1 . Conservation organization Plantlife is urging people to put away their lawnmowers (除草机) for a month and let wild flowers grow instead, as part of its No Mow May project.
Leaving the grass uncut will create a habitat that will benefit bees and other insects, the organization says. Plantlife says lawns could be biodiversity hot-spots if left alone. It says those who participated in its campaign last year reported the growth of more than 250 plant species on their lawns. Among these were wild strawberry and wild garlic. There were also sightings of declining species like green-winged orchids.
One gardener who has been enjoying a more relaxed approach is Tom Jennings, 45, from Buckinghamshire. He says it’s a chance to reconnect with the natural world. “Those fascinated by neat gardens use not only lawnmowers but chemicals.” says Tom.
After letting his back garden grow out, Tom witnessed an explosion of wild flowers—important for pollinators (授粉者) such as bees. Tom says he’s been shocked at how quickly insects have returned to his back garden: an encouraging signal given the global decline of insect populations.
According to Colette Webb, 42, who lives in West Sussex, there are added benefits to letting nature gradually take its course in the garden. “It saves you a bit of time and arguments with the husband about getting the lawnmower out—something my husband hates doing,” she says. “There’s a part of me that thinks the garden is really messy, but when you sit there for some time a day and look at what’s it’s supporting, you realize it’s for the benefit of nature.”
But not everyone is on board with the idea, says David. One of his neighbours is pursuing their own re-wilding project in their own garden—but the other is yet to be convinced. “And my mother, who’s 81, still says it looks untidy,” he laughs.
1. What is the major goal of Plantlife’s No Mow May project?| A．Helping promote biodiversity. | B．Attracting more garden visitors. |
| C．Making their gardens look more natural. | D．Saving people’s trouble of mowing their gardens. |
| A．He is crazy about neat gardens. |
| B．He hates having to cut the grass regularly. |
| C．He believes the project is increasing the number of insects. |
| D．He benefited a lot from the decline of insects in his garden. |
| A．She gets on better with her husband. | B．Her husband has come to enjoy gardening. |
| C．Her garden is no longer as messy as it used to be. | D．She has formed the habit of sitting in the garden. |
| A．Shows concern about. | B．Makes response to. | C．Agrees with. | D．Comes up with. |
2 . The earth is struck daily by 60 tons of rocks from outer space. However, finding these ancient rocks is no easy task. Most meteorites (陨石) fall directly into water. And those that hit land can be difficult to spot among other rocks.
Fortunately for researchers there is one place on Earth where meteorites find it difficult to hide: Antarctica. “There are probably fewer meteorites falling per acre of land in Antarctica than in other parts of the world,” said Ralph Harvey, a professor at Case Western Reserve University. “But if you want to find things that fell from the sky, lay out a big white sheet. And Antarctica is a 5,000-kilometer-wide sheet.”
Finding meteorites in Antarctica is so relatively “easy” compared to the rest of the world that an estimated two-thirds (around 45,000) of those ever discovered have come from the icy continent. The challenge, however, comes not only from the terrible conditions, but also from knowing where to look to make any expedition worthwhile.
In an effort to greatly improve the collection rate of Antarctic meteorites, a Belgian—Dutch team of scientists has unveiled (展示) what they’re calling a “treasure map” for the region. “We expect the treasure map to be 80% accurate,” said Veronica Tollenaar, who led the study.
After landing in the snow in Antarctica, a meteorite will either be directed into the ocean or brought back to the surface of what’s known as a “blue ice” area. As meteorites come out in these special “blue ice” areas, their color contrasts (对比) against the deep blue ice, making them easy to spot. The treasure map marks more than 600 special “blue ice” areas. They estimate that these sites may contain anywhere from 340,000 to 900,000 surface meteorites.
The researchers add that these locations also likely contain rare meteorites, such as angrites, brachinites or even Martian meteorites.
“Collecting these ancient rocks will further improve the understanding of our Solar System,” they write.
1. What makes it relatively easy to spot meteorites on Antarctica?| A．Few people visit the Antarctica. |
| B．Antarctica is covered with snow. |
| C．More meteorites fall in Antarctica. |
| D．Meteorites stay still in Antarctica. |
| A．Antarctic is too far to arrive. |
| B．Meteorites’ location is hard to track. |
| C．The expedition to Antarctic is too expensive. |
| D．The snow in Antarctic covers most of the meteorites. |
| A．More and more meteorites found in Antarctica |
| B．Challenges of spotting meteorites in Antarctica |
| C．Improving our understanding of the Solar System |
| D．Treasure map helping spot meteorites in Antarctica |
| A．Science. | B．Business. | C．Environment. | D．Education. |
3 . 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. |
4 . 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. |
5 . 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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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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8 . Spectacular Waterfalls in the World
Victoria Falls, Zambia and Zimbabwe
They are accessible via the Western Zimbabwe town of the same name. Though technically not the tallest (107 meters), Victoria Falls is commonly known as the largest for its rapidly falling water. Summers can be hot and too dry to see the falls in full form, making the best views between March and August.
Iguazu Falls, Argentina and Brazil
Though Iguazu is only 82 meters tall, its curtain of water extends for over 1,600 meters. But if two stamps in your passport aren’t enough of a reason, these Falls are also considered the largest waterfall system in the world. The temperate year-round weather around Iguazu Falls only adds to its popularity.
Niagara Falls, New York and Ontario
The falls are impressively high at 99 meters but equally impressively long, stretching on for what feels like forever. While the Canadian side boasts a touristy town to spend the weekend, the American side trades mostly in natural views. For blue skies and high waterfall rainbow visibility opportunity, visit in summer. And while those making the trip in the winter shouldn’t expect the falls to freeze, they should bundle up or risk freezing themselves.
The Detian Falls, China and Vietnam
The Detian Falls is located in Daxin County of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, crossing the Sino-Vietnamese border. The roaring waterfall is separated into three-tiered falls by rocks and trees, dropping more than 70 meters. It has a maximum width of 200 meters. The waterfall is the largest naturally formed falls in Southeast Asia and has been identified as a top tourist destination.
1. Which is the tallest of the following waterfalls?| A．Victoria Falls | B．Iguazu Falls | C．Niagara Falls | D．The Detian Falls |
| A．They stretch in two countries. | B．They show good view in July. |
| C．They are over 100 meters in width. | D．They have mild year-round weather. |
| A．The freezing falls in winter | B．The town appealing to tourists. |
| C．The visible high waterfall rainbow. | D．The equally long and high waterfall. |
9 . In a street largely unchanged since it was built in the 1800s, Hobart’s Battery Point is probably the last place you would expect to find a farm.
In one corner of Peter Handy’s backyard is a controlled environment unit that houses vertical pastures (垂直牧场), the first of its kind in the southern hemisphere (半球). Mr. Handy is changing the definition of what it means to be a farmer. “I know it’s really funny, because when people say to me, ‘Where’s your farm?’, I’ll say ‘it’s in Battery Point’ and they’re like, ‘No, there’s no farms in Battery Point’,” he said “People think the Martians have landed because we’ve got this massive, big pink light that comes out of it from the bottom but other than that, they’d have no idea.”
Not just a backyard project, Mr. Handy is running a business. “It’s here because I need to be as close to my customers, the chefs and restaurants of Hobart,” he said. “I aim to use the least amount of food miles as possible and make this a super-efficient business.”
Using LED lights and hydroponic nutrients, the farm grows leafy greens, root vegetables and flowering plants. “I don’t have to worry about floods, wind, wild animals, electric fences, turning the soil over,” Mr .Handy said. Using 95 percent less water than traditional farming, the farm ticks the box environmentally. “I mean, this is definitely not the answer to food sustainability in the world. But it’s definitely a part of it.”
Science writer Julian Cribb believes a world food crisis is coming, due to a combination of loss of water, loss of topsoil, climate change and overuse of poisons. “We’re going to need to change the nature of the way we produce food and change the human diet at the same time,” he said, “and new urban farming methods would see most of the world’s great cities feeding themselves.”
Mr. Cribb said Australia was still quite a way off from adopting urban farming. But he believes that it poses a rather unique opportunity for Australian farmers to sell their expertise to cities, teaching people to grow food in urban environments.
1. What might people think of Mr. Handy’s farm?| A．Scared. | B．Impressed. |
| C．Disappointed. | D．Confused. |
| A．It is not affected by weather. |
| B．It mainly plants and sells flowers. |
| C．It serves customers from near and far. |
| D．It is the solution to food sustainability. |
| A．To praise his contribution to science. |
| B．To explain how urban farming works. |
| C．To stress the necessity of urban farming. |
| D．To present the seriousness of the food crisis. |
| A．Cities are struggling to get food. |
| B．Technology is changing people’s life. |
| C．Peter Handy is a successful businessman. |
| D．Food production is being moved into cities. |
(1) 垃圾问题的现状；
(2) 垃圾分类的好处（至少2点）；
(3) 呼吁全体同学积极参加垃圾分类。
注意：(1)词数：100左右；(2) 开头和结尾已为你写好，不记入总词数；
参考词汇：垃圾分类rubbish classification 可回收物 recyclable waste
Good afternoon, everyone!
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Thanks for your attention!
