Giant Panda National Park,
2 . The health of millions could be at risk because supplies of medicinal plants are being used up. These plants are used to make traditional medicine, including drugs to fight cancer. “The loss of medicinal plants is a quiet disaster,” says Sara Oldfield, secretary general of the NGO Botanic Gardens Conservation International.
Most people worldwide rely on herbal (药草的) medicines which are got mostly from wild plants. But some 15,000 of the 50,000 medicinal species are under threat of dying out, according to a report from the international conservation group Plantlife. Shortages have been reported in China, India, Kenya, Nepal, Tanzania and Uganda.
Over-harvesting does the most harm, though pollution and competition from invasive species (入侵物种) and habitat destruction all contribute. “Businessmen generally harvest medicinal plants, not caring about sustainability (可持续性),” the Plantlife report says, “Damage is serious partly because they have no idea about it, but it is mainly because such collection is unorganized.” Medicinal trees at risk include the Himalayan yew and the African cherry, which are used to treat some cancers.
The solution, says the report’s author, Alan Hamilton, is to encourage local people to protect these plants. Ten projects ran by Plantlife in India, Pakistan, China, Nepal, Uganda and Kenya showed this method can succeed. In Uganda, the project has kept a sustainable supply of low-cost cancer treatments, and in China a public-run medicinal plant project has been created for the first time.
“Improving health, earning an income and keeping cultural traditions are important in encouraging people to protect medicinal plants,” says Hamilton, “You have to pay attention to what people are interested in.”
Ghillean Prance, the former director of the Royal Botanic Gardens in London, agrees that medicinal plants are in need of protection. “Not nearly enough is being done. We are destroying the very plants that are of most use to us.”
1. From the first two paragraphs, we can learn that ________.| A．millions of people are threatened with cancer |
| B．most countries see a shortage of herbal medicines |
| C．about two thirds of medicinal species will disappear |
| D．a number of medicinal species are in danger of extinction |
| A．pollution | B．sustainability |
| C．over-harvesting | D．other species’ invasion |
| A．Protecting medicinal plants has a long way to go. |
| B．Local people don’t know how to protect medicinal plants. |
| C．Ghillean Prance is optimistic about medicinal plants’ future. |
| D．China has made great progress in protecting medicinal plants. |
| A．Low-cost Cancer Treatment |
| B．The Importance of Sustainability |
| C．Medicinal Plants Facing Extinction |
| D．Sustainable Development of the Environment |
Herds (兽群) of elephants used to live on the plains of Africa and in the forests of Asia.
4 . Peggy, an old border collie (柯利牧羊犬), was signed over to the RSPCA, a charity with a primary focus on rescuing and rehoming animals, after her owner could no longer communicate with her. The owner thought she could no longer work because she was not able to hear.
However, after being handed to the RSPCA, Peggy was taken in by Chloe Shorten, an animal health manager from the organisation.
Shorten and her husband, Jason, a shepherd (牧羊人), taught Peggy to understand hand signals and body language. The couple trained Peggy with the help of a sheepdog trainer and their two other working dogs, Sid and Nora.
Shorten said, “We completely fell in love with Peggy almost at first sight, and it soon became clear that she wouldn’t be going anywhere. We knew Peggy wanted to be working, so we started the long process of teaching her how to work with a shepherd without relying on voice orders.”
The couple began by training Peggy to look at them to receive hand signals. They used repetitive and positive reinforcement and instead of pairing a voice order with an action, they’d use a hand gesture. Peggy read their hand signals and body language as a way of telling what they’re asking for.
Shorten and her husband point in a certain direction to indicate where they want Peggy to go and pat their knees to call her back to them. To ask her to slow down, Shorten does a waving gesture.
Peggy is not working full-time but enjoys helping out in the fields. “It can be difficult with a deaf dog, because you have to wave at her to get her attention, and sometimes she doesn’t realize straight away,” she said. “But she’s such a happy little dog. She’s no spring chicken, and she is generally retired, but she loves going out to work with us and running around in the fields.”
1. Why was Peggy brought to the RSPCA?| A．Because she was old. | B．Because she was noisy. |
| C．Because she was deaf. | D．Because she was retired. |
| A．By relying on other sheepdogs. |
| B．By working long hours in the fields. |
| C．By using sign and gesture language. |
| D．By matching voice orders with actions. |
| A．Caring. | B．Curious. | C．Grateful. | D．Demanding. |
The last time Yunnan caught national attention was when some Asian elephants left their home and
6 . Some scientists have found that the long-term use of chemical pesticides (杀虫剂)and fertilizers(化肥)can harm both the land and people’s health.
Pesticides can damage the land by killing not only harmful insects, but also helpful ones. In addition, these chemicals can stay in the soil and underground water sources for a long time. This affects the crops grown on the land and, in turn, the animals and humans who eat them. As for fertilizers, crops grown with them usually grow too fast to be rich in nutrition(营养). They may look beautiful on the outside, but inside there is usually more water than necessary minerals, which makes them less tasty.
Therefore, some farmers have turned to organic farming, and many customers have turned to organic food when they shop at the local grocery. Organic farming is simply farming without using any chemicals. Organic farmers focus on keeping their soil rich and free of disease through natural means. For example, many organic farmers use natural waste from animals as fertilize. This makes the soil in their fields richer in minerals. It also keeps the air, soil, water, and crops free of chemicals.
Organic farmers also use many other methods to produce rich soil. They often change the kind of crop grown in each field every year. For instance, they may grow corn or wheat in a field one year, and then grow beans there the next. It can help to put important minerals back into the ground, making it ready for the next crops. Organic farmers also plant different crops that use different depths of soil to help keep it rich. For example, peanuts grow on the ground’s surface, but many other vegetables put down deep roots.
Nevertheless, organic farming is far from meeting the high demand for food around the world. It still has a long way to go to provide enough food while keeping people and the environment as healthy as possible.
1. From paragraph 2, we learn that fertilizers can________.| A．help kill insects | B．affect crops’ taste |
| C．stay in soil for long | D．make crops nutritious |
| A．needs less care | B．saves more water |
| C．uses less chemicals | D．adopts natural methods |
| A．listing numbers | B．providing reasons |
| C．giving examples | D．making comparisons |
| A．It will replace chemical farming. | B．It will increase production of crops. |
| C．It can meet people’s needs for food. | D．It needs more efforts to be developed. |
Nature has its own way to forecast the weather. Unusual animal behavior, for example, can indicate whether it's cold weather on the way or a hot period. If fish are jumping
| A. has negatively affected B. restore the habitats C. dying out D. significantly E. take steps F. be at risk of |
Species are
The air is thin and we have to rest several times on the short hike from camp. To our left, snow- covered mountains disappear into clouds that seem almost close enough to touch. On the plain in front of us, we can just make out a herd of graceful animals. This is why we are here—to observe Tibetan antelopes.
Tibetan antelopes live on the plains of Tibet, Xinjiang, and Qinhai. Watching them move slowly across the green grass, I am struck by their beauty. I am also reminded of the danger they are in. They are being hunted illegally for their valuable fur.
My guide is Zhaxi, a villager from Changtang. He works at the Changtang National Nature Reserve. The reserve is a shelter for the animals and plants of northwestern Tibet. To Zhaxi, the land is sacred and protecting the wildlife is a way to life. “We are not trying to save the animals,”he says. “Actually, we are trying to save ourselves.”
The 1980s and 1990s were bad times for the Tibetan antelope. The population dropped by more than 50 percent. Hunters were shooting antelopes to make profits. Their habitats were becoming smaller as new roads and railways were built.
In order to save this species from extinction, the Chinese government placed it under national protection. Zhaxi and other volunteers watched over the antelopes day and night to keep them safe from attacks. Bridges and gates were added to let the antelopes move easily and keep them safe from cars and trains.
The measures were effective.The antelope population has recovered and in June 2015, the Tibetan antelope was removed from the endangered species list. The government, however, does not intend to stop the protection programmes ,since the threats to the Tibetan antelope have not yet disappeared.
In the evening, I drink a cup of tea and watch the stars. I think about the antelopes and what Zhazi told me. Much is being done to protect wildlife, but if we really want to save the planet, we must change our way of life. Only when we learn to exist in harmony with nature can we stop being a threat to wildlife and to our planet.
1. Why did the writer visit Tibet?2. What happened to the Tibetan antelope in the 1980s and 1990s?
3. What were the measures to save the Tibetan antelope from extinction? Please write down at least one measure?
10 . 
pine cone
In the past many studies placed too much emphasis on how animals are trained to learn. But recently more and more studies have focused on how animals equip themselves to learn.
One study started with a school field trip to a pine forest where many pine cones were discovered, stripped (剥壳) to the central core. So the investigation was directed at finding out what was eating the pine seeds and how they managed to get them out of the cones. The culprit proved to be the black rat, and the technique was to bite each cone from base to top, following the growth pattern of the cone.
Urban black rats were found to lack the skill. However, babies of urban mothers cross-fostered by stripper mothers acquired the skill, whereas babies of stripper mothers fostered by an urban mother could not. Clearly the skill had to be learned from the mother. In the case of rats, the youngsters take cones away from the mother when she is still eating them, allowing them to acquire the stripping skill.
Another study, Bird Behaviour, provides a different view of the adaptiveness of social learning. It concerns the seed caching (hiding) behaviour of Clark’s Nutcracker and the Mexican Jay. The former is a specialist, caching about 30,000 seeds in scattered locations that it will recover over the months of winter; the Mexican Jay will also cache food but is much less dependent on this than the Nutcracker. The two species also differ in their social structure: the Nutcracker prefers living alone while, the Jay, in social groups.
The experiment is to discover if a bird can remember where it hid a seed but also if it can remember where it saw another bird hide a seed. The design is funny with a cacher bird hiding food in a room, while watched by a caged observer bird. Two days later, cachers and observers are tested for their discovery rate against estimated random performance (预估随机表现). Both cachers performed above chance. More surprisingly, jay observers were as successful as jay cachers, whereas nutcracker observers did no better than chance. It seems that, whereas the Nutcracker is highly skilled at remembering where it hid its own seeds, the social living Mexican Jay is more adept at remembering, and so making use of, the caches of others.
1. Urban black rats were able to learn to strip when ________.| A．living with stripper babies | B．fostered by urban mothers |
| C．fed by stripper mothers | D．eating cones by themselves |
| A．the Mexican Jay benefits from social living |
| B．the Clark’s Nutcraker has better learning skills |
| C．Nutcraker observers perform well in remembering |
| D．Jay cachers are only good at hiding food |
| A．skills are equipped in childhood | B．skills improve by practice |
| C．animals study through playing | D．animals learn by examples |
