1 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in each blank with a proper word given in the box. Each word can be used only once. Note that there is one more word than you need.

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     1     to hide themselves by imitating the looks of other birds.

Groups of birds flying together often come from the same species, making it hard to     2     one from another. However, some groups of birds including two or more species take on similar     3    , which is an uncommon phenomenon. “They all share random features, like feathers on head or yellow bellies(腹部), which makes them almost     4    . You can’t really tell them apart without looking at their     5    .” says Scott Robinson, a famous scholar. His new study suggests     6     another bird’s appearance is not a coincidence(巧合) but rather an evolutionary method to increase their chances of survival. Looking like a bird from a dominant species helps reduce attack from other members and appear more     7     to potential predators.

“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     8     or low-profitable target.” says Rebecca Kimball, a professor of biology. “In grouping birds, one idea is that this has more to do with a predator’s ability to     9     a target. When there are a group of birds moving around, it may be easier for predators to identify an individual that has a distinct color pattern.”

While it may not seem like it at first, imitating other birds is helping to create more     10     species. Not only do birds imitate more than one species as they grow up, but their appearance varies over time.

2 . 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     1     him as it showed that chimpanzees, rather than monkeys, can recognize themselves in mirrors. All it took was a simple mirror    2     (reveal) that our close chimpanzee relatives are self-aware.

This famous mirror self-recognition experiment was conducted in the 1960s by scientist Gordon Gallup, Jr. No such tests had been done before     3     people had long observed animals interacting with mirrors. In this experiment, the chimps originally tried to attack the image in the mirror. But after a couple of days, they began using the mirror to examine parts of their bodies such as their teeth. He then anesthetized(使麻醉) them and put red dye on their face. The chimps later woke up and reacted to the unexpected mirror image as if they     4     understand that the marks were on their own faces. In Gallup’s view, passing this test proved that the chimps had self-awareness, which was an evolutionary leap     5     (make) only by humans and their close relatives and led to empathy and higher-level thinking.

Though convinced at first, Povinelli now holds a different view on what animals may be doing after spending years     6     (commit) himself to studying mirrors and higher-order consciousness for years. He holds that animals may have a     7     (complicated) sense of their own body’s movement than we imagine. With that kind of physical self-concept, a chimp could use a mirror as a tool to examine its body. But that wouldn’t indicate anything about the richness of the animal’s inner life. Recent research also shows monkeys can actually learn to perform this skill, if they     8     (give) the proper training.

Povinelli says people     9     live with cats and dogs tend to project their own understanding of the world onto their pets. Since they can’t directly ask     10     their pets are experiencing, their projection is very likely to be wrong.

3 . 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?    1    . The wider the distribution of a species, the better its chance of survival.

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.     2    . Also, we have already benefited from other by-products, including improvements in earthquake prediction — which has saved many lives —   in satellites used for weather forecasting and in communications systems. Even non-stick saucepans and mirrored sunglasses are by-products of technological developments in the space industry!

    3    . The chances of a large comet hitting the Earth are small, but it could happen in time. Such strikes in the past may account for the extinction of dinosaurs and other species. Human technology is reaching the point where it might be able to detect the possibility of this happening, and enable us to minimize the damage, or prevent it completely, allowing us as a species to avoid extinction.

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.     4    .

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.

4 . 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.     1    .

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.     2    .

Plastic bags are incredibly easy to forget about when they become increasingly common.     3    . Once they are in the trash, we take it for granted that they are someone else’s problem. The sad fact is that plastic bags break down into microplastics which then get mixed into the air, soil and water, and eventually end up in plants, animals, and our very own human bodies. So what are you going to do about them?

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.

5 . Chemists in mid-1500s Nuremburg had discovered that bird droppings were a rich source of saltpetre, a vital ingredient in the making of gunpowder. As a consequence pigeon droppings used to be almost as valuable as silver. Understandably, by the middle of the following century, there were an estimated 26,000 pigeon houses in Britain.

The practice of keeping the pigeon was introduced to Britain by the Romans. The Normans kept pigeons in specially constructed niches in castles and courtyards. When the pigeon houses in Britain were built, they were a vital source of meat and feathers. The latter were particularly prized as a source of warmth. Droppings gathered from the pigeon houses was a rich fertilizer, too.

The pigeon house was not only a source of food and revenue in medieval times, but also a status symbol. The privilege of building or owning pigeon houses was reserved for the rich. Towards the end of her rule, Queen Elizabeth I decided to open pigeon-breeding to the free market. Then, pigeon houses sprang up all over the countryside.

The number of pigeon houses across the British countryside was not universally welcomed. Each day the birds flew off to feed themselves on other people’s crops. By the middle of the 17th century, the problem of pigeons was so great that people feared that the destructive pigeons would turn England into a desert.

Luckily, an agricultural revolutionary, Charles Townsend, had introduced the turnip to Britain around 1700, keeping farm livestock fat enough to eat through the dark winter months. Later, vast quantities of natural saltpetre were discovered in Chile and California. Keeping pigeons went out of fashion.

Now, the homeless pigeons flew off to find somewhere else to live. One species discovered that Britain’s rapidly growing towns and cities were full of the sort of rock-faces they liked to rest on—humans called them “buildings”. Over time they’d become the wild urban pigeon that we know today.

1. Which of the following people in Britain would be least likely to keep pigeons in the late Middle Ages?

A．Fruit growers.

B．The nobles.

C．Gunpowder makers.

D．The miners.

2. What can be inferred from the passage?

A．Farm livestock used to be too thin for lack of food in the dark months in Britain.

B．Townsend revolutionized agricultural development in Britain around 1700.

C．The Normans set an undesirable example of raising pigeons for the British people.

D．England was once faced with the threat of disappearance because of pigeons.

3. According to the passage, why are there so many pigeons in the cities in Britain today?

A．Because people think it a sign of status and keep them to show off.

B．Because pigeons like to stay on hard surfaces which can be abundantly found in cities.

C．Because pigeons find enough food supplies when tourists and citizens feed them in squares.

D．Because the government encourages pigeon raising as a profitable investment.

4. Which is the best title of the passage?

A．A brief history of pigeon houses in Britain.

B．From function to fashion — the pigeon houses in Britain.

C．Profitable pigeon houses in Britain.

D．Pigeon houses in Britain as valuable as silver.

6 . As wildfires have intensified in recent years, scientists have begun to catalog the ways the massive events influence weather — but so far, all have looked at either enormous or relatively small scales.

But during 2018’s destructive fire season in California — at the time, the worst on record — Jiwen Fan started to wonder: Could the ever more frequent and intense fires raging in the western United States affect weather not just right next door, but as much as 1500 miles downwind?

Major weather patterns in the U.S. tend to travel from west to east along with the prevailing winds. Fan noticed that just a few days after California’s Carr Fire kicked off in mid-July — shockingly early in the expected fire season — a massive days-long storm struck the High Plains states like Wyoming and Colorado with flooding rains, baseball-sized hail, and 90-mile-an-hour gusts. The storm caused over $100 million in damages. Was it possible the two were connected?

Her team had the exact right tools to investigate the question. First, they dug through 10 years of weather and fire data to find examples of other big conflagrations (大火) occurring right before major storm events. The pairing was actually quite rare. That’s because storm season in the Central U.S. is centered around early summer; in the past, that season was winding down by the time wildfire season increased in August and September. But wildfires have been igniting earlier and earlier, pushed forward by climate change-driven drought and heat. Since 2010, the team found several big central storms that coincided with major Western fires.

They focused on a 2018 storm. Using a weather model that added in the effects of heat and smoke emitted from the burns, they simulated days-long storm event in several different ways. As the real situation had been, with massive fires burning in the West; as if those fires didn’t exist; and another set of experiments that included and excluded the effect of some smaller local fires that had been burning at the time.

The differences were dramatic: The combined impact from the faraway western fires and the local ones boosted the occurrence of heavier rainfall — where more than about 0.8 inches of rain fell in an hour — by 38 percent. The outbursts of big hail, with hailstones larger than two inches — nearly the size of a baseball— happened 34 percent more in the fiery conditions. But the far-off fires had a much larger effect.

“The impact is very significant,” says Fan. “That was a little surprising.”

1. What’s the study of Jiwen Fan and her team mainly about?

A．The effect of conflagrations on the weather of other areas.

B．The scale of all the conflagrations.

C．The number of all the conflagrations that happened in 2018.

D．The cause of the California’s Carr Fire.

2. Why was it rare for Fan’s team to pair big conflagrations with major storm events?

A．Because they were in lack of labor to dig through all the data.

B．Because storm season in the Central U.S. isn’t in line with the wildfire season.

C．Because wildfires usually take place in the early summer.

D．Because wildfires are pushed forward by big storms.

3. How did Fan and her team conduct their study?

A．They invited other experts to do experiments with them.

B．They interviewed a lot of local people and analyzed the data they collected.

C．They simulated storm event in different ways by using a weather model.

D．They observed the real situations and calculated thoroughly.

4. What does the last sentence “That was a little surprising.” imply?

A．The number of the big wildfires was beyond the team’s expectation.

B．The size of the hailstones was definitely incredible.

C．The occurrence of heavy rainfall shocked Fan’s team.

D．The conflagrations did have great effect on the occurrence of storm in other areas.

7 . China becomes a world leader in clean technology by fighting environmental pollution, sharing experience.

Erik Solheim, former executive director of the United Nations Environmental Programme, said he is __________ with China’s phenomenal achievements over the past decade in fighting environmental pollution and climate change, and in its march toward __________ development.

This is very __________ to his Twitter followers. Solheim’s latest tweets include one about China ranking first globally in planted forests and forest coverage growth, __________ a quarter of the world’s new forests in the past decade; one about China producing 60 percent of global solar energy last year and 80 percent of solar panels; and another highlighting the fact that 80 percent of the world’s new offshore wind capacity was installed in China last year.

He believes that it’s time for the rest of the world to __________.

For Solheim, who is also the former Norwegian Minister of the Environment and Minister of International Development, China’s achievements on the climate and environmental fronts all started with its fight against__________.

“People wanted to see beautiful skies over their cities,” he told China Daily. “The __________ fast reduction in air pollution in Chinese cities over the last decade shows how fast China can act. This has now spilled over into renewable energy, nature protection, electric mobility, tree planting and a lot more. Today, China is the world leader in all __________ technologies.”

The latest __________ from China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment prove Solheim’s observations that the country is rapidly switching to a more sustainable path.

Minister of Ecology and Environment Huang Runqiu told a news conference on Sept 15 that the country’s toughest measures and greatest progress on the ecological and environmental front have occurred in the last decade.

He said that __________ painstaking efforts to combat pollution, clear waters and blue skies have become more commonplace.

While poor air quality used to be a source of frequent public complaints, the average __________ of hazardous airborne PM2.5 particles dropped from 46 to 30 micrograms per cubic (立方的) meter between 2015 and last year.

About 87.5 percent of days last year were rated as having good air quality, up 6.3 percentage points from 2015, making China the country with the biggest __________ in air quality in the world.

In the last decade, the __________ of water at or above Grade III in the country’s five-tier water quality system rose 23.3 percentage points to 84.9 percent, close to the levels in developed countries. Carbon intensity, or carbon emissions per unit of GDP, has declined by 34.4 percent, with coal __________ for 56 percent of total energy consumption, compared to 68.5 percent a decade ago.

China has has legislated or revised roughly 30 laws and regulations, some of which focused on water resource protection, including the Water Pollution Prevention and Control Law, which was modified in 2017, and the Yangtze River Protection Law, which __________ last year.

1.

A．confused

B．impressed

C．obsessed

D．connected

2.

A．available

B．accessible

C．sustainable

D．substantial

3.

A．evident

B．attractive

C．invisible

D．unique

4.

A．donating

B．contributing

C．manufacturing

D．distributing

5.

A．fall behind

B．put forward

C．look up

D．catch up

6.

A．pollution

B．environment

C．ecology

D．emission

7.

A．probably

B．inevitably

C．incredibly

D．traditionally

8.

A．biological

B．advanced

C．far-reaching

D．green

9.

A．study

B．figures

C．technologies

D．innovation

10.

A．thanks to

B．despite

C．regardless of

D．other than

11.

A．height

B．length

C．concentration

D．weight

12.

A．obstacle

B．improvement

C．contribution

D．cultivation

13.

A．quality

B．flavor

C．deposit

D．proportion

14.

A．accounting

B．making

C．looking

D．applying

15.

A．took effect

B．took place

C．took to

D．took in

8 . All About Qatar

Location: Qatar is part of Asia and is in the Middle East.

It is in the northern hemisphere.

It is a peninsula (a strip of land sticking out into the ocean) surrounded by the Gulf. It has a land border in the south to Saudi Arabia.

Capital City: Doha

Official Language: Arabic. English is also widely spoken.

Currency: Qatari Riyal

Government: Qatar is an absolute monarchy. which means there is only one leader who is called an Emir. The Emir has the final say in all matters to do with governing the country.

Religion: Most Qataris are Muslim.

Flag: The flag of Qatar is maroon and white with a jagged line in between the two colours.

Climate: Qatar is warm all year round and gets very hot in summer. Temperatures can reach 50 degrees centigrade! Hardly any rain falls at all.

Sandstorms are common in Qatar.

Physical Features: Qatar is approximately 100 miles long from north to south and 50 miles from east to west. The land of Qatar is mostly barren, low plains which are covered in sandy desert.

Wildlife: There is hardly any vegetation in Qatar apart from desert shrubs and grasses. In the north there are some farming areas which produce crops including dates, tomatoes and melons. Animals like goats and camels are raised too.

·The most popular sport in Qatar is football and the country has many beautiful football stadiums.

·Qatar is the host for the 2022 FIFA football World Cup.

·Qatari cuisine uses lots of fresh fish, rice and spices.

·Coffee is a very popular drink in Qatar.

·Qatar is a wealthy country due to the large deposits of oil underneath the land and natural gas (which is mostly mined off-shore).

1. The underlined word “barren” probably means “______”.

A．sandy

B．poor

C．fertile

D．rich

2. Which of the following is true according to the passage?

A．Powerful as the Emir is, there is still something he can’t decided.

B．There is hardly any animal due to the lack of vegetation.

C．It is an island with border to Asia.

D．In Qatar, people communicate in Arabic and English.

3. Where does the passage most probably come from?

A．A travel review.	B．A tour instruction.
C．A newspaper.	D．An official introduction

9 . They, stretching along the shore, swim quite lovely, looking for underwater greens to feed on. However, in these days, something is mixing with the sea grass that manatees(海牛)like to eat along Florida’s western coast. And it’s making them sick-even killing them.

It’s a poisonous form of algae, which is usually called “red tide” because of its color. Algae are plant-like organisms that live mainly in water. Most are harmless, but red tide is an exception. When it gets mixed in with the grass and the manatees eat it, they get so sick that they can’t even swim.

“They’re basically paralyzed(瘫痪的), and they become unconscious,” said Virginia Emonds, an animal care manager. Manatees are mammals and they need to surface often to breathe in air. If a manatee is paralyzed, it can’t swim and will drown.

As of Monday, the current red tide outbreak has killed at least 184 manatees since the beginning of this year. That has already beaten Florida’s record-high number for manatee deaths in a single year-and we still have nearly nine months to go!

The experts aren’t sure when the red tide outbreak will end. So many more manatees are in danger. The situation has gotten so desperate that Florida zoos have rescued at least a dozen manatees. You can find manatees anywhere from Brazil up to Florida-and throughout much of the Caribbean Sea.

In fact, the manatee is officially considered an endangered species. Thanks to the US government’s protection, Florida’s manatee population has grown to approximately 5,000 in recent years. But the red tide is threatening their survival. Some experts suspect that pollution from farms even might be fueling the red tide outbreak, because fertilizer that’s used on farms often winds up in water. And when that fertilized water runs off into the Gulf of Mexico, it makes things grow faster-just like on land.

1. The word “them” (in the first paragraph) probably refers to “______”.

A．endangered animals	B．manatees
C．algae	D．underwater greens

2. We can learn from the passage that the red tide______.

A．has caused damage to most of the underwater greens

B．serves to cultivate farm lands

C．destroy manatees’ ability to surface to breathe

D．give rise to 184 manatees’ deaths every month

3. Which of the following is NOT mentioned in the passage?

A．The current situation of manatees in Florida.

B．The potential cause of the expansion of the red tide.

C．The fatal effect of the poisonous red tide on manatees

D．The researchers’ efforts to prevent the red tide from spreading.

4. What does the passage mainly talk about?

A．The red tide has been changing the manatees’ habitat.

B．The red tide has been posing a threat to the manatees.

C．The manatee is officially an endangered species.

D．More efforts should be put to save the manatees.

10 . Thanks to their evolutionary ancestry, domestic cats are, actually by their nature, more independent than dogs. Our cats, whose wild ancestors didn’t enjoy living in social groups as dogs do, _______, during the process of domestication, gradually developed the capability to form social relationships not just with other cats, but also with people.

Although independent cats may not _______ upon people to gain security as dogs do, they show affection for their guardians and seem to attach importance to the _______ of their human companions. Their strong attachment to humans is partly _______ by their experiences of being cared by people as a kitten. Cats behave towards humans in the exactly same way that they respond to their feline friends, so the secret of whether your cat feels _______ to you lies in their behaviour.

Cats have successfully gained an edge for their outstanding ability to communicate with other cats over long distances and even when no longer _______ present. Our pet cats have _______ this “supersense” and depend heavily on this form of communication. Particularly, cats use scent to identify members of their social group or family, by sharing a group scent profile. Cats have specific scent glands on their flanks, head and around their ears, and often rub their heads against people and objects that are familiar and _______. The soft sensation you feel against your calves is actually your cat _______ you as a friend and is a huge compliment.

One of the most signs that your beloved pet is keen on you, is the way your cat greets you. When cats greet members of their social group, they ________ to show signals to indicate friendship and a desire to move closer. Also, Cats show these signals to humans. Rolling over and________ their vulnerable under belly to you is another distinct gesture that a cat has ultimate faith in you.

Besides, your cat might also be secretly signalling their affection by changing the way they look at you. When cats ________ strange humans or other cats they aren’t familiar with, they usually greet them with an ________ stare. But they are more likely to slowly blink at cats they have a good relationship with. Research indicates slow blinks are ________ a positive emotional state and can be a sign of trust, contentment and affection, ________ to a genuine human smile.

1.

A．however

B．meanwhile

C．besides

D．otherwise

2.

A．put

B．rest

C．calculate

D．stick

3.

A．company

B．edge

C．resolution

D．affection

4.

A．weakened

B．affected

C．worsened

D．strengthened

5.

A．distanced

B．perceived

C．bonded

D．appealed

6.

A．physiologically

B．physically

C．psychologically

D．realistically

7.

A．ignored

B．abandoned

C．overlooked

D．possessed

8.

A．comforting

B．exhausting

C．enduring

D．charming

9.

A．demanding

B．approaching

C．identifying

D．defining

10.

A．prepare

B．tend

C．wish

D．contribute

11.

A．exposing

B．committing

C．attaching

D．pushing

12.

A．knock

B．bump

C．encounter

D．stare

13.

A．unknown

B．undecided

C．unblinking

D．uncertain

14.

A．associated with

B．addicted to

C．adjusted to

D．assumed to

15.

A．critical

B．similar

C．grateful

D．decent