Many strange things happened before Tangshan earthquake happened. The well walls had deep cracks. Some
The army organized teams to dig out those
2 . Humans have been living and working on the space station for over 20 years. Their meals are packaged, though sometimes astronauts receive fresh treats from resupply missions. The longer that packaged food is stored, the more it loses nutrients (营养物质) like vitamin C and vitamin K.
Astronauts have successfully grown 10 different crops on the space station since 2015 and had the chance to sample (品尝) each one. The International Space Station hosted a party for astronauts on Friday as they celebrated the harvest of the first chili peppers (辣椒) grown in space. The crew finally had a chance to taste the peppers after initially kicking off the plant experiment on the space station in July.
Plant Habitat-04 is one of the most complex plant experiments on the orbiting laboratory to date because peppers take much longer to grow than the previous experiment plants. After growing for four months, the peppers were harvested on Friday.
Peppers provide a great source of vitamin C, as well as other key nutrients. Pepper plants self-pollinate (自花授粉), so they are easy to grow, and they are a pick-and-eat crop that doesn’t have to be cooked. They are also safe to eat raw.
A side effect of life in zero gravity is that astronauts often lose some of their taste and smell, so spicy or well-seasoned foods are a favorite. Adding fresh greens or peppers to the menu allows astronauts to liven up their regular meals. But growing and tending to the plants can also produce other benefits.
Astronauts have described the joy from seeing—as well as smelling and caring for—leafy green plants on the space station that remind them of earth.
“Growing colorful vegetables in space can have long-term benefits for physical and psychological health,” said Matt Romeyn, principal investigator for the experiment. “We are discovering that growing plants and vegetables with colors and smells helps to improve astronauts’ well-being.”
1. What makes Plant Habitat-04 one of the most complex plant experiments?A.The technology. | B.Growing process. |
C.The varieties of plants. | D.Growing time required. |
A.Peppers are delicious. | B.Peppers can recover taste. |
C.Peppers help prevent diseases. | D.Peppers can improve memory. |
A.The first chili peppers grown in space. |
B.The agricultural goal in the space mission. |
C.The fun of growing chili peppers in space. |
D.The chili peppers used in the space mission. |
3 . Solar stills (蒸馏器) provide a clever and simple means of purifying dirty or salty water, but they work at a rather slow rate. A new material has been shown to boost their performance, and it’s made from fruit waste which would otherwise be thrown away.
In its most basic form, a conventional solar still consists of a basin of undrinkable water that is set beneath a cover. The water evaporates (蒸发) as it’s heated by the sun, condensing (凝结) on the inside surface of the cover. That condensation—which is pure, clean water-drops down the cover and is collected in a separate container for drinking. In order to warm the dirty/salty water at a faster rate, scientists have developed materials that float on its surface, transforming sunlight into heat. They commonly use carbon obtained from coal.
To seek a less costly and more environmentally-friendly alternative, Prof. Edison and colleagues at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University looked to something that is free for the taking—fruit waste. More specifically, the scientists tried out coconut peels, orange peels and banana peels.
In a simple carbonization process, the fruit waste was heated at 850℃for a few hours, and mixed with a kind of chemical substance. Doing so transformed the fruit waste into a new material which has a very highlight-to-heat transforming efficiency.
When tested in a small solar still, this new material proved to be very effective at transforming sunlight into heat, causing the dirty/salty water to evaporate much more rapidly. And because the material is full of holes, the waters team is able to rise right through it, subsequently condensing on the inside of the still’s cover.
Prof. Edison and his team found material obtained from the coconut peels worked best, as it transformed sunlight to heat with an efficiency rate of 94%. They are now developing the technology further, and are seeking industry partners to help with its commercialization.
1. What is the paragraph 2 mainly about?A.The working principle of solar stills. |
B.The advantages of conventional solar stills. |
C.The new materials of building a solar still. |
D.The different ways of purifying dirty water. |
A.To solve the problem of environmental pollution. |
B.To find out more eco-friendly materials. |
C.To expand the applied range of the solar still. |
D.To make solar stills much easier and less costly. |
A.Get more wastewater from the solar still. |
B.Test chemical substances in the solar still. |
C.Obtain an efficient water-purifying material. |
D.Take measures to improve water quality. |
A.Scientists are transforming sunlight into heat |
B.Simple process turns fruit waste into new material |
C.Solar still s are the best way to get drinking water |
D.New technology helps, solar stills reach the customers |
4 . Few sights fill you with nostalgia (怀旧) like the fireflies dancing at night.
Create a firefly habitat
Flashing lights are an important part in fireflies life. As the sun sets, male fireflies move around while flashing their lights to signal their interest. If a nearby female is interested, she flashes back from her position to the ground, and the males fly down to find her. “All of that has to happen for the next generation to survive,” says Lewis. “However, light pollution makes those scenes much harder to see. It’s like cutting a phone line. It really stops the romance.
Stop using pesticides (杀虫剂)
Using pesticides in your yard also poses an existential threat to fireflies, which are insects after all.
A.Reduce light pollution |
B.Make a fire in the open air |
C.Luckily, there are some solutions |
D.But these beloved insects are in trouble |
E.The living conditions of fireflies are getting better |
F.The biggest threat facing fireflies today is the loss of their habitats |
G.Most of the pesticides will kill less-beloved insects as well as fireflies |
5 . One of the ocean’s noisiest creatures is smaller than you’d expect — snapping shrimp (鼓虾). They create a widespread background noise in the underwater environment, which helps them communicate, protect their homes and hunt for food. When enough shrimp snap (发出噼啪声) at once, the noise can be deafening.
Aran Mooney, a biologist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, suggested that with increased ocean temperatures, snapping shrimp will snap more often and louder than before. This could raise the background noise of the global ocean. “They make a sound by closing a claw so fast. This makes a bubble (泡泡) and when that bubble bursts, it makes that snapping sound,” said Mooney.
Mooney discovered a strong relationship between warmer waters and more frequent snapping shrimp sounds after experimenting with the shrimp in tanks in the lab and by listening to the shrimp in the ocean at various water temperatures. “As the temperature rises, the snap rate increases,” he said. This makes sense because shrimp are essentially cold-blooded animals, meaning their body temperature and activity levels are largely controlled by their living environment. “We can actually show in the field that not only do snap rates increase, but the sound levels increase as well.”
How the louder snapping shrimp would affect or benefit the surroundings remained to be seen. “We know that fish use sound to communicate,” Mooney said. “If the environment gets noisy, it has the possibility to influence that communication. That’s something we have to follow up on.” There is also the possibility that the change of snapping shrimp affects machines humans use to discover mines, which could lead to unpleasant results.
1. What can we know about the snapping shrimp’s sound?A.It aims to protect the shrimp. | B.It is important to the ecosystem. |
C.It has different uses for the shrimp. | D.It is hard to be discovered by other creatures. |
A.By observing snapping shrimp in the field. | B.By recording the snap rates in the lab. |
C.By analyzing the way shrimp make noise. | D.By comparing shrimp’s sound in different places. |
A.Other uses of shrimp’s sound. | B.Influences of the noise on other creatures. |
C.Means of communication among fish. | D.Methods of stopping shrimp’s snapping. |
A.Underwater World Is No Longer Quiet | B.Small Animals Make a Big Difference |
C.Warming Oceans Are Getting Louder | D.Snapping Shrimp’s Noise Speaks Much |
6 . Ocean temperature extremes are now normal, a new study reports. It has analyzed ocean surface temperatures for the past 150 years. It reveals that by 2019, 57 percent of the ocean’s surface was warming to temperatures rarely seen 100 years ago.
Ecologists wanted to learn how often modern extreme heat events occur. They also wanted to see how long they last. Kisei Tanaka was one of those ecologists. He now works for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Honolulu, Hawaii. Tanaka teamed up with Kyle Van Houtan, who works at the Loggerhead Marinelife Center. The two analyzed monthly sea surface temperatures collected from 1870 through 2019. Then they mapped where and when extreme heat events had shown up, decade by decade.
By looking at monthly extremes instead of annual averages, the two found that over time, more and more patches (区域) of water were reaching extreme temperatures. Then, in 2014, the entire ocean hit a point of no return, Van Houtan says.
Heat waves harm ocean ecosystems. They can lead seabirds to starve... And animals—from fish and whales to turtles—may have to swim long distances in search of comfortable temperatures.
In May 2020, NOAA announced that it was updating what climates it now considered “normal”. These values are what the agency uses to put daily weather events in a historical context. The average values from 1991 to 2020 are now higher than those from 1981 to 2010, NOAA found.
Van Houtan says his new study shows extreme ocean warming is now the norm. Much discussion on climate change, he notes, has been about future events, and whether or not they might happen. But what the emerging data make clear, he says, is that extreme heat became common in our ocean in 2014. It’s a documented historical fact—not a future possibility.
1. Why did the ecologists conduct the research?A.To prove what they had forecast. | B.To recognize the value of the data. |
C.To update readers on newfound species. | D.To find out the trend of ocean record heat. |
A.In paragraph 3. | B.In paragraph 4. |
C.In paragraph 5. | D.In paragraph 6. |
A.People’s lifestyle will be greatly affected. | B.It is a must to discuss the climate change. |
C.Scientists must focus on historical events. | D.Ocean heat extremes are the new normal. |
A.Nature. | B.Travel. | C.Business. | D.History. |
1. 班会的主题;
2. 班会的简要过程;
3. 班会的意义。
参考词汇:垃圾分类—waste sorting;班会—class meeting
注意:
1. 写作词数应为80左右;
2. 请按如下格式在答题纸的相应位置作答。
Dear Mike,
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Yours,
Li Hua
8 . Marine life (海洋生物) in Florida Keys is negatively influenced by two forces: human activity and climate change. The former involves fishing, tourism and diving while the latter causes a large increase in intense hurricanes. Fortunately, when the researchers of Florida Museum of Natural History started looking for sea urchins (海胆) on the ocean floor off the coast of Florida Keys in the summer of 2020, they uncovered their population had relatively been stable since the 1960s.
The researchers visited 27 sites along a 20-mile stretch of coast near Florida Keys looking for tracks that reflected the presence of burrowing echinoids (穴居海胆类动物). “The findings that burrowing echinoids have been highly resilient (有适应力的) against climate change and environmental pollution over the last 60 years was a huge discovery for us.” said study co-author Tobias Grun.
Grun said, “However, we know little about their current distribution, population size, and health. The reason is not the lack of interest by the scientific community but lies in that fieldwork is very expensive.”
As the climate crisis progresses, it’s important to understand why some marine creatures are more resilient in bearing the impacts of a worsening environment than others. Grun said, “Evolution may be at play. Some marine animals are very opportunistic. They can tolerate a wide range of abiotic factors like pH, temperature, and salinity, to name a few.”
Grun added, “At this point, our data show that burrowing echinoids are more resilient than many other marine species and are doing comparatively well. That does not mean that we can push our luck and keep going the way we are right now. Our study provides some hope that these creatures are resilient, but much more work is needed to translate our findings into a larger scale. The reasons for their resilience are also widely unknown.”
1. Which has an effect on the marine life in Florida Keys?A.Wildfire. | B.Pollution. | C.Fishing. | D.Flood. |
A.Indifferent. | B.Important. | C.Subjective. | D.Outdated |
A.The goal. | B.The staff | C.The cost | D.The usage |
A.It’s necessary to do further research. |
B.It’s right to keep going the present way. |
C.The reasons for sea urchins’ resilience are well known. |
D.Fish are more resilient than other marine species. |
9 . The Chinese paddlefish (白鲟)-one of the world’s largest freshwater fish-has been announced extinct. Scientists say the paddlefish, also called the Chinese swordfish, is believed to have a lineage dating back at least 34 million years. With its long nose and mouth, the paddlefish could grow as long as seven meters.
But a research paper recently published in Science of the Total. Environment reported the paddlefish was now extinct. The researchers include scientists from the Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences, Britain’s University of Kent and the University of South Bohemia in the Czech Republic.
The paper says the paddlefish was announced extinct for two reasons. It said that the fish was not able to survive because of widespread overfishing and damage to its native environment in the Yangtze River.
Researchers discovered 332 different species of fish in the Yangtze River in 2017 and 2018. But they did not find a single Chinese paddlefish They guessed the fish disappeared between 2005 and 2010. The extinction of the Chinese paddlefish was “a huge loss” to nature.
Pan Wenjing is a forest and ocean expert with Greenpeace East Asia. “The ecology of the Yangtze River is almost in ruins due to human activity in past decades” Pan said. She stressed that China had taken measures to improve the Yangtze’s environment, including a 10-year ban (禁令) on fishing.
After the extinction was reported in the news, some Chinese media and Internet users took a look back at the large creatures. Many people appeared to have not heard of the Chinese paddlefish before it was announced extinct.
“Every time I see the news of another species going extinct, heart starts to ache,” wrote one Weibo user. “Humans should not live alone on this planet,” the user added.
1. What do we know from Paragraph3?A.Fishing in the Yangtze River. | B.Environment in the Yangtze River. |
C.Researchers of the Chinese paddlefish. | D.The reasons for the Chinese paddlefish’s extinction. |
A.No pain, no gain. | B.To protect animals is to protect humans. |
C.Well begun is half done. | D.It’s never too late to mend. |
A.Excited. | B.Sorry. | C.Shocked. | D.Curious. |
A.Fishing is not allowed in the Yangtze River |
B.Few people are familiar with the Chinese paddlefish |
C.The Chinese paddlefish has been announced extinct |
D.Damage to the environment has bad effects |
10 . Mia, 18, had just started working as a lifesaver at a beach in Australia on New Year’s Eve when beach-goers started to point and shout at the water. The workers quickly examined the situation and saw that a kangaroo had jumped out of the bushes — straight into the sea.
The animal seemed confused by the fishermen standing on the rocks. So instead of turning back and heading back into the bushes, it jumped right into the water! The poor thing bobbed (摆动) around in the waves and went underwater several times before Mia decided to take action.
As with any other animal rescue, it’s important to approach the situation with care. Wild animals that are stressed can become dangerous to their rescuers, and Mia was aware of the risks as she took her rescue board and hit the water at a run. “It just didn’t want to come on to the beach because it was kind of scared,” she said, “I was trying to figure out how to get it on the board. But considering that it’s a wild animal, even though I was helping, I wouldn’t want to be hurt by it or make it more stressed out.”
As beach-goers recorded the rescue on their phones, Mia paddled (用桨划船) behind the animal carefully and guided the kangaroo onto the beach. As soon as Mia’s feet touched the sand, the beach erupted in cheers for her! “It was quite special. As people there were cheering and clapping, the kangaroo was just sitting there up in the bushes staring at me, as if it was conveying something with its shining eyes,” Mia said, “I didn’t think that was going to ever be my first rescue, I may have more rescues in the future, but none would be as memorable as this one.”
1. Why did the kangaroo jump into the water?A.To find food in the sea. | B.To assist its partner in the water. |
C.To pose a threat to the beach-goers. | D.To escape from the fishermen on the rocks. |
A.She used a helicopter for the rescue. |
B.She used food to attract it onto the rescue board. |
C.She guided it onto the beach using a rescue board. |
D.She called for professional animal handlers to assist. |
A.Ambitious and flexible. | B.Caring and thoughtful. |
C.Generous and considerate. | D.Energetic and passive. |
A.The kangaroo attacked Mia during the rescue. |
B.Mia’s rescue board broke during the operation. |
C.Mia regretted her decision to rescue the kangaroo. |
D.The kangaroo seemed to have expressed its gratitude. |