1 . It might be strange to wear clothes made out of plastic bottles. But in fact some clothing companies are already making such clothes.
Fashion brand JUMA recently showed its newest collection at a workshop in Shanghai. Eighteen clothing items from the collection, including jump-suits, jackets, shirts and dresses, were made from recycled plastic bottles. “We realized that billions of water bottles were being thrown into landfills and oceans every year and that these bottles take hundreds of years to decompose (分解). We thought we should use them to create our clothes and help the environment,” said Alia Juma, the company’s design director.
Many other fashion companies are finding similar ways to save our planet these days. The process is rather simple. First, the plastic bottles are washed and cut into small pieces. Then they are melted and shaped into small balls. The balls are melted again to form thread. People can then use the thread to make different kinds of clothes.
According to Juma, it takes 67,000 bottles to create 1 ton of thread. This reduces carbon emissions by 4.2 tons and water use by 6.2 tons compared with the normal way of making thread. “4 bottles can make a pillowcase. 5 can make a shirt, 10 a dress and 20 a short coat,” Juma said.
Some people might have doubts about wearing something made out of plastic bottles. But according to Causeartist, a website that focuses on innovation, clothes made from plastic could be even better than nylon and polyester. Plastic thread can be made into different textures, such as cotton, silk or even wool. “The more we learn about recycled fabrics, the more we realize that they work just like other fabrics. You can get a heavier cotton feeling or a silky feeling by weaving the yarns into different textures and using different washing methods. There is actually a lot you can do with this fabric,” Juma said.
The price for the clothes in the new collection ranges from 500 to 3,000 yuan. However, Juma is optimistic that prices will fall when more companies follow the sustainability path taken by her business.
1. Why is fashion brand JUMA now making clothes from plastic bottles?| A．Because too many bottles are being thrown away. |
| B．Because the company has advanced technology. |
| C．Because people are fond of wearing such clothes. |
| D．Because recycling the bottles is good for the Earth. |
| A．Creating 1 ton of thread in the normal way brings about 4.2 tons of carbon emissions. |
| B．Making clothes from plastic bottles reduces carbon footprint and is worth the effort. |
| C．A fashion company can make as many as 300 short coats using only 1 ton of thread. |
| D．The new way of making thread from plastic bottles is not harmful to the environment. |
| A．Doubtful. | B．Critical. | C．Supportive. | D．Disapproving. |
| A．To advertise fashion brand JUMA. | B．To introduce a new type of clothes. |
| C．To praise fashion companies’ creativity. | D．To express concern about the Earth. |
1. How was the weather early in the morning?
| A．Sunny. | B．Cloudy. | C．Rainy. |
| A．Disappointed. | B．Ambiguous. | C．Understanding. |
3 . Need to get rid of old clothes? You’re not alone: With fast fashion, it’s easier than ever to follow trends. But cheap clothes aren’t made to last, most of which often end up in a landfill (垃圾填埋场). Take US as an example: per person generates an average of 82 pounds of such waste every year, with 85 per cent of it going to landfills even though 95 per cent can be reused.
Donating is a popular alternative — but know that only about 10 to 20 per cent of donated clothing gets sold at thrift shops (廉价旧货店). While all but five per cent of donated clothes are resold for reuse or recycling, it’s impossible to know exactly how much ultimately becomes trash.
The best way to ensure good, usable clothing doesn’t become waste is to increase the chances it ends up with someone who wants it. First, don’t wait too long if you choose to donate clothing to an organization, big or small. The sooner you donate your unwanted items, the more demand there is for them. Wherever you donate, ensure clothes are clean and dry. If it’s damaged or stained, don’t send it to thrift shops. They don’t have the capacity to do repairs and it just creates a financial burden in addition to the eco-burden, and defeats the purpose of the charitable action.
Clothes that are stained or damaged beyond repair will likely never be re-worn but can still be diverted (使转向) from landfills. You can send your clothes directly to recycling companies, like through Retold Recycling or municipal programmes. Old clothes can be downcycled into other items like wipers for car washes, and even generated into new textiles (织品).
Recycling is better than landfilling. It might take time to do a little research to find the right organization that can actually use the items you’re looking to give away. But it’s more rewarding than throwing everything in a big garbage bag, dumping it into a bin, and hoping for the best.
1. What can be learnt about fast fashion?| A．It has reduced the eco-burden. |
| B．It has caused clothing waste. |
| C．It has lost its appeal in the US. |
| D．It has led to a rise in landfills. |
| A．To show the seriousness of the clothing waste. |
| B．To criticize the spending habits of Americans. |
| C．To push for tougher laws against fast fashion. |
| D．To offer practical advice on managing landfills. |
| A．Make them into new textiles. |
| B．Put as many into landfills as possible. |
| C．Downcycle them into wipers. |
| D．Donate them to where they are needed. |
| A．Critical. | B．Indifferent. | C．Supportive. | D．Unclear. |
| A．Rainy. | B．Sunny. | C．Windy. |
5 . How Weather Affects Our Mood
The weather supplies many metaphors (隐喻) for our changeable minds. Moods can brighten and darken, futures can be under a cloud, and relationships can be stormy.
Of the many aspects of weather, sunshine is the most closely tied to mood. Although the link is weaker than many people imagine, sunlight has repeatedly been found to increase positive moods and reduce tiredness.
Indeed, the effects of weather on mood depend on our behavior and on how we think.
| A．Similarly, grey weather may encourage serious and calm thinking |
| B．Aspects of weather beyond heat and sunshine have also been shown to affect mood |
| C．Weather provides a vivid language for describing our emotional atmosphere |
| D．Temperature can also affect our mind and behavior |
| E．But the effects of weather on mood are not entirely biological |
| F．Anything that changes our moods can affect our behavior |
| G．Basically, weather will only influence us if we are outdoors experiencing it |
6 . Art may not be a uniquely human patent. Apes (猿), monkeys, elephants, dolphins and even rabbits can be encouraged to express themselves via pencil and paper.
New research on the artistic efforts of apes suggests that their work varies according to changes in the world around them. The new study, published in the journal Animals, focuses on hundreds of drawings produced by five female apes at Japan’s Tama Zoological Park, where keepers provided them with crayons and paper over many years as part of a behavioural enrichment programme.
One of the apes, named Molly, was especially productive. She only started drawing on her 54th birthday, but from that point on, until her death five years later, she produced about 1,300 pictures. She drew almost every day, creating more complex pictures than her companions. “I don’t know if we can describe her as a genius,” says Sueur, a biologist in the park. “Such differences are often observed between individuals of a species, with some smarter than others.” Sueur and his colleagues identified individual differences between the apes’ artistic styles, in terms of their preferred colors, the types of shapes they drew and the space they filled on the paper. Only Molly routinely filled most of the space available.
Molly’s style changed with the season too. In summer and winter, greens dominated her pictures, but she switched to pinks and purples in spring and autumn. Appealingly, she opted for red whenever another female in the group was giving birth, which may indicate that her paintings are something more than purely abstract.
“We’ve tried not to overinterpret,” says Sueur. “It could be earlier representational art.” The biologists suggest that apes may provide clues to the development of artistic skills in humans. Like children, and unlike other species known to put pen to paper, the apes needed no reward to participate in the task, suggesting that they enjoy it for its own interest.
1. What can we learn from the first two paragraphs?| A．Female animals are talented at the creation of art. |
| B．The artistic style of animals remains unchanged. |
| C．Some animals can develop artistic skills like humans. |
| D．Animals are capable of creating masterpieces through efforts. |
| A．Talented. | B．Human-like. | C．Open-minded. | D．Competitive. |
| A．Help people know better about apes. |
| B．Gain a new perspective of the evolution of art. |
| C．Better protect the friends of humans-animals. |
| D．Appeal to humans to learn from apes. |
| A．Work hard, play hard. | B．Well begun is half done. |
| C．Look before you leap. | D．Interest is the best teacher. |
7 . In the animal kingdom, killer whales (虎鲸) are social stars: they travel in varied family groups, care for grandchildren, and even imitate human speech. Now, scientists are adding one more behavior to the list: forming fast friendships. A new study shows killer whales can rival animals such as chimpanzees and macaques (a kind of monkey), and even humans when it comes to the kind of “social touch” that indicates strong bonds.
Some ocean animals maintain social structures — including male dolphins that learn the “names” of their close allies (盟友). But there is little data about wild killer whales. That’s where drone (无人机) technology came in. Michael Weiss, a behavioral ecologist, teamed up with his colleagues to launch drones, flying them 30 to 120 meters above a group of killer whales. That was high enough not to trouble the whales, marking the first time drones have been used to study friendly physical contact in whales.
The researchers recorded over 800 instances of physical contact between individuals. Those included hugs, back-to-back and nose-to-nose touches between pairs of whales. Other whales playfully threw young whales into the air, letting them fall into the water. Besides, the drone images revealed clear preferences among individuals, usually for one “best friend” of the same sex and age. Take J49 and J51 — two distantly related young males aged 9 and 6 — for instance. “Every time you see a group of whales, those two are right there interacting with each other,” Weiss says.
The young led most of these interactions, rather than the older females or males. Older males in particular were less important. “The young individuals really seem to be the glue holding the groups together,” Weiss says. As individuals age, this gradual loss of “centrality” is known in many social mammals, including humans. That finding is “especially appealing” to Stacey Tecot, who wasn’t involved in the study. “Scientists have long observed this social aging trend in animals, but there are still many unanswered questions,” she says. That’s certainly on the researchers’ radar. “We’re already gathering new data, with more advanced equipment,” says Weiss.
1. What does the underlined word “rival” in Paragraph 1 probably mean?| A．Benefit from. | B．Be equal to. | C．Depend on. | D．Be fond of. |
| A．The research method. | B．The variety of species. |
| C．The size of the research team. | D．The time spent on the research. |
| A．They have a stable friendship. | B．Their interactions are more complicated. |
| C．Their communicating ways change frequently. | D．They prefer playing with young female whales. |
| A．More researchers will be involved in the study. |
| B．Other scientists take a negative attitude to the research. |
| C．Researchers will collect more data to study killer whales. |
| D．Researchers will uncover the social aging trend in animals soon. |
8 . The world’s forests may hold more secrets than previously thought: a new global estimate of tree biodiversity suggests that there are about 9,200 tree species remaining undocumented. Most are likely in the tropics, according to the new research.
The new research drew on the efforts of hundreds of contributors, who have categorized trees in two huge data sets: One, the Global Forest Biodiversity Initiative, records every species found in extensively documented forest plots worldwide. The other, TREECHANGE, puts together sightings of individual species. Together they suggest there are approximately 64,100 recorded tree species on the planet — up from previous estimates of around 60,000.
The researchers reached their estimate of an additional 9,200 yet undocumented species on the basis of the number of rare ones already in the databases. Most unknown species are likely to be defined as rare, found in limited numbers in small geographical areas, says the quantitative forest ecologist Jingjing Liang. The team’s result is “a rather conservative estimate,” Liang says, “because scientists know less about the preponderance of uncommon trees in places such as the Amazon, where out-of-the-way spots could host pockets of unusual species found nowhere else.” “If we can focus the resources on those rain forests in the Amazon,” Liang adds, “then we would be able to estimate it with higher confidence.”
Silman, a conservation biologist, who was not involved in the new study agrees that the study result is likely an underestimate. His and his colleagues’ local surveys suggest there are at least 3,000 and possibly more than 6,000 unknown tree species in the Amazon basin alone. Tree species often get grouped together based on appearance, he notes, so new genetic analysis techniques will likely lead to the discovery of even more biodiversity. Sliman wonders how many species will go extinct before scientists describe them. “How many are already known to native peoples in the Amazon — or were known to peoples or cultures who have themselves been made extinct through colonization, disease, or absorption? How many “species” already have dried samples sitting in a cabinet?” he says.
Searching for the new species will inform not only conservation but the basic evolutionary science of how and why species diversify and die out, Silman says. “Just the fact that there are thousands of species of something as common as trees out there that are still left to be discovered,” he adds, “I find pretty inspirational.”
1. What is the finding of the new research?| A．About nine thousand new tree species have been identified. |
| B．Thousands of tree species remain unknown to science. |
| C．Maintaining tree diversity has become a global challenge. |
| D．Human activities have led to the reduced number of trees. |
| A．The researchers adopted quality method to analyze data. |
| B．The researchers did extensive field study in out-of-the-way spots. |
| C．Inferring from the existing dada is the main research method. |
| D．Doing surveys and interviews is the main research method. |
| A．majority | B．evolution | C．cultivation | D．capability |
| A．genetic analysis technique failed to produce accurate information |
| B．trees of similar sizes in the Amazon basin are grouped together |
| C．too many rare trees were made into dried samples before being documented |
| D．the local peoples or the local cultures are not fully aware of the tree species. |
9 . Coral reefs in Florida have lost an estimated 90% of their corals in the last 40 years. This summer, a marine heat wave hit Florida’s coral reefs. The record high temperatures created an extremely stressful environment for the coral reefs, which are currently also experiencing intense coral bleaching (白化).
A coral is an animal, which has a symbiotic relationship with a microscopic algae (藻类). The algae gets energy from the sun and shares it with the coral internally. The coral builds a rock-like structure, which makes up most of the reef, providing homes and food for many organisms that live there. Coral bleaching is when the symbiotic relationship breaks down. Without the algae, the corals appear white because the rock skeleton becomes visible. If the bleaching continues for an extended period, the corals can starve to death without the energy.
Florida is on the front lines of climate change. It is also on the cutting edge of restoration science. Many labs, institutions and other organizations are working nonstop to protect and maintain the coral reefs. This includes efforts to understand what is troubling the reef, from disease outbreaks to coastal development impacts. It also includes harvesting coral spawn (卵), or growing and planting coral parts. Scientists moved many coral nurseries into deeper water and shore-based facilities during this marine heat wave. They are digging into the DNA of the coral to discover which species will survive best in future.
There are some bright spots in the story, however. Some corals have recovered from the bleaching, and many did not bleach at all. In addition, researchers recorded coral spawning. Although it’s not clear yet whether the larvae (幼虫) will be successful in the wild, it’s a sign of recovery potential. If the baby corals survive, they will be able to regrow the reef. They just have to avoid one big boss: human-induced climate change.
1. What does the underlined word “symbiotic” in paragraph 2 mean?| A．Reliable. | B．Opposite. | C．Harmonious. | D．Contradictory. |
| A．The rock skeleton. | B．The microscopic algae. |
| C．The high temperatures. | D．The symbiotic relationship. |
| A．Transferring coral nurseries. | B．Growing and planting coral spawn. |
| C．Researching the DNA of the coral. | D．Figuring out the reasons for problems. |
| A．Identifiable. | B．Predictable. | C．Far-reaching. | D．Effective. |
10 . They say once you learn to ride a bike, you never forget. Most of us learned to ride when we were kids, and many still wear our helmets, put our feet on the pedals, and shoot off for a ride on the streets. In recent times, cycling has seen an increase in popularity, so many people raise a question:
First, let’s look at the health benefits. Cycling can improve your cardiovascular (心血管的) health and burn extra body fat. Strengthening your muscles in your legs helps increase your potential torque (扭矩) and cadence (节奏).
Cycling can be a great way to go to work or get about town.
So, whether people want to cycle for their health, their wallet, the environment, or a combination of all of them —the popularity of cycling is on the rise.
| A．What makes cycling so convenient? |
| B．But cyclists face neither of these issues. |
| C．And people will choose to go to work by cycling. |
| D．This can save you a lot of money on fuel or public transportation. |
| E．Finally, cycling can also be good for the environment. |
| F．And the benefits from cycling aren’t just physical, but mental as well. |
| G．What makes it so attractive for people to take their bikes once again? |
