1 . CONSERVATIONISTS are hoping to create England’s biggest native woodland by planting 100,000 trees in the Yorkshire Dales.

Snaizeholme, near the town of Hawes, was covered in woodland centuries ago but the 561-hectare valley is now almost barren (贫瘠的). Across the Yorkshire Dales, total tree cover amounts to just five per cent, the Woodland Trust has said, with ancient woodland making up just one per cent of that cover.

The trust wants to raise £8 million for a decades-long program that will see a restored forest providing habitats for threatened species such as woodland birds and black grouse. Planted trees will be mostly native broadleaved species such as alder, silver birch, down birch, willow, aspen, rowan, hawthorn and blackthorn, with montane species on the higher slopes.

Al Nash, who is heading the project for the Woodland Trust, said, “I love the Dales but the one thing it lacks in many areas is an abundance (丰富性) of trees. Here we will be giving nature and biodiversity a big boost and creating a rich variety of habitats. It is a rare opportunity to create a sizeable wildlife conservation area for the north of England. It’s clearly a wonderful opportunity to create something real that can be seen and touched in the Yorkshire Dales for the fight against climate change.”

The first stage of planting has already begun with funding from the White Rose Forest, DEFRA and corporate donors. More trees than needed will be planted as not all will survive in the windswept, rainy upland valley. They will be arranged at random and without plastic guards to help stimulate natural forest growth, the trust said.

1. How does the author illustrate the problem of the woodland loss?

A．By providing data.	B．By listing examples.
C．By making comments.	D．By giving explanations.

2. What is the message conveyed in paragraph 4?

A．The trend of global warming.	B．The decline in variety of trees.
C．The significance of the project.	D．The campaign of restoring habitats.

3. Why will more trees than needed be planted?

A．To facilitate the random growth of trees.	B．To guarantee a higher survival rate of trees.
C．To strengthen defence against wind and rain.	D．To sustain the balance between varieties of trees.

4. Which of the following is the best title for the passage?

A．A Breakthrough Made in Forest Growth.

B．Funds Being Raised to Plant Trees in England.

C．Conservationists Taking Action to Help England.

D．England’s Largest Native Woodland to Be Created.

3 . The Healing Power of Water

It has been a rough few years. Many of us are finding ourselves exhausted, burned out, struggling to build balance back into our lives.     1     Neuro scientists say that spending time near oceans, lakes, rivers and other blue spaces can provide a range of benefits including reducing anxiety, easing mental fatigue and refreshing us.

Participating in water activities such as swimming or surfing can help us enter a “flow state,” where we become fully immersed in what we’re doing.     2     When we become skilled at an activity, our brain changes, making it even easier to enter a state of flow in the future.

Bodies of water also can produce a glorious sense of awe—the emotional response to something vast that expands and challenges how we see the world.     3    

Water has special properties that may boost nature’s positive impact.     4     Its smell can provoke positive memories and associations. When we are near water, there is often less visual and auditory information to process. Our mind can rest. When we’re floating in water, our bodies can rest too, in a way we never can on land.

    5     It moves rhythmically, producing a play of light, color and sound that is spellbinding. It holds our attention, but not in an overly demanding way. Researchers call this soft fascination. It gives our brains a break from the intense, focused attention that much of daily life requires.

A．Most important: Water is dynamic.

B．We need to recharge and water can help.

C．The sound of water, typically steady and soft, soothes us.

D．We can spend time on the water anywhere, anytime in our mind.

E．This calms the mind, which is often absorbed by worry and anxiety.

F．It’s not just our bodies that need the element of life—it’s our minds too.

G．Such sense of awe can decrease stress and help us put things into perspective.

4 . It isn’t just people who get road rage. Robins, a kind of small brown European bird, in the countryside become more aggressive when they hear the sound of traffic, according to a study.

When a robin arrives uninvited on another bird’s territory, they adapt their songs to ward the rival away, and adopt visual displays including swaying from side to side and threateningly baring their red chest feathers, before closing in and even going on the attack. Previous studies had found that robins living in cities were more physically aggressive than their rural cousins. The latest research suggests that noise pollution could play a part.

To explore the connection, scientists from UK and Turkey put a 3D-printed plastic model of a robin on another robin’s place at two locations: an urban park in Istanbul that was close to busy roads, and a quiet wooded area outside the city. The model intruder (闯入者) was also equipped with recordings of robin songs. Then, through a separate speaker nearby, they added traffic noise.

“In normally quiet surroundings, we found that additional traffic noise leads to rural robins becoming more physically aggressive, for instance approaching the model bird more closely,” said Dr Çağlar Akçay, the study’s lead author. But when they played the extra traffic to the urban birds, they did not become any more aggressive-instead they responded by singing less, suggesting they had perhaps learned to “sit out” temporary increases in noise.

Akçay and his team believed that the traffic noise was interfering with robins’ natural communication through song. “The high levels of noise that exist day and night in urban habitats, such as from traffic or construction equipment, may permanently interfere with the efficient transmission of acoustic (声音的) signals and this is likely to be the key reason why urban robins are typically more aggressive than rural birds,” he said.

1. What kind of bird are robins?

A．Mild.

B．Competitive.

C．Cooperative.

D．Graceful.

2. How did the scientists conduct the study?

A．By analyzing previous research data.	B．By citing the famous scientists’ words.
C．By comparing robins’ different responses.	D．By recording the model intruder’s behavior.

3. When exposed to extra traffic noise, how may urban robins react?

A．Sing not as frequently as usual.	B．Ward the rival away by singing more.
C．Sway more violently from side to side.	D．Approach the model bird more closely.

4. What is Akçay’s attitude to the future of robins?

A．Unclear.

B．Indifferent.

C．Optimistic.

D．Concerned.

6 . Be A Responsible Camper

Being a responsible camper is about more than just respecting your neighbors and observing the boundaries set by campsites.     1     Please keep sustainable camping guidelines in mind while planning a trip into the great outdoors.

Leave no trace.     2     Follow the principles: “take only pictures, leave only footprints“. Most “leave no trace” principles focus on reducing our impact on the natural environment. Following the same rules for hiking and other outdoor recreational activities is one of the best ways to show your respect for a natural destination.

    3     Harmful sunscreen chemicals can negatively affect dry land as well. They can pollute bodies of water and may take many years to break down in the natural environment, so be mindful of what you put on your bodies before jumping into that lake. As a rule of thumb, always stay at least 200 feet away from any water source while using soap or toothpaste.

Respect the wildlife. If you’re camping in a popular area with plenty of people around, it’s easy to forget that you’re actually sharing space with wild animal habitats. Animals that get too used to humans can get reliant, which disrupts the natural balance of things within their ecosystems. Sometimes, too much interaction with people can make animals more aggressive or lead to more human-wildlife conflicts. Try to keep all of your food out of reach from wildlife.     4    

Practice fire safety. While this is especially relevant on the west coast of the United States, where wildfire season is most threatening, fire safety should always be a top priority while camping.     5     In areas known for having greater fire danger, it pays to have a shovel or a bucket of water handy to take care of any runaway flames.

A．Keep waterways clean.

B．Aim for zero waste.

C．Only build fires in designated fire pits or rings.

D．And most importantly, remember never to feed wild animals.

E．Taking your campsite off the beaten path may sound adventurous.

F．It’s about having the lowest impact possible on the surrounding environment.

G．Always leave your campsite the same (or better) than you found it.

7 . A Kenyan citizen has been selected as one of the winners of an international award for pioneering grass-roots efforts to protect iconic (标志性的) wildlife species at the Amboseli National Park, which borders Tanzania. Daniel Leturesh, a grass-roots wildlife conservationist (环保主义者), won the award from the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) thanks to his three decades of protecting the natural habitats of iconic species like elephants and rhinoceros.

Leturesh has actively engaged communities to preserve wildlife habitats over the past three decades. “Conservation is hard work, there are many challenges I have faced to win space for animals. Even now we are in a period of drought but I am happy we have managed to get 40 percent of public land for wildlife in the Amboseli region,” Leturesh said in a statement released by IFAW in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital.

According to IFAW, Leturesh has been engaging local communities to preserve their lands and allow the free movement of wildlife in the Amboseli ecosystem. In addition, Leturesh has secured 26, 000 acres for wildlife habitation by persuading 2,600 landowners to rent out their land through international and local conservation groups. Thanks to his continuing efforts, there has not been harmful development of wildlife spreading habitats within the Amboseli ecosystem, said IFAW. Other achievements include the establishment of Kitenden Conservancy which connects Amboseli and West Kilimanjaro wildlife shelters, added IFAW. He represented a local community that signed an agreement that will see landowners benefit from annual rent and ecotourism income, according to IFAW.

James Sawyer, the UK director for IFAW, said that Leturesh’s devotion to preserving his native lands for wildlife paved the way for iconic species to boom under threats like habitat loss and climate change. Sawyer added that Leturesh’s wildlife conservation model will help stop the decrease of iconic species that are key to sustaining(维持) rural livelihoods through tourism.

1. What is the text?

A．A news report.

B．A diary entry.

C．A biography.

D．A science article.

2. What have Leturesh’s efforts brought to the local communities?

A．The National Park has attracted more visitors.

B．The population of the local wildlife is booming.

C．The local wildlife living habitats have been well protected.

D．The lands have been kept undisturbed.

3. Which of the following words best describe Leturesh?

A．Devoted and ambitious.	B．Tough and cautious.
C．Cooperative and easy-going.	D．Honest and determined.

4. What is a suitable title for the text?

A．Amboseli Succeeds in Preserving Iconic Wildlife Species

B．Local Communities Make Great Contributions to Wildlife Protection

C．Leturesh’s Model Sets a Good Example for Villagers

D．Kenyan Conservationist Wins Award for Wildlife Protection

8 . 阅读下面材料, 根据其内容和所给段落开头语续写两段, 使之构成一篇完整的短文。

The woods surrounding the Audubon Society were November dark with its sky overcast with gloomy clouds. The branches shut out the day light and the wind howled horribly around the woods.

Ruby sighed and packed up his bag on the shoulders. “Least it has stopped raining. It won’t take long,” Ruby comforted his brother Henry. “Dad said he’d pick us at the gift shop.”

Henry ignored him with a frown and stomped(踩踏)up the path, his shoes slipping on the wet rocks. He was annoyed that their dad had practically forced them to go on a hike in the bird habitat outside town. “It will be good for you both,” Dad had encouraged, handing them his binoculars. “You’ll get some fresh air and maybe see some cool birds.”

As the boys climbed, the trees grew closer together. The only sounds were the dripping of rain from the trees and the rustle(沙沙声)of small birds among the forest. At the top of the slope, they stopped to catch their breath. A single black feather floated down onto the path. Rubylooked up. On a nearby branch, a black crow(乌鸦)stared down at them.

“Shoo!” shouted Ruby, waving his arms, frightened by the bird’s black eyes. It opened its sharp beak(鸟喙)and let out a loud and horrible squawk. “It’s watching us as if we were worms or something.” Ruby pushed his brother along the path. “Just a stupid crow.” But as he walked, Ruby couldn’t shake the feeling that they were being watched.

“Ruby? ” called Henry, panic shaking his voice. To their horror, on the path, a line of more crows blocked their way and the branches on both sides were filled with numerous birds, their evil eyes glancing at them. They fluttered their wings frantically, ready to attack the boys.

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。

The boys froze, frightened by the hundreds of greedy eyes.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

At that urgent moment, a familiar car pulled into the path.

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9 . People who work with octopuses(章鱼)or who spend a lot of time in their company describe the sense that when you look at an octopus, there is something looking back. Given this feeling as a starting point, how do you begin to explore the consciousness(意识)of an animal so unlike ourselves?

Imagining an octopus’s inner life is a hard thing to do from our human standpoint. When you picture the tips of your suckered limbs moving, what do you imagine it feels like? “The octopus’s arms are, in some ways, more like lips or tongues than hands,” says Godfrey-Smith, a professor of history and philosophy of science. “There’s a great deal of sensory information that’s coming in every time the animal does anything. That’s very different from our situation.”

Take a closer look at the octopus’s nervous system, and things get even stranger. The octopus’s arms have more autonomy than our human arms and legs do. Each has its own minibrain, giving it a degree of independence from the animal’s central brain. Our own nervous system, however, is highly centralized, with the brain the center of sensory integration, emotion, movement, behavior and other actions.

The closer you look at the octopus’s body and nervous system, the harder it becomes to grasp—or believe you are grasping—what it might be like to be an octopus. However hard it might be to do, it’s worth trying to understand whether octopuses have consciousness, and what it’s like if they do, says Godfrey-Smith. This is why the octopus is such an interesting case. Octopuses are different enough from us that a lot of our assumptions about them have to be questioned—and even our assumptions about ourselves. “By asking whether octopuses are conscious like us, we might be asking a question that doesn’t make a lot of sense because we don’t fully know what it’s like to be conscious,” says Godfrey-Smith.

1. What does the author try to do in paragraph 1?

A．Introduce his special feeling about studying octopuses.

B．Share his unique experience of working with octopuses.

C．Inspire the readers’ interest in learning about octopuses.

D．Show the meaning of studying consciousness of animals.

2. In which way are the octopus’s arms special according to Godfrey-Smith?

A．Their structure.	B．Their function.
C．Their movement.	D．Their number.

3. How is paragraph 3 mainly developed?

A．By listing statistics.	B．By analyzing causes.
C．By giving examples.	D．By making comparisons.

4. What can we know about octopuses from the last paragraph?

A．Octopuses are really similar to humans in some way.

B．More work is needed to study octopuses’ consciousness.

C．Most assumptions about octopuses are completely wrong.

D．It makes no sense to research if octopuses are conscious.

10 . In 1985, the world was alerted that in the atmosphere a giant hole was forming in the Earth’s protective ozone (臭氧) layer. Word leaders swiftly gathered and two years later, the United Nations agreed to an the chemicals responsible for wearing away the layer that protects Earth from the sun’s ultraviolet (紫外线) radiation.

Known as the Montreal Protocol (议定书), it was a win for the ozone layer. But unknown to the world at the time, it was also about to prevent a climate disaster. As new research shows, the chemicals, known as the ODSs, are also responsible for causing 30 percent of the temperature increase we saw globally from 1955 to 2005.

The Montreal Protocol regulates nearly 100 ozone-eating chemicals, which popularized in the 1930s for mass use in refrigerators. They tend to accumulate in the atmosphere and drift wherever the wind takes them. Once they reach the stratosphere (平流层), they begin to break down. They’re “shattered by photons (光子),” explains Dennis Hartmann, a climate scientist. That is what causes the hole in the ozone layer.

In the troposphere (对流层) — which fewer photons reach — the ODSs then serve as long-lasting greenhouse gases: Back in 1987, scientists knew ODSs trapped some solar radiation, but only recently have scientists been putting together the evidence that ODSs are actually one of the most damaging warming factors of the past half century. By banning the ODSs, the Montreal Protocol unintentionally prevented 1C of warming by 2050.

With the Montreal Protocol, world leaders came together around an urgent cause. In the process, we accidentally removed the second-largest forcer of global warming. “The unplanned benefits for the global climate”, says Susann Tegtmeier, an atmospheric scientist, “can be considered a very welcome and very positive side effect.”

While it’s taken a lot more talks to begin removing the main driver of climate change — carbon dioxide — the Montreal Protocol proves the power of group action and shows how tackling environmental misery together can help us in ways we didn’t expect.

1. What was the main purpose of the Montreal Protocol?

A．To ensure yearly gatherings of world leaders.	B．To prevent global temperatures from rising.
C．To ban chemicals that damage the ozone layer.	D．To stop the mass production of refrigerators.

2. Which effect might the ODSs have on the Earth?

A．Stopping global temperature rise.	B．Protecting the ozone layer.
C．Reducing greenhouse gases.	D．Making the Earth much warmer.

3. From the last two paragraphs, the author may agree that ________.

A．talks are an inefficient way to deal with climate change

B．international cooperation is vital in removing carbon dioxide

C．environmental disasters are sometimes quite unexpected

D．group actions can’t avoid causing negative side effects

4. What is the most suitable title for the article?

A．Hidden Benefit: The Montreal Protocol Cooling Earth

B．Magic Chemicals: the ODSs Winning Huge Popularity

C．Ozone Crisis: Chemicals Wearing Away the Layer

D．Climbing Heat: The UN Calling for Urgent Talks