1 . Clothing rental is a hot new industry and retailers (零售商) are demanding to get on board in hopes of attracting green shopper.
But is renting fashion actually more environmentally-friendly than buying it, and if so, how much more? Journalist and author Elizabeth Cline investigated (调查) this question and concluded that it's not as sustainable as it seems.
Take shipping, for example, which has to go two ways if an item is rented — receiving and returning. Cline writes that consumer transportation has the second largest carbon footprint of our collective fashion habit after manufacturing.
She writes, ''An item ordered online and then returned can send out 20 kilograms of carbon each way, and increases up to 50 kilograms for rush shipping. By comparison, the carbon impact of a pair of jeans purchased from a physical store and washed and worn at home is 33.4 kilograms, according to a 2015 study by Levi's.''
Then there's the burden of washing, which has to happen for every item when it's returned, regardless of whether or not it was worn. For most rental services, this usually means dry cleaning, a high impact and polluting process. All the rental services that Cline looked into have replaced perchloroethylene (氯乙烯), a carcinogenic (致癌的) air pollutant, still used by 70 percent of US dry cleaners, with alternatives, although these aren't great either.
Lastly, Cline fears that rental services will increase our appetite for fast fashion, simply because it's so easily accessible. There's something called ''share washing'' that makes people waste more precisely because a product or service is shared and thus is regarded as more eco-friendly. Uber is one example of this, advertised as ''a way to share rides and limit ear ownership.'' and yet ''it has been proven to discourage walking,bicycling, and public transportation use.''
Renting clothes is still preferable to buying them cheap and throwing them in the dustbin after a few wears, but we shouldn't let the availability of these services make us too satisfied. There's an even better step — that's wearing what is already in the closet.
1. What is Elizabeth Cline's attitude toward clothing rental?| A．Approving. | B．Unfavorable. |
| C．Objective. | D．Enthusiastic. |
| A．rental services are on the rise |
| B．clothing rental will be as successful as Uber |
| C．renting clothes might waste more than expected |
| D．renting clothes might make people lose interest in fast fashion |
| A．give up renting any clothing |
| B．purchase inexpensive clothes |
| C．rent clothes rather than buy them |
| D．make full use of clothes we've possessed |
| A．Clothing rental is a new fashion. |
| B．Clothing rental is retailers' preference. |
| C．Renting clothes is not that eco-friendly. |
| D．Renting-clothes business is in a dilemma. |
2 . Over their lifetimes, city trees will likely absorb less CO2 from the air than forest trees. A new study finds that city trees grow faster and die younger than trees in forests. Studies have shown forests readily absorb CO2. But there haven’t been much data on whether city trees grow, die and absorb CO2 at the same rate that forest trees do. So Lucy Hutyra, an environmental scientist, and her colleagues at Boston University in Massachusetts decided to find it out.
To figure out how quickly trees were growing the researchers tracked their diameters (直径) of their trunks from 2005 to 2014. The team focused on red oaks and red maples growing on Boston streets. These grew four times faster than the same species did in a nearby forest. Faster -growing trees absorb more CO2. Over the nine years the researchers have tracked these trees and found city trees absorbed four times as much carbon from the air as the forest trees did. The city trees also, however, were twice as likely to die.
City trees grow faster because they have less competition with their neighbors for light. In a forest, trees tend to grow close together, shading their neighbors. So few may get as much light as they want.
“Street trees also benefit from higher levels of nitrogen (氮气) in rainwater. Nitrogen is an element that helps plants grow. It’s also an ingredient (成分) of the. gas-burning cars’ exhausts. Some street trees also may have better access to water than trees in the country. That’s because the underground water pipes can leak,” says Hutyra.
Shaun Watmough, an environmental scientist, says it’s important to keep in mind that people plant city trees along city streets not just to absorb carbon. The trees also help clean the air, provide shade and make a city more beautiful even if it’s only for decades, not centuries.
1. What does the new research find?| A．City trees have larger economic value than forest trees. |
| B．Forest trees grow in a faster speed than city trees. |
| C．Forest trees are equal to city trees in number. |
| D．City trees have a shorter life than forest trees. |
| A．They exposed trees to strong sunshine. |
| B．They kept a record of the width of trees’ bodies. |
| C．They produced large amounts of car gases to trees. |
| D．They made trees compete for light against each other. |
| A．They absorb more CO2 |
| B．They have stronger roots. |
| C．They have more competitors than city trees. |
| D．They live in a nitrogen-enriched environment. |
| A．Approving. | B．Doubtful. |
| C．Uncertain. | D．Pessimistic. |
3 . 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. |
China’s Liangzhu Archaeological Site
The site,
The World Heritage Committee added Liangzhu to the UNESCO list
5 . As humanity has got richer, animal’s roles have changed. People need their services less than before. Fewer wolves and thieves meant less demand for dogs for protection; the internal combustion engine（内燃机）made horses unneeded; modern sanitation（卫生设备）kept rats in check and made cats less useful. No longer necessities, domestic animals became luxuries. Pet-keeping seems to kick in when household incomes rise above roughly $5,000. It is booming.
The trend is not a new one. Archaeologists（考古学家）have found 10,000-year-old graves in which dogs and people are buried together. Some cultures -- such as in Scandinavia, where dogs have long been both working dogs and companions -- have kept pets for thousands of years. But these days the pet-keeping urge has spread even to parts of the world which have no tradition of sinking into a comfortable chair with a furry creature.
The pet business is growing even faster than pet numbers, because people are spending more and more money on them. No longer are they food - waste - recyclers, fed with the remains that fall from their masters’ tables. Pet - food shelves are full of delicacies crafted to satisfy a range of appetites, including ice cream for dogs and foods for pets that are old, diabetic or suffer from sensitive digestion; a number of internet services offer food, tailored to the pet’s individual tastes.
In the business this is called “pet humanisation” -- the tendency of pet owners to treat their pets as part of the family. This is evident in the names given to dogs, which have evolved from Fido, Rex and Spot to -- in America -- Bella, Lucy and Max. It is evident in the growing market for pet clothing, pet grooming and pet hotels.
People still assume that pets must be working for humanity in some way, perhaps making people healthier or less anxious. But the evidence for that is weak. Rather, new research suggests that dogs have evolved those irresistible “puppy - dog eyes” precisely to affect human emotions. It has worked. The species that once enslaved others now works very hard to pay for the care of its pets. Sentimental（多愁善感的）Americans often refer to themselves not as cat-owners but as the cat’s “mommy” or “daddy”. South Koreans go one further, describing themselves as cat “butlers”. Watch an unlucky dog-walker trailing “his” hound（猎犬）, plastic bag in hand to pick up its mess, and you have to wonder: who’s in charge now?
1. Which of the following trends is NOT TRUE according to the passage?| A．People’s needs for animal services are decreasing. |
| B．Both the pet number and the pet business are growing. |
| C．Pets are increasingly making their owners less anxious. |
| D．Pet foods are more various and customized than before. |
| A．The names given to pets in American families nowadays. |
| B．Pet’s inbuilt ability to affect emotions of their owners. |
| C．Human beings ever rising urge for pet-keeping. |
| D．Pet’s roles as both working staff and companions. |
| A．Pets should be treated as equals of their human masters. |
| B．Human beings are getting much benefit from their pets. |
| C．Pet-keeping is still restricted within certain parts of the world. |
| D．Some pet owners spend too much money on their pets. |
| A．The Changing Roles of Animals | B．The Urge for Pet-keeping |
| C．Who Owns Whom | D．Love Me, Love My Dog |
Acid rain is now a familiar problem in the industrialized countries in Europe. Harmful gases like Sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide are produced by power stations and cars.
Acid rain is also capable of dissolving some rocks and buildings made of soft rock, such as limestone, are particularly badly affected. The acid rain attacks the rock, and so carvings and statues are worn away more quickly.
The acid rain is said to be caused by pollution from oil wells in the Gulf of Mexico. Car exhaust gases are also a problem. Local volcanic eruption make the problem even worse. Nevertheless, with enough money and effort, researchers say that many of the problems could be solved and the rate of dissolving reduced.
Mexico’s current lack of funds is also partly due to oil. The country has rich oil field and a few years ago, when oil was expensive, Mexico was selling large quantities of oil to the USA and earning a lot of money. The government was therefore able to borrow huge sums of money from banks around the world, thinking they would have no problem repaying their debts. However, the price of oil then dropped, and Mexico has been left owing enormous sums of money and with not enough income from oil sales to pay back the loans.
| A．However, the Mexican government does not have enough money to do the work, and needs to spend what money it has on the Mexican people. |
| B．That is enough to have caused some of the ancient carvings to become seriously damaged already. |
| C．So unless the price of rises, it is unlikely that Mexican will be able to afford to clean up the pollution and save its Mayan ruins from destruction. |
| D．These measures would reduce the pollution, but would not stop it completely. |
| E．The problem, however, is not a European one. |
| F．They dissolve in rainwater and this makes acid rain, which damages trees, rivers and streams. |
7 . Kielder Forest in Northumberland, England, is home to birds of gray and red squirrels. Around 90 years ago, it was also home to the pine marten(松貂). The 0.5 meters animal was driven to dying out in England by 1926 because gamekeepers wanted to secure the safety of their game birds, according to The Guardian.
However, the martens thrived in Scotland, and the animals appear to be crossing back into England. A pine marten was spotted in Kielder Forest by John Hartshorne, a volunteer who monitors the red squirrel population in the forest, part of an effort to stop gray squirrels from further invading(入侵) the red squirrels’ territory.
The pine marten is one of the animals receiving a helping hand from Back from the Brink, one of the conservation groups working together to help save 20 species from dying out in England. Their efforts aim at helping the pine marten and other at-risk species.
Red squirrels are threatened by invasive gray squirrels, which out-compete the native squirrels for food and pass on a deadly virus. Martens keep gray squirrel numbers in check, especially since the invasive animals aren’t used to having a predator like the pine marten around. A 2018 study found that the presence of pine martens can be enough to push the gray squirrel population out of an area. So the pine marten returning to Kielder is a win-win: The pine marten returns to part of its historic range and by doing so, helps red squirrels continue to survive.
1. Why was the pine marten forced to leave Northumberland?| A．To attract more hunters. |
| B．To protect local animals. |
| C．To keep game birds safe. |
| D．To keep game birds from hunters. |
| A．Died out slowly. | B．Evolved rapidly. |
| C．Had difficulty adapting. | D．Increased in population. |
| A．To help the pine marten to thrive. |
| B．To free the red squirrels of danger. |
| C．To monitor the population of birds. |
| D．To stop gray squirrels from dying out. |
| A．the role of the pine marten |
| B．the importance of a 2018 study |
| C．the promising future of red squirrels |
| D．the harmful effects of gray squirrels |
8 . The number of snow geese arriving in the Arctic each spring to breed has risen over the past few decades. At first, wildlife biologists saw this as an environmental crisis, pointing to marshes（沼泽地）where plants were eaten by the hungry birds, and the federal government responded by loosening restrictions on snow goose hunting across the country. But how do the Inuit（因纽特人），in whose backyard this is taking place, and for whom fresh goose eggs and meat are among the pleasure of an Arctic spring, view the situation? A recent study is bringing Inuit wildlife experts and scientists together to look for common ground on managing the species.
The snow goose study asked experts in Coral Harbour and Arviat, on the north and west coast of Hudson Bay, to share their generations of knowledge about snow geese and their views on what should be done. “ The community had concerns about controlling the population," says Ron Ningeongan, a community officer for the Kivalliq Inuit Association in Coral Harbour, "and Inuit snow goose knowledge had never been recorded. People wanted to pass on what they knew. "
The Inuit experts rejected the idea of a cull(选择性宰杀），considering it wasteful of the geese and unnecessary for the environment in general, but felt that hunting more geese in an organized way—for instance, paying local hunters a minimum amount of money and distributing the birds to disadvantaged families or operating a limited commercial hunt that would employ local people—would be appropriate.
The Inuit say that while there may be too many snow geese in some areas, it's not a crisis. Biologists now generally agree that there seem to be plenty of undamaged marshes available and newer research shows that some damaged areas can recover.
Conservation planners for the three migratory bird reserves in the area will use the study's recommendations, which is an excellent example of how indigenous （土著的） knowledge can strengthen wildlife management Johnson says.
“Now that we have recorded and documented Inuit knowledge of snow geese," says Ningeongan. "when facing the crisis again, other people will be able to use the information to help manage the species, which is fundamental to dealing with it effectively. ”
1. Why did the federal government looben restrictions on snow goose hunting?| A．To create more marshes. | B．To protect ecosystem. |
| C．To make more profits. | D．To wipe out the hungry birds. |
| A．Regarding too many snow geese as a crisis. |
| B．Never organizing large-scale commercial hunts. |
| C．Employing poor families to hunt more snow geese. |
| D．Using snow goose hunting to man's best advantage. |
| A．It's unpredictable. | B．It’s hard to get better. |
| C．It's too discouraging. | D．lt's a bit promising. |
| A．The crisis. | B．The species. |
| C．Inuit knowledge. | D．Inuit research. |
Where is the Beef
Most people like to eat meat. As they grow richer they eat more of it. For individuals, that is good. Meat is nutritious. In particular, it packs much more protein per kilogram than plants do. However, animals have to eat plants to put on weight - so much so that feeding them accounts for about a third of harvested grain. Farm animals consume 8 per cent of the world’s water supply, and they produce around 15 per cent of unnatural greenhouse-gas emissions. More farm animals then, could mean more environmental trouble.
The simplest way to satisfy this demand is to concentrate on substitutes for familiar products. “Meat” made directly from plants, rather than indirectly, via an animal’s metabolism, is already on sale for the table and barbecue. Impossible Foods, a Californian firm, has deconstructed hamburgers, to work out what gives them their texture (质感) and flavour, and then either found or grown botanical equivalents to these.
For those who really want to eat steak while saving the planet, a second approach maybe more promising. That is “clean” meat made by taking animal cells and growing them in a factory to form strips of muscle. Steak is not yet on the menu, but burgers and meatballs may soon be. The field leader is Mosa Meat, a Dutch firm staffed by scientists.
There is one more novel source of meaty protein that does not involve farm animals -at least, farm animals of the conventional sort. This is insects. Locusts (蝗虫), for example, are about 70 per cent protein. Insects do have to be fed, but being cold-blooded, they convert more food into body mass than warm-blooded mammals do and, being boneless, more of that body-mass is edible.
| A．The first burger it made, in 2013, cost around $300,000. |
| B．It launched its plant-based burger in a number of restaurants in America last year. |
| C．Per edible gram, insects need only a twelfth of the food that cattle require. |
| D．The problem is marketing. |
| E．Plant-based "meat" products have made it onto menus and supermarket shelves. |
| F．Some consumers, particularly in the rich West, get this. |
10 . A therapy-animal trend attracts the United States. The San Francisco airport uses a pig to calm tired travelers. Universities nationwide bring dogs (and a donkey) onto campus to relieve students during finals. And that duck on a plane? It might be an emotional-support animal prescribed by a mental health professional.
The trend, which has been gaining popularity hugely since its initial stirrings a few decades ago, is strengthened by a widespread belief that interaction with animals can reduce distress whether it happens over belief physical contact at the airport or in long-term relationships at home. Certainly the groups offering up pets think so, as do some mental health professionals. But the popular embrace of pets as furry therapists is causing growing discomfort among some researchers in the field, who say it has raced far ahead of scientific evidence.
Earlier this year in the Journal of Applied Development Science, an introduction to articles on “animal -assisted intervention” said research into its effectiveness “remains in its infancy.” A recent literature review by Molly Crossman, a Yale University doctoral candidate who recently wrapped up one study involving an 8-year-old dog named Pardner, cited a “vague body of evidence” that sometimes has shown positive short-term effects, often found no effect and occasionally identified higher rates of distress.
Overall, Crossman wrote, animals seem to be helpful in a “small-to-medium” way, but it’s unclear whether the animals deserve the credit or something else is at play.
“It’s a field that has been sort of carried forward by the beliefs of practitioners” who have seen patients’ mental health improve after working with or adopting animals, said James Serpell, director of the Centre for the Interaction of Animals and Society at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine. “That kind of thing has almost driven the field, and the research is playing catch-up. In other words, people are recognizing that stories aren’t enough.”
Using animals in mental health setting is nothing new. In the 17th century, a Quaker-run retreat in England encouraged mentally ill patients to interact with animals on its grounds. Sigmund Freud often included one of his dogs in psychoanalysis sessions. Yet the subject did not become a research target until the American psychologist Boris Levinson began writing in the 1960s about the positive effect his dog Jingles had on patients.
But the evidence to date is problematic, according to Crossman’s review and others before it. Most studies had small sample sizes, she wrote, and an “alarming numbers” did not control for other possible reasons for a changed stress level, such as interaction with animal’s human handler. Studies also tend to generalize across animals, she noted. If participants are measurably relieved by one golden retriever, that doesn’t mean another dog---or another species--will arouse the same response.
1. According to the passage, what makes the therapy-animal trend more popular?| A．It has been in existence for no less than twenty years. |
| B．Mental health professionals have managed to cure patients with animals. |
| C．It is widely assumed that staying with animals can make people happier. |
| D．There is much related research to show that animals do good to some patients. |
| A．illustrate more scientific evidence is needed that animals are effective therapists. |
| B．highlight the importance of practitioners’ beliefs in the field of animal therapies. |
| C．question Srepell’s view that animals deserve the credit in helping patients. |
| D．criticize people for their taking human-animal stories too seriously. |
| A．Animal-assisted intervention turns out to be of more use than people think. |
| B．It is hard to see how many reasons there are for people to benefit from animals. |
| C．Research findings relating to one breed of dogs may not apply to another breed. |
| D．Small sample sizes can sometimes produce reliable effects in human-animal studies |
| A．More evidence found for dog-human relationship |
| B．Potential effects dogs have on patients |
| C．Therapeutic animal: nothing new |
| D．Good dog, good therapist? |
