Diaojiaolou is a traditional residence of several ethnic minorities in China such as the Miao, Zhuang, Buyi and Tujia people. You can find a group of these houses
The traditional residence, typically two to three stories high, is a wooden house built on stilts (柱子). The unusual structure is considered
These stilted buildings sheltered people from fierce beasts in ancient times. Nowadays they continue to provide protection from venomous snakes and insects
2 . Naturalist Enzo Suma, who is now 40, lives in Puglia, a region in southern Italy whose long coastline faces the Adriatic Sea. Floating waste accumulates in this relatively enclosed part of the Mediterranean, unlike the open ocean, where the waste tends to be spread over a vast area. Feeling concerned about that, Suma makes it a habit to pick up the washed-up waste along the shore, especially after big winter storms.
One day, Suma was walking along the beach near his home when he discovered a bottle of Coke. Suma noticed on the bottle that the price, clearly printed on the bottom, was in lire, a currency (货币) that hadn’t been used in Italy since it was replaced by the euro in 2002. Could a plastic container have well survived in the Mediterranean, he wondered, for about two decades?
That led him to founding the Archeoplastica museum. It has a collection of about 500 unique pieces recovered from Italian shores and the Coke bottle is the first one of them. All collection demonstrates the unsettling life force of plastic waste in the environment. “Seeing that a product people may have used 30, 40, or 50 years ago remains still unchanged, you’ll feel different. It’s a great shock,” Suma said to a reporter. So Suma often exhibits selected pieces from the Archeoplastica collection at local schools around his hometown of Ostuni.
“The playful side of the work allows you to arrive at the less beautiful side of things,” Suma acknowledged. “Plastic is a kind of useful substance. But it’s unthinkable that a water bottle, made from a material designed to last so long, can be used for just a few days—or even minutes—before becoming garbage. Clean the beaches. Clean the oceans. Recycle. But if we are still throwing out plastics, none of those are going to be long-term solutions.”
1. What’s Suma’s concern about his living place?| A．Its long coastline is disappearing. | B．Big storms frequently hit the area. |
| C．Floating waste spreads over a vast area. | D．The waste pollution on shore is worsening. |
| A．They have a history of more than half a century. |
| B．They were quite valuable before turning into waste. |
| C．They’re more like educational exhibits than garbage. |
| D．They have stronger life force than ordinary plastic products. |
| A．Creative, devoted and socially responsible. | B．Enthusiastic, ambitious and adventurous. |
| C．Generous, cautious and humorous. | D．Curious, efficient and playful. |
| A．The birth of plastics has greatly served humans. |
| B．The key to tackling the plastic pollution is to stop littering. |
| C．The plastic problem can be solved by cleaning and recycling. |
| D．People should be more aware of the powerful functions of plastics. |
3 . For every goal that Lesein Mutunkei scores, trees get planted. It’s a simple yet effective message that appeals, and leads to a satisfying way of motivating us to promote environmentalism in our own way.
Born in Nairobi, Lesein is in his late teens, and his Trees4Goals is the means with which he intends to make the world greener. It unites two of his passions in life: love of the outdoors and love of football. Lesein enjoyed walking in the forest. He recognised his country was experiencing a serious loss of tree cover. Between 2001 and 2020, Kenya lost an estimated 11% of trees, releasing 176 million tons of CO2.
In a blog post for WWF Kenya, Lesein revealed that, once he started the Trees4Goals initiative, he originally planned to plant one tree per goal. In 2020, he wanted to take his efforts even further. What started as one tree planted per goal mushroomed into 11 trees planted per goal. Explaining the reason behind expanding the tree-planting, he said, “It represents team efforts in football and the contribution by my team. I have planted over 1,000 trees in the last two years.”
While it’s something of an own goal to destroy the forests and jungles providing enormous biodiversity, initiatives like Trees4Goals are an assured way to score an environmentalist hat-trick. Sports such as football are popular with the booming Kenyan population and have the ability to cut through cultural barriers regardless of the countries they are played in. Sports have the power to unify and excite large audiences. Lesein Mutunkei has taken this strategy and scored a winning goal of his own.
Like a seed, best ideas start small and change into something that can become far larger than anticipated. While Lesein continues planting 11 trees per goal, the Kenyan government is aiming to plant 1.8 billion trees to reach a point where 10 per cent of the country is covered by trees. The science behind is clear; a report in 2019 claimed that if 900 million hectares were devoted to additional tree planting of half a trillion trees, the world could offset (抵消) half of all carbon emissions produced since 1960.
1. What gave Lesein the idea of launching the project?| A．Release of too much CO2. | B．His dream of motivating others. |
| C．His passion for sports and nature. | D．Habit of exercising in the woods. |
| A．He created a blog for WWF. | B．He set a higher aim. |
| C．He planted one tree for each goal. | D．He extended his work to other teams. |
| A．The aim that is intended to achieve. | B．Action that harms one’s own interests. |
| C．Pursuit of one’s personal success. | D．The goal that is scored for the opposing team. |
| A．United, we win. | B．No pains, no gains. |
| C．Love me, love my dog. | D．Small deeds, big difference. |
4 . It’s the year 2140 and two kids ride their surfboards in the heart of Manhattan, near the point where Sixth Avenue meets Broadway. If you are familiar with this junction you will know it is far from the US’s current coastline. But in Kim Stanley Robinson’s novel New York 2140, Manhattan is flooded after continuous climate change causes the sea level to rise by 15.25 m.
Robinson’s 2017 climate fiction novel belongs to a new kind of novel, which tells “the story of the next century”. It might be helping readers across the world comprehend the situation in which we currently find ourselves.
Climate change is an indescribable crisis to make sense of. Drop some poisonous chemicals in a river now and you will see dead fish within days, but what do you witness when you release (释放) carbon dioxide (CO2)?
“This is where fiction comes in: it brings the abstract data closer to home by focusing on the face sand stories in these futures. Show readers a detailed account of a climate-changed future,” says Robinson, and they have an easier time imagining it. “Science fiction gets people thinking in a way that another report on climate change doesn’t,” says Shelley Streeby, a professor of Literature and Ethnic Studies at UC San Diego. “It helps people feel not only about what might be coming, but also about the present. It is about taking certain conditions that exist nowadays, extending them into the future and throwing a bunch of characters into their midst.”
In the search to adopt climate change as a topic, writers are doing what they do best: trying to tell a good story. Sometimes they write with a touch of optimism as they negotiate the current crisis. But even with this optimism, these writers want to make sure the world knows they, at least, are paying attention.
1. What is the function of the first paragraph?| A．To give background on a story. |
| B．To promote the novel New York 2140. |
| C．To lead to the topic of climate fiction. |
| D．To show the influence of climate change. |
| A．By inferring. | B．By comparing. |
| C．By analyzing. | D．By imagining. |
| A．Approving. | B．Cautious. | C．Negative. | D．Doubtful. |
| A．Climate Crisis: No Longer a Forecast |
| B．The Future World: More Promising |
| C．New York 2140: A New Type of Novel |
| D．Climate Fiction: A Reminder of Climate Change |
5 . Around the world, rivers seem to be either flooding or shrinking (缩小). While Pakistan’s rivers have left one-third of that country flooded and millions of people without homes, a drought unseen for 500 years has left Europe’s major waterways almost dry. In the United States, the Kentucky River suffered deadly flooding this summer, while the Colorado River dropped sharply, which brought about water distribution cuts across several states.
There is little disagreement about what’s going on. Scientists have warned for years that our changing climate will cause the frequency of both rainfall and droughts to increase, making the wet wetter and the dry drier, with more extreme impacts on rivers. The question now may be how to manage those waterways affected by climate change and, specifically, what role dams (大坝) should or should not play in relieving the disasters we’ve been seeing lately and will see more of.
Advocates say water storage dams will become more significant which can stop water during flooding and allow it out in times of droughts. Dams, they say, can help relieve climate change by producing clean hydropower (水电). “Dams and hydropower are fundamental to climate relief and adaptation,” says Richard Taylor, a leading hydropower expert.
Not so. People holding opposite opinions claim that dams do more harm than good. Their arguments have long centered on the negative impact most dams have on biodiversity and river ecosystems, and increasing data show that dams actually worsen both floods and droughts. They also point out studies have shown that lakes created by dams often produce far more harmful greenhouse gases than people previously understood.
“Dams are thought to be a climate solution,” says Isabella Winkler, who co-leads International Rivers, a U.S.-based advocacy group. “They have been praised as a source of green energy but they are actually not.” Besides, scientists warn that many existing dams use operating rules based on old climate assumptions. New dams, experts agree, must be built for the worst cases.
1. Why did the author mention some rivers in Paragraph 1?| A．To compare the rivers. | B．To describe the disasters. |
| C．To introduce the topic. | D．To analyze some findings. |
| A．Building dams destroys the ecosystem. |
| B．Climate change worsens natural disasters. |
| C．Hydropower increases the impact on disasters. |
| D．Waterways are in terrible condition widely. |
| A．Doubtful. | B．Positive. | C．Negative. | D．Objective. |
| A．The distribution of water in different areas. |
| B．The influence of hydropower on the environment. |
| C．Main causes of water shortage all around the world. |
| D．Different views on dams’ role in fighting climate change. |
Wang Tianchang,
At first, they
Eventually, his efforts have not gone unnoticed. The Chinese government not only appointed Tianchang and his sons
7 . The Cambodian Government’s Fisheries Administration and WWF announced that the Irrawaddy dolphin population in the Mekong River numbers just 89. The number is a slight decline from the estimate of 92 in 2018, but shows that the population has stabilized. In recent years after decades of sharp decline.
Critically, the survey’s findings also indicate a positive survival rate of calves through to adulthood, with a “recruitment rate” of 4.22%, signalling an improving trend for the dolphin population. “Although the survey confirmed that the number of river dolphins in Cambodia has stabilized, the population size is still small, so stronger conservation action is urgently needed,” said Mr. Seng Teak, WWF Country Director.
The Irrawaddy dolphins are fully protected under Cambodia’s Fisheries Law. The dolphins, however, continue to face great danger. Gill nets, development of upstream dams, overfishing, and illegal fishing practices such as electrofishing are among major known threats to the survival of the species.
Effective conservation action in recent years has halted the decline in the population, but more is required to ensure that the population expands. The Fisheries Administration and WWF are committed to continuing to work gather with the local communities and other partners to make collective efforts to carry out the recommendations of the 2020 population report.
These recommendations include enforcement of the fisheries law and the ban on illegal gill net use in the protected dolphin habitat, continued robust monitoring of the species population, and management of the Ramsar site in Stung Treng province to improve natural fish stocks for food and prey enhancement for both the local communities and the dolphins.
1. Which of the following best describes the present population of dolphins in Cambodian?| A．Uncertain | B．Steady | C．Declining | D．Increasing |
| A．Normal fishing. | B．Gill net fishing. | C．Illegal fishing. | D．Too much fishing. |
| A．The recommendations haven’t been put to use. | B．It is banned to fish in conservative habitats. |
| C．The species of dolphins will be managed. | D．Dolphins will have more fish to eat. |
| A．The food the dolphins eat. | B．The threats the dolphins meet. |
| C．The protection of dolphins in the Mekong. | D．The population of dolphins in the Mekong River. |
8 . It’s peak cold and flu season, which means taking a lot of preventative measures. Frequent hand-washing is a must. As is avoiding co-workers or friends who are sick. But we humans are not the only animals that change behavior to keep diseases at bay. So do ants.
“So there are the foragers and the nurses — it’s two different groups of work,” said Natha of the University of Lausanne. She and her colleagues observed ants to see their reaction to the presence of a disease.
“The nurses being made of young workers typically, stay inside the nest and take care of the eggs. And the foragers are all the workers spending most of time at outside of the nest to collect food and defend the territory.”
Forager ants are at greater risk of getting exposed to diseases because they leave the safety of the nest. So the researchers sprayed a common virus on a small group of forager ants and then followed their movements to see the way other ants reacted.
“We marked all ants in the colony with individual labels, which carries these two-dimensional bar code marks like QR code which is automatically detected and recorded using a tracking system.”
After the infection, the nurse and forager ants stayed within their working places and interacted less outside of their work group. The researchers also saw that forager ants spent more time outside of the nest. “They increase that amount by 15 percent, so by quite a long large amount.”
Isolating behavior stops the spread of the virus. “Something that’s quite interesting in these ants that’s been shown by the study is that in their ability to avoid infecting other members of the community, ants may be more advanced than we are,” Natha said.
1. How did the researchers track the infected ants?| A．They labeled the movements of infected ants. |
| B．They used the QR codes to follow the ants’ movements. |
| C．They had some nurse and forager ants infected with the virus. |
| D．They applied a tracking technology to record the ants’ movements. |
| A．Forager ants stayed inside the nest more. |
| B．Infected ants tended to stay away from healthy ants. |
| C．The nurses stayed inside the nest, working as usual. |
| D．Forager ants, together with coworkers, stayed outside more. |
| A．Doubtful. | B．Objective. | C．Appreciative. | D．Conservative. |
| A．How ants keep diseases at bay in the nest. |
| B．Ants change movements to fight against diseases. |
| C．The measures all the ants take to prevent diseases. |
| D．Similarities between human and ants in controlling diseases. |
增加：在缺词处加一个漏字符号（˄），并在其下面写出该加的词。
删除：多余的词用斜线（\）划掉。
修改：在错的词下划一横线，并在该词下面写出修改后的词。
注意：1.每处错误及其修改均仅限一词；
2.只允许修改10处，多者（从第11处起）不计分。
I am fond of wild animals, which existence makes our world lively and colorfully. However, many wild animals in nature are in the danger. It is believed that human beings mainly lead the terrible problem. Thanks to many governments’ and organizations’ efforts, much attention from the world are paid to the protection of wild animals. As a member of human beings, I am sure willing to protect the wildlife. So far, I had launched two activities to show the public the great achievements make in the protection of the wildlife. Many of my classmates have joined myself. I hope that more people can participate in the activity to advertise the importances and benefits of environment protection.
10 . Top universities for employability 2021 in USA
California Institute of Technology
The California Institute of Technology, founded in 1891, is one of the best private universities in the world, ranking 9 in National Universities. Its setting is suburban and the campus size is 124 acres. The student population is tiny compared with other colleges with just over 1,000 undergraduates and 1,200 postgraduates (2021 ). Students are admitted on the basis of strong maths, science and engineering skills and interest. Some of them may get high scholarship.
Tuition and fees: $58,680(2020-2021)
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private research university that was founded in 1740 in Pennsylvania, USA. It has a total undergraduate enrollment of 9,872(fall 2021). Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, and is one of several institutions that claim to have been the first university in America. University of Pennsylvania is ranked number 4 in National Universities.
Tuition and Fees: $ 57,770(2020-2021)
Columbia University
For more than 260 years, Columbia university has been a leader in higher education in the nation and around the world. The oldest private institution recognizes the importance of its location in New York City and seeks to link its research and teaching to the vast resources of a great metropolis. It has a total undergraduate enrollment of 6,170(fall 2021) and is the 5th oldest in the United States. It is ranked number 11 in National Universities.
Tuition and Fees: $53,000(2020-2021)
University of Chicago
University of Chicago is a private institution that was founded in 1890. It has a total undergraduate enrollment of 6,989(fall 2021). In an urban setting, the campus size is 217 acres. University of Chicago has a reputation for devotion to academic scholarship and its ranking is number 6 in National Universities.
Tuition and Fees: $49,298(2020-2021)
1. What is special about California Institute of Technology?| A．It is the oldest university in America. |
| B．It is a small but well-known university. |
| C．It offers the highest academic scholarship. |
| D．It only admits international talented students. |
| A．University of Chicago. | B．Columbia University. |
| C．University of Pennsylvania. | D．California Institute of Technology. |
| A．They are all built in urban areas. | B．They are all small schools in size. |
| C．They are all private universities. | D．They are all ranked top 10 in the USA. |
