1 . How To Eat Better for the Planet
You're environmentally conscious - and hungry. Here are answers to all your coo-friendly food questions.
Does what I eat have an effect on climate change?
Yes. The world's food system is responsible for about one quarter of the planet-warming greenhouse gases that humans generate each year. That includes raising and harvesting all the plants, animals, and animal products we eat.
How exactly does food contribute to global warming?
When some forests are cleared to make room for farms, cattle, sheep or other livestock, some serious problems may come up.
What about chicken?
A number of studies have found that chickens, ducks, and other birds have a lesser climate impact than cattle or sheep kept on a farm.
Is organic produce better for the climate?
Organic produce is grown without synthetic fertilizers or pesticides, but that doesn't mean it's necessarily better than conventionally grown produce from a climate perspective.
It's true that one person alone just makes a little bit in the climate problem. On the other hand, if many people made changes to their diets, that could start to add up. Experts have argued that it would make a big difference if the world's heaviest meat eaters scaled back - even moderately.
| A．Does what we eat matter? |
| B．Can I really make a difference? |
| C．Organic farms often require more land. |
| D．Modern-day chickens are bred to be extremely efficient. |
| E．Processing, packaging, and shipping food are also part of it. |
| F．Advances in chickens breeding are helping to reduce the cost of it. |
| G．Large stores of carbon released into the atmosphere heat up the planet. |
2 . Most of the 500 whales stranded (搁浅)off Tasmania have now died. Dozens more stricken whales have been found in Australia’s largest ever mass stranding.The estimated total now stands at around 500, with the majority of that number dead and a tenth rescued by authorities on the Island state of Tasmania. Experts believe all of the animals would have been part of one large group. Officials began working to rescue survivors among an estimated 270 whales found on Monday on a beach and two sandbars near the remote coastal town of Strahan. Then another 200 whales were spotted from a helicopter on Wednesday less than 10 kilometres (six miles) to the south.All 200 had been confirmed dead by late afternoon. They were among the 380 whales that have died overall, with estimates from earlier today suggesting that 30 that were alive but stranded and 50 had been rescued since Tuesday, Mr Deka, Wildlife Service manager explained. He added,“We’ll continue to work to free as many of the animals as we can.We’ll continue working as long as there are live animals.”
It is not known what caused the animals to run aground. While stranding events are not unheard of, they are very rare in such large numbers. About 30 whales in the original stranding were moved from the sandbars to open ocean on Tuesday, but several got stranded again. About a third of the first group had died by Monday evening.
Australia’s largest mass stranding had previously been 320 pilot whales near the Western Australian town of Dunsborough in 1996.This week’s incident is the first involving more than 500 whales in Tasmania since 2009.Marine Conservation Programme wildlife biologist Kris Carlyon said the latest mass stranding was the biggest in Australia in terms of numbers stranded and died.
Marine scientist Vanessa Pirotta said there were a number of potential reasons why whales might become beached, including navigational errors.She explained, “They do have a very strong social system; these animals are closely bonded and that’s why we have seen so many in this case unfortunately in this situation.Rescuing them does not always work, because they are wanting to return back to the group, they might hear the sounds that the others are making, or they’re just disoriented and, in this case, extremely stressed, and just probably so exhausted that they in some cases don’t know where they are.” she added.
1. What can be inferred from the first paragraph?| A．270 whales were rescued on Monday. |
| B．380 whales were found dead on Tuesday. |
| C．500 whales were found stranded and dead. |
| D．200 whales spotted from a helicopter were dead. |
| A．Rescue work is not done in time. |
| B．The number of the death is large. |
| C．The cause of the event is still a mystery. |
| D．There was no other similar event in recent years. |
| A．Navigational errors. |
| B．Overhunting of the human beings. |
| C．Whales’ group living style. |
| D．Whales’ confusion and exhaustion. |
| A．A newspaper. | B．A magazine. | C．A textbook. | D．A travel brochure. |
3 . Though leaders from the International Olympic Committee(IOC)have announced a first-of-its-kind postponement of the Tokyo Summer Olympics because of the corona virus epidemic,people all over the world are still concerned about its preparations.Officials from the Tokyo Olympic Committee say they are sparing no effort and announce the Tokyo Summer Olympics in 2021 is going green.The 5,000 medals Japan has made are more special than most.
One novel focus of the Tokyo Olympics is to be"sustainable”－to avoid using too many natural resources,so that the games are easy on the environment.As part of this goal,the organizers decided to make all of the Olympic medals out of metal recycled from old electronics.
Almost all electronics are made with small amounts of"precious metals",like gold and silver.But collecting enough of these metals to make 5,000 medals was a huge challenge.That's because the amount of metal in each device is tiny.It would take about 20,000 cell phones to get just l kilogram of gold.
Beginning in April 2017,the organizers placed collection boxes around the country,and asked people to turn in their old electronic devices.Soon people began to respond to the initiative(倡导），turning in smart phones,digital cameras,handheld games,and laptops.At first,collection went slowly,but soon more and more areas began to take part.By the end,1,621 local governments had helped out with the collection process.
Then came the job of breaking those devices down into smaller pieces.After eing taken apart and sorted, the small electronics were smelted(熔炼）to get all the gold,silver,and bronze elements.This is a tricky job, which calls for careful attention and good skill.It's also dangerous,because some of the metals and other things aren't safe for people to touch or breathe.
By the end of March,2019,the organizers had hit their targets of getting enough metal for the medals. They had collected around 32 kilograms of gold,4,100 kilograms of silver and 2,200 kilograms of bronze.And now all the 5,000 medals are available for the would-be winners.
1. What can we know about the Tokyo Olympics medals?| A．They are hugely valuable. |
| B．They are of high quality. |
| C．They are made from e-waste. |
| D．They are designed uniquely. |
| A．The difficulty of making the medals. |
| B．The initiative to recycle used smart phones. |
| C．The classification of the collected devices. |
| D．The process of collecting old electronics. |
| A．creative | B．demanding | C．well-paid | D．time-consuming |
| A．To advocate sustainable use of resources. |
| B．To promote the spirit of Olympic Games. |
| C．To introduce a new technique to make medals. |
| D．To show the gravity of environmental damage. |
| A．They like eating sweet things. |
| B．They are in danger of dying out. |
| C．They are in need of more bamboo. |
5 . The universe likes to be shy about its age,but astronomers believe they have a pretty good idea of the range.Currently,the most widely accepted age for the universe is around 13.8 billion years,but determining the age of...well,everything,is no easy feat(功绩）.Now, new studies have investigated the question using different methods-and they've come up with two different answers,separated by more than a billion years.
Because the universe is expanding at an accelerating pace,the further away an object is,the faster it appears to be moving away from us.This is expressed as the Hubble constant（哈勃常数, and it's a key factor in figuring out the age of the universe.After all, if we can determine how fast objects moving away from us,we can rewind that process to its beginning-the Big Bang.Researchers from the University of Oregon set out to map the distance to dozens of galaxies The team calculated that the universe is only 12.6 billion years old-that,you might notice is much younger than the 13.8 years usually stated.
In the second study,the method of figuring out the age of the universe is by mapping the oldest light we can detect.We are restoring the' baby photo' of the universe to its original condition, removing the wear and tear of time and space that distorted(扭曲）the image, says Neelima Sehgal, co-author on the study.Only by seeing this sharper baby photo or image of the universe can we more fully understand how our universe was born."In doing so, the researcher determined that the universe is 13.8 billion years old-in agreement with the accepted age.
The real problem though,is that the studies disagree so wildly with each other, to the tune of a billion years.But they are not the only ones-the battle lines are commonly drawn by the methods used. Obviously, more research is needed to determine where the truth lies.
1. What do we know about the universe from the first two paragraphs?| A．It doesn't exist long. | B．It becomes larger. | C．It runs away. | D．It causes the Big Bang. |
| A．The speed of moving objects. |
| B．The number of galaxies. |
| C．The process of the universe evolution. |
| D．The distance to other objects. |
| A．By referring to a similar thing. |
| B．By using hard scientific data. |
| C．By introducing a new concept. |
| D．By quoting an expert's words. |
| A．Whose method is better? |
| B．Which result can you believe? |
| C．How old is the universe? |
| D．Why is the universe so old? |
6 . A ten-year-old sperm whale(抹香鲸）was found dead on a beach in Scotland.A necropsy(尸检）revealed that nearly 100 kilograms of plastic and other trash had formed clumps(硬块）in its digestive system.The tragedy quickly made headlines.Why would a top predator in the ocean eat gloves,rope,and plastic cups?
Conventional wisdom suggests that marine animals eat plastic because it is there and they don't know any better.It is true that plastic may smell like food to some of them.But that doesn't explain why only certain types of whales-deep-diving toothed whales,such as sperm whales and pilot whales-turn up dead on beaches with stomachs full of plastic.
It's possible,says Savoca,that plastic trash sounds like food to toothed whales.These species
hunt deep in the ocean,sometimes nearly 500 meters below the surface,where it's pitch black(漆黑）。They use echolocation(回声定位）to hunt for food,typically squid(乌贼）。
By contrast,baleen whales(须鲸），including humpbacks and blue whales,have natural filters(过滤器）for their food.Baleen,the brush-like filter-feeding system they have in place of teeth,as well as their narrow throats,keeping them from swallowing anything much larger than the krill(磷虾群）that forms the basis of their diet.That could help explain why baleen whales are not ending up with plastic filled stomachs.
Fifty years ago,there was almost no plastic in the ocean.The lifespan of a large whale can be
twice that long.In the lifetime of a single whale,we went from an ocean with no plastic to hundreds of thousands of tons of it.Plastic comes on top of other factors affecting life in the ocean-climate change,overfishing,shipping traffic,and noise pollution."it's a real shame because their lives are challenging enough even without the additional pressure we put onto them,"says Savoca.
1. What does Paragraph 2 mainly talk about?
| A．That plastic smells like food to toothed whales. |
| B．That marine animals started to eat plastic decades ago. |
| C．That a number of toothed whales are found dead on beaches every year. |
| D．That conventional wisdom about why marine animals eat plastic doesn't apply to all whales. |
| A．They don't feed on krill. |
| B．They live in the dark depths of the ocean. |
| C．They are not born with brush-like filter-feeding systems. |
| D．They don't determine the location of their food with their eyes. |
| A．Whales have a longer lifespan than humans. |
| B．Plastic has a negative effect on climate change. |
| C．Great changes have taken place in the ocean in the past 50 years. |
| D．Plastic pollution has worsened already serious issues affecting marine life. |
| A．Different diets,different fates |
| B．Silent killers in the ocean |
| C．Plastic trash in-the ocean |
| D．Saving whales |
7 . The U.S.has more than 4,000 wild bee species,and many are in danger of dying out due to human activity,chemical overuse and climate change.In Colorado,the Girl Scout troops(童子军团)have take on the task of saving bees.They made tiny homes for wild bees called"bee hotels" to fight the big drop in the population of bees.
Bee hotels are like birdhouses for wild bees.Since wild bees don't make honey,they don't live in the containers for bees,but they always need a suitable habitat(栖息地）.Out in the wild, these bees often live holes of dead trees and broken branches.But natural habitats can be hard to come by in the developed areas,which are where bee hotels come in.Dennis vanEngelsdrop,a professor at the University of Maryland,says that bee hotels play an important role in keeping the wild bee population.When wild bees check out of their hotel rooms,they leave their kids behind. A wild bee produces her eggs and leaves food for them to eat.If built correctly,bee hotels can even attract new bee species.
The troops repurposed carboard boxes,paper pipes,etc.to create homes for bees in their local community.A hotel design can be as simple as paper pipes stuck into a box.After building their bee hotels,the girls went out to place them in green pockets of their community,such as community gardens."The most interesting thing I learned is when you think of bees,you just think of honeybees,but there are so many different types,"says Aimee,a Girl Scout.Working with bees can be a daunting task.Many children only know them from the pain of bites.But the Girl Scouts learned to overcome their fears."It was hard for me to go to look at the bees,"says another girl."I'm glad I' did.We need bees for food and flowers.”
Bees are a big deal in the world of plant reproduction.They move pollen(花粉）from one plant to another.While honeybees live communally,most bee species are wild and live on their own.Honeybees may be better known,but wild bees are important pollinators(授花粉者）too.
The bee hotel project also plays an important role in bringing up a new generation of responsible citizens."What you're seeing is that you need bees to survive;so who is better to be concerned about that than the young generation?"vanEngelsdrop says."These efforts are really good because hopefully the girls will show lifelong devotion to the preservation."
1. What might be the purpose of bee hotels?| A．Te store the pollen wild bees have collected. |
| B．To attract more bees a to the developed area. |
| C．To make bees to live together as a community. |
| D．To offer wild bees a place to live and produce young. |
| A．Tiring | B．Confusing | C．Frightening | D．Moving |
| A．Wild bees can enjoy a good life thanks to bee hotels |
| B．The Girl Scout save wild bees by building bee hotels. |
| C．The bee hotel project makes young girls responsible. |
| D．More and more bees are provided with natural habitats. |
8 . The government's top Great Barrier Reef scientist says a third mass coral bleaching (珊瑚白化) event in five years is a clear signal that the marine wonder is “calling for urgent help on climate change. Corals can recover from mild bleaching, but severe bleaching can kill corals.
Prof Terry Hughes, director of the Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University, surveyed 1,036 reefs from a plane over nine days in late March.
The marine park authority also had an observer on the flights. The survey has released maps showing that serious levels of bleaching occurred in 2020 in all three sections of the reef northern, central and southern. Some 25% of the reefs were seriously bleached-meaning that more than 60% of the corals on each reef had bleached.
The Great Barrier Reel has experienced five mass bleaching events-1998. 2002,2016, 2017 and 2020 -all caused by rising ocean temperatures driven by global heating. Hughes said there probably would not be the same level of coral death in the north and central regions in 2020 as in previous years, but this was partly because previous bleaching outbreaks had kill off the less heat -tolerant species The 2020 bleaching was second only to 2016 for severity(严重性), Hughes said.
Dr. David Wachenfeld，chief scientist at the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, told Guardian Australia "My greatest fear is that people will lose hope for the reef. Without hope there's no action. People need to see these bleaching events, They are clear signals that the Great Barrier Reef is alling for urgent help and for us to do everything we can”.
Measures to improve the ability of recovery of the reef include improving water quality, controlling outbreaks of coral-eating starfish, and research and development to improve the heat tolerance of corals. " However, climate change brings a new scale of impact unlike anything we have seen before. Thus, dealing with the climate problem is the basis for everything else to work, ” Wachenfeld said.
1. What does the underlined word “mild” in Paragraph 1 probably mean?| A．Serious |
| B．Strong. |
| C．Steady. |
| D．Slight. |
| A．The majority of the corals on each reef were bleached. |
| B．The survey was carried out on a plane by Hughes alone. |
| C．The 2020 bleaching killed off the less heat tolerant species. |
| D．The 2020 bleaching was worse than those of all the previous years. |
| A．have done everything they can for the reef |
| B．are sure to lose hope for the reef |
| C．will care more about the reef |
| D．will have no action at all |
| A．Improving water quality. |
| B．Making efforts to prevent global warming. |
| C．controlling outbreaks of coral-eating starfish., |
| D．Doing research on the heat tolerance of corals. |
The exact data on women in agriculture is difficult to pin down. There are variations between countries and agriculture data is challenging to collect. What is clear, however, is that most small-scale farmers are women, making up 60-80 percent of farmers in developing countries. The FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN) estimates that between 43 percent to even 70 percent of agricultural labor in some countries comes from women.
But women still don’t have the same rights as men when it comes to farming, making food production harder for women because of gender inequality. For female farmers, it is unquestionably a challenging job to engage in food production.
In the first place, purchasing land, farming equipment and hiring labor can be expensive. These costs are even harder on women because many of them lack access to credit. In nearly 48 economies women face legal restrictions to having control of their own finances.
Getting to the bank is hard too. Mobility for women in rural parts of developing countries is a big concern. Better transportation and infrastructure could help make access to credit more practicable for women. Credit and finance should be equal for everyone, especially women who are held back by gender restrictions.
Sadly, women may run the world, but they do not own it. Women are virtually denied property rights. Traditional customs in place can pass down land through the male side of the family, leaving women out of land rights completely. Other times, women need permission from a male relative or husband to own land.
It has been apparent that women are not as productive farmers as men and work longer hours in some countries like Indonesia. This is largely due to a lack of education. When education is considered more valuable for men (and thus mainly given to men), women farmers are less informed about the best production methods, thus producing less yield in crops and becoming “less productive”. This can all be changed through providing education for women. Removing gender inequality can help feed 130 million people who are currently undernourished.
Despite these barriers, women are definitely not leaving the “field”. In countries experiencing urban growth, men are migrating to urban areas for other jobs while women stay in rural areas, taking on jobs in farming and agriculture. Healthier children, education, and investment into the community are all benefits that female farmers are shown to have on their communities.
Let’s close the gender gap and give women the tools they need to succeed. If women farmers in developing countries have the same rights and opportunities, they will be just as productive. With increasing population, and the need for better food security, supporting women in agriculture is something that cannot afford not to be invested in.
| Women running most small farms | Women in developing countries |
| Women’s | Without credit, many women farmers can’t * The law sets a * It is a struggle for women in the countryside to enjoy bank service. |
| Women in many countries do not have easy * * Without a male’s permission women cannot take possession of land. | |
| The education system * Unlike men, women are often ignorant of agricultural science. * Women could become more | |
| Expected support for women farmers | Considering women’s |
10 . As PhD research goes, Brian Wisenden was enviable, watching baby fish swimming swiftly through the clear waters in the Costa Rican tropical dry forest. By recording their growth and numbers, he hoped to look at their risks of being eaten. Instead, he witnessed something odd. Many groups were increasing in numbers. In these groups, some were smaller than others, suggesting they weren’t siblings (兄弟姐妹). Wisenden had accidentally discovered that the fish, called convict cichlids, adopt each other’s babies. Why would they do that, he wondered?
In the human world, we think of adoption as a selfless act. But in nature, its presence is puzzling. Taking on the burden of bringing up babies with no genetic link would seem to reduce an animal’s chances of survival or at least provide no gain. Yet, adoption is surprisingly common in the world.
Take the eastern grey kangaroo. Between 2008 and 2013, Wisenden followed the fates of 326 baby kangaroos in the National Park in Victoria and recorded 11 cases of pouch swapping. The circumstances behind some of these adoptions aren’t known, but four were straight swaps and another four occurred after a mother had lost her own baby.
How come? Before independence, baby kangaroos go through a period inside and outside their mother’s pouch. Following out-of-pouch forays, mothers normally sniff their young before allowing them back in, but Wisenden’s team suspect that during an emergency they may skip the sniff test, allowing a vulnerable baby to quickly climb in before fleeing from danger. Once inside the wrong pouch, the young may fake the mother’s odor, making them smell confusingly like her own progeny. So, poor baby recognition is the prime cause of “accidental” adoption.
Some of nature’s adoptions are, actually, driven by young looking for better prospects. In burrower bugs, for example, females lay a nest of eggs close to those of unrelated bugs. Mother bugs tend their developing eggs before they hatch, then feed their babies nuts from weedy mint plants. Finding nuts is a competitive business, so not every mother bug gets her fair share. And if the delivery rate isn’t up to scratch, clever young may abandon their mothers to join a better-fed group. That’s similar to behavior in several species of gull whose babies, if poorly fed, may leave home in search of better parents.
The consequences of adoption following mistaken identity can be dire. The true babies of adopting mothers were abandoned. But it can have remarkable benefits, not just for adoptees but also for adoptive parents.
1. It can be inferred from the passage that Wisenden’s findings are .| A．too weird to be witnessed | B．out of his own expectations |
| C．envied by his peer co-researchers | D．a sound proof of his research object |
| A．Baby animals’ looking for better parenting. |
| B．Parents’ failure to recognize their own babies. |
| C．Selfless adoption commonly seen in animal world. |
| D．Parents, inability to provide enough food. |
| A．weak and easily attacked | B．naughty and easily hurt |
| C．independent and well-fed | D．fragile and poorly raised |
| A．The benefits for baby animals. | B．The benefits for adopters. |
| C．The consequences of adoption. | D．The consequences of wrong identity. |
