1 . My family lost everything in the little-known flood of Baton Rouge, Louisiana last year that the Red Cross called the “Worst US disaster since Hurricane Sandy.”
It began raining in mid-August. Then it rained some more, got more powerful, and didn’t stop for days. There was talk that the local rivers were going to crest (到达顶点)and cause some pretty serious flooding. We lived somewhat close to the Amite River, but our senior neighbors told us that our neighborhood hadn’t flooded in over 100 years.
Local news said that the nearby high school may get a little bit of water inside from the rising river. We thought we had a couple of days to plan on how we were going to shelter in place because of the weather forecast.
On the 13th of August I woke up, walked outside and headed toward the direction of the river. Some of the lower areas were collecting water but there was no standing water anywhere near my house or even my neighborhood. I went back home and told my wife we should probably get some supplies in case this got serious; that maybe we should even pack a car in case we needed to leave though I was fairly certain there was nothing to worry about.
About 30 minutes into slowly packing there was a loud banging on my front door. It was my wife’s cousin. I opened the door and she said, “What are you doing?! Get out of the house!” I looked behind her and noticed my entire yard underwater and the waterline only about a half-inch from going over my doorstep and into my house.
I was floored. The river wasn’t supposed to crest until the next day. I thought we had more time.
I yelled at my wife, “We have to get out of the house. Now!”
We packed up both our cars in about 10 minutes with only our most precious memories. Everything else we had built during a 10-year marriage was left behind. We evacuated about 5 miles east away from the river to my wife’s grandmothers.
After being there for about an hour someone came to the front door and said, “You guys ned to get out. The river is coming.”
Sure enough, her yard was flooding too.
We evacuated a second time in as many hours to her cousin’s house even further east. After only an hour we were told again that the river was on the way and we had to leave.
1. The author realized the arrival of the flood when ______.| A．the rain started to fall heavily and non-stop |
| B．the nearby high school was slightly affected |
| C．there was standing water in some lower areas |
| D．he was informed by his wife’s cousin at the door |
| A．He was clam enough to cope with the flood. |
| B．He became trapped by the rising floodwater. |
| C．He was shocked by the early arrival of the flood. |
| D．He lost his temper with his wife for being unprepared. |
| A．He didn’t take action immediately despite his neighbor’s warning. |
| B．He trusted the weather forecast so that he prepared himself in advance. |
| C．He and his wife brought some supplies and valuable belongings with them. |
| D．He was forced to leave the temporary homes again and again to avoid danger. |
| A．Mutual Support in Disasters | B．Baton Rouge Flooding |
| C．How to Survive a Flood | D．Methods of Predicting Floods |
2 . As plastic waste increases rapidly around the world, an essential question remains unanswered: What harm, if any, does it cause to human health?
A few years ago, as microplastics began turning up in the organs of fish and shellfish, the concern was focused on the safety of seafood. Shellfish were a particular worry, because in their case, unlike fish, we eat the entire animal — stomach, microplastics and all. In 2017, Belgian scientists announced that seafood lovers could consume up to 11,000 plastic particles (粒子) a year by eating mussels (贻贝), a favorite dish in that country.
By then, however, scientists already understood that plastics continuously fragment small pieces in the environment, tearing over time into fibers even smaller than a strand of human hair — particles are so small that they easily fly in the air. A team at the U.K.’s University of Plymouth decided to compare the threat from eating polluted wild mussels in Scotland to that of breathing air in a typical home. Their conclusion: People will take in more plastic by breathing in or taking tiny, invisible plastic fibers floating in the air around them—fibers from their own clothes, carpets, and soft covering on furniture — than they will by eating the mussels.
So, it wasn’t much of a surprise when, in 2022, scientists from the Netherlands and the U.K, announced they had found tiny plastic particles in living humans, in two places where they hadn’t been seen before: deep inside the lungs of surgical patients, and in the blood of unknown donors. Neither of the two studies answered the question of possible harm. But together they signaled a shift in the focus of concern about plastics toward the cloud of dust particles in the air, some of them are so small that they can get into deep inside the body and even inside cells, in ways that larger microplastics can’t.
Dick Vethaak, a professor of ecotoxicology (生态毒理学), doesn’t consider the results alarming, exactly—“but, yes, we should be concerned. Plastics should not be in your blood.” “We live in a multi-particle world,” he adds, referring to the dust, pollen (花粉), and smog that humans also breathe in every day. “The trick is to figure out how much plastics contribute to that particle burden and what does that mean.”
1. What does the word “fragment” in para. 3 probably mean?| A．break into | B．take in | C．pick out | D．make up |
| A．microplastics from things in our daily life ant more poisonous |
| B．people eating polluted mussels are more likely to get diseases |
| C．invisible plastic fibers are more harmful to the environment |
| D．the influence of microplastics in mussels is less than thought |
| A．microplastics in polluted wild mussels can cause serious diseases |
| B．there’s no need to worry about the plastics found in human blood |
| C．we can avoid breathing particles by figuring out particle burden |
| D．more attention should be paid to the dust particles than plastics |
| A．Are Microplastics Harmful to Us? |
| B．Should Microplastics be in Our Blood? |
| C．Can Microplastics Get into Our Bodies? |
| D．Do We Know Anything about Microplastics? |
3 . Most people have seen animals solve problems in one context or another Whether it’s a dog getting food out of a puzzle toy, a squirrel (松鼠) breaking into a “squirrel-proof, bird feeder, or — in what is hopefully a rarer experience — a bear opening a door to get to the food inside!
Do all individuals within a species come up with
The above examples tie into the theory that the individuals who are least able to gain access to good quality
However, while there is support for this theory in some species, many species show opposing patterns.
Both make instinctive sense. The more likely an individual is to
Regardless of the reason individuals innovate, once an individual finds a solution to a problem,
| A．instant | B．comprehensive | C．fair | D．creative |
| A．friendly | B．popular | C．close | D．faithful |
| A．Similarly | B．Inevitably | C．Apparently | D．Gradually |
| A．purpose | B．priority | C．pressure | D．potential |
| A．services | B．materials | C．goods | D．resources |
| A．pretend | B．compete | C．survive | D．evolve |
| A．reluctant | B．excited | C．motivated | D．confused |
| A．Thus | B．Besides | C．Still | D．Meanwhile |
| A．Emotion | B．Gender | C．Appearance | D．Personality |
| A．living | B．novel | C．endangered | D．ideal |
| A．Persistence | B．Intelligence | C．Performance | D．Confidence |
| A．conflict | B．compare | C．interact | D．identify |
| A．position | B．object | C．solution | D．chance |
| A．absolutely | B．fortunately | C．definitely | D．particularly |
| A．copy | B．change | C．influence | D．evaluate |
| A. appearances B. imitating C. distinguish D. isolate E. advantageous F. diverse G. identical H. criterion I. markings J. poisonous K. threatening |
Why different species start looking exactly the same
Is it better to stand out from the crowd or be similar to the background? For birds, the answer is complicated. While peacocks(孔雀) show off their brightly colored feathers to attract mates and ward off predators(捕食者), other birds find it
Groups of birds flying together often come from the same species, making it hard to
“In imitation, you often want to look like something because there’s an advantage to being that other thing. You want species to think you’re
While it may not seem like it at first, imitating other birds is helping to create more
5 . Mt. Everest is no longer an inaccessible giant. More than 4,000 people have stood on the world’s highest peak since 1953. Last year alone, more than 650 people made it to the top.
But as the crowds have grown, so too has the list of stories coming from the mountain: long lines over train, and conflict over the value of Sherpas.
For people who want a more drama-free climbing experience, the globe is filled with other peaks worth tackling.
There are literally 13 other mountains over 8,000 meters and some get virtually no attention. They are very challenging mountains that would be an equal feather in someone’s hat to climb with many routes still to be discovered, unlike Everest. Mountains taller than 8,000 meters (more than 26,000 feet) are rare and exceptionally challenging to climb, purely for the lack of oxygen at such height. Above 8,000 m, it becomes so difficult to breathers that climbers call it the “death zone.”
The Himalayas contain all 14 of the world’s 8,000 meter-plus peaks, which are among Nepal, China, India and Pakistan. Among those, Everest is not only the tallest. It’s also accessible by hiking for about a week and a half after flying into Lukla.
From there, the mountain is loaded with equipment, including a cell phone tower and Sherpas who fix ropes for Western climbers. That makes the climb far less technical than it otherwise would be.
Why Do People Keep Climbing Mt. Everest? “It’s certainly not the easiest climb because of the height,” said Alan Amette, a mountaineer and Everest blogger in Fort Collins, Colo. “I hate the word ‘easy’ for any 8,000-meter mountain. A better word is achievable. Everest is achievable.”
One emerging alternative to Everest is K2, the world’s second tallest mountain — at 8,611 m (28,251 feet) to Everest’s 8,848 m (29,029 feet). But for every four or so people who have summited K2, one person has died trying, Amette said, for a total of 300 successful climbs and 81 deaths.
On Everest, by comparison, the ratio of successes to deaths is about 24 to one with more than 6,000 summits and about 250 deaths. K2 is a “loose” mountain with lots of rock fall and avalanche (雪崩) activity, Amette said. Its main route also goes up the east side, making climbers get affected by incoming storms.
1. The term “Death Zone” is used to describe an area ________.| A．that is 8,000 meters high with the shortage of oxygen |
| B．where there is the highest rate of death in mountain-climbing |
| C．where climbers are unable to breathe |
| D．where breathers are very likely to die due to the height |
| A．They cover as many as four countries. |
| B．They contain ten peaks over 8,000 meters. |
| C．Everest is its tallest and easiest peak to climb. |
| D．Everest is its peak with good technical support. |
| A．more people died in mountain-climbing |
| B．more natural disasters occur due to its loose quality |
| C．there are more snow storms happening on average |
| D．storms are more unpredictable at the peak |
| A．Introduction to the exciting mountain climbing. |
| B．The awesome challenges of the tallest mountains. |
| C．Climbing the most challenging mountains in the world. |
| D．How to overcome difficulties as those brave mountaineers. |
6 . More than a score of Australian rare mammals have been killed by wild cats. These predators, which arrived with European settlers, still threaten native wildlife — and are too plentiful on the mainland to eliminate, as has been achieved on some small islands which were previously filled with them. But Alexandra Ross of the University of New South Wales thinks she has come up with a different way to deal with the problem. As she writes in a paper in the Journal of Applied Ecology, she is giving feline (猫科的) — awareness lessons to wild animals involved in re-introduction programs, in order to try to make them cat-conscious.
Many Australian mammals, though not actually extinct, are restricted to fragments of cat-free habitat. This will, however, put the forced migrants back in the sights of the cats that caused the problem in the first place. Training the migrants while they are in captivity, using stuffed models and the sorts of sounds made by cats, has proved expensive and ineffective. Ms Ross therefore wondered whether putting them in large natural enclosures with a scattering of predators might serve as a form of training camp to prepare them for introduction into their new, cat-ridden homes.
She tested this idea on a type of bandicoot (袋狸) that superficially resembles a rabbit. She and her colleagues raised two hundred bandicoots in a huge enclosure that also contained five wild cats. As a control, she raised a nearly identical population in a similar enclosure without the cats. She left the animals to get on with life for two years, which, given that bandicoots breed four times a year and live for around eight years, was a considerable period for them. After some predation (扑食) and probably some learning, she abstracted 21 bandicoots from each enclosure, attached radio transmitters to them and released them into a third enclosure that had ten hungry cats in it. She then monitored what happened next. The outcome was that the training worked. Over the subsequent 40 days, ten of the untrained animals were eaten by cats, but only four of the trained ones. One particular behavioral difference she noticed was that bandicoots brought up in a predator-free environment were much more likely to sleep alone than were those brought up around cats. And when cats are around, sleeping alone is dangerous. How well bandicoots that have undergone this extreme training will survive in the wild remains to be seen. But Ms Ross has at least provided reason for hope.
1. What can be learned from the first paragraph?| A．The feline-awareness lessons have proved ineffective. |
| B．There are too many wild cats to be killed in Australia. |
| C．Different ways have been tried to hunt and kill wildlife. |
| D．Native wildlife has been threatened by a growing population of wild cats. |
| A．Australian mammals restricted to certain areas |
| B．The wild cats tracking down the mammals |
| C．Wild animals involved in the program |
| D．The predators captured by the animal trainers |
| A．They were both closely monitored. | B．They had 200 bandicoots in total. |
| C．They had similar natural environment. | D．They both had wild cats in them. |
| A．Untrained bandicoots failed to identify cats. |
| B．Training bandicoots prepared them to fight cats. |
| C．Sleeping alone in the wild was dangerous. |
| D．Bandicoots could be trained to avoid predators. |
7 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passage coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word,fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word;for the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.
Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall:
Can Animals Recognize Their Reflection at All?
Daniel Povinelli was in high school when he first read about an experiment published in 1970. It left a deep impression
This famous mirror self-recognition experiment was conducted in the 1960s by scientist Gordon Gallup, Jr. No such tests had been done before
Though convinced at first, Povinelli now holds a different view on what animals may be doing after spending years
Povinelli says people
8 . Why should mankind explore space? Perhaps the best answer lies in our genetic makeup as human beings. What prompted our distant ancestors to move from the trees into the plains, and on into all possible areas and environments?
Exploration also allows minerals and other potential resources to be located. Additional resources are always beneficial when used wisely, and can increase our chances of survival. Knowledge or techniques acquired through exploration, or preparing to explore, filter from the developers into society at large.
In certain circumstances, life on Earth may become impossible: over-population or wide spread diseases, for instance, might eventually force us to find other places to live. While the earth is the only planet known to sustain life, surely the adaptive ability of humans would allow us to inhabit other planets and moons. It is true that the lifestyle would be different, but human life and cultures have adapted in the past and surely could in the future.
| A．The techniques may have medical applications which can improve the length or quality of our lives. |
| B．Space allows us to expand and succeed: for the sake of everyone on the earth, now and in the future, space exploration is essential. |
| C．The mysterious space objects varying in size have been fascinated scientists and scholars for years. |
| D．It appears that we are driven to ensure the success and continuation of not just our own genes, but of the species as a whole. |
| E．Therefore it still poses a problem for us human beings whether to explore the space at the cost of our own homelands. |
| F．While space may hold many wonders and explanations of how the universe was formed or how it works, it also holds dangers. |
9 . Become an Atlantis Jr. Aquarist and spend 3 days working with marine life! Food prepping to feeding the animals to snorkeling (浮潜) and learning about coral reefs, it’s a week of marine adventure!
| Marine Adventure Camp | |
| June 24--28; Monday--Friday | |
| July 8--12; Monday--Friday | |
| July 29--August 2; Monday--Friday | |
| August 12--16; Monday--Friday | |
| 5 days/4 nights Ages: 10 to 14 Price: $595 (not inclusive of room cost) | Camp Hours |
| Monday: 5:45 p. m. to 7:30 p. m. Tuesday: 8:00 a. m. to 3:00 p. m. Wednesday: 9:00 a. m. to 5:30 p. m. Thursday: 9:00 a. m. to 4:00 p. m. Friday: Check out (or you may extend your stay on your own). *Please note: Programming subject to change based on weather conditions. | |
| Package Components | Dress Code |
| 1. Amenity(便利设施）Package —Camp Name Badge —Mask and Snorkel —Messenger Bag —Cap —Towel —Marine Life Guide —Water Bottle 2. Welcome Dinner 3. Lunch for 3 days (venue to be determined) 4. Behind the Scenes with our Sea Keeper Team 5. Behind the Scenes with our Marine Mammal Team 6. Fish food preparation and hand feeding 7. Ruins Snorkel 8. Stingray Snorkel 9. Blue Adventure Snorkel Trip 10. Shark Walk with Stuart Cove | T-Shirts Shorts Swimsuits Water Shoes (Since most water shoes are uncomfortable for the amount of walking they do, especially when wet, you are not allowed to change into water shoes when you prepare to swim.) Sun Block |
Important Notes | |
| All attendees must be able to swim without assistance. All attendees must speak fluent English. Camp name badge must be worn daily. Attendees must be at least 10 years of age. | |
| A．camp hours | B．camp price | C．things to bring | D．daily schedules |
| A．Tom, who has just graduated from high school |
| B．Jerry, who has saved up 600 dollars for summer holiday |
| C．Mary, a local 6 grader who likes swimming |
| D．Edward, who has been offered a position in an aquarium |
| A．Attendees don’t wear water shoes when they go swimming. |
| B．All attendees must check out on the last day of the camp. |
| C．The programs are fixed and no minor changes will be made. |
| D．Attendees will have a 5-day experience working with marine life in the camp. |
10 . The Last Straw?
Every second, the world uses 160,000 plastic bags — that is a total of over five trillion per year. Up to 99 percent of these plastic bags hang around for at least 1,000 years and pollute Earth. And yet, plastic bags are hardly a necessity in our lives. Of all the changes we could make to create a more sustainable lifestyle, a total ban on plastic bags should be simple.
At the beginning of 2021, Shanghai put in effect a ban on all plastic bags in shopping malls and supermarkets, as well as a ban on non-degradable plastics in many other areas. Over the years, individuals and companies have worked to replace plastic items, such as cups and straws, with paper ones.
Customers complain that paper straws often become soft and break before they can finish their hot drinks. Experts, however, have repeatedly stressed plastic substitutes (替代品) are not the ultimate solution, and that our consumption habits need a bigger change.
In college, one of my environmental science professors promoted a type of waste-free living. She carried around a small glass jar with her, and in it was all her trash she collected for the entire year. She was able to do this by bringing her own cup to Starbucks, her own bags to the shops, and never buying anything that came wrapped in plastic. Her food waste also became compost.
Plastic bags are incredibly easy to forget about when they become increasingly common.
| A．Clearly she demonstrated our ability to live a completely healthy life without creating a great deal of plastic waste. |
| B．Plastic bag litter has even caused great problems in some areas. |
| C．If they’re free to use and easily disposed of, they’re a mere tool that we don’t have to think about. |
| D．Some of these decisions have been met with criticism. |
| E．Unfortunately, such a high level of pollution doesn’t come without consequences. |
