It was Christmas Eve morning, and I awoke with a mission: to find my lost cat, Baby-Girl. As I got ready, I could hear icy rain pelting the windows. Baby-Girl was out there somewhere in the storm; I could just feel it. Sure, it had been a couple of weeks since she’d gone missing, but I still had faith. This was the season for miracles, after all.
About two weeks ago, my sweet kitty disappeared from my parents’ house in my hometown. Baby-Gil had been staying with them while I was between apartments. At the time, I lived and worked in another city. I was staying with friends until I rented my own house. Baby-Girl had gotten out of my parents’ house the day before I was set to drive back home to pick her up.
My dad and I had spent that entire visit searching for her. Dad was a “realist”, which meant he spent a whole lot of time trying to prepare me for the worst. “She’s either been hit by a car or been taken in by someone who found her,” he said. I rolled my eyes. He could do with a little more faith!
Besides, though I couldn’t explain it, I knew I’d see Baby-Girl again. She could survive all on her own. If any cat could do the impossible, it was my Baby-Girl. Even after I returned to my house without her, deep down I had this undeniable feeling that we would be reunited one day.
Now, home again for the holidays, I was determined to pick up my search right where I’d left off. I grabbed Baby-Girl’s cat carrier and loaded it into the car, and then asked my dad to drive me to the shelter.
At the shelter, a staff member took us to see the cats. We walked through rows of cages. My eyes scanned cats of all colors and sizes. None of them was my Baby-Girl. Then I noticed a room farther back. I pushed ahead. “Sweetheart, that’s where they keep the cats that just came in,” Dad said. “Your cat wouldn’t be in there.”
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I insisted it didn’t hurt to look and stepped into the room.
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Sensing their doubts, I was ready to prove she was my cat.
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Milo is a rescue dog, adopted by 20-year-old Makayla Swift. But Milo the beagle is also a rescuer. One morning in November 2021, Swift opened her front door in Silver Spring, Maryland, and Milo took off running. Milo ran to the house across the street. He seemed unsatisfied with this house, so he ran to the one next door, Swift on his tail. He started scratching on the front door and Swift was thinking, “Why is he literally trying to break into her house?” She was embarrassed. Not everyone wants a strange dog on their property. But as she tried to drag Milo away, she could hear a sound coming through an open upstairs window. It was a voice yelling “Help!”
Hours earlier, around 4 a.m., 85-year-old Sherry Starr had risen from her bed. All of a sudden, standing there between the toilet and the tub, she slipped. She went down-hard-on the tile floor, and got stuck. Starr was scared of dying there. Her best bet, she decided, was to listen for the letter carrier in the afternoon and scream like the devils.
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For the next few hours, Starr practiced yelling, “Help! Help! Help!”
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Not long after the call, rescue workers arrived.
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3 . A Plastic Ocean is a film to make you think.Think,and then act.We need to take action on our dependence on plastic.We’ve been producing plastic in huge quantities.Drinking bottles,shopping bags and even clothes are made with plastic.
The film begins as a journey to film the largest animal on the planet,the blue whale.But during the journey the filmmakers make the shocking discovery of a huge,thick layer of plastic floating in the Indian Ocean.
In the film there are beautiful shots of the seas and marine life.
They present short-term and long-term solutions.These include avoiding plastic containers and recycling as much as you can.The filmmakers also stress the need for governments to work more on recycling programmes.
We make a shocking amount of plastic.Over 300 million tons of plastic are produced every year,and at least 8 million of those are dumped into the oceans.The results are disastrous,but it isn’t too late to change.
A.This causes them to travel around the world to look at other affected areas. |
B.Once you’ve seen the film,you’ll realize it is time to do our part. |
C.It has raised public concern all over the world. |
D.We live in a world full of plastic,and only a small amount is recycled. |
E.But the film doesn’t only present the negative side. |
F.In conclusion,we only have one earth to live on. |
G.These are contrasted with dumps of plastic rubbish. |
4 . From Dec 7 to 19, delegates from around the world met at the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (also known as COP15), in Montreal, Canada. After two weeks of intense debate at COP15, delegates agreed on Dec 19 to adopt a landmark plan to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030. “Finally, we reached our destiny. We adopted the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework,” Huang Runqiu, COP15 president and China’s minister of ecology and environment, announced on Dec 19.
The new framework is a commitment by 196 parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity to conserve at least 30 percent of the Earth’s land and ocean area by the next decade. It also will increase the expected annual financial assistance from developed countries through 2030 to help developing nations with biodiversity protection.
The aim of COP15 is to ensure biodiversity loss is changed by 2030, and that humans are able to live in harmony with nature by 2050.To realize these objectives can be very challenging. At COP10 in Nagoya, Japan in 2010, the parties agreed on the 20 Aichi Biodiversity Targets (爱知生物多样性目标). But, as of now, none of the 20 objectives has been fully realized.
It is important to turn consensus into effective actions. Yet, as recent talks have shown, an aspect of effective international action on stopping climate change is the cooperation of developed countries. Developed countries, however, have fallen short of their responsibility as they have failed to fulfill the obligations according to the COP convention to provide funding and technology to poorer nations who lack the means to combat climate change.
To solve this problem, the framework creates a new biodiversity fund within the UN’s existing Global Environment Facility. This came about as a compromise between developing nations, which wanted a new fund, and developed countries, which did not. In addition, a global youth initiative (倡议) was also released, hoping young people to be leaders and advocates for biodiversity conservation.
1. What is the aim of COP15?A.To save at least 30 percent of the Earth’s land and ocean area by next decade. |
B.To stop biodiversity loss and promote harmony between man and nature. |
C.To strengthen the cooperation between developed and developing countries |
D.To provide funding and technology to poorer nations to fight climate change. |
A.To show the parties didn’t fulfill the obligation |
B.To show the objectives were too high to realize |
C.To show it is difficult to realize the objectives of COP 15 |
D.To show Japan didn’t hold the meeting successfully. |
A.Statistic. | B.Emotion. | C.Intervention. | D.Agreement. |
A.International cooperation is important. |
B.A new framework is made in the COP15. |
C.Joint efforts are needed to fight climate change. |
D.Historic COP 15 deals are released on biodiversity. |
5 . On Monday, American ski mountaineer Hilaree Nelson and her partner Jim Morrison reached the summit of 26,781-foot Manaslu, the eighth-highest mountain in the world. Soon after the 49-year-old Nelson began her descent(下降)on skis,she triggered small avalanche(雪崩)and was swept away. On Wednesday, Morrison found her body.
“Often times in life, people want to play it safe, and we make everything around us to be comfortable and safe,” ski mountaineer Hilaree Nelson once said. “Therefore, we can make choices where you can see where that road is going to take you, and I've always been tending to make a choice that I don't know where it's going to take me.”
Nelson, a National Geographic Explorer, had a distinctive sense of travel that led her through more than 40 expeditions to 16 countries. In 2012, six years later, Nelson returned to Lhotse to become the first to ski from its summit.
She was deeply respected for both her extensive big-mountain experience, and her mindful approach to life's challenges. In 2018, Nelson was named captain of the North Face Athlete Team, a title only one other athlete has held. A National Geographic Society grantee, she was also one of the winners of the 2018 National Geographic Adventurer of the Year award. Despite her many super-hero accomplishments, friends recall her as a thoughtful presence and quiet leader, someone who never sought the limelight.
Throughout her career, Nelson struggled at times with the expectations and limitations of being a woman, a mother, and a professional adventurer---and becoming a role model for younger generations of female athletes in the process. “Nelson paved the way for women in the adventure sports space with her refusal to choose between motherhood and her athletic career," says Emily Harrington, a climber who joined her on the Hkakabo Razi expedition. “ She followed her passion as well as raising her family with a mix of courage and grace in a way only a true leader could.”
1. What happened to Hilaree Nelson according to paragraph 1?A.She lost her life because of an avalanche. |
B.She reached the summit of Manaslu alone. |
C.She failed to find her partner and lost her life. |
D.Her partner found her body a week after her death. |
A.To explore the high mountain. |
B.To meet with her partner Morrison. |
C.To challenge herself to ski from its top. |
D.To become the best woman explorer to ski. |
A.Courage of Nelson as a good adventurer. |
B.Reasons for Nelson's love for adventures. |
C.Hardships for Nelson to balance life and work. |
D.The great achievements Nelson once achieved. |
A.Careful and confident. | B.Devoted and adventurous. |
C.Thoughtful and considerate. | D.Creative and responsible. |
6 . Scientists have found the world’s biggest seagrass ecosystem in the Bahamas. Seagrass refers to dozens of different species of flowering plants that live entirely underwater, producing energy through photosynthesis (光合作用) by absorbing sunlight. Like their land-based relatives, seagrasses have roots and leaves and also produce seeds. Seagrasses grow in salty coastal waters around the world, usually in shallow waters where sunlight is more plentiful. Since seagrasses carry out the process of photosynthesis, they are known to be very effective at storing carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas. This is because photosynthesis involves plants using sunlight to transform carbon dioxide into oxygen.
These underwater plants play an important role in carbon sequestration, in which carbon is stored in the environment rather than being allowed to float freely in the atmosphere where it can contribute to global warming. According to Gallagher, one of the new study’s authors, carbon enters the ocean as part of the carbon cycle, and the seagrass takes in this carbon through photosynthesis via their leaves. This is part one. The second part is when the seagrass transports this carbon through itself, burying and storing it in its root system. Seagrass stores this carbon permanently.
The purpose of the study by Gallagher and his colleagues was to map seagrass in the Bahamas, using data from 15 tiger sharks equipped with tracking instruments that could also take images of the sea floor. That information was then combined with reports from 2,500 surveys by human divers.
Mark Huxham, professor of teaching and research in environmental biology, said “This brilliant study uses imaginative and exciting new technology, in partnership with tiger sharks. We know seagrass is important for the health of our seas and our planet, but there are major gaps in our understanding about it.”
1. What is Paragraph 1 mainly about?A.The cause of photosynthesis. |
B.Living conditions for seagrass. |
C.Environmental effect of seagrass. |
D.The introduction of photosynthesis. |
A.Absorbing carbon from the air. |
B.Reducing carbon in the roots. |
C.Releasing carbon into the air. |
D.Keeping carbon in sea plants. |
A.Scientists have fully studied seagrass. |
B.The study contributes to a new technology. |
C.There is still a lot of work to study seagrass. |
D.Tiger sharks will be the focus of future studies. |
A.To inform. | B.To criticize. | C.To advertise. | D.To persuade. |
“Mumma, I am going to the morning walk”, Rohan screamed while his mother was cooking in the kitchen.
His mother who was engaged in her work replied casually, and he went away. It was bitter cold outside. Though he had his cap and muffler (厚手套) with him, he could still perceive much cold. He followed his daily routine when something different happened to him. There laid a small puppy on the other side of the road, just beside a canal, who seemed shivering and trembling with the cold. He went towards it, looked into its eyes, experienced its pain and couldn’t help but pick it up on his hands. It was voiceless, but expressed everything to the boy, without any language.
There was no other thought which stroked his mind and he decided to take that puppy with him to his home. Then came a thought of his mother, who never liked dogs and restricted whenever possible. But his compassionate feeling overcame all his fears and he went back to his home, holding the puppy in his hands. He headed on towards his home though he wanted not to go and thought if he could delay his arrival at his home, but no way possible …
After five minutes of thoughtful walk, he reached his home, where was his mother, who was surely to be annoyed with a puppy in his hands. He got inside his home and underwent what was expected. His mother asked furiously “What is it?”, and continued a number of questions when Rohan uttered a single sentence “Mumma, he needs us”, which made her mother believe “What Love is”.
And his mother remembered the words of her favourite teacher “Love is the feeling to help someone when he is in need, knowing there would be barriers” .
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。
His mother allowed that puppy to stay with them.
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Then came the day when Rohan had to leave home to study abroad.
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1. 时间地点;
2. 现场情况;
3. 活动意义。
注意:
1. 写作词数应为80左右;
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
A green fashion show
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9 . The last time Jack Hanson took an airplane, he was a junior at the University of Vermont. To return from a term abroad in Copenhagen, he flew from Denmark,
But the next term, one of his professors asked students to
He was
So Mr. Hanson decided to stop
And he has never found travel more
Go more
A.pulled | B.stopped | C.stayed | D.played |
A.judge | B.consider | C.calculate | D.reduce |
A.performance | B.research | C.experiment | D.math |
A.accounted for | B.called for | C.figured out | D.turned out |
A.listed | B.combined | C.separated | D.bought |
A.shocked | B.embarrassed | C.entertained | D.bored |
A.explain | B.make | C.refuse | D.manage |
A.pleasure | B.waste | C.money | D.pollution |
A.driving | B.heating | C.flying | D.lighting |
A.incidents | B.stories | C.disasters | D.conditions |
A.joyful | B.dangerous | C.upset | D.expensive |
A.tell | B.believe | C.prove | D.describe |
A.delightful | B.inflexible | C.effective | D.unreasonable |
A.carefully | B.wildly | C.slowly | D.actively |
A.cooking | B.resting | C.relaxing | D.traveling |
On a sunny afternoon in July, my husband Lenny decided to run our garbage. Living on a farm where no pick-up service was available, we burned what we could and took the rest to the town’s landfill(垃圾填埋场). After unloading, Lenny walked around to see what others had thrown away. Being a person who finds treasure in what others call trash, Lenny would sometimes bring home what he called “great finds”. He’d say, “You’ll never know when this will come in handy”or“Look at what someone threw away. I can fix and use that”. As a family on a tight budget, we appreciated his finds.
As Lenny walked around that day, he picked up a few items and threw them on a large pile of garbage. Suddenly, he heard a “meow” and he looked around for what he thought would be a wild cat, but he saw nothing. Then he saw a shoebox in the garbage pile move slightly, and he heard the cries again. He picked up the box, which was sealed with tape. When Lenny cut the tape and cautiously tore open the shoebox, he found a black-and-white little cat, approximately eight weeks old. It was so frightened that it jumped into Lenny’s arms and clung on to him with its tiny claws. The little cat wasn’t afraid of him. The poor thing was very thin and had probably been taken away from its mother only recently.
My husband wasn’t a great cat lover. He did not feel they should be household pets. Our two daughters had a different perspective as they had recently got another kitten from a local farmer. Even though he didn’t like cats, he knew he couldn’t leave this cat in the shoebox. It would probably be eaten by a fox.
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。
So he decided to bring it home.
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Later, Lenny and the cat became best friends, too.
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