1 . One of the talks from the TED stage in Long Beach, California, came from Richard Ture re, an inventor. He is a Maasai from Kenya. And he is very young.
Lions are the top tourist attraction to Kenya, especially in the Nairobi National Park, which is near where Richard lives. Lions are also considered critically endangered in Kenya. One of the main causes of their demise, “is that people kill them in retaliation (报复) for lions attacking their livestock (牲畜)”, says Paula Kahumbu, executive director of Wildlife Direct, a wildlife conservation organization in Africa. She has been studying the conflict between humans and lions, and her work led her to Richard. In one week, she monitored over 50 cases where lions attacked livestock.
One night Richard was walking around with a flashlight and discovered the lions were scared of a moving light. A light went on inside him and an idea was born. Three weeks later, Richard had invented a system of lights that flash around the cowshed (棚), which seemed like a human walking around with a flashlight. His system is made from broken flashlight parts and an indicator box from a motorcycle. “The only thing I bought was a solar board, which charges a battery that supplies power to the lights at night,” Richard says. He calls the system Lion Lights. “There have been a lot of efforts to try to protect the lions,” Kahumbu says. “It’s a crisis and everyone is looking for a solution. One idea was land leases (租赁), another was lion pro-offences (防护栅栏). And basically no one even knew that Richard had already come up with something that worked.”
His simple solution was so successful. He equipped the lights for his neighbors and for six other homes in his community. From there, the lights spread and are now being used all around Kenya.
To get to the TED stage, Richard traveled on an airplane for the first time in his life. He says he has a lot to tell his friends about when he goes back home, and what impressed him the most on his trip was something he saw at the Aquarium of the Pacific: “It was my first time seeing a shark. I’ve never seen a shark.”
1. Why is Richard able to get to the TED stage?| A．He has saved fifty lions. | B．He is a successful speaker. |
| C．He helped his neighborhood. | D．He invented a light to protect the lions. |
| A．Death. | B．Injury. | C．Discovery. | D．Attraction. |
| A．Richard’s. | B．Wildlife Direct’s. | C．The government’s. | D．The TED’s. |
| A．People in Kenya live in harmony with the lions. |
| B．Richard is a caring, thoughtful and inventive American boy. |
| C．There were three methods to protect the lions before Richard’s solution. |
| D．With kindness and consideration, people can achieve peace with natural world. |
2 . Dogs are more faithful than other animals, so they are considered as man’s best friends. Recently a dog named Capitan has shown us why dogs are a symbol of
In 2005, Capitan was
Later, they tried to bring the dog home many times, but each time Capitan would
| A．honesty | B．loyalty | C．hardworking | D．generosity |
| A．cured | B．abandoned | C．sold | D．adopted |
| A．gift | B．assistant | C．tutor | D．reference |
| A．as usual | B．once again | C．soon after | D．long before |
| A．sick | B．lost | C．mature | D．hidden |
| A．Therefore | B．Moreover | C．Meanwhile | D．However |
| A．surprised | B．disappointed | C．horrified | D．embarrassed |
| A．once | B．generally | C．never | D．occasionally |
| A．occupied | B．found | C．protected | D．dug |
| A．rolling | B．sleeping | C．wandering | D．crying |
| A．followed | B．led | C．observed | D．welcomed |
| A．terrible | B．cold | C．dark | D．crowded |
| A．give back | B．run away | C．carry on | D．wake up |
| A．struggled | B．waited | C．worked | D．lived |
| A．eventually | B．immediately | C．secretly | D．probably |
3 . JP Morgan Chase, the world’s biggest fossil fuel funder, has noted in an internal report leaked to Extinction Rebellion that the company “cannot rule out catastrophic outcomes where human life as we know it is threatened.”
Most of the science inside the report is not shocking to the casual reader, but the analysis is most concerned about climate change caused by fossil fuel. These include possibilities like the sudden collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet, which would send sea levels more than 10 feet higher than current levels and displace millions of humans. Another terrible case is that the melting permafrost sends more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, causing more warming, and in turn more the melting of ice sheets, and carbon emissions. Of course, these are already happening. The real danger behind the motivation for this internal report lies in the possibility that the Earth’s climate could reach a tipping point.
Many believe the emergence of the internal report should serve as proof convincing enough for world leaders to take collective and decisive action. However, the attitude of many world governments towards the development of fossil fuel can surely make the global situation even worse for future generations now.
However, the report doesn’t mention other banks, or even JP Morgan itself, even though these institutions are often the ones blamed in enabling this crisis, according to a Gizmodo report. “Changes are occurring at the micro level, involving shifts in behavior by individuals, companies and investors,” says the Extinction Rebellion report. It goes on to suggest that these micro-level changes “will push emissions in the right direction,” but says nothing about government oversight, or actions that many believe is necessary to reverse the current course of the climate crisis.
It’s still half way even though one has made 90 miles out of a 100-mile journey. Humans may still fail the journey if they doesn’t persist to the last. Therefore, something will have to change at some point if the human race is going to survive.
1. What does Paragraph 2 mainly tell us about fossil fuel?| A．It may cause catastrophic outcomes. |
| B．It has nothing to do with climate changes. |
| C．It kills millions of humans every year. |
| D．It has sent sea levels 10 feet higher. |
| A．Ambitious. | B．Approving. | C．Constructive. | D．Opposed. |
| A．It’s never too late to act actively. |
| B．Many hands make light work. |
| C．A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. |
| D．A job half-done is still a job left unfinished. |
| A．A government report. | B．A science fiction. |
| C．A news report. | D．A health magazine. |
4 . I’ve reported about tigers on the news, however, nothing could have prepared me for what I found in India. I didn’t know what to expect, so when I saw my first tiger in the wild, I was shocked what a beautiful and powerful creature it is!
But they live with a price on their heads—a single tiger skin is worth up to £8, 000, and their bones possibly more. Another problem is that farmers need to clear a large number of areas of the forest for their cattle. This means deer are losing their living places. As a result, tigers are losing their natural prey, so they end up eating the cattle.
Tigers are not easy to live close to. I met a farmer who had been mauled by one. But despite that, he told me everything had its place in the world and he had no right to kill the tiger. He was really kind.
Those who work for the Tigers Forever Project realize that to ensure their survival, tigers don’t only need space. They need space away from people.
They are working to stop the conflict(冲突)between tigers and people by separating them. I visited a new town. People had been moved to it from a settlement in the forest. And it really has worked. It has given tigers a better life and better opportunities for the children of the resettled people.
Only 2,500 tigers are now left in the wild in India. Three out of eight tiger sub-species have already disappeared. Tigers that once lived across Asia only survive in 7% of their original living places now.
1. Why does the author mention his experience in the first paragraph?| A．To present the beauty of tigers. | B．To express tigers’ happy life. |
| C．To introduce the topic of the text. | D．To show his excellent report. |
| A．Hunted. | B．Killed. | C．Injured. | D．Kissed. |
| A．Tigers need space far from people. |
| B．Children are happy to live far from tigers. |
| C．There are only 2,500 tigers in the wild in India. |
| D．Tigers in Asia will die out if we don’t protect them. |
| A．Tigers and Cattle | B．More Space for Tigers |
| C．Expensive Tigers | D．A Kind-hearted Farmer |
5 . Habitat loss, pesticides (农药) and climate change are threatening insect populations worldwide. In 2019, Biological Conservation reported that 40% of all insects species are declining (减少) globally and that a third of them are endangered.
And while it may sound nice to live in a world with fewer bad insects, environmental writer Oliver Milman says that human beings would be in big trouble without insects. That’s because insects play important roles in pollinating (给……授粉) plants we eat, breaking down waste in forest soil and forming the base of a food chain that other larger animals including- humans-rely upon.
“It would be an extremely terrible place to live in—and certainly not something we should ever aim for,” Milman says of an insect free existence. “You would certainly have mass starvation and social unrest…It’d be a place where there would be smelly waste and dead bodies everywhere because insects that break down those materials would be gone. ”
Milman charts the troubling decline of insects in his new book, The Insect Crisis: The Fall of the Tiny Empires That Run the World. He says that while it’s impossible to know exactly what’s happening with every insect species in the world, the overall trends are not good: The butterfly population in North America has declined quickly in the past 40 years, for example, and a U. N. assessment done in 2019 found that half a million insect species are under threat of extinction, some in the coming decades.
“The world, our surroundings, would be far quieter, far duller without insects,” he says. “When you start kind of digging down into these figures looking at the research, it’s clear that there’s something seriously wrong…There is a straight decline in most insect populations, and that spells major trouble for them but also for us.”
1. What does paragraph 2 mainly tell us about insects?| A．Their classification. | B．Their importance. |
| C．Their development. | D．Their future. |
| A．It describes the worrying decline of insects. |
| B．It tells what’s happening with all insect species. |
| C．It shows half a million butterfly species will be in danger of extinction. |
| D．It explains why the number of butterflies in South America has increased. |
| A．Positive. | B．Worried. | C．Unconcerned | D．Doubtful. |
| A．The introduction of the endangered insects. | B．The ways of increasing insects’ population. |
| C．The effects of the declining insects’ population. | D．The reasons of threatening insects’ population. |
| A．Rainy. | B．Sunny. | C．Snowy. |
7 . Two years ago, enormous fires swept through some 46 million acres of forest in Russia, the country’s worst fire season on record. Now, researchers have a clearer sense of just how significant the 2021 boreal (北方的) forest fires were in terms of emissions. The fires produced more planet-heating carbon dioxide than any other extreme fire event that has occurred since the turn of the 21st century, according to a study.
Boreal forests grow where it is very cold. The trees that live in this type of forest grow slowly and seal (封存) carbon in their trunks and roots for hundreds of years, including a collection of trapped emissions that researchers call a carbon sink. But rising temperatures and related drought in these historically cool regions have led to an increase in extreme wildfire activity and threaten to release the carbon stored in the trees that grow there, transforming a carbon sink into a carbon source.
In all, fires in boreal forests released the carbon sink and produced nearly half a billion tons of carbon in 2021. That’s more carbon than the entire continent of Australia produced the same year, though some of the emissions produced by the fires will be reabsorbed as forests regrow.
The researchers got the data for their study by tracking concentrations of emissions in the atmosphere using satellites, and then they put that information into a computer model to determine where, geographically, those emissions came from. They found that boreal forests, which typically produce about 10 percent of the globe’s annual wildfire emissions, accounted for 23 percent of the world’s wildfire emissions in 2021—more than twice as much as normal.
Canadell, who led the study, is most concerned about the study’s main point;Boreal forests have served an important and underappreciated role in preventing carbon emissions, but climate change threatens to release that carbon. “We need to be very careful with these systems in terms of their future development,” he said.
1. What is the function of paragraph 2?| A．To explain the source of carbon. | B．To illustrate two scientific concepts. |
| C．To indicate the seriousness of the fire. | D．To show the importance of boreal forests. |
| A．By making use of technology. | B．By searching on the website. |
| C．By analyzing previous data. | D．By turning to the firefighters. |
| A．Pessimistic. | B．Optimistic. | C．Indifferent. | D．Cautious. |
| A．The reasons for the forest fires in the north. |
| B．The impact of the 2021 boreal forest fires. |
| C．The link between fires and carbon dioxide. |
| D．The increasingly growing carbon emissions. |
8 . A flock of lawn-mowing sheep have been sent to trim wild grass surrounding the ruins of Pompeii as part of an initiative that also includes plans to revive ancient vineyards.
The 150 sheep arrived in Pompeii yesterday and immediately got to work eating up the grass in an unexcavated section of Regio V, a vast area to the north of the archaeological park. In a nine-month experiment, the flock will also be appointed to trim other grassy areas as well as maintain ancient and new vineyards as park authorities seek to boost the production of Pompeii wine, which used to be exported across the Mediterranean.
“They entered the site with great enthusiasm and got to work straightaway,” said Gabriel Zuchtriegel, the director of the Pompeii archaeological park. “Maintenance is a huge cost, so instead of paying someone to cut the grass, we have sheep eating it, fertilizing it and creating a pastoral landscape that is much more resistant to dry scazons and heavy rainfall.”
“Many people think of Pompeii as an ancient city with lots of houses, but it’s actually much more than this,” added Zuchtricgel. “There are huge areas of trees, grass, olive groves and vineyards. And if you look back at photos from 100 years ago in southern Italy, or even in the 1950s, it’s astonishing to see the walls around Pompeii, Paestum and other sites-they didn’t have these problems with growing vegetation because every square metre was productively used by these peasant communities.”
Pompeii was destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. The city’s ruins were discovered in the 16th century, with the first excavations beginning in 1748.
In the late 1800s, the archeologist Giuseppe Fiorelli first excavated some of Pompeii’s vineyards, which had been beneath 3 metres of ash. Many-were found in the less densely populated eastern side, where people produced wine in their gardens.
1. What’s the meaning of the underlined word “trim” in paragraph 1?| A．Cut. | B．Detect. | C．Decorate. | D．Conserve. |
| A．They are high-efficient and dependable. |
| B．They can fight against some extreme weather. |
| C．They can boost the wine export around the Mediterranean. |
| D．They are much more economical and environmentally-friendly. |
| A．The land was made full use of by local farmers. |
| B．The land was covered by the harmful volcanic ash. |
| C．The land was occupied by houses and olive groves. |
| D．The land was deserted by the residents in southern Italy. |
| A．Pompeii’s Grassy Ruins to be Revived by Sheep. |
| B．An Archaeological Park to be Rescued by the Authorities. |
| C．Southern Italy’s Farmland to be Reused with the Help of Sheep. |
| D．A Novel Initiative to Refresh Ancient Vineyards in the Mediterranean. |
| 旅游资源 | 许多世界著名的风景名胜，如九寨沟（湖水清澈见底；色彩斑斓）和都江堰水利工程（2,000多年的历史；仍在发挥作用） |
| 相关信息 | 气候适宜；交通便利 |
2．信的开头和结尾已为你写好，不计入总词数；
3．可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。
参考词汇：都江堰水利工程Dujiangyan Irrigation Project
Dear Nick,
I’m glad to hear that you’re coming to Sichuan in October.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Yours sincerely,
Li Hua
On his way home, Tommy saw a gray, long-haired cat sitting on the sidewalk. As he stopped to pet her, he noticed that she was not wearing a collar(项圈). She rubbed her head against his hand. She reminded Tommy of Smoky, the cat he had when he was younger. Smoky’s fur had been long and gray too. Tommy petted the cat for a while. Then he said, “I have to go,” and continued to go home. To his surprise, the cat followed him on the way.
When Tommy was home, he walked up the porch(门廊)steps and went into the kitchen. The cat followed him up the steps and sat quietly outside the door, watching him closely. Tommy made a sandwich. The cat continued to stare at him. Tommy sighed. “I know it’s not a good idea to feed a stray cat(流浪猫),” he said, “but you look so hungry! I can’t sit here and eat without feeding you!”
Tommy put some turkey on a plate for the cat. As Tommy watched, she ate every piece of the turkey and then began to clean her face. “Wow!” Tommy said, “You must have been starving. I wonder how long it has been since someone fed you.”
Tommy finished his sandwich and looked at the cat. Her long fur was matted(缠结), Tommy remembered that Smoky’s brush and toys were in the storeroom. “I’m going to clean you up a little,” Tommy said to the cat. He found Smoky’s brush and got to work. As the dirt came out, the cat’s fur began to get lighter. “Hey!” Tommy said, realizing the truth. “You’re not gray—you’re white!”
After the brush, the cat climbed onto Tommy’s lap. “You’re so friendly. You probably belong to someone,” Tommy said. “I bet you’re just lost.” When Tommy’s father came home, Tommy showed him the lovely cat. “Why don’t you make some notices to put up in the neighborhood?” his father suggested.
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。
Tommy nodded his head and said, “That is a fantastic idea!”
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Staring at the lovely cat, Tommy thought he was sure to have the chance.
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