Pam Bales left her car and stepped onto the snow-covered Jewell Trail. She planned a six-hour hike through New Hampshire’s Mount Washington State Park. The hike up the lower part of Jewell was pleasant. At 8:30 am, still below the tree line, she took the first in a series of on-the-trail selfies.
Less than an hour later, she took another photo, after she’d climbed into colder air and deeper snows. She made her way across the snow-covered ridge toward Mount Washington. Then she noticed something: a single set of footprints in the snow ahead of her. She’d been following faint tracks all day and hadn’t given them much thought, because so many people climb Jewell Trail. But these, she realized, had been made by a pair of trainers, not suitable for hiking on snow.
By 11 am, Bales was getting cold and decided to abandon her plan. The only thing keeping Bales on Gulfside Trail was the trainer tracks in the sonw. As she fought the wind and heavy sleet (雨夹雪), the tracks made a hard left-hand turn off the trail.
Now she alarmed. She was sure the hiker could get through in the ow visibility and was heading straight toward the challenging trails of the Great Gulf Wilderness. Bales stood there, stunned. The temperature and clouds were in a race to find their lowest point, and darkness was mere hours away. She turned to the left and called out, “Hello!” into the frozen fog.
Nothing. She called out again: “Is anybody out there? Do you need help?”
The strong westerly winds carried her voice away. She blew into her rescue whistle. For a fleeting moment she thought she heard someone reply, but it was just the wind playing games with her mind. She stood listening, then turned and walked cautiously in the direction of the single set of tracks. Bales followed the tracks cautiously for 20 to 30 meters. She rounded a slight corner and saw a man sitting motionless.
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。
When she approached him and said hello, he did not react.
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After waking the man up, Bales recognized that they had to get out of there soon.
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2 . People living in some northern Italian towns face fines for wasting water as mayors ration(定量供应) supplies amid a severe drought.
Italy has had one of its driest winters in the last 65 years, with rainfall 80% lower than the seasonal average. The situation has been more acute in northern regions, where some areas have been deprived(剥夺) of significant rainfall for three months or more. The Po, the county’s longest river, is at its lowest level recorded in winter since 1972.
Mayors of towns in regions including Piedmont, Liguria, Lombardy and Trentino have introduced water-rationing measures, ranging from fountains being switched off and nightly restrictions on tap water to bans on using water for gardens and allotments(小块菜地), for washing cars and filling swimming pools.
“I don’t ever recall a situation of this kind in winter. We haven’t had any rain since 8 December,” said Francesco Pietrasanta, the mayor of Quarona, a town in Piedmont. “The rule is to only use water for real necessity, such as for hygiene(卫生) or food reasons.”
The winter drought followed an intense, protected heatwave across Italy last summer. In August, Siracusa in Sicily is believed to have broken the European record for the highest temperature when it recorded a figure of 48.8℃. Snowfall has also been below average this winter. Scientists have long predicted that the climate crisis and global heating would lead to more frequent extreme weather.
Rain is forecast in the north and the rest of Italy from Wednesday, although Pietrasanta said it would need to be significant to resolve the water shortage. “We might get some rain on Friday but I’m not sure it will be enough,” he said. “This situation ought to make us think about changing policy to manage water in a different way, especially with climate change.”
1. Why are the statistics listed in paragraph 2?| A．To stress the severity of drought. |
| B．To show climate differences in regions. |
| C．To present the consequence of low temperature. |
| D．To discuss the possibility of rainfall |
| A．Turning off foundations. | B．Swimming in public pools. |
| C．Watering gardens in the morning. | D．Using modest tap water at night. |
| A．The ongoing climate change. | B．The heatwave last summer. |
| C．The absence of snowfall. | D．The overconsumption of water. |
| A．Similar situations have appeared before in northern Italy |
| B．Measures should be adopted to tackle water shortage |
| C．The coming rain will be sufficient to solve problems |
| D．Proper policies have been put in place since the crisis |
| A．August. | B．September. | C．October. |
4 . Most birds, in particular, exhibit some degree of patterns and colours. Australia’s zebra finch (斑胸草雀), for example, was so named because of the zebra-like black and white bars on its tail. But it also has many other colours and patterns, from a bright orange bill to fine white spotting along its reddish-brown sides.
The zebra finch is Australia’s widely distributed grass-finch species, occurring throughout most of mainland Australia. It’s a common and familiar bird in the drier parts of the country.
When we see such a highly patterned bird we presume all individuals of that species have their spots and bars in the same places. But look closer and we’ll see that the quantity and design of these patterns varies between individuals. And every now and then a bird exhibits a more obvious feather variation. Occasionally, we see one that has larger than usual pale areas of feathers or, more rarely, has lost its normal patterning altogether.
Colouration and patterning in all animals is caused by a range of pigments (色素). Melanin (黑色素) is responsible for blacks and browns, and a lack of this pigment can cause a partial or total loss of an individual’s dark patterning. The two main terms that describe these abnormalities are albinism (白化病) and leucism (白色亚种). Both conditions are genetic and both can lead to a very similar physical appearance. Leucism, however, causes a lack of the pigment cells that produce melanin. But albinism causes the production of melanin pigment to be reduced or absent.
Can we distinguish between the two conditions without the help of a cellular biologist? Yes. Albino animals have fully unpigmented red eyes. Leucistic animals, on the other hand, never completely lose pigment from the eye, although they can have blue eyes due to a partial loss of pigment.
Why don’t we see more albino or leucistic birds? Because the lack of melanin reduces the strength and lastingness of the affected birds’ feathers, making them more easily broken. Additionally, the birds’ vision and hearing is negatively affected, making them less able to hunt. The brighter feathers and lack of patterning also make them easier for attackers to see.
1. What can be learned about Australia’s zebra finch?| A．It is one of the rarest birds in Australia. |
| B．It is mostly covered with bright orange feathers. |
| C．It acquires its name from its tail colours and patterns. |
| D．It has the same spots and bars in the same places. |
| A．Recall. | B．Suppose. | C．Deny. | D．Recommend. |
| A．By setting assumptions. | B．By presenting opinions. |
| C．By giving explanations. | D．By drawing conclusions. |
| A．They have quite good hearing. | B．They have completely red eyes. |
| C．They have easily broken feathers. | D．They have excellent hunting skills. |
5 . Fort Smith National Historic Site
At the Fort Smith National Historic Site you can walk where the Mexican-American War and the Civil War soldiers drilled, pause along the Trail of Tears, and stand where justice was served to some of the most horrible outlaws (歹徒) of the Wild West. The park includes:
Trail of Tears Overlook
Walk along the great Arkansas River and enjoy exhibit panels that tell the story of the Five Civilized Tribes that were forcibly remove to Indian Territory. The walking path begins from the parking lot and follows along the Arkansas River to Belle Point.
Belle Point (Site of First Fort Smith)
Established in 1817 at an area overlooking the meeting point of the Arkansas River and the Poteau River, it had been named Belle Point, French for “beautiful place,” by 18th-century French fur trappers. Visitors will enjoy a scenic view of the two rivers and are able to walk the foundation remains of the First Fort Smith.
Commissary (杂货店) (Site of Second Fort Smith)
The oldest building still standing in Fort Smith is the Commissary, the site of the Second Fort Smith. During the Federal Court period, Judge Parker’s private office was located upstairs. Today, you can visit the Commissary as it looked in the 1850s when it supplied the army with food items. You can also see the reconstruction of the Fort Smith Gallows where a surprisingly large number of outlaws met their fate at the end of a rope.
Visitor Center
The Visitor Center is located in the historic barracks (兵营) / courthouse / jail (监狱) building. The barracks was built in 1851 and was changed into a courthouse and jail in 1872. In 1888 a new jail building was built next to it. Here visitors can see Judge Parker’s restored courtroom, the “Hell on the Border” jail, as well as exhibits and videos on the operation of the Federal Court and its impact on Indian Territory.
Price: $10 (Adults 16+), FREE (Ages 0-15), $35 Annual Pass
1. Where can visitors learn about the history of the forced removals?| A．At the site of the Second Fort Smith. |
| B．On the way to Belle Point from the car park. |
| C．In the historic barracks / courthouse / jail building. |
| D．At the meeting point of the Arkansas and Poteau rivers. |
| A．Tour the oldest grocery store in Fort Smith. |
| B．See the restored Fort Smith Gallows. |
| C．Explore Judge Parker’s bedroom. |
| D．Visit the courtroom and the jail. |
| A．$10. | B．$20. | C．$35. | D．$70. |
6 . There is increasing alarm about the extent of microplastic pollution, which has been found everywhere from Everest to the Arctic. However, it turns out there’s an even smaller and more toxic form of plastic pollution entering remote reaches of the globe. A new study published in Environmental Research found significant quantities of nanoplastics in ice samples from both the North and South Poles.
“Now we know that nanoplastics are transported to these corners of the Earth in these quantities. This indicates that nanoplastics are really a bigger pollution problem than we thought,” study lead author Dusan Materic said in a press release.
Nanoplastics are plastics that are smaller than a micrometer in size. Their small size means they are more difficult to study than microplastics, or plastics between five millimeters and a micrometer. But they may be even more dangerous.
“Nanoplastics are very toxicologically (毒理学地) active compared to, for instance, microplastics, and that’s why this is very important,” Materic said.
Materic and his team used new methods to measure nanoplastic pollution in ice samples from Greenland and Antarctica. They sampled a 14-meter-deep ice core from the Greenland ice cap and sea ice from Antarctica’s McMurdo Sound. They found that there were an average of 13.2 nanograms per milliliter of nanoplastics in the Greenland ice and an average of 52.3 nanograms per milliliter in the Antarctic ice.
But what was even more surprising than the amount of nanoplastics in the remote ice was just how long they had sat there. “In the Greenland core, we see nanoplastic pollution happening all the way from the 1960s. So organisms in that region, despite the lack of the solid evidence, likely all over the world, have been exposed to it for quite some time now,” Materic said.
The study also looked at the types of plastic present in the samples. Half of the Greenland nanoplastics were polyethylene (PE), the kind of plastic used for plastic bags and packaging. A quarter came from tires and a fifth were polyethylene terephthalate (PET), which is used for clothing and bottles.
1. Why should researchers focus more on nanoplastics?| A．They are more important to science. | B．They are smaller but more dangerous. |
| C．They are easily polluted by ocean water. | D．They are more active in cold surroundings. |
| A．The North and South poles are the birthplace of nanoplastics. |
| B．Kanoplastics have less influence on the planet than microplastics. |
| C．Nanoplastics found in the samples are widely used in the daily life. |
| D．Nanoplastics have been existing since the 1960s throughout the world. |
| A．Greenland ice cap. | B．Antarctica’s McMurdo. |
| C．The south and north poles. | D．All places in the world. |
| A．Mircoplastics—proving more dangerous. | B．Nanoplastics—making its way to the poles. |
| C．Nanoplastics—posing a threat to people’s life. | D．Mircoplastics—setting the alarm bells ringing. |
7 . A handful of healthy soil could contain great numbers of living organisms. However, poisonous pesticides (杀虫剂) are causing harm and destruction to them, according to a recent analysis.
For the analysis, researchers looked through nearly 400 published studies including over 2,800 experiments on how pesticides affect soil organisms. They found that pesticides harmed organisms critical to maintaining healthy soils, but these harms have never been considered in the safety reviews of the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency).Poisonous pesticides are driving factors in the sharp decline of many soil organisms, such as ground beetles. They have been identified as the most significant driver of soil biodiversity loss in the last ten years.
However, that research has always been ignored. The EPA, which is responsible for pesticide supervision(监管)in the country, openly acknowledges that somewhere between 50 and 100 percent of all agriculturally applied pesticides end up on the soil. Yet, to assess pesticides’ harms to soil species, the agency just uses a single test species, the European honeybee, to estimate risk to all soil organisms. It spends its entire life above ground in artificial boxes.
Worse still, as soil health gain popularity globally, pesticide companies have jumped up to green wash and promote their products. Every major company is now advertising its role in improving soil health, such as advocating planting cover crops. As general beliefs, these practices are indeed good for soil health and, if adopted responsibly, are a great step to take. But companies know that these practices are often accompanied by increased pesticide use. Chemicals and pesticides have to be applied more frequently to kill weeds before crops are planted.
The long-term environmental cost can no longer be overlooked. Soils are some of the most complex ecosystems on Earth, containing nearly a quarter of the planet’s biodiversity. Protecting them should be a priority, not an afterthought.
1. What does the underlined word “They” refer to in Paragraph 2?| A．Soil organisms. | B．Ground beetles. |
| C．Artificial boxes. | D．Poisonous pesticides. |
| A．The honeybee is a typical species living in nature. |
| B．The assessment of pesticides’ harms is one-sided. |
| C．Less than half of applied pesticide go to the soil eventually. |
| D．The EPA attaches great importance to pesticide inspection. |
| A．To obey the EPA’s rules. |
| B．To increase their product sales. |
| C．To protect the environment. |
| D．To shoulder their social responsibility. |
| A．Soil: essential to agriculture. |
| B．Pesticides: harmful to soil health. |
| C．Organisms: significant to harvest. |
| D．Pollution: destructive to biodiversity. |
8 . Building good transportation is a good idea. To have environmental value, new transportation has to sufficiently replace or eliminate driving to cut energy consumption overall. That means that a new traffic system has to be supported by reduction in car use. Traffic lanes should be eliminated or converted into bike or bus lanes. Ideally, these should be combined with higher fuel taxes, and parking fees. Needless to say, I have to struggle to make myself extensively understood. But they’re necessary, because you can’t make people drive less, in the long run, by taking steps that make driving more pleasant, economical, and productive.
Lengthy commuting (通勤) time is a forceful factor which can slow the growth of suburbs. The farther people live away from cities, the longer commuting time they need, which means more pollution their cars produce. If, in a misguided effort to do something of environmental value, governments take steps that make long-distance car commuting faster or more convenient—by adding lanes, building bypass, employing traffic-control measures that make it possible for existing roads to accommodate more cars with fewer delays—we are actually encouraging people to live still farther from their jobs, stores, and schools. As a result, governments are forced to further extend road networks, water lines, and other facilities. If you cut commuting time by 10 percent, people who now drive fifty miles each way to work can find reason to move five miles farther out, because their travel time won’t change.
Traffic congestion (拥堵) isn’t an environmental problem; traffic is. Relieving congestion without doing anything to reduce the total volume of cars can only make the real problem worse. Highway engineers have known for a long time that building new car lanes only temporarily reduces congestion, because the new lanes add additional driving. Widening roads makes traffic move faster in the short term, but the improved conditions eventually attract additional drivers, and congestion reappears. With more car on the roads, people think about widening roads again. Moving drivers out of cars and into other forms of transportation can have the same effect, if existing traffic lanes are kept in service: road space stimulates road use.
One of the arguments that cities inevitably make in promoting transportation plans is that the new system, by relieving automobile congestion, will improve the lives of those who continue to drive. No one ever promotes a transportation system by arguing that it would make travelling less convenient—even though, from an environmental perspective, inconvenient travel is a worthy goal.
1. In the first paragraph, the author gives us the hint that his recommendations are ______.| A．not widely supported | B．costly to carry out |
| C．generally recognized | D．temporarily beneficial |
| A．Drivers will become more productive employees. |
| B．Mass transportation will be extended farther into suburban areas. |
| C．Drivers will be more willing to live farther from their working place. |
| D．Mass transportation will carry fewer passengers and receive less government funding. |
| A．They are environmentally beneficial and should be carried out immediately. |
| B．They are well intentioned but ultimately lead to environmental harm. |
| C．They will definitely arouse people’s awareness of environmental protection. |
| D．They will only work if they can make driving more economical and productive. |
| A．support the claim that efforts to reduce traffic actually increase traffic. |
| B．oppose the belief that improving mass transportation systems is good for the environment. |
| C．provide a balance between suburban expansion and traffic congestion. |
| D．indicate that making driving less agreeable is a way to reduce negative effects of traffic. |
9 . Last weekend, I said goodbye to another dear old friend. We had 12 fine years together, but our relationship was becoming dysfunctional(不正常的). Unwanted emissions and serious health problems were the final straw, leaving me with no choice but to make a trip to the knacker’s(收废汽车者的)yard.
I am now car-free for the first time in 20 years, and it feels strange. When I gave up meat, I did so mainly for environmental reasons, and I didn’t miss it at all. I would like to say the same about my car, but I can’t. It was first and foremost a financial decision: keeping the old car on the road was getting too expensive.
But doing the right thing for the wrong reasons is still doing the right thing — I now have a chance to rethink how I move myself and my family around, and can try to find a more environmentally friendly means of transport.
Going car-free is, I think, a lifestyle change that many of us are going to make over the next few years, as car ownership becomes increasingly unnecessary, expensive and socially unacceptable. However, it is easier said than done. Now my car is gone. I still need to get around. But how? I already cycle to work and use public transport when appropriate. But there are some occasions when a car seems to be the only way.
I won’t buy one: I have joined a car-share program and will use taxis more often. I will hire a car if I need to drive a long distance. But then I am still travelling in fossil-fuelled cars(燃油汽车), like when I quit meat and ended up eating more cheese. I fear I may have swapped one environmental problem for another.
I am also afraid to think about the ultimate fate of my car. I have just offloaded more than a ton of metal, plastic, rubber, fabric, electronics, oil and petrol that will end up in a landfill. There are millions of similar vehicles in the UK alone that will have to go somewhere.
Maybe I am overthinking it. According to Charlie Wilson, a climate scientist at the UK’s Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, getting rid of a private car is no doubt a positive step to reduce CO2 emissions.
He points to research by the OECD’s International Transport Forum. “They showed that moving from a private vehicle fleet(车队)to a shared vehicle fleet can greatly cut the number of vehicles you need to deliver the mobility that we need and want. If that vehicle fleet is electrified, you can also bring CO2 emissions close to zero.”
So in other words, just get rid of your car.
1. What do we know about the author’s car?| A．It was old. | B．It was green. |
| C．It was his first car. | D．It was a second-hand car. |
| A．He did both for the wrong reasons. | B．He thinks both help him save money. |
| C．He considers both are right decisions. | D．He did both out of concern for the environment. |
| A．He may have to spend more on travel. |
| B．His lifestyle might be changed completely. |
| C．He might get bored with public transportation. |
| D．His decision may fail to help the environment. |
| A．It is wise to do away with old private cars. |
| B．It is very easy to deal with old private cars. |
| C．Electric cars are the solution to traffic problems. |
| D．The OECD plays a key role in promoting car-sharing. |
| A．The one of a tiger. | B．The one of a horse. | C．The one of an elephant. |
