1 . In the UK, electric and other low-emission（低排放）cars, vans, and buses could be given special green plates to encourage more people to buy such cars, and promote awareness for “clean” cars.

Strange as it may seem, there is some reason to believe that something as small as this could make a big difference. Already, similar ideas have been put into effect in Norway, Canada, Latvia, and China, and the results have been encouraging.

Elisabeth Costa, director of the Behavioural Insights Team, explains, “Simple changes based on behavioral science can have a big impact. Green plates would be more noticeable to road users, and this increased attraction can help normalise the idea of clean vehicles, highlighting（使突出）the changing social norms（规范）around vehicle ownership.”

Actually, hybrids and electric cars accounted for 5.5% of the cars sold in the UK in the first half of the year, compared to 4.2% for the same period in 2017.

However, colored plates can only go so far. At the end of the day, you need strong, concrete（具体的）measures if you want to support a market like electric cars. The UK already has generous allowances for electric cars, but a study for the RAC Foundation found that the lack of reliable, easy-to-use charging stations is the main roadblock to people purchasing more electric cars. This was repeated by separate research from AA, the UK’s largest motorist association, which found that although 1 in 2 young drivers want electric cars, 8 out of 10 drivers feel that the lack of adequate electrical chargers is the main reason not to buy an electric car.

Yet this all shows that more and more people are nearing a tipping point where they are willing to buy electric cars. And a small PR stunt（噱头）, the “coolness factor” of the colored plates could end up making a difference. Similarly, having red plates for the more polluting cars might also play a role.

A spokesman for the Environmental Transport Association said, “While green number plates will be positive PR for low-emission car makers and early adopters of the technology alike, to be truly effective any such measures will need to at the same time shame the drivers of the most polluting vehicles.”

1. Why does the UK give green license plates to cars?

A．To promote car sales.

B．To beautify the environment in the UK.

C．To separate “clean” cars from polluting cars.

D．To inspire people to buy low-emission vehicles.

2. What does the underlined sentence “colored plates can only go so far” mean?

A．The results of giving colored plates are discouraging.

B．The measures of giving colored plates will be at an end.

C．Giving colored plates has a limited impact on promoting “clean” cars.

D．Giving colored plates will be replaced by strong, concrete measures.

3. Why do most drivers choose not to buy an electric car?

A．Allowances for electric cars are not attractive.

B．They aren’t fond of the green color.

C．Charging stations are not readily available.

D．Electric cars are unaffordable to them.

4. What did the spokesman for the Environmental Transport Association focus on?

A．Banning people from buying polluting cars.

B．Continuing the use of green number plates.

C．Replacing green plates with red ones.

D．Shaming the drivers of polluting cars into buying “clean” cars.

2 . Do dogs understand us?
Be careful what you say around your dog．It might understand more than you think．
A border collie named Rico recognizes the names of about 200 objects, say researchers in Germany．The dog also appears to be able to learn new words as easily as a 3-year-old child．Its word-learning skills are as good as those of a parrot or chimpanzee．
In one experiment, the researchers took all 200 items that Rico is supposed to know and divided them into 20 groups of 10 objects．Then the owner told the dog to go and fetch one of the items and bring it back．In four tests, Rico got 37 out of 40 commands right．As the dog couldn't see anyone to get clues, the scientists believe Rico must understand the meanings of certain words．
In another experiment, the scientists took one toy that Rico had never seen before and put it in a room with seven toys whose names the dog already knew．The owner then told Rico to fetch the object, using a word the dog had never heard before．
The correct object was chosen in seven out of ten tests, suggesting that the dog had worked
out the answer by process of elimination（排除法）．A month later, Rico remembered half of the new names, which is even more impressive．
Rico is thought to be smarter than the average dog．For one thing, Rico is a border collie, a breed （品种）known for its mental abilities．In addition, the 9-year-old dog has been trained to fetch toys by their names since the age of nine months．
It's hard to know if all dogs understand at least some of the words we say．Even if they do, they can't talk back．Still, it wouldn't hurt to sweet-talk your dog every now and then．You might just get a big, wet kiss in return!
1. From paragraph 2 we know that __________．

A．animals are as clever as human beings

B．chimpanzees have very good word-learning skills

C．dogs are smarter than parrots and chimpanzees

D．dogs have similar learning abilities as 3-year-old children

2. Both experiments show that_____________．

A．Rico is smart enough to get all commands right

B．Rico can recognize different things including toys

C．Rico has developed the ability of learning mathematics

D．Rico won't forget the names of objects once recognizing them

3. Which of the following statements is true?

A．Rico has a better memory partly because of its proper early training．

B．The purpose of the experiments is to show the border collie's mental abilities．

C．The border collie is world-famous for recognizing objects．

D．Rico is born to understand its owner's commands．

4. What does the writer want to tell us?

A．To train your dog．	B．To talk to your dog．
C．To be careful with your dog．	D．To be friendly to your dog．

3 . 阅读下面材料，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

I     1     (appoint) as a volcanologist twenty years ago. The job is exciting but    2     (occasional) dangerous. I don’t mind the danger because I help protect ordinary people from the volcanoes.    3     I do is to collect information for a database about Mount Kilauea, an active volcano in Hawaii. Having collected and evaluated the information, I help other scientists predict where lava from the volcano will flow next and how fast. When    4     (boil) rock erupts from a volcano and crashes back to earth, it causes    5     (little) damage than you might imagine. The reason is    6     no one lives near the top of the mount, where the rocks fall. However, the lava can bury everything in     7     (it) path under the molten rock.

Once I was lucky enough     8     (have) a much closer look at the volcano the day after its    9     (erupt) with two other scientists. We had to wear protective suits that covered our whole body. We made our way     10     the edge of the crater and collected some lava for later study. That was my first experience.

4 . 随着人们环保意识的提高，越来越多的人选择低碳生活（low-carbon lifestyle）。假设你是校英语协会主席李华，请写一篇英语倡议书，从出行、购物、用水、用电四个方面倡议同学们选择低碳生活。   
注意：
1．词数；l20左右；     
2．开头和结尾已经给出，但不计入总词数：
3．参考词汇：排放emission

Dear fellow students,

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Dear fellow students, let's take action right now!

5 . Cigarette ends are everywhere--littering our streets and beaches--and for decades they've been thought of as “unrecyclable”. But a New Jersey-based company, called Terracycle, has taken on the challenge, and has come up with a way to recycle millions of cigarette ends and turn them into industrial plastic products. Its aim is to recycle things that people normally consider impossible to reuse.

Obviously it would be even better for the environment if everyone just stopped smoking but the statistics show that although there has been an increase in anti-smoking ads and posters, between 2000 and 2014.global sales of cigarettes increased by 8 percent, and a whole lot of those cigarette ends ended up as trash: Since most of our litter eventually ends up in waterways, cigarette ends can surely pollute the surrounding environment. “It only takes a single cigarette end to pollute a liter of water,” Temacycle’s founder, Tom Swak, said. “Animals can also mistake cigarette ends littered for food.”

So how do you go about turning all those poisonous ends into something useful? Terracycle does this by first breaking them down into separate parts. They mix the remaining materials, such as the tobacco and the paper, with other kinds of rubbish, and use it on non-agricultural land, such as golf courses. The filters (过滤嘴) are a little harder. To recycle these. Terracycle first makes them clean and cuts them into small pieces, and then combines them with other recycled materials, making them into liquid for industrial plastic products.

They’re now also expanding their recycling offerings to the rest of the 80 percent of household waste that currently can’t be recycled, such as chocolate packaging, pens, and mobile phones. The goal is to use the latest research to find a way to stop so much waste ending up in landfills, and then get companies to provide money for the process. And now, it works well.

“We haven't found anything that we can’t recycle,” communications director of Terracycle, Albe Zakes, said. “But with the amount and varieties of packaging and litter in the world, we are always looking for new waste streams to address.”

1. What does Terracycle intend to do?

A．Search for recyclable materials for use.

B．Deal with as many cigarette ends as possible.

C．Produce new kinds of industrial plastic products.

D．Recycle what used to be considered unrecyclable.

2. What does the underlined word “trash” in Paragraph 2 probably mean?

A．Rubbish.

B．Poison.

C．Disaster.

D．Ruin.

3. What does Paragraph 3 mainly talk about?

A．The effective use of cigarette ends.

B．The process of recycling cigarette ends.

C．The difficulty in recycling cigarette ends.

D．The reason for breaking down cigarette ends.

4. What do Albe’s words in the last paragraph imply?

A．There is more and more waste to be recycled.

B．It is difficult for Terracycle to recycle everything.

C．Terracycle is trying to meet the challenge of new waste.

D．Terracycle has successfully recycled a large amount of waste.

6 . 上周末，你和同学到附近一个村庄帮助遭受水灾的农民收割庄稼。请你为班级英语角写一篇短文，介绍这次支农活动。内容要点如下：
1．虽遭水灾(flood disaster)，丰收依然有希望；
2．村庄离校有半小时路程。一早出发，到达便参加劳动；
3．天黑归来，人累了，但心情愉快。
注意：1.词数：100左右；2.题目已为你写好。

A Good Harvest

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7 . Most scientists are now certain that global warming is taking place. Gases such as carbon dioxide are creating a warm blanket around the earth. This blanket is trapping heat in the atmosphere, and so raising the temperature of the earth.

In Europe, eight of the last ten years have seen record high temperatures. On the other hand, the countries around the Mediterranean Sea are receiving even less rain than before. In Sub- Saharan Africa the crops are drying out in the fields and people are dying of starvation. In 1999, the southern United States was struck by a serious of destructive(毁灭性的) hurricanes. Scientists expect such trends to continue, and to worsen, if global warming cannot be stopped.

In addition to worrying about rising global temperatures and extreme weather conditions, scientists are closely monitoring sea levels around the world. They are slowly rising, as the northern and southern polar ice caps start to melt. This will have serious consequences for low-lying countries near the sea. Already parts of these places are disappearing under the rising sea water.

According to a new research, one contradictory feature(特征) of global warming is that it will probably lead to a period of much colder weather. Scientists base their theory on what happened the last time the world warmed up, 8,300 years ago. They have discovered that when the ice melted from the northern polar ice cap it became trapped in a lake in northern Canada. As more ice melted, this lake suddenly burst open, pouring millions of tons of freezing fresh water into the North Atlantic. This flood of water prevented the normal flow of water in the Atlantic, which takes warm water from the tropics(热带地区) north to Europe. When this flow of warm water was cut off, temperatures in Europe dropped by between three and eight degrees over the next 200 years. ''That's the concern here,'' says Richard Alley, an American climate expert. ''The climate hasn't varied much in 8, 000 years. But big changes could come back!''

1. What is the overall effect of global warming on Europe?

A．A warmer climate.	B．A decline in rainfall.
C．An increase of hurricanes.	D．A decrease of crop production.

2. What is Paragraph 3 mainly about?

A．The rising sea level.	B．The melting of icebergs.
C．The increase in disasters.	D．The cause of global warming.

3. How does the author describe the climate change in Europe 8 ,300 years ago?

A．By offering statistics.	B．By giving an example.
C．By making comparisons.	D．By analyzing the process.

4. What can we infer from Richard Alley' s words?

A．Global climate change will bring more disasters.

B．Global warming will likely produce a colder climate.

C．Global warming will continue for the next two centuries.

D．Global climate will remain unchangeable in the next 8,000 years.

8 . 阅读下面短文，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

Growing numbers of travelers are deciding not     1    (fly) in order to help save the planet even if it means     2    (spend) days on a train. The no-fly movement is small but many    3    have joined it think it will eventually receive       4     same attention as the no-plastic or less-meat movements because of flying’s 2%     5    (contribute) to carbon emissions, which they say could rise to 16% by 2050. Some supporters suggest that people should fly no more than once per year and any further flights should be taxed. Critics of the movement, however, argue that most flying is done by small numbers of people when     6    (compare)to other forms of transport and so flying is an easy target. Much more environmental damage is done by cars they argue. But people won’t target     7     (driver) because the majority of people drive. In addition, the no-fly movement     8     (lead) by people who don’t really need to travel very far and have plenty     9     free time to spare. Most people who fly, they say,     10    (rare) have time to spend extra days getting to destinations and employers are unlikely to give employees extra time off so they can be kind to the environment.

9 . What does the woman think of the weather?

A．It’s nice.

B．It’s warm.

C．It’s cold.

10 . A dog spent the last four years of his life waiting   at a crossroad in the Thai city of Khon Kaen as if waiting for someone. People originally thought the dog had been abandoned, but then realized that he looked healthy, so people asked around about him. It turned out that the dog had indeed been spending most of his time around that crossroad, but a woman had been coming round regularly to bring him food and water.

One day, while photographing the dog everyone called Leo, a reporter met the woman who had been taking care of him. She had come to drop off some food. After learning the story about the dog and the woman, the reporter decided to share the story on social media. The post soon went viral and the photos of Leo got shared hundreds of times. And the photos reached the eyes of Leo’s former old owner.

Nang Noi Sittisarn, a 64-year-old woman from Thailand’s Roi Et Province, almost had a heart attack when her daughter showed her a photo of the beloved dog named BonBon she had lost during a car trip. When she learned that he had been waiting for her in the same spot for the last four years，her heart melted(融化).

Auntie Noi told her daughter to drive her to where the dog was waiting. When she got there and called his name. BonBon，the poor dog started wiggling(扭动)his tail and came to her，but when she tried to take him home with her, he was unwilling to follow. She didn’ t want to force the dog to come with her so she agreed to leave him with his new master. However, she and her daughter will come to visit him regularly.

1. Why did the dog look healthy after separation from his former owner?

A．He walked around the crossroad constantly.

B．He was kept at a woman’s home all the time.

C．A local reporter brought him food and water.

D．A woman looked after him on a regular basis.

2. What does the underlined phrase “went viral” in paragraph 2 probably mean?

A．Changed surprisingly.	B．Spread quickly.
C．Appeared gradually.	D．Fell directly.

3. How did Nang Noi Sittisam feel about the dog's waiting for her?

A．Shocked.

B．Regretful.

C．Touched.

D．Proud.

4. What can we mainly learn from the story about the dog?

A．Unbelievable success is worth waiting for.

B．We should adjust ourselves to environments.

C．We need to learn to be faithful and thankful.

D．No one knows the result until the last minute