. |
| A．Positive. | B．Indifferent. | C．Doubtful. | D．Unclear. |
| A．The caterpillar forecasting needs long-term data to support it. |
| B．The color band of caterpillars can be a mirror of past weather. |
| C．The cold environment has a great impact on caterpillars’ growth. |
| D．The caterpillar can help predict the severity of winter accurately. |
1. 你的看法；
2. 你的理由。
注意:
1. 写作词数应为100左右；
2. 题目已经给出。
Should we explore the sea?
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Braving the Waters
Joel Boyers and his wife Melody Among were heading home from the Nashville airport. Among had just earned her helicopter pilot’s licence when Boyers received a call from a stranger. The caller told him that her brother and his two daughters were trapped on their roof in Waverly, 60 miles from Nashville. They were surrounded by rising floodwaters caused by the heaviest rainfall that year.
Desperate, the caller begged, “Could you please, please rescue my loved ones?”
Boyers, 41, looked at the address the caller mentioned while glancing at the storm clouds. “Ma’am,” he said, “no one will fly in this weather ...” But even before he finished the sentence, Boyers knew they would go back up. “I’ve got a daughter myself,” Boyers says. “I’ll see what I can do.” He put the brother’s address into his phone and they drove back to the airport.
Before long they were in the air, unprepared for what they were about to see. It was nothing but raging water below them. There were two houses on fire. Cars in trees. Tons of debris (残骸). No one was going to be able to swim in that.
The flooding also took out cell phone service, meaning that Boyers couldn’t use his phone to pinpoint (精确定位) the house he was looking for. He flew on regardless.
As Boyers controlled the helicopter, Among began searching for people caught out on rooftops, bridges — anywhere they could land and get them on board. Suddenly, she saw a teenager trapped in a tree. The teen, soaking wet and exhausted, was barely out of the water. Since there was no place to land, Boyers lowered the helicopter until it approached to just above the water line. Among jumped out and swam to the tree, where she helped the teen into the helicopter. The teen was shaking and looking behind anxiously when she said, “Thank you so much, but my sister and uncle ... please help them ...”
Boyers dropped off the teen on a patch of land across the street. Then he and Among were back in the air.
注意：1. 续写词数应为150词左右；2. 请按如下格式在相应位置作答。
Seconds later, they spotted two people on the roof of a destroyed house.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Their mission ended 90 minutes after it began, when professional rescue teams showed up.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________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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Macquarie Island is a beautiful and
9 . Many areas of the world suffer from low rainfall, and with climate change, the water shortage (短缺) is increasingly becoming a problem in some places. So more and more people, companies and governments are now looking for ways to make houses completely self-sufficient in water－providing it and dealing with it themselves.
In some houses in rural areas of Australia, the owners are doing exactly this. Although the houses are in a suburb called Gelorup, only 10 kilometres from the city of Bunbury, they do not have water supplied to them. Instead, water is collected on the roof and from the channels (排水沟) and then run into underground pipes that lead to a large water tank (箱). From the tank the water purified (净化) in the underground system is sent back to the house to meet all household needs from drinking to cleaning toilets. Because of this, no one in the households can use strong chemicals for cleaning and washing.
We produce different kinds of water waste from our homes. Black water is the waste water that comes from our toilets, but most of our waste water is actually grey water. This is the waste water produced by people having showers or baths, washing their hands or faces in the sink, and washing their clothes or dishes. However, while grey water is not drinkable, there are many ways in which it can be reused around the home. With water recycling systems, grey water can be collected and made safe enough to use on gardens and for cleaning toilets.
The process of treating and transporting water produces large amounts of carbon emissions. So if we all began to recycle our grey water, it could radically reduce the impact on the environment. The use of water recycling systems would also help with the problems of water shortage faced in many areas of the world. Water recycling, it seems, must have an important place in our future.
1. What information does paragraph 2 mainly tell us?| A．Why the water should be recycled. |
| B．How the water recycling system works. |
| C．What difficulties the house owners are facing. |
| D．Why strong chemicals may be used for cleaning and washing. |
| A．We should know the different kinds of waste water. |
| B．We should reduce it by not having showers or baths. |
| C．We should find some ways to reuse the recyclable waste water. |
| D．We should drink the waste water purified by water recycling systems. |
| A．greatly | B．creatively | C．likely | D．regularly |
| A．Water recycling: the way of the future |
| B．Saving water: the immediate need |
| C．House owners: the different choice |
| D．Grey water: the most important point |
10 . Cristina Mittermeier is a marine biologist, activist and multi-award-winning photographer who has given her life to ocean protection. Recognised as being one of the world’s most influential conservation photographers, Cristina has travelled to 132 countries to achieve her goal — to communicate the immediate need to protect wild places.
She began her career as a marine biologist, but soon realised that she could better work for the interests of the oceans and the planet through her camera than with scientific data. In her eyes, science is basic to understanding what is happening to our planet, but it fails to convey (传递) the emotions that make us care.
According to Cristina, photography allows us to humanise (使人性化) stories and create something meaningful, and she had an urgent need to share the difficult situation of the planet. For her, it’s all about the emotional connections we can establish with the subject matter. She loves creating pictures that engages people in conversations and makes them stop and think. Establishing a successful career as a photographer has not been an easy journey. She worked hard at teaching herself the basics of photography and then she went back to school to learn more about the underpinnings of fine art.
When asked what has inspired her focus on marine life, she replied, “The ocean is barely mentioned but it is the largest ecosystem on our planet and is the ecosystem that has the most influence on Earth. It absorbs at least 25% of all emissions and most of the heat on our planet. I want people to recognise that the ocean isn’t just hurt by climate change — it is our solution. If our oceans die — and they are dying — we will die with them. Life on Earth is not possible without a living ocean.”
1. What goal did Cristina intend to achieve in her travels?| A．To take more wonderful pictures. |
| B．To urge people to protect the wild places. |
| C．To work for the non-for-profit organization. |
| D．To become the world’s most influential photographer. |
| A．She was bored with her career as a marine biologist. |
| B．She can’t understand what is happening to our planet. |
| C．She can convey emotional information through her camera. |
| D．She wants to establish a successful career as a photographer. |
| A．Because of the marine life. |
| B．Because of the great emissions. |
| C．Because of her love for the ocean. |
| D．Because of the ocean’s importance. |
| A．Powerful. | B．Patient. | C．Responsible. | D．Intelligent. |
