| in addition turn one’s back break down a variety of live in harmony run out maintain friendships be concerned with |
A
Friendship clubs provide a platform for people to take part in
B
Nature is our home. Humans and other living things on the planet couldn’t survive without the resources that come from nature. We should take care of our “home” before it’s too late. If we keep overusing and destroying nature, it will finally
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3 . Amid rolling farms and green pasture 150 miles northwest of Sao Paulo, Brazil, two tropical forests bloom as one. The first consists of a single species, row after row of non-native eucalyptus (桉树), planted in perfect lines like carrots. The other is haphazard, an assortment of dozens of varieties of native saplings.
There’s no denying it: This forest looks ridiculous. The gangly (修长的) eucalyptuses shoot like witch fingers high above patches of stubby fig (矮壮的无花果树) and evergreen trees. Yet these jumbled 2.5-acre stands of native trees, ringed by fast-growing exotics, are among many promising efforts to resurrect the planet’s forests.
The eucalyptuses, says Pedro Brancalion, the University of Sao Paulo agronomist who designed this experiment, get big so quickly they can be cut after five years and sold to make paper or fence posts. That covers nearly half or more of the cost of planting the slow-growing native trees, which then naturally reseed ground that has been laid bare by the harvest. And this process doesn’t hamper natural regeneration.
You needn’t look far these days to find organizations trying to save the world by growing trees. Too often, tree-planting groups are so focused on getting credit for each seedling planted that they ignore what matters most: What kind of woodland is created? At what cost? And most importantly: How long will it last? Using the numbers of trees planted as a magic “proxy for everything,” Brancalion says, you “spend more money and get lower levels of benefits.” You can literally miss the forest for the trees.
Tree planting seems like a simple, natural way to counter the overwhelming crises of climate change and biodiversity loss. Trees provide wildlife habitats and slurp carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. No wonder trees are hailed as the ideal weapon. Yet for every high-profile planting operation, devastating failures have occurred. In Turkey, Sri Lanka, and Mexico, mass plantings have resulted in millions of dead seedlings or have driven farmers to clear more intact forest elsewhere. Trees that have been planted in the wrong places have reduced water yields for farmers, destroyed highly diverse carbon-sucking grassland soils, and allowed for invasive vegetation to spread. Simply reforesting the planet isn’t going to do much if we don’t also start cutting down on our emissions from the burning of coal, oil, and natural gas. Tree planting also can’t replace old-growth forests. Saving them is even more important than growing new forests.
So, what should we do?
To Brancalion, the answer is obvious: Restore native forests, mostly in the tropics, where trees grow fast and land is cheap. While that may require planting, it may also call for the clearing out of invasive grasses, the rejuvenation (使有活力) of soils, and crop yield improvements so that farmers will need less land for agriculture and more can be allowed to revert back to forests.
The combining of eucalyptus harvests with native plantings is just one more reminder that successful restoration must provide value to local communities. In many cases, if we let nature do the heavy lifting, Brancalion says, “the forest can regrow quite effectively.”
1. What can we learn from the first three paragraphs?| A．The non-native eucalyptuses bring profits that can pay for planting native saplings. |
| B．The non-native eucalyptuses compete with native saplings for water, nutrients, and light. |
| C．The variety of trees being planted determines whether or not the restoration will succeed. |
| D．Planting fast-growing exotics together with local trees does harm to the natural environment. |
| A．emphasize the significance of protecting existing forests |
| B．explain why tree planting is regarded as the ideal solution |
| C．illustrate the serious problems planting campaigns can cause |
| D．indicate the most important point tree-planting groups ignore |
| A．clear more forest to improve crop yields for farmers |
| B．combine harvests of fast-growing exotics with native plantings |
| C．restore native forests in the tropics and clear out invasive grasses |
| D．take into consideration the benefits of reforestation to local communities |
| A．Plant trees—and time will tell. | B．Plant trees—but don’t overdo it. |
| C．Plant trees—and save the world. | D．Plant trees—but mind the variety. |
Glass recycling has become such a big industry that the amount of glass
Have you ever been to London? Which famous sites did you visit? Or, if it is the first time that you
6 . Working Together to Save the Sea Turtles
Florida has some of the best beaches in the world. Thousands of people visit the state to enjoy the sand. But these beaches are also home to five species of sea turtles. A major problem is facing these interesting creatures.
Some volunteers and researchers in Florida take direct action to help the turtles. They look closely at the sand to find the fin (鳍) marks the mother sea turtles left there.
These are not the only Floridians taking action to help protect these creatures. Florida’s government has passed laws to save the turtles. One of these laws is “Florida’s Marine Turtle Protection Act”. This law prohibits anyone from disturbing or destroying marine turtles, nests, or eggs.
Another way Floridians work together to save these creatures is through organizations like the Sea Turtle Conservancy. The Sea Turtle Conservancy helps people take steps that will help reduce the threats that put sea turtles in danger. For instance, bright lights on buildings near the beach can negatively impact sea turtles. Baby sea turtles usually hatch on the sandy beach and head to the ocean. When there are bright lights coming from the other side of the shore far from the ocean, the baby turtles get confused.
| A．Many of them do not make it to the ocean and die. |
| B．Some of these turtle species are in danger of going extinct. |
| C．This helps them to locate where the sea turtles laid their eggs. |
| D．It also helps make sure that sea turtles’ natural habitats are protected. |
| E．Female sea turtles come from the ocean and onto these beaches at night. |
| F．They use their fins to move back across the beach and return to the ocean. |
| G．Every Floridian can do their part to protect sea turtles and their environment. |
7 . Anuar Abdullah has always had a special feeling for the ocean. In the 1980s, he settled in Perhentian as a diving instructor and fell in love with corals. Twice daily, he went out to sea, staying underwater for as long as his oxygen supply allowed. He learned the shapes and textures (纹理) of coral reefs long before he knew their Latin names. He studied the living conditions—the water temperature, the sunshine, the diversity(多样性) of ocean life—and saw how just one of those factors could bring about large-scale death.
Abdullah spent two decades experimenting with how to grow coral reefs in the ocean. He didn’t have a degree in marine (海洋的) biology or a research lab, but he had his own ways. Almost all the materials he used to grow corals came directly from the ocean. He didn’t use steel pipes or bricks—which he couldn’t afford—instead, he gathered rocks from the seafloor, piling them so they wouldn’t be knocked down by tidal waves. While others might depend on a lab to break live coral into pieces that were in turn used for growing, he searched for broken pieces of coral in existing reefs and fixed them to the rocks using animal-friendly glue. When he needed other materials, he started by searching the beach for waste.
Every day, the locals saw him on his knees examining corals in the ocean. Sometimes, he picked up a rock to which he had fixed a piece of coral several weeks earlier, and said very quietly, “My little acropora (鹿角大珊瑚), how are you doing today?” The locals whispered about how he’d spent days in the water speaking to corals as if they were people. “Everyone thought I was stupid,” said Abdullah, “But I knew I was doing the most important thing in the world.”
Actually, Abdullah was right. Now, in a world rapidly losing its coral reefs to climate change and environmental damage, he has become an increasingly influential expert on how to bring them back to life. Thousands have traveled from around the world to learn from Abdullah how to grow corals, with some eventually leaving their jobs to join his projects full time. With his 700 active volunteers, he has already saved about 125 acres of coral reefs.
1. Abdullah went out to sea twice daily to ________.| A．study coral reefs | B．have diving training |
| C．check his oxygen supply | D．share his feelings for the sea |
| A．eco-friendly and practical | B．traditional and indirect |
| C．high-tech and affordable | D．scientific and expensive |
| A．searched for waste to make a living | B．received a degree in marine biology |
| C．talked to everyone about coral reefs | D．became an expert on coral protection |
| A．Anyone with a dream is amazing. | B．Achievement provides true pleasure. |
| C．An individual can make a difference. | D．The strong man is strongest when alone. |
8 . Episodic memory (情景记忆) allows humans to revisit past personal experiences in their minds, and it was once thought to be a special skill of humans. Although there are still arguments about the extent of this type of memory in non-human animals, scientists have proved that creatures like rats and dogs can pass tests that are developed to assess episodic memory over the past two decades. “Curiously, there is a lack of research investigating dolphins’ episodic memory,” University of Cambridge cognitive (认知的) scientist James Davies says. Therefore, this surprising fact encourages him to fill this gap.
The team used “where” and “who” questions in their research, each on a different test. Each dolphin was first trained to retrieve a ball from the water, and then trained to get a ball by approaching a person holding it in front of them while ignoring an empty-handed person standing at a different spot. During this training, the locations were randomized (使随机化) and the person holding the ball differed each time, so that those details were irrelevant to learning the retrieving behavior. Then, for the tests, the dolphins were asked to retrieve the ball as they had learned to do, but after 10 minutes, something changed-this time, the ball couldn’t be seen, as it was now behind one of the two people’s backs. In the “where” tests, the ball was hidden in the same spot as in the training, but both people had been changed, while in the “who” tests, the locations of the people changed but the ball remained with the person who’d had it previously.
Eight dolphins went through each of the two tests, separated by at least 48 hours. All the dolphins got it right in choosing the correct spot on the “where” experiments, and seven achieved success on the “who” experiments.
Kelly Jaakkola, a psychologist, says that based on their cognitive skills, dolphins are a good candidate for having episodic-like memory, and this study goes really far in showing that. She also says, “The more we look for such capabilities in non-human animals, the more species we’ll likely find them in.” She adds, “An exciting question is therefore ‘Where do we draw that line? Which animals do have it, which animals don’t, and what sort of cognitive or neurological or social characteristics do those animals share? ’ That’s going to be the fun part of the game.”
1. What does the underlined word “retrieve” in Paragraph 2 probably mean?| A．Fetch. | B．Move. | C．Throw. | D．Play. |
| A．The locations of the people involved in the tests. |
| B．The memory tasks that dolphins need to perform. |
| C．The ability of dolphins to communicate with humans. |
| D．The dolphins’ characteristics related to their memory processing. |
| A．Dolphins pass the tests as a result of training. |
| B．It is very likely that dolphins are affected by people during the tests. |
| C．Scientists will probably find episodic memory in all non-human animals. |
| D．The influence of dolphins’ familiarity with a location or a person is avoided. |
| A．Dolphins Are the Most Intelligent Animals |
| B．Dolphins May Remember Personal Experiences |
| C．Episodic Memory Is Important for Humans and Animals |
| D．A Scientific Method Is Used to Study Dolphins’ Memory |
9 . Laughing together is an important way for people to connect and bond. And though the causes of laughter can vary widely across individuals and groups, the sound of a laugh is usually recognizable between people belonging to different cultures.
But what about animals? Do they “laugh”? And are the causes of animal and human laughter alike? In humans, people may laugh when they hear a joke, or when they see something that they think is funny, though it’s unknown if animals’ intelligence includes what humans would call a sense of humor.
However, many animals produce sounds during play that are unique to that pleasant social interaction. Researchers consider such vocalizations to be similar to human laughter. Recently, scientists investigated play vocalization to see how common it was among animals. The team identified 65 species that “laughed” while playing — most were mammals (哺乳动物), but a few bird species demonstrated playful laughter too. Reports of playful laughter were notably absent in studies describing fish, perhaps because there is some question as to whether or not play exists at all in that animal group. This new study could help scientists to analyze the origins of human laughter.
But how can we identify play? Unlike fighting, play is usually repetitive and happens independently of other social behaviors, said lead study author Sasha Winkler, a doctor of biological anthropology at the University of California. When it comes to identifying it, “you know it when you see it,” Winkler told Live Science. One sign is that primates — our closest relatives — have a “play face” that is similar to the expressions of humans who are playing.
When Winkler previously worked with rhesus macaques, she had noticed that the monkeys panted (喘气) quietly while playing. Many other primates are also known to vocalize during play, she said, so a hypothesis (laughter in humans is thought to have originated during play) supported by the play-related panting laughter of many primate species was put forward.
People now still laugh during play, but we also integrate laughter into language and non-play behaviors, using laughter in diverse ways to express a range of emotions that may be positive or negative. Human laughter notably differs from other animals’ laughter in another important way: its volume. People broadcast their laughter loudly, often as a way of establishing inclusion. By comparison, when most animals laugh, the sound is very quiet — just loud enough to be heard by the laugher’s partner.
“It’s really fascinating that so many animals have a similar function of vocalization during play,” Winkler told Live Science. “But we do have these unique parts of human laughter that are also an important area for future study."
1. What is the main purpose of the passage?| A．To explain causes of animal and human laughter. |
| B．To assess complexities regarding animal laughter. |
| C．To present findings on the existence of animal laughter. |
| D．To analyze differences between animal and human laughter. |
| A．Animal laughter is even noticeable in fish. |
| B．Animal laughter is hard to recognize during play. |
| C．People have learned to combine play with laughter. |
| D．People laugh loudly because they want to involve others. |
| A．Distinctive features of human laughter. |
| B．Different functions of animal laughter. |
| C．The origin and development of human laughter. |
| D．The relationship between animal laughter and intelligence. |
10 . As a shift in the polar vortex (极地涡旋) swept across much of the US, many people in the country were hit with a sudden snap of cold. Heavy ice and snow coupled with fallen trees caused the outages in major cities, with companies unable to tell their customers when power will be restored.
Polar vortices were noticed long ago. But the first known use of the term “polar vortex” was in a magazine in 1853. Polar vortices are present year-round, but we don’t hear about them until they cause problems. They maintain freezing temperatures at the North and South poles by moving in tight counter-clockwise patterns. Polar vortices grow stronger in winter and weaken in summer. They are kept in place at the poles by another atmospheric current called the jet stream. However, when the jet streams weaken, the cold winds of the polar vortex are pushed southwards and it is during this time that people begin to pay attention!
In Texas, roads froze over, causing six traffic deaths, and many schools were shut-down. People are not the only Earthlings to struggle with the cold. Crops and animals are also freezing. This could have major consequences, especially if herds of cattle die. If snow blocks cattle, the animals can’t reach basic necessities like food and fresh water.
On a brighter note, some Texas cities were more prepared than others. For instance, Amarillo, which is located in North Texas, so they are more accustomed to colder temperatures. Amarillo is notable because the city was redesigned to stand up to severe winter storms. Officials have spread out fire stations to increase coverage of first responders, employed modified dump trucks for clearing ice, and upgraded civic centers to provide shelter during storms. Hopefully, other Texas cities will follow the good example set by Amarillo!
1. What does the underlined word “outages” refer to?| A．Traffic jams. | B．Power struggles. |
| C．Power cuts. | D．Traffic accidents. |
| A．They grow stronger in summer. | B．They are affected by jet streams. |
| C．They were first observed in 1853. | D．They move in a clockwise direction. |
| A．The definition of the polar vortex. | B．The characteristics of the polar vortex. |
| C．The ways to deal with the polar vortex. | D．The serious impact made by the polar vortex. |
| A．Because it is located in the north of Texas. |
| B．Because it has been upgraded and modernized. |
| C．Because it has been regarded as an example to other cities. |
| D．Because it has taken effective measures to resist winter storms. |
