1 . A shark attacked a 14-year-old girl near a Florida beach on Saturday, though a surfer tried to save her. The surfer pulled the girl from bloody water and frightened the shark away with his fists(拳头).
Can sharks really smell blood in the water? Yes. Sharks have a good sense of smell, and blood happens to be a very attractive smell. Sharks also use sight and hearing to discover their food. In particular, hungry sharks like to hear the sounds which are made by swimming fish. They also look for something bright. Attacks on people can sometimes be a case of mistaken recognition. Sometimes, a shark could confuse shining stones for food.
The sharks’ eyes, ears, and nose are all near their mouth. But sharks also search for their food with sensory receptors(感受器). These receptors can feel any movement in the water. When a shark gets very close to a food, it can use electroreceptive organs(电觉器官), which sit the wall of little holes on the shark’s nose. Living things in salty seawater produce a weak electrical field(电磁场)that the shark can feel at a short distance, so it allows the shark to find out creatures that bury themselves in the sea floor. Muscle(肌肉)movements also produce little electrical fields that a shark can feel.
The surfer who tried to save the girl said he protected himself by frightening away the shark with his fists. Is that a good idea? Some experts think frightening away a shark with fists should only be the last choice. It won’t be wise for you to stay still in water. Swimming away rapidly seems to be a better choice. If you can’t swim away right away, hit the shark on the face or nose—where it has a high concentration of sensory receptors like humans—to drive off your attacker and give you enough time to escape. When you are beside a shark’s face, try sticking your finger in its eyes.
1. Which of the following helps sharks search for food?A.Swimming quietly. | B.A special kind of blood. |
C.Working as a team. | D.A good sense of smell. |
A.Sharks can feel movements from other creatures in seawater. |
B.Sharks use sensory receptor more than smell to search for food. |
C.Sharks can’t feel weak muscle movements from other creatures. |
D.Sharks can’t find and attack creatures hiding in the sea floor. |
A.Shout loudly and frighten it away. | B.Get away from it immediately. |
C.Touch the shark’s face gently. | D.Stay still to pretend to be dead. |
A.Environment. | B.Sport. | C.Science. | D.Health. |
2 . The sound coming from Taronga Zoo Sydney in Australia may sound like the cries of a human baby.
The zoo said, “Our Eeho has the amazing ability to replicate (复制) a variety of calls— including a baby’s cry.” Echo is a superb lyrebird (琴鸟), an Australian bird named for the shape of its tail.
Seven-year-old Echo can mimic the sound of a fire alarm and the “leave immediately” announcement at the goo, Leanne Golebiowski, a bird expert at Taronga Zoo Sydney said. About a year ago, Echo started practising baby cries, she said. But it’s not clear how he perfected the calls, as the zoo is closed to visitors because of COVID-19 lockdowns in Sydney. Glebiowski said, “I can only guess that he picked it up from our guests.
Male lyrebirds use their mimicking talents mainly for mating. During their breeding season, male lyrebirds can be heard singing for up to 4 hours a day. Their songs consist of a lot of different bird calls that they have picked up from their surroundings.
A.However, don’t be alarmed. |
B.The female should stay with him. |
C.Lyrebirds are experts at mimicking. |
D.Female lyrebirds also mimic sounds for other reasons. |
E.The tail looks like an instrument known as a lyre. |
F.Obviously he has been working on his craft during lockdown. |
G.But sometimes their mating songs incorporate (包含) other nonbird sounds. |
3 . In British Bristol, 70 English women at once entered into legal "marriage" with dozens of trees in protest (反对,抗议) against their being cut down. They "married" the trees in an attempt (试图) to prevent them from being cleared for construction (建造) of residential buildings worth £55 million in the forest. The British construction company has applied for the construction of 166 houses in Bristol, including luxury (奢华的) cottages. At the same time, the townspeople were especially angry at the fact that the application did not show the exact number of trees that are planned to be cut down. So, in order to attract the attention of the government, the activists organized an unusual wedding ceremony to save the forest.
The event took place at a park on Spike Island. The women who went there, dressed in wedding dresses, held photographs of the "suitors" in their hands. The celebration itself took place according to the classic storyline—with groomsmen and wedding vows (誓词). The organizer was John Tarleton, a professor at the Bristol Veterinary School, According to him, this action was supposed to suggest that tees are partners of people throughout their life.
The idea to hold such a ceremony came from Siobhan Kierans, who admitted that she came up with it by the story of women from the environmental movement Chipko, who chained (链在一起) themselves to trees in the 1970s to save them from destruction by logging companies.
The protesters said that Bristol needs trees more than luxury private housing. One of the "brides", Suzan Hackett, said, "To get married to a tree is a real honor. It's not a show. It's highly significant (important) and symbolic."
1. Why did the women marry trees?A.To protect the trees from going extinct (dying out). |
B.To appeal to (呼吁) people to plant more trees. |
C.To draw the government's attention to save the forest. |
D.To blame the company for damaging trees. |
A.The men to marry. | B.The companies to build houses. |
C.The buildings to be pulled down. | D.The trees to be saved. |
A.A previous (以前的) environmental campaign. |
B.Cruel behavior of logging companies. |
C.Movements of women fighting for rights. |
D.Women chained to trees for their faults. |
A.Interesting. | B.Meaningful. |
C.Pioneering. | D.Emotional. |
4 . Polar bear mothers invest a huge amount into their cubs (幼兽), isolating themselves in dens (兽穴) dug with great effort into piles of snow to provide care through the unforgiving conditions of Arctic winter. It’s little wonder that the bears are hesitant to leave when disturbed, even when oil drilling equipment is in operation nearby.
“We found that bears wouldn’t abandon their dens even with vehicles driving right overhead,” says Wesley Larson, who worked his way from office assistant to a graduate student position with Utah’s Brigham Young University, monitoring polar bears on Alaska’s North Slope.
Scientists have recorded an increase in human-wildlife conflict in the area, as offshore pack ice has decreased, forcing the bear population to create their dens closer to petrol industry activity. With increased industry interest in oil and gas leasing (租赁) in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, strong evidence to help support and carry out protective measures for the species has never been more important.
Wildlife managers in Alaska depend on a rule that industrial activity and research cannot take place within 1. 6 km of a den with newborn babies in it. Working with 15 years of monitoring records, and 30 years of notes concerning interactions between the industry and the bears, Larson and colleagues were able to confirm that the regulation was sufficient, but that more needed to be done to actively locate dens. He explains that with entrances quickly covered by snow and dens closed-up until spring, they are effectively undetectable to the naked eye.
“While technology such as forward-looking infrared cameras can be used to try to pick up a heat signature inside the den, it only works when conditions are perfect, and they rarely are in Arctic winter,” says Larson. He is now consulting on a project using radar technology to identify dens and ensure protection for the animals symbolic of the Arctic.
1. Why does the author mention polar bear mothers in paragraph 1?A.To attract sympathy for the polar bears. |
B.To condemn human activities that damage nature. |
C.To show the severe environment polar bears live in. |
D.To explain polar bears’ unwillingness to leave their dens. |
A.Pursuit of economic interest threatens polar bears’ existence. |
B.Protective measures were not considered important in the past. |
C.Human activities have led to the reduction of offshore pack ice. |
D.The development of petrol industry has forced the bears to leave. |
A.Approving. | B.Critical. | C.Worried. | D.Hopeful. |
A.Attention should be paid to protecting polar bears. |
B.Technology should be applied to identify polar bears. |
C.More efforts are necessary to monitor polar bear dens. |
D.It’s very difficult to successfully locate polar bear dens. |
5 . Sugar cane (甘蔗) contains around 10% sugar. But that means it contains around 90% non-sugar — the material known as bagasse (甘蔗渣) which remains once the sugar-bearing juice has been squeezed out of the cane. World production of cane sugar was 185m tonnes in 2017. That results in a lot of bagasse.
At the moment, most of this is burned. Often, it fuels local generators, so it is not wasted. But Zhu Hongli, a mechanical engineer at Northeastern University in Boston thinks it can be put to better use. "With a bit of improvement bagasse makes an excellent replacement for the plastic used for disposable food containers such as coffee cups," says Dr. Zhu.
Dr. Zhu is not the first person to have this idea. But previous attempts tended not to survive contact with liquids. She thought she could overcome that by combining the bagasse pulp (浆状物) with another biodegradable (可生物降解的) material. She discovered that the main reason past efforts failed is that bagasse is composed of short fibres which are unable to give resilience (韧性) to the finished product. She therefore sought to insert a suitably long-fibred substance.
Bamboo seemed to fit the bill. It grows quickly, degrades readily and has appropriately long fibres. When the researchers mixed a small amount of bamboo pulp into bagasse, they found that the short and long fibres combined with each other closely.
To put their new material through its paces, Dr. Zhu and her colleagues fist poured hot oil onto it and found that their invention showed resistance to oil. They also found that when they made a cup out of the stuff and filled it with water heated almost to the boiling point, the cup remained good for more than two hours. Though this is not as long as a plastic cup would last it is long enough for all practical purposes. Moreover, the new material is twice as strong as the plastic used to make cups, and is definitely biodegradable. When Dr. Zhu buried a cup made out of it in the ground, half of it rotted away within two months.
1. What does paragraph l mainly talk about?A.A big international market for cane sugar. | B.A plant containing a high content of sugar. |
C.The large amount of world bagasse production. | D.The environmental impact of planting sugar cane. |
A.They broke easily when wet. | B.They were non-biodegradable. |
C.They consumed little bagasse. | D.They had too much resilience. |
A.Avoid the attempts. | B.Meet the requirements. |
C.Fill the vacancy. | D.Survive the environment. |
A.It can satisfy basic usage needs. | B.It is hardly as strong as plastic cups. |
C.It can disappear in two months if buried. | D.It is unlikely to be used as an oil container. |
1. Why do people sell foods at the fair?
A.To increase their income. |
B.To contribute to local education. |
C.To advertise the traditional food. |
A.The dog show. | B.The live music. | C.The picnic. |
A.Tasting free local food. |
B.Throwing wool balls at a teacher. |
C.Playing with the wooden balls. |
A.It unites the whole town. |
B.It attracts overseas bands. |
C.It’s held in different schools. |
1. What is the purpose of this broadcast?
A.To entertain people with English. |
B.To help people to learn English. |
C.To talk about ways of learning English. |
A.Talking about weather. | B.Spending more time. | C.Practicing enough. |
A.The west. | B.The east. | C.The southeast. |
A.Flood was caused by heavy rain. | B.Trees were blown down. | C.Leaves were blown everywhere. |
The Chinese UN representative on Monday said Beijing aims to hold a green Winter Olympics in 2022, in
Zhang Jun, Chinese representative to the UN, reaffirmed
Zhang said, “China will continue to promote openness in Olympic Games, and through it, we will
He said, “China will create a new window for promoting the Olympic spirit
9 . The icy waters surrounding Antarctica have long been called the Southern Ocean by scientists, the media, and even the US Board on Geographical Names. However, it never received the official recognition it deserved—until now. On June 8, 2021, the National Geographic Society, which has been making maps since 1915, announced that from now on, there would be five oceans: the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian. Arctic, and Southern Ocean.
They had been considering making the change for many years. However, it is only recently that the geographers decided that the Southern Ocean was not just an extension of the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans. It had the unique characteristics required to deserve its own name.
Alex Tait, a geographer, says that the change reflects the Society's desire to draw public attention to protecting the Southern Ocean's unique and fragile marine (海洋的) ecosystem. "We've always labeled it, but we labeled it slightly differently than other oceans," Tait explains. "This change was taking the last step and saying we want to recognize it because of its ecological separation."
The new ocean will include most of the waters around Antarctica out to 60 degrees south latitude, excluding (排除) the Drake Passage and the Scotia Sea. Unlike the other oceans, whose boundaries are defined (界定) by the surrounding continents, the extent of the Southern Ocean is determined by the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) — the Earth's longest and strongest oceanic current.
The ACC was established 34 million years ago when Antarctica broke off from South America, enabling the water to freely flow around Earth's southernmost tip. Its water is colder and less salty than the ocean waters to the north and provides a unique habitat for thousands of species, including whales, penguins, and seals. Extending from the surface to the ocean floor, the ACC also significantly impacts Earth's climate. The powerful current, which draws in water from the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans, acts like a carrier allocating heat around the planet.
1. Why is the Southern Ocean recognized?A.It has no clear land boundaries. | B.It extends into the Pacific Ocean. |
C.It has been separated ecologically. | D.It is home to various marine species. |
A.By an oceanic current. | B.By its 60 degrees south latitude. |
C.By its marine ecosystem. | D.By the surrounding continents. |
A.Distributing. | B.Absorbing. | C.Providing. | D.Storing. |
A.The geography has changed sharply | B.Earth now officially has five oceans. |
C.A new ocean is appearing on the earth. | D.You have to change your concept about ocean. |
10 . Off the coast of Formentera, an island, lives seagrass that stretches 15 kilometres. The seagrass, covering several hectares, is made up of a single organism. The grasses are also long-lived, for tens or hundreds of thousands of years. Along with two other kinds of coastal ecosystems—mangrove swamps(红树沼泽)and tidal marshes, seagrass meadows are particularly good at taking carbon dioxide from the air.
This role was highlighted in a report, which was published on March 2nd by UNESCO, on blue carbon—the carbon taken in by Earth's oceanic and coastal ecosystems. In total around 33 billion tons of carbon dioxide, about three-quarters of the world's emissions(排放)in 2019, are locked away in the planet's blue carbon sinks(碳汇). Research by Carlos Duarte, the report's author and a marine ecologist, has shown that one hectare of seagrass can suck as much carbon dioxide each year as 15 hectares of rainforest.
One reason that blue—carbon ecosystems make such effective sinks is that underwater forests are thicker than the land-based woods. They can also trap floating pieces and organic matter, which settles on the sea floor and can double the amount of carbon stored away. They have another advantage, too. Climate change is leading to more wildfires around the world. As forests burn, their carbon stocks are released back into the atmosphere. Unlike forests on land, blue-carbon ecosystems do not burn.
Blue-carbon ecosystems may not be fired, but they remain affected to other sorts of disasters. In May 2020 hurricane Amphan destroyed 1,200 square kilometres of mangrove forest. A marine(海洋的)heatwave in Australian waters in 2010 and 2011 damaged around one third of the world's largest seagrass meadow in Shark Bay. “Mangrove forests can weaken or control waves and provide natural barriers to storm surges. Protecting and expanding them, then, appears to be a must,” said a marine biologist.
1. What does the second paragraph mainly talk about?A.The real definition of blue carbon. |
B.The special features of the seagrass. |
C.The doubt about the blue-carbon ecosystems. |
D.The capacity of the blue-carbon ecosystems to store carbon. |
A.They aren't influenced by natural disasters. |
B.They have great ability to absorb carbon. |
C.Their carbon stocks are released back. |
D.There are more underwater animals. |
A.Mangrove forests are too strong to be broken. |
B.Mangrove forests can strengthen waves. |
C.Humans should preserve blue-carbon ecosystems. |
D.Blue carbon ecosystems can be fired. |
A.Plants in the Ocean Are Better at Storing Carbon |
B.The Grasses Can Store More Carbon Than Your Expectation |
C.Mangrove Forests Can Control Waves Efficiently |
D.Blue-Carbon Ecosystem Are Expanding Much Faster |