1 . Yellowstone National Park is boiling. The Wyoming park is filled with hot springs and geysers—all fueled by a bubbling (沸腾的) supervolcano.
Scientists agree the Yellow stone supervolcano is unlikely to blow anytime soon. Should it erupt, it would be a disaster. The eruption would shoot out enough rock and ash to cover most of the United States.
So in 2017, NASA scientists ran a thought experiment to see if they could stop a future super-eruption. The study was led by Brian Wilcox. His team came up with the idea of drilling a series of wells around the edge of the park and pumping cold water down into the hot rock. This would cool the boiling rock and prevent a disaster. As a bonus, the system would provide enough geothermal energy to power the entire country. The idea, however, has reached a standstill. Yellowstone and other national parks have long been protected from commercial energy development to ensure that these regions remain untouched.
Nowhere has geothermal energy had a greater effect on the environment than in New Zealand. Much like Yellowstone, the Wairakei Basin of the country’s north island was once a bubbling scene where 70 geysers periodically fired jets of water into the air. That is, until1958, when a geothermal power plant was developed nearby. Today, Wairakei does not host a single geyser. The power plant destroyed all 70 of them, along with 240 hot springs.
Should a project like this take place at the edges of Yellowstone National Park, it could easily leave the surface features untouched and still drill deep enough to generate geothermal power. Indeed, that was NASA’s supposed solution.
But Richards does not like the idea. Even if a geothermal power plant did not destroy the region’s features—from geysers and hot springs to mudpots—the plant would not go unnoticed in such an untouched area.
1. Why did the NASA scientists carry out the study?| A．To discover more clean and sustainable energy. |
| B．To estimate Yellowstone supervolcano’s danger. |
| C．To seek how to prevent a future volcanic eruption. |
| D．To drill wells to provide easier access to hot water. |
| A．Come to a temporary stop. | B．Won governmental approval. |
| C．Led to a major breakthrough. | D．Aroused much public concern. |
| A．They disappeared completely. | B．They mixed with hot springs. |
| C．They became more powerful. | D．They were put into better use. |
| A．It could destroy the geysers in the park. |
| B．It would conflict with NASA’s solution. |
| C．It might result in violent volcanic eruptions. |
| D．It would hurt the original scenery of the park. |
2 . Winter, a dolphin with an artificial tail, died on November 12, 2021, whose story inspired a book and two heartwarming movies. The 16-year-old had been suffering from a terrible disease since November 1, 2021. The doctors at Florida’s Clearwater Marine Aquarium (水族馆) tried several life-saving efforts but in vain.
“She’s the strongest little dolphin that I have ever met, and we learned so much from her and have been privileged to have 16 wonderful years with her,” Dr. Shelly Marquardt, a vet (兽医) with the aquarium stated.
Winter’s uplifting story began in December 2005 when her tail got caught in a crab trap line. Florida fisher Jim Savage released the little dolphin and rushed her to the Clearwater Marine Aquarium. While the dolphin—fittingly named Winter—survived, her badly-injured tail had to be cut off.
Believing she would be unable to swim, the aquarium’s health experts placed the young dolphin on a special device in the water. However, Winter was not going to let a “minor” inconvenience like a missing tail get in her way. She began using her broken tail to swim from side to side. While seeing the stubborn dolphin moving was encouraging, doctors feared it would hurt her back. Fortunately, two experts at the Hanger Clinic heard about Winter’s sad situation and made her an artificial tail.
Winter gave hope to people worldwide, especially those living with disabilities. Grace Savage was one of them. The grandniece of the fisher who rescued the dolphin in 2005 suffers from infantile paralysis (小儿麻痹症). “She gives us inspiration to never give up,” Savage told FOX 13 during her 2019 aquarium visit.
1. What may have caused the death of Winter?| A．The improper treatment. | B．An incurable disease. |
| C．Her unbearable suffering. | D．Her badly-injured tail. |
| A．Shelly offered immediate rescue to release her. |
| B．Jim Savage cut off Winter’s tail to save her life. |
| C．Winter was not discouraged by physical disability. |
| D．The vets in the aquarium made her an artificial tail. |
| A．To show Winter’s positive effects on humans. |
| B．To recall the comments Grace made on Winter. |
| C．To prove the aquarium is a good place to visit. |
| D．To tell how Grace lived with disabilities bravely. |
| A．Adversity makes a man wise, not rich. |
| B．What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger. |
| C．The greater the difficulty, the greater the glory. |
| D．All things in their being are good for something. |
3 . Flowering plants (angiosperms) make up about 90 percent of the Kingdom Plantae. The total number of described species is over 250,000, and many tropical species are as yet unnamed. During the past 130 million years, flowering plants have colonized every possible habitat on earth, from sun-baked deserts and windswept alpine (阿尔卑斯) summits to fertile grasslands and dense forests.
However, hundreds of millions of years ago, the Earth was dominated by ferns and conifers (针叶植物和蕨类植物). Then, how have flowers evolved and spread to all parts of the world, thus changing the landscape from green and brown to a variety of colours?
Actually, why angiosperms are successful and diverse on Earth has been debated for centuries. Even Charles Darwin himself called it a “mystery”, fearing this apparent sudden leap might challenge his theory of evolution.
Now, to this puzzle, some scientists claim they have the answer.
Kevin Simonin, from San Francisco State University in California, US and other researchers wondered if the size of the plant’s genetic material -- or genome (基因组) -- might be important. They analyzed data held by the Royal Botanic Gardens, on the genome size of thousands of plants, including flowering plants, gymnosperms (a group of plants including conifers) and ferns. They then compared genome size with anatomical (结构上的) features.
This provides “strong evidence”, that the success and rapid spread of flowering plants around the world is due to “genome downsizing.”
By shrinking the size of the genome, which is contained within the nucleus of the cell, plants can build smaller cells. In turn, this allows greater carbon dioxide uptake (摄入) and carbon gain from photosynthesis, the process by which plants use light energy to turn carbon dioxide and water into sugar and oxygen.
The researchers say genome downsizing happens only in the angiosperms, and this was “a necessary condition for rapid growth rates among land plants”.
1. According to this passage, what do we know about angiosperms?| A．They belong to gymnosperms. |
| B．They add colors to the landscape of the earth. |
| C．They ruled the earth hundreds of millions of years ago. |
| D．They make up approximately 90% of the living species on earth. |
| A．Charles Darwin was quite confident of his theory of evolution |
| B．Kevin Simonin is probably an American biologist |
| C．Kevin Simonin works in the Royal Botanic Gardens |
| D．Charles Darwin succeeded in figuring out the flower evolution |
| A．Phtotsynthesis. | B．The larger nucleus. |
| C．The smaller genome. | D．The stronger cell. |
| A．a brochure | B．a biography |
| C．a science fiction | D．a popular science article |
| A．Really dry. | B．Really wet. | C．Really cold. |
5 . The world can be a scary place when you’re young. It can be even scarier when you’re a young little blue penguin, the tiniest of the penguin species. Luckily, there are some humans willing to help. They stepped in to protect Billy, a blue penguin that appeared on a beach in Christchurch, New Zealand.
Spotted on November 29 at the slipway at Moncks Bay, near Sumner, in Christchurch, the little penguin immediately attracted a small crowd. Jeff Mein Smith saw the crowd while he was bicycling that afternoon, and he biked home to get his camera. When he returned to the scene, he found that the penguin had received a little sign, one that read, “Hi, I’m waiting for my mum to come back.DOC (Department of Conservation) knows I’m here. Please leave me alone. Keep your dogs away. Thanks, Billy the baby blue penguin.”
Billy didn’t move away from the sign. The DOC arrived later that afternoon to pick up Billy, though they were surprised to see it on the beach. “It’s unusual for a blue penguin to be out in the open on the beach during the day,” Anita Spencer, a DOC senior ranger, told Stuff.
Billy was taken to the Christchurch Penguin Rehabilitation Center after being brought back from the beach. Volunteers believe the bird may actually be a female penguin, and is around 2 months old. The chick weighs merely 550 grams, less than a standard basketball. A blue penguin should weigh around 900 grams at this age. Most little penguins grow up to weigh 1 kilogram.
The center will help the little penguin gain some weight by feeding it with fish juice, before it’s set free into the ocean.
1. Who is Billy?| A．A penguin. | B．A fish. | C．A dog. | D．A ranger. |
| A．Billy is a male penguin. | B．Jeff will take care of Billy. |
| C．Billy weighs more at its age. | D．Some dogs probably chased Billy initially. |
| A．Disappointed. | B．Unexpected. | C．Regretful. | D．Frightened. |
| A．It will be studied by scientists. | B．It will live in DOC. |
| C．It will come back to the ocean. | D．It will stay in a zoo. |
6 . This fall, children in the Eixample area of Barcelona have a new way to get to school on Fridays-they ride their bikes. In September, a group of five children began biking to school with their parents on Fridays. Soon the group grew to 150 or more. The program is called bike bus.
The bike bus begins around 8: 25 every Friday morning. The path it will follow is always posted ahead of time, so everyone knows where to join. The bike bus starts off with just a few students and parents, with more and more joining as it travels along.
Most kids ride their bikes, but others ride scooters(滑板车)or use skates. Instead of riding in bike lanes or on sidewalks, the bike bus takes over the entire street. With music playing and bike bells ringing, the bike bus feels like a party.
“Being able to ride with a bunch of kids is a big part of the fun,” says nine-year-old Maria Pitarch. “The best part of the bike bus is that we ride along and pick up my friends and we ride together.”
It was possible to bike to school in Eixample before, but it wasn’t really safe for kids. There are a few bike lanes, but there are also lots of cars. One of the main roads used by the Eixample bike bus has about 20,000 cars and motorcycles every day. Because these are busy streets, the local police are helping stop traffic by riding in front of the bike bus and behind it.
Parents are hoping that the bike bus will help change ideas about how people can get around in the city. They want the city to create wider and kid-friendly bike lanes that are separate from car traffic. They point out that the bike bus also helps cut down on pollution.
Barcelona isn’t the first bike bus ever. The idea has been around for quite a while. There have been bike buses in Madrid and other parts of Spain for years.
1. What do we know about the bike bus?| A．It begins every morning. | B．All riders join it by riding a bike. |
| C．It has more than one hundred riders. | D．Kids start the ride trip together. |
| A．Interesting. | B．Tiring. | C．Challenging. | D．Boring. |
| A．Parents. | B．Teachers. | C．Students. | D．Police. |
| A．Bike bus greatly cuts down the city pollution. |
| B．Eixample kids are taking the “Bike Bus” to school. |
| C．Parents call on the local government to improve the traffic. |
| D．Example schools find a safe way to school for the children. |
| A．Red. | B．Purple. | C．White. |
8 . If you live in one of the 40 million American households with a gas stove, it could be leaking even when it’s turned off.
According to a new study from Stanford scientists, many stoves are constantly giving out gases that can warm the planet and pose serious health risks when breathed in. The research found methane missions from gas stoves across the United States are roughly equal to the carbon dioxide released by half a million gas-powered cars in a year.
To estimate the impact of these emissions, researchers measured three key gases from stoves in 53 homes across seven California counties. The team chose two gases — methane and carbon dioxide — because of their contribution to climate change, and selected nitrogen oxides because of their known risk to human health. The scientists set up plastic dividing walls between the kitchens and other rooms and used instruments that measure wavelengths of light to determine the concentration of certain gases.
The team estimated that stoves release between 0.8 and 1.3 percent of the natural gas they consume as unburned methane. To their surprise, they found that more than three-quarters of the methane emissions happened when both old and new gas stoves were turned off. “Over a 20-year time scale, the global warming potential of methane leaks is 86 times greater than carbon dioxide,” Stanford reports.
The most significant health risks happen when the stove is lit, the authors note, because the process creates nitrogen dioxide as a byproduct. Increasing airflow by using a range hood can help reduce the personal health risk of natural gas-burning appliances, but most individuals report rarely using their ventilation system.
In a small kitchen, it only took a few minutes of unventilated stove use to generate emissions levels above national health standards. According to a meta-analysis from 2013, children living in homes with gas stoves were 42 percent more likely to experience symptoms associated with asthma, and 24 percent more likely to be diagnosed with lifetime asthma.
In addition to health risks, natural gas burning stoves also endanger the planet by releasing methane. The results of the study have furled efforts by scientists and activists to encourage Americans to switch to all-electric stoves and appliances.
1. Which gas leaking from stoves warms the earth most?| A．Methane. | B．Carbon dioxide. | C．Nitrogen oxide. | D．Nitrogen dioxide. |
| A．The measuring instruments. | B．The American families. |
| C．The team members. | D．The gas stoves. |
| A．When it is old. | B．When it is new. |
| C．When it is turned on. | D．When it is turned off. |
| A．Equip kitchens. | B．Switch to clean fuels. |
| C．Use sustainable energy. | D．Purchase electric stoves. |
When I came back home, my mother was having a conversation with my seven-year-old daughter Jane. They were talking about how to fight against climate change in the holidays. I interrupted, saying we could do it by eating leftovers (剩菜) this holiday season. Mom and I both smiled.
I said, “You know Americans throw away 25 percent more trash between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day, including things like plastic from old tech and gift wrap. Food waste, which accounts for 30 to 40 percent of year-round waste entering landfills (垃圾填埋场), also rises sharply during the holidays. During Thanksgiving week alone, Americans throw out roughly 200 million pounds of turkey meat, along with 30 million pounds of gravy (肉汁) and 14 million pounds of dinner rolls.”
Jane was puzzled at the figures of food waste but she was interested in the consequences. I told her, “When thrown-away food makes its way to landfills and rots, it produces methane, a kind of greenhouse gas. That’s not friendly. It can destroy the ecosystem, threatening the survival of animals, plants and humans on the planet.”
Jane was nervous and asked what we could do to help the earth. “One of the most powerful tools we have is just to directly decrease our own waste in our home,” my mom said. “It’s also really challenging because most of our waste is happening in different ways. But individual action can also play a huge role in dealing with food waste, particularly in the US.”
I remember that in my family, there are two traditions when it comes to holiday meals: there must be more food on the table than everyone can eat, and everyone must take home a plate of food at the end of the meal to make sure all the hard work that went into its preparation wasn’t wasted.
注意：1.所续写短文的词数应为150左右；
2.请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
Jane asked, “why prepare so much food for a holiday?”
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Jane answered “Sure” and hoped to help Grandmother to prepare for dinners.
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As one of the most well-known tourist
