One spring, I was hired as groundskeeper at a Country Inn, a famous bed-and-breakfast located in Washington state. The grand house is in a beautiful place. Many famous people have visited and even had their own rooms there. The owners, Philip and Cecelia, have done a perfect job for the house. However, the gardens were very overgrown. Worse yet, there was another problem: a very persistent doe (母鹿).
Every day when I came to work, there was new evidence of the deer’s big appetite. I tried many preventives: spray, human hair, soap, you name it-but none of those things had effect. Often when I was weeding, I’d look over and there she’d be, munching some tasty pieces. Worst of all, she feasted on the roses, in which Cecelia took great pride. I became so frustrated that I named her “Dinner”— and wanted to serve her on plates.
One morning, I was on my hands and knees pulling out vines and bushes when I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye. There was Dinner, not five feet away, munching a large leaf and staring at me. I felt a connection with this animal. We did have something in common-we were both mothers. I got the crazy idea of communicating with her and it seemed she wanted the same thing.
What’s up? I asked in my head.
I’m here because I feel safe, was the gentle reply I felt I heard. I have my fawns (幼鹿) bedded down nearby, and there is plenty to eat. When the twins are older after summer, I will move them deeper into the forest.
I understand that, I assured her. People come here too, from far away. I guess they’ll be interested to see you. I promise that nobody will harm you or your children. I don’t mind sharing the vegetation but Cecelia loves roses, too. She is very upset when they are all eaten.
A loud crash broke the magic. Our eyes met again briefly before she leaped off across the driveway, disappearing into the forest. Has I really communicated with the deer?
Paragraph1.
I went into the kitchen where Cecelia was preparing the evening meal.
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Paragraph2.
Every day, I enjoyed watching Dinner with the twins and my presence never bothered them.
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2 . The specific cultural values of a country may determine whether concern about environmental issues actually leads individuals to engage in environmentally friendly behaviors, according to research published in Psychological Science.
Kimin Eom, a psychological scientist of the University of California, Santa Barbara, was inspired to investigate the links between culture, environmental concern, and environmental action after noticing that both public discussion and academic research on environmental behavior typically focus on people from Western countries. It is worth noticing because Western countries tend to have cultural values that prioritize individuals’ own attitudes and beliefs and encourage expression of them.
“The theory seemed to be that once individuals are led to believe in the urgency of environmental issues and have stronger concerns about sustainability (持续性), they will change and act to address the issues,” explains Eom. But this relationship might not hold for individuals living in more collectivistic (集体主义的) societies, which place more emphasis on social harmony and uniformity than on self-expression, Eom and his team assumed.
To examine what drives environmental action in individualistic and collectivistic cultures, the researchers conducted a study with participants from the United States (an individualistic culture) and Japan (a collectivistic culture). They found environmental concern was closely connected with environmental behavior — in this case, choosing environmentally friendly products — but only among American participants. On the other hand, believing that a large percentage of people engage in environmentally friendly behaviors was associated with making eco-friendly choices among Japanese participants, but not American participants.
The findings suggest that personal concerns are more likely to motivate people to take environmental action if they live in individualistic countries, while social norms (准则) are more likely to drive people to engage in environmentally friendly behavior if they live in collectivistic countries.
“Getting citizens actively engaged is critical to addressing urgent social challenges, such as climate change,” says Eom. “Our research suggests that scientists, policymakers, and activists need to understand how culture shapes the psychological factors of action to develop policies, campaigns, and interventions (干预) that address important social issues.”
1. What does Eom find about previous research on environmental behavior?| A．Its study participants are too limited. |
| B．Its results need a while to be achieved. |
| C．It prioritizes individuals’ attitudes and beliefs. |
| D．It draws much evidence from public discussion. |
| A．If he sees many others do so. |
| B．If he is affected by collectivistic values. |
| C．If he moves to an individualistic country. |
| D．If he worries about the environment personally. |
| A．It fails to take participants’ psychological factors into account. |
| B．It encourages scientists and policymakers to make joint efforts. |
| C．It has a further study direction towards urgent social challenges. |
| D．It provides insights into promoting public engagement in social issues. |
| A．Social Norms Play a Part in Addressing Pollution |
| B．Environmental Issues Originate from National Cultures |
| C．Motivating Eco-Friendly Behaviors Depends on Cultural Values |
| D．More Environmental Concerns Usually Mean More Green Action |
3 . Lying in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, the fishing village Huatulco is home to nine bays, 36 beaches and thousands of baby turtles that apparently needed me. I had three open days on my calendar, and a desire to save some turtles. And so, away I went to Huatulco with Wildcoast, a group of champions-for-change who were protecting coastal and marine ecosystem in the U. S. and Mexico.
I was taken to La Escobilla to experience Wildcoast in action. Just one hour north of Huatulco, this protected beach is where mass turtle nesting happens. This natural phenomenon lasts just four days during rainy season, hundreds of thousands of female sea turtles swinging their way ashore to lay their eggs.
Between threats of dogs, crabs, development and oil spills, the little creatures have the whole world against them. As recently as 2002, turtles hunting was not only a common practice, but an important part of the culture and diet in the Oaxaca communities. Luckily, Wildcoast rescues turtle eggs and recreates habitats by monitoring temperatures and humidity. Thanks to their efforts, the sea turtles have made a major comeback, with now over 72 million turtles being born on the beaches that Wildcoast protects.
I got to hold 50 of the tiny creatures in a bowl. Despite an average laying of 100 eggs, just one in 1, 000 baby turtles will make it to adulthood. Gazing into the bowl, I so badly wanted them to taste the sea and find shelter somewhere deep in the ocean. Finally, it was time to liberate those little creatures. Out spilled the creatures, some moving full steam ahead while others barely paddled in place. Literally, hundreds of them began to spread out across the beach.
With each set of waves, we witnessed the survival of the fittest, some pushing past the whitewash while others crashed back to shore. Their fight for life made my eyes wet. A flock of birds were ready to dive into the sea for their moving targets. “One in 1, 000.” Nature was cruel and compassionate at the same time. After 30 long minutes, the last creature made his way to the sea.
1. The baby turtles are threatened by various factors except ________.| A．the cruel hunters | B．the rapid development |
| C．the extreme weather | D．the oil-polluted ocean |
| A．With slow pace and fear. | B．With all energy and enthusiasm. |
| C．With full caution and curiosity. | D．With great satisfaction and responsibility. |
| A．One baby turtle in 1,000 can make his way to the sea. |
| B．Thousands of baby turtles were crashed back to shore. |
| C．The struggle of baby turtles for life touched the author. |
| D．Baby turtles can hardly survive the harsh living conditions. |
| A．Think twice before you leap. | B．God helps those who help themselves. |
| C．Cease to struggle and you cease to live. | D．When the buying stops, the killing can too. |
Swim Buddies
I leaned (倚靠) over the side of the beat and stared at the clear blue water. This was my last chance, I thought. “I hope you find a green turtle (乌龟) today, Alexa, and realize your dream of swimming with it.” Dad said, as if reading my thought. “Me, too,” my brother, Jonah, said. “I want to see one, too!”
I lifted my head up, turned toward Jonah, and glared. Why, why, why did he always insist on following me everywhere, doing everything I did? Make your own friends. I wanted to scream at him. Find your own green sea turtle! But I said nothing. Ever since Jonah was a little kid and they discovered he acted so differently because he had autism (自闭症), I had been trained to show understanding for him. Trained to put up with a lot, including his shouts at the top of his lungs.
“We’ll stop here, and if we are lucky enough to see turtles.” Father said, “remember not to get too close, or they will be scared away. Do the ‘dead man’s float’ and wait. If they’re curious enough, they’ll cheek you out.”
Jonah said — too loudly, of course, so everyone on the boat could hear him —“That turtle sounds just like me. It wants to be friends but doesn’t know how, like me. I really, really, really want to see one, Dad.”
Putting the mouthpiece into my mouth, I dived into the water. I swam in a different direction and searched the seafloor. Suddenly, I saw a huge green turtle chewing on the seaweed. Excited as I was, I did the dead man’s float, lying as still as possible. “Come on, buddy (伙伴).” I said to myself, “Come swim with me!”
As I watched than lonely turtle, I couldn’t help bust think of Jonah’s words about friends — Jonah didn’t have friends. He functioned well enough to be in a regular class, but he was still strange enough that the other kids stayed away from him. This turtle might be the only one we could find today. And I knew that Jonah had got his heart set on seeing one, just like I did. Even though Jonah made my life really hard. I understood how he felt. I swam to Jonah.
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。
Together, we swam back toward my turtle.
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Emerging from the water, Jonah shouted, “The turtle is our friend now!”
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5 . The behavior of beavers and other animals has often inspired expressions in English. If someone is very industrious or hard-working in tackling many things at once, we can say the person is “as busy as a beaver.” This phrase hints at one of the characteristics of these wild animals—they are indeed active creatures.
With their large teeth, which are orange due to iron in the tooth enamel (牙齿的珐琅质), beavers can cut down trees and change their environments like no other animals except humans. They use these fallen trees to build dams, creating safe, watery environments. The busy beavers build homes — called lodges — in the ponds created by the dams. The only way to get in and out of lodges is by entering an underwater opening of the structures. This offers beavers protection from predators such as bears, wolves, or coyotes.
It’s also interesting to note that beavers have another reason for cutting down trees aside from building dams. Beavers can digest cellulose, so wood is a significant food source for them, with their diet 15 also consisting of leaves and aquatic plants. Chewing on trees also helps beavers keep their teeth sharp, making it easier for them to keep chopping down trees.
Of course, no discussion about beavers would be complete without mentioning their most noticeable feature their large, flat tails, which have different uses. One is that they act as a rudder, helping them steer in the water. Another is that the animals pound their tails on the water to warn other beavers of danger. Since beavers work so hard building their homes and warning others of potential harm, it’s no surprise that busy as a beaver is a common phrase.
1. Which of the following usages of “as busy as a beaver” correct?| A．My cat is as busy as a beaver since it always lies on the sofa. |
| B．This kind of tree is as busy as a beaver because it takes hundreds of years for it to be used as timber. |
| C．Hanna is having a cup of coffee and listening to music in the living room. She is truly as busy as a beaver. |
| D．Oliver is responsible for two projects and has to train the three new employees, so he has been as busy as a beaver recently. |
| A．What countries beavers are found in. | B．How beavers keep themselves safe. |
| C．The animals that threaten beavers. | D．The food that beavers eat. |
| A．The wood is very strong. |
| B．The water from dams helps beavers digest wood. |
| C．Dams make it harder for other animals to catch. |
| D．Dams provide beavers with lots of water to drink. |
| A．Tail | B．Teeth | C．Paw | D．Head |
1. What will the weather be like tomorrow?
| A．Hot. | B．Cold. | C．Wet. |
| A．Rail travelers. | B．Air travelers. | C．Car travelers. |
| A．High winds. | B．A drought. | C．Floods. |
| A．Every hour. | B．Every two hours. | C．Every three hours. |
One day two years ago, my mother came home from work and announced that she had found a pet for the family. My father, little sister, and I eyed her in doubt.
My sister asked what kind of dog it was. My mother said it was a poodle (贵宾犬) named Pepe. I couldn’t believe she wanted a poodle — especially one with such an ordinary name. But she had made up her mind. “Actually, I’m doing a co-worker a favor,” she said. “The woman who owns Pepe says he hates to be alone and needs children to play with him.”
Pepe arrived the next night. His short tail shook happily. I didn’t get very close to him, thinking he should have stayed with his previous owner. My little sister played with him until bedtime, and he would come to me and begged for more attention. I always ignored him. But no matter how I treated him, he’d always like to be with me. He has always been waiting for me at the front door at the end of the day, smiling happily. He seems to know that I will be coming home from school at that time. Every day, he asks me with his eyes to play with him or take him somewhere. At night, he will wait until I fall asleep, leave his bed by the wall heater, walk down the hall and jump onto the end of my bed.
One night, while everyone was sleeping, I was in a half dream state. My throat hurt, my eyes pained, and some animal was crying in my ear. I opened my eyes and saw fog in my room. I wondered who left the window open. Pepe cried and bit my pajama sleeve (睡衣袖). Then I woke up and realized that it wasn’t fog in my room — it was smoke.
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。
Standing up, I couldn’t breathe.
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I turned off the burner with Pepe around me.
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8 . Scientists have discovered a new structure that allows lunge feeding whales, also called rorqual whales (长须鲸), to take in massive amounts of water without choking.
To capture prey (猎物), rorqual whales use a method called lunge feeding. They speed up, and take in a volume of water large enough to fill their entire bodies.
Scientists didn’t know how these whales avoided choking on prey—filled water and flooding their respiratory tracts (呼吸道) during a lunge feeding event. Now Dr. Gil and his colleagues have discovered a large structure that they’ve termed the “oral plug” —a structure never before described in any other animal—that they think makes lunge feeding possible.
Dr. Gil and his colleagues analyzed dead fin whales. By physically dissecting (解剖) the mass of muscle and tissue that plug the back of the whale’s mouth, the researchers determined that when the animal is at rest, the plug blocks off the whale’s pharynx (咽道), a tube-shaped structure that leads to both the respiratory and digestive tracts. When a whale lunges, the “oral plug” protects both tracts from being flooded by the water and the living creatures that the animal has taken in.
When the animal is ready to swallow its latest meal, the oral plug shifts upward to protect the upper respiratory tract. At the same time, the larynx (喉) closes up and shifts downward, blocking the lower respiratory tract. In other words, during swallowing, the pharynx only leads to the digestive tract.
“This fills in a blank that we didn’t even know really existed,” said Dr. Gil of the team’s findings. Ari Friedlaender, who studies whale feeding behaviors at the University of California but was not involved in this research, sees great value in filling in these anatomical blanks about whales.
“The more we can understand how they develop these means for being able to eat so much, the more we understand about what their abilities are, and how they function as part of marine ecosystems,” Dr. Friedlaender said.
1. Which words can best describe the lunge feeding method of rorqual whales?①speedy ②massive ③precise
| A．②③ | B．①② | C．①③ | D．①②③ |
| A．It just blocks off the two airways when the whale rests. |
| B．It just protects the upper airway when the whale swallows. |
| C．It just blocks the lower airway when the whale lunges. |
| D．It ensures that the meals and water just go into the pharynx. |
| A．Dr. Friediaender shared his findings of whale feeding behavior with Dr. Gril. |
| B．Dr. Friedlaender praised the research for it further explains how marine ecosystems function. |
| C．Dr. Friedlaender will cooperate with Dr. Gil and his team for the future research. |
| D．Dr. Gil was probably surprised to find the existence of the “oral plug”. |
| A．Negative. | B．Indifferent. | C．Cautious. | D．Positive. |
| A．Why do whales lunge for food? | B．Why don’t whales choke? |
| C．Why do whales have respiratory tracts? | D．Why are whales unique? |
9 . My grandma passed away last week. My mum began the painful yet necessary task of sorting through her belongings.
“Is there anything you want from grandma’s flat?” Mum texted me.
“Her aloe (芦荟), please.” I required zero thinking time.
Sometime around 1975, Grandma, always believing good things would happen in the future, received this plant as a gift, which she appreciated and placed in her doorway. It came from the local butcher. Five years later, my mum married the butcher’s son and had me. Grandma revealed to me this particular plant was a living relationship between the two families. And so was I.
Recently, whenever we visited Grandma’s flat, I attempted to fix this concept in my children’s minds. “That was a gift your great-grandma bought your other great-grandma! It’s older than me!” Then my kids would nod and ask Grandma for a sweet.
Numerous times, Grandma gave me cuttings or clippings of the plant, hoping I might raise my own and continue the legend. Yet, every time, my new branch died with my awful gardening skills. But that didn’t used to matter, because I could turn to Grandma, who would wait and accept my disturbance without becoming upset. Then I got another clipping and tried again. But now I can’t. So, I decided that the plant will go and live with Ann, my mother-in-law, who is a genius with a greenhouse.
The plan is for Ann to keep hold of the original plant. In time, she can teach me how to deal with its cuttings properly, and then maybe one day I can settle the plant in my place.
In the meantime, Ann will allocate (分配) clippings among my relatives, as Grandma used to do. My wife’s two sisters, for example, are both better at tending plants than I am, so it is quite imaginable they, too, will offer cuttings of the plant to their partners, spreading this loving plant across my entire extended family.
1. Why did the author want his grandma’s aloe?| A．He wanted to pass it down to others. | B．He showed a preference for gardening. |
| C．He had a pleasant memory of the plant. | D．He received it as a gift from his grandma. |
| A．Optimistic and patient. | B．Generous and helpful. | C．Honest and fashionable. | D．Humorous and skillful. |
| A．display his skills in gardening | B．have the plant better cared for |
| C．announce his grandma’s death | D．protect the plant from dying out |
| A．Aloe: my family bond | B．Aloe: a mysterious plant |
| C．Grandma: my life coach | D．Grandma: a lovely gardener |
10 . Lay eggs and make noises — that’s it? Anyone involved in chicken farming knows that the animals are capable of much more. Researchers have found evidence that roosters (公鸡) could recognize themselves in a mirror. Whether this is successful, however, depends on the experimental contexts.
Whether animals can recognize themselves and thus have self-awareness is one of the central questions in behavioral research. The mark test, a classic test for self-recognition came to the scientists. In the test, if an animal stands in front of a mirror and begins to explore the colored mark placed on its body, this is considered proof that it recognizes its reflection as itself.
“However, our goal was to conduct the mirror test in an environment that is better adapted to the ecologically relevant behavior of the roosters,” says Sonja, a researcher from the University of Bonn. She came up with the idea of using a natural behavior of roosters for the experiment.
Initially, the researchers set up a test area and placed a net to separate two compartments (隔间), through which the roosters could see each other. Then a picture of a fox was placed onto the ceiling of one compartment. Faced with the predator, the roosters let out 77 alarm calls in the presence of a partner, but only 17 when they were alone. The result shows that most roosters, faced with a fox, do alarm partners, which is the perfect illustration of the animals’ self-awareness. The next step was to place a mirror between the two compartments instead of the net. In all, only 25 alarm calls were let out. “The result indicates that the roosters don’t mistake their reflection for a partner, and possibly recognize themselves in their mirror image,” says Sonja.
For comparison, the team also performed the classic mark test. Here, the roosters didn’t recognize themselves in the mirror. The research team sees clear evidence that the classic mirror-mark test produces more reliable results when the behavior of the particular species is included in an ecologically relevant context. “In the classic situation, a rooster may not show self-recognition,” says Sonja. “But when a fox threatens him, it becomes clear that his reflection is not another rooster, but himself.” Further research on animals’ self-awareness is needed so as to better understand animal rights and animal welfare.
1. What is the purpose of the mark test?| A．To explain why animals show certain behavior. |
| B．To discover what behavioral research focuses on. |
| C．To tell whether animals can identify their mirror image. |
| D．To reveal how animals get used to the natural environment. |
| A．Enemy. | B．Partner. | C．Researcher. | D．Reflection. |
| A．To present the experiment result. | B．To change the experimental condition. |
| C．To replace the experiment subject. | D．To simplify the experimental process. |
| A．Animal behavior draws researchers’ attention. |
| B．Animal welfare deserves more human efforts. |
| C．Roosters’ self-recognition works in classic mark tests. |
| D．Roosters’ self-awareness improves in threatening contexts. |
