1 . Babusha, or “eight-step sands”, got its name because the desert was always just eight steps away from the farmers’ doors. Today, the desert’s southward movement has been stopped thanks to a green belt planted in the last 40 years by Guo Wangang and his colleagues. As a result, Guo was named a National Moral Model in 2020.
Guo is only part of the second generation of “soldiers” to fight against the desert. His father was one of the six men who first began planting trees in Babusha. When Guo’s father fell ill in 1983, he hoped that his son would follow in his footsteps.
Guo remembers being reluctant to give up his stable government job. “My father repeatedly stressed that we had to make sure our farms weren’t eaten by the desert,” Guo said, adding that he eventually agreed to work at the farm because he didn’t want to see the trees die.
However, it was the deadly sandstorm in 1993 that turned Guo into a determined “soldier”. The fast moving brown wall of dust reached high into the sky and turned day into night. Guo was working in the desert with his colleagues when it hit. They only managed to get home after trekking for six hours in darkness. Later, he learned that 23 students were found dead in a river as they tried to get home from school during the sandstorm.
Since then, Guo and his colleagues have continued planting trees every spring and fall, pruning (修剪) them in winter and watching out for fire. Their struggle continues. Today more and more young people have joined with scientific and innovative methods. For example, the farm now is subsidized (资助) by Ant Forest, a public welfare project launched by the e-commerce giant, Alibaba. It rewards users with virtual energy in exchange for low-carbon activities, which can then be used to do things, like having trees planted.
“We need more such young people to help us find other advanced and engineering methods for desertification control,” said Guo Wangang.
1. What was Guo Wangang’s first reaction to his father’s request?| A．He advised his father to stop planting trees. |
| B．He was unwilling to give up his stable job. |
| C．He immediately agreed to work at the farm. |
| D．He was determined to fight against the desert. |
| A．Finishing the green belt. |
| B．Winning National Moral Model title. |
| C．Seeing his father’s falling ill. |
| D．Experiencing a deadly sandstorm. |
| A．To show young people’s creative methods. |
| B．To advocate the low-carbon way of living. |
| C．To praise Ant Forest’s unique contribution. |
| D．To indicate Guo and his team’s difficulties. |
| A．Well begun is half done. |
| B．One tree doesn’t make a forest. |
| C．Opportunity favours only the prepared mind. |
| D．Nothing is too difficult if you put your heart into it. |
2 . Perhaps one day, robots could be cleaning up human-caused pollution in the ocean. At least that’s what scientists hope to achieve with the development of Jellyfish-Bot (水母机器人), a robotic device which looks like a jellyfish that could help pick up pollutants underwater.
The robot is about the size of a hand. The artificial muscles, called HASELs, can contract and expand, allowing Jellyfish-Bot to move through the water. Like a real jellyfish, the robot’s movements create currents beneath it. Jellyfish use the currents to collect nutrients, while Jellyfish-Bot uses these motions to trap pollutants. The robots move at a speed of 6.1 centimeters per second, trapping objects along the way, whether it’s a single robot or multiple ones working together. With larger objects, it may require at least two robots to collect and bring the items to the surface for recycling.
“It is also able to collect fragile biological samples such as fish eggs. Meanwhile, there is no negative impact on the surrounding environment. The interaction with aquatic (水生的) species is gentle and nearly noise-free,” explained Tianlu Wang, a postdoctoral researcher.
According to the researchers, the robot is no louder than background noise, so it shouldn’t menace sea life. The insulating polymer (绝缘聚合物) shell around the robot shouldn’t harm humans or fish if it were to be torn apart.
For now, the robots are powered by thin wires, which prohibits their practical use in oceanic settings. But the scientists hope that they can achieve a wireless Jellyfish-Bot in the near future.
“Seventy percent of oceanic litter is estimated to sink to the seabed. Plastics make up more than 60% of this litter, taking hundreds of years to degrade. Therefore, we saw an urgent need to develop a robot to move or control objects such as litter and transport it upwards,” Scientist Hyeong-Joon Joo said. “We hope that underwater robots could one day assist in cleaning up our oceans.”
1. What is paragraph 2 mainly about?| A．The working principle of Jellyfish-Bot. |
| B．The main parts of Jellyfish-Bot. |
| C．The effect of the robot on the ocean. |
| D．The threat of pollutants to the ocean. |
| A．Destroy. | B．Threaten. | C．Transform. | D．Dominate. |
| A．They have been widely used underwater. |
| B．They lack practical use in oceanic settings. |
| C．They will take the place of the wire robots. |
| D．They will be researched and developed for use. |
| A．It’s of great urgency to clean up ocean pollutants |
| B．A new function of robot is just around the corner |
| C．Jellyfish-Bot makes a lot of difference to the ocean |
| D．An underwater robot could help clean up ocean pollutants |
Chen Guanghui is a guardian for black-necked cranes in the Dashanbao Black-necked Crane National Nature Reserve of Zhaotong city, Yunnan Province.
“I remembered they ran away the instant I approached them. I tried everything, even singing folk songs
Thanks
A lesson in trust
“Come on, Tuck,” I said, patting the floor of the 4Runner (越野车). “Load. Let’s go for a walk.” Tuck danced nervously at my feet, then sat and looked up at me with sad eyes. He wouldn’t jump in.
This was my first afternoon with the three-year-old border collie (德国牧羊犬) I was adopting, and it was time for the daily hike.
I’d taken Tuck in reluctantly, as a temporary solution for Tammy, my friend. She was trying to find a new home for the dog. Tuck was adopted from a pet store and had been kept long in a cage there, leaving him long-lasting trauma (创伤).
Tammy knew why I wasn’t willing to give Tuck a permanent home. Three months earlier, I’d lost my beloved Bantam, the border collie who’d been my rock for 12 years. I wasn’t ready to let a new dog into my life for good. But I’d agreed to help Tammy out while she continued her search.
Tuck wouldn’t load, no matter how much I coaxed (劝诱). Knowing there was always a reason for a dog’s behavior, I finally lifted the dog up and placed him in the back. “Load,” I said, teaching him the command. “Good boy.”
But every day, when it came time to load for our hike, Tuck still didn’t trust my invitation. At the end of the second week, I became impatient.
Actually, Tuck was a sweet dog and seemed to love everyone. He had this boyish enthusiasm toward strangers.
Days crept into a third week. I found myself appreciating Tuck for who he was. One afternoon, he came to the steps where I sat. He shyly looked at me, then walked over and put one big foot on my knee. At that very moment, I realized that he did show affection, in his own way. But he still refused to load for our hike.
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。
Why wouldn’t Tuck jump into the car?
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The next afternoon, I called Tuck over and let him watch as I removed the cage from the car.
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5 . The increased use of light-emitting diodes (LED) and other forms of lighting are now brightening the night sky at a dramatic rate. Research has revealed that light pollution is now causing the night sky to brighten at a rate of around 10% a year, an increase that threatens to ruin the sight of all but the most brilliant stars in a generation. A child born where 250 stars are visible at night today would only be able to see about 100 by the time they reach 18.
Physicist Christopher Kyba, of the German Centre for Geosciences told the Observer. “A couple of generations ago, people would have regularly encountered this glittering (闪耀) vision of the universe—but what was formerly universal is now extremely rare.” Nevertheless, the introduction of only a modest number of changes to lighting could make a considerable improvement, Kyba argued. These moves would include ensuring outdoor lights are carefully capped, point downwards, have limits placed on their brightness, and are not predominantly blue-white but have red and orange components.
The problem is that light pollution is still not perceived by the public to be a threat. As Professor Oscar Corcho, of Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, has put it: “The negative consequences of light pollution are as unknown by the population as those of smoking in the 80s.”
Yet action is now urgently needed. Apart from its astronomical impact, light pollution is harming human health. “When reddish light shines on our bodies, it stimulates mechanisms including those that break down high levels of sugar in the blood. Since the introduction of LEDs, that part of the spectrum (光谱) has been removed from artificial light and it is playing a part in the waves of obesity (肥胖) and rises in diabetes cases we see today,” said Prof Fosbury from University College London (UCL),
UCL researchers are preparing to install additional infrared (红外线) lamps in hospitals and intensive care units (ICU) to see if they have an effect on the recovery of patients who would otherwise be starved of light from this part of the spectrum.
1. What does the author want to show by citing the child’s example?| A．More objects in the universe will disappear. |
| B．Light pollution is blinding our view of the stars. |
| C．People’s perception of the universe is inadequate. |
| D．New forms of lighting have made stars unnecessary. |
| A．They are practical. | B．They are rarely successful. |
| C．They aren’t worth the effort. | D．It takes ages to see the result. |
| A．Controlling population growth. |
| B．Changing people’s perception. |
| C．Exploring the unknown universe. |
| D．Banning smoking in public places. |
| A．Whether they help patients recover. |
| B．Whether they increase obesity risk. |
| C．Whether they leave people starving. |
| D．Whether they raise blood sugar level. |
I’m a talker—I have a habit of talking to every person I see—but that afternoon in March 2015, I sat beside my husband Andy on the 45-minute drive home from the Marcus Autism Center without saying a word. My two-and-a-half-year-old son Wesley had just been diagnosed(诊断) with autism spectrum disorder (自闭症谱系障碍).
I’d been given instructions and suggestions and told to sign up for classes, but I knew we could never afford any. Out of everything the specialists had said, the only word I could remember was socialization-key for Wesley to develop social skills. In the car, I tried hard to come up with ways to make his world more social. Then the strangest idea came to mind, so strange that I blurted (脱口而出) it out. “We need a dog!”
Andy looked at me as if I were crazy. “What are you talking about, Rachel? You don’t ever really like dogs.” That was true. I had had bad experiences with dogs growing up. “And how are we going to afford a dog right now?” Yes, another big question. But somehow I couldn’t shake the idea.
A couple of weeks later, I was outside playing with Wesley, when a new neighbor walked over with a black curly-coated dog. When we were chatting, her medium-sized dog ran and jumped playfully between the boys. He was so gentle; he didn’t jump on people the way I’d seen a lot of dogs do. I watched, amazed. It was as if he knew exactly how careful to be with each of them.
“What breed (品种) is he?” I asked. “He’s an Aussiedoodle (贵宾澳牧),” She said proudly. Then she continued, “He was bred (培育) by a woman called Mary, who has three autistic (自闭症的) sons. She found that Aussiedoodles work perfectly as service dogs. I can give you her phone number if you want one.”
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。
“Was this for real? We need an Aussiedoodle!” I said.
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Then Andy and I drove to Mary’s home, and picked a dog called Berry.
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7 . Gardening’s many “rules” have been repeated so often that they can seem like unquestionable truths. But many have little basis in fact, so following them may be unnecessary at best and could give you poorer results at worst.
A classic example is the long-held idea that watering plants around noon on a sunny day should be avoided, since it might harm their leaves. The explanation is that tiny water droplets can act like lenses (透镜), focusing the sun’s rays onto leaves, resulting in scorched (灼伤的) leaves and reduced plant health.
Four researchers set out to learn more, running experiments on living plants and carrying out computer modelling. They found that spreading small glass spheres (球体) over the surface of smooth-leaved plants could indeed have this effect, causing damage right across the leaf surface. But when this was repeated with actual water droplets, such damage didn’t occur.
This is because water behaves rather differently to glass. The shape of a water droplet on a leaf is more elliptical (椭圆的) than spherical. The computer modelling showed that the extreme damage through a lens of this shape would occur when the sun was at a low angle in the sky, that is, in the morning or in the afternoon. However, the sun’s strength at these times is too low to cause any harm. Even if the light of the midday sun did somehow come at the strongest angle, the heat at this time of day would always cause the water droplets to evaporate (蒸发) before they had an effect.
So, if your plants need a good watering, give them some water. Not watering thirsty plants on a sunny day for fear of leaf scorch will almost certainly lead to more damage from drought stress than could be caused by the magnifying glass (放大镜) effect. While it remains generally true that the ideal time to water a plant is in the morning or evening — to lessen the amount of water that evaporates before reaching the plant’s roots — the evidence doesn’t support the idea that watering at midday will cause burning.
1. What is the long-held idea talked about in the passage!| A．Watering plants counts a lot. |
| B．Plant leaves might act like lenses. |
| C．Watering at midday may harm plant health. |
| D．Sun’s rays might be focused onto water droplets. |
| A．The same degree of damage occurred. |
| B．Damage was caused right across the leaf surface. |
| C．Unlike the glass spheres, the water droplets didn’t damage leaves. |
| D．The smooth-leaved plants were extremely affected by water droplets. |
| A．The explanation for the finding. |
| B．The process of the experiments. |
| C．The time of evaporating. |
| D．The harm caused by the sunshine. |
| A．The long-held idea is well worth advocating. |
| B．Plants’ roots get no water if watering occurs at noon. |
| C．Watering in the morning can prevent water evaporation. |
| D．Watering thirsty plants on a sunny noon makes sense. |
8 . Kenya has been at the forefront(前沿)of the global war on plastic since the government banned single-use plastics in protected areas in June 2020. Unfortunately, the preventive measures have barely received attention. Hundreds of tons of industrial and consumer polymer waste continue to get dumped into landfills daily. However, if 29-year-old Nzambi Matee has her way the unsightly plastic heaps(堆)will soon be transformed into colorful bricks.
The materials engineer’s seeking to find a practical solution to control plastic pollution began in 2017. She quit her job and set up a small lab in her mother’s backyard. It took her nine months to produce the first brick and even longer to convince a partner to help build the machinery to make them. But the determined eco-entrepreneur was confident in her idea and did not give up.
She says, “I wanted to use my education to handle plastic waste pollution. But I was very clear that the solution had to be practical, sustainable, and affordable. The best way to do this was by channeling the waste into the construction space and finding the most efficient and affordable material to build homes.” Her company produces over 1,500 bricks a day. The pavers are made using a mix of plastic products that cannot be reprocessed or recycled.
The collected plastic is mixed with sand heated at very high temperatures, and compressed(压缩)into bricks that vary in color and thickness. The resulting product is stronger, lighter, and about 30 percent cheaper than concrete bricks. More importantly, it helps repurpose the lowest quality of plastic. “There is that waste they cannot process anymore; they cannot recycle. That is what we get.” Matee says.
Matee is not nearly done. Her dream is to reduce the mountain of trash to just a hill by increasing production and expanding her offerings. She says, “The more we recycle the plastic, the more we produce affordable housing, the more we created more employment for the youth.”
1. What does the underlined sentence in paragraph imply?| A．Plastic waste hasn’t attracted enough attention. | B．Matee’s idea has been widely accepted. |
| C．Colorful bricks are in huge demand. | D．Matee’s method can be effective if adopted. |
| A．Generous and ambitious. | B．Confident and grateful |
| C．Creative and determined. | D．Optimistic and modest. |
| A．To tackle plastic pollution. | B．To support the government. |
| C．To create job opportunities. | D．To build cheaper houses. |
| A．Kenya: Pioneer in Banning Plastic Single-use Plastics |
| B．Nzambi Matee: Innovator in Solving Plastic Waste |
| C．Mix of Plastic Products: A New Construction Material |
| D．Plastic Recycling: A Creative Solution to Pollution |
1. Who are the listeners?
| A．Parents. | B．Students. | C．Tourists. |
| A．Have classes. | B．Go climbing. | C．Sing karaoke. |
| A．On weekday afternoons. | B．On weekday evenings. | C．On weekends. |
| A．The Lake District Adventure. |
| B．The Beach Adventure. |
| C．The London Experience. |
10 . Enthusiastic travelers may have already heard of “regenerative tourism” along with the idea of sustainability(持续性). Whenever we travel—no matter where or how—we are leaving an impact on the environment and the world surrounding us. While sustainable tourism takes positive steps toward limiting that footprint in order for us to protect environments for future generations, regenerative tourism takes this idea one step further.
Regenerative tourism means “the idea that tourists should leave a place in better condition than it was before”. For example, when visiting a garden, each person plants a tree to further build the environment instead of leaving no trace(痕迹).
In a way, regenerative tourism involves travelers to be active in their acts of sustainability. Another great example of this is any act of clean-up. This is especially popular on major beaches and in parks where there’s always rubbish to pick up and waste to remove. While travelers certainly don’t need to join in a community clean-up while on vacation (unless they want to), the idea of being involved is very much the same.
Joining in regenerative tourism has personal and environmental benefits. Jeffrey Skibins, an associate professor in entertainment and park management, says, “Many tourists report feelings of deep personal satisfaction and a stronger connection to nature. Additionally, conservation (保护) behaviors enable tourists to develop life-long learning around these issues and continue these behaviors at home.”
Regenerative means “to renew and revive”, which is exactly what many travelers are doing to help environments recover. Depending on where one plans to travel, there might be more ways to help than originally realized. By further encouraging damaged environments to be renewed through travel rather than being negatively impacted, we can slowly help to rebuild the world’s most beautiful landscapes.
1. What is the aim of regenerative tourism?| A．To further improve the environment. | B．To limit the footprint of human beings. |
| C．To keep a place in its original condition. | D．To dramatically promote global economy. |
| A．Designing a bright future for our life. | B．Taking part in a community clean-up. |
| C．Renewing our ideas about environments. | D．Getting active in the acts of sustainability. |
| A．It makes travelers closely connected. | B．It gives personal satisfaction to travelers. |
| C．It leaves a short-term effect on tourists. | D．It helps tourists improve their learning ability. |
| A．Regenerative tourism invites travelers to do their part |
| B．Travelling patterns make a difference to the environment |
| C．Conservation behavior enjoys its popularity among households |
| D．The idea of sustainability takes root in all enthusiastic travelers |
