1 . To save the environment, we must all join in — and nobody knows this better than 70-year-old grandmother Pat Smith who spent 2018 cleaning up litter from 52 beaches in Cornwall on the United Kingdom’s south coast.
Smith set out in January, 2018 to carry out her New Year’s resolution of making her community a better and cleaner place. The ambitious goal came to her after she watched a documentary on plastic pollution the previous year, and she knew she couldn’t just sit by.
Often, volunteers would join her in her efforts, including her grandchildren, or she would join hands with other campaigners such as Wayne Dixon, who is walking around the UK coast as an ambassador for Keep Britain Tidy.
During her beach cleans, Smith was sometimes mistaken for doing community service! She said, “People don’t understand I’ve been doing this voluntarily. We should all take responsibility for picking up the litter as well as ensuring we don’t drop litter in the first place.
Even before her beach cleanups, Smith had begun her first environmental campaign to eliminate plastic straws (吸管) in her city of Cornwall . To date, she has encouraged 600 local companies to stop using unnecessary plastic. In an effort to make her hometown an example for the plastic-free movement in the United Kingdom, she founded The Final Straw Cornwall in the summer of 2017. “I founded the Final Straw to try and raise awareness of the disastrous damage we are doing to our oceans from our casual consumption of single-use plastics. I feel I have a responsibility to my children and grandchildren to do something about it.” She said.
Her resolution year may be over but this environmentally conscious grandma continues her quest (追求). “A lot of the rubbish I’ve picked up consists of everyday items,” said Smith. “These things are used by all of us and it is shocking to find them polluting our beautiful beaches. Please let’s try to be more thoughtful in this coming year. I’m driven to try and protect our living planet for my children and grandchildren and I will continue to do everything in my power to achieve that.”
1. What led to Smith’s New Year’s resolution of cleaning her community?| A．Community service. |
| B．A film or television program. |
| C．Various ocean protection campaigns. |
| D．Serious pollution in her community. |
| A．She was forced to do that. |
| B．She just pretended to be caring. |
| C．She actually did only a little work. |
| D．She wouldn’t stick to the work for long. |
| A．set an example to other aged people |
| B．stop her local companies from producing plastic straws |
| C．keep her promise to her children and grandchildren |
| D．make people conscious of the plastic-related environmental problem |
| A．It’s everyone’s duty. |
| B．It’s as hard as people think. |
| C．Prevention is more important than protection. |
| D．The younger generation don’t care about it enough. |
| A．Proud. | B．Happy. | C．Stressed. | D．Determined. |
2 . Every spring, in regions at high altitudes around the world, one of Earth’s tiniest migrations takes place. The migrants are single-celled green algae (海藻); they are relatives to plants growing in the sea, but instead of living in the sea they live in snow. They spend the winter deep in the snow. In the spring, they wake and swim up through flowing streams of melted snow to the surface, dividing and photosynthesizing (进行光合作用) as they go. Then, at the top, they turn red. This creates what scientists call pink snow.
The color comes from astaxanthin (虾青素), a substance that gives some living things their reddish color. The algae produce astaxanthin as a form of sun protection; it absorbs UV light, thereby warming the organisms and thus melting the surrounding snow. “The melting helps them a lot,” said Roman Dial, a biologist at Alaska Pacific University. “The moment there is liquid water on the snow, the algae start growing.”
Pink snow is a perfectly natural phenomenon, but in an age of disappearing glaciers (冰川), it is also problematic. Last year, scientists discovered that the algae turned the snow surface dark, reducing the amount of sunlight reflected by some glaciers in Scandinavia—and increasing the amount of sunlight absorbed—by 30%. The result, as Dial and his colleagues demonstrated in this month’s issue of Nature Geoscience, is faster melting. As in other parts of the warming planet—particularly the Arctic, where scientists fear that melting permafrost (永冻土层) may lead to further climatic changes. Ice sheets are already being darkened by dust and ash, which makes the process of melting faster and provides nutrients for algae growth. As the organisms multiply, they melt even more snow, which allows them to increase in their population again. “It spreads more rapidly than people realize, once it gets established,” Dial said.
Snow algae need snow; when that’s gone, which seems to be the direction of things, the snow algae will go, too. Before the snow algae disappear, though, and while there’s still some glacier left, it’s entirely possible that the last snow we’ll see on Earth will be pink or even red, a wound on Earth.
1. What causes the color of pink snow?| A．The migration that involves the algae and other plants. |
| B．The flowing streams that the algae travel through. |
| C．The algae that turn red at the snow’s surface. |
| D．The sunlight that directly reflects on the algae. |
| A．It absorbs UV light to cool down the algae. | B．It prevents the algae from photosynthesizing. |
| C．It colors the algae for the purpose of decoration. | D．It helps protect the algae from the sun. |
| A．It increases the reflection of sunlight. | B．It speeds up the melting of glaciers. |
| C．It leads to a decrease in algae populations. | D．It reduces the amount of liquid water available. |
| A．The rapid melting of glaciers may lead to an increase in permafrost. |
| B．The darkening of ice sheets may slow down the process of melting. |
| C．The warming climate may result in the extinction of algae in the region. |
| D．Darkening ice sheets and multiplied algae may worsen climate change. |
| A．Concerned. | B．Indifferent. | C．Neutral. | D．Optimistic. |
3 . The effects of “weird weather” were already being felt in the 1960s, but scientists linking fossil fuels with climate change were dismissed as prophets of doom (末日预言家).
In August 1974, the ClA produced a study on “climatological research as it is related to intelligence (情报) problems”. The diagnosis was dramatic. It warned of the emergence of a new era of weird weather, leading to political unrest and mass migration (which, in turn, would cause more unrest).
The new era the agency imagined wasn’t necessarily one of hotter temperatures; the CIA had heard from scientists warning of global cooling as well as warming. But the direction in which the temperature was changing wasn’t their immediate concern; it was the political impact. They knew that the so-called “little ice age”, a series of cold snaps between, roughly, 1350 and 1850, had brought not only drought and famine, but also war.
“The climate change began in 1960,” the report’s first page informs us, “but no one, including the climatologists, recognised it.” Crop failures in the Soviet Union and India in the early 1960s had been attributed to standard unlucky weather. The US shipped grain to India and the Soviets killed off livestock to eat . But, the report argued, the world ignored this warning, as the global population continued to grow and states made massive investments in energy, technology and medicine.
Meanwhile, the weird weather rolled on, shifting to a collection of west African countries just below the Sahara. People in Mauritania, Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad “became the first victims of the climate change”, the report argued, but their suffering was masked by other struggles or the richer parts of the world simply weren’t paying attention.
As the effects of climate change started to spread to other parts of the world, the early 1970s saw report s of droughts, crop failures and floods from Myanmar, Pakistan, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Costa Rica, Honduras, Japan, Manila, Ecuador, USSR, China, India and the US.
1. The climatological research by CIA showed that ______.| A．global cooling had more evidence than warming |
| B．political impact was more unpredictable than climate |
| C．climate change could cause conflicts between countries |
| D．historical ice age had an impact on future weather |
| A．Because climatologists lacked equipment for observation. |
| B．Because crop failures attracted the world’s attention. |
| C．Because climate change was a national secret e of Soviet Union. |
| D．Because the world was busy developing economy and technology. |
| A．The US provided them with grain to reduce hunger. |
| B．The rich countries failed to notice their struggle. |
| C．The world praised their courage in the face of weird weather. |
| D．The African people migrated to the area near Sahara. |
| A．unclear and confusing | B．widespread and neglected |
| C．rare and disastrous | D．frequent and insignificant |
| A．To inform people of the ignored signs of climate changes. |
| B．To call on people to protect the environment. |
| C．To explain why climate changes have effects on politics. |
| D．To tell people how to prevent weird weather. |
After being evacuated (疏散) from her Florida home following Hurricane Michael. Amber Gee was attempting to get an idea of the destruction left behind when she discovered a sign of trouble. As reported by ABC News, Gee was using NOAA’s interactive aerial map (交互式航拍地图) to check the damage done to her and her family’s homes when she spotted the word “H-E-L-P” spelled out in the yard.
The NOAA website allows those impacted in the hurricane to get a look at specific streets or homes by zooming in on (用变焦距镜头拉近) aerial imagery of the affected area. According to ABC News, Gee was looking at one of these photos when she noticed a cry for help spelled out in wood in the front yard of her grandmother’s Bay County home.
Though her grandmother had evacuated, several other family members, including Gee’s uncle and his wife, had stayed behind. After spotting the message, Gee alerted (向……报警) Bay County Emergency Services, who went to the house and rescued those who were trapped in the residence.
“Apparently, they had to cut through a lot of downed trees to get there,” Gee told ABC News. Her uncle, Ernest, had reportedly used wood from one of those trees to spell out the message.
After the rescue, Bay County Emergency Services posted the incident on their Facebook page, writing, “This is an incredible story of how people are working together in this situation. Someone from another county was using the mapping app to check property in rural Bay County and noticed the word ‘help’ spelled out in the grass in wood. That person immediately contacted us and sent the picture and we dispatched emergency workers.”
Meanwhile, Gee says she is thankful that she was able to use the mapping tool to get her family to safety. “The hurricane has turned everything upside down everywhere. Some were more fortunate than others. I’m just happy that everybody is safe and sound and, hopefully, soon we will all get through this together and recover from this storm,” she said.
1. What did Gee use the mapping app to do? (no more than 12 words)2. Who can look at the NOAA website’s aerial photos of the affected area? (no more than 5 words)
3. Who spelled out “Help” to cry for help? (no more than 5 words)
4. What does the underlined word “dispatched” in Para. 5 probably mean? (one word)
5. What lesson can you learn from this story? Please explain. (no more than 25 words)
5 . 假设你是晨光中学的学生李津。在世界地球日即将到来之际，你校与英国友好校将在线举办“绿动校园，青春飞扬”的主题摄影展，以此来记录校园环保活动中的精彩瞬间。现组委会向同学们征集照片，你打算参加此项活动。请按照以下提示用英语给组委会写一封信来推荐你的照片：
（1）描述照片的内容；
（2）说明选择该照片的理由；
（3）表达对该照片入选的愿望。
参考词汇：绿动校园，青春飞扬Green Campus, Flying Youth
注意：
（1）词数不少于100；
（2）可适当加入细节，使内容充实、行文连贯；
（3）开头和结尾已给出，不计入总词数。
Dear Sir/Madam,
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Yours,
Li Jin
6 . Every year, millions of monarch butterflies migrate 3,000 miles to Mexico from North America. “Everybody knows about the monarchs’ migration,” says Andy Davis, an animal ecologist at the University of Georgia. “But one of the things that we still don’t understand is how they’re capable of making such tremendous flight while being such small animals with limited energy.” Amazingly, some of the monarch’s continent-spanning magic may be owed to the size of its wing spot, according to a study published in PLOS One.
The question of how color influences the monarch’s flight began when Mostafa Hassanalian, a professor of mechanical engineering, published a paper about how the colors on the wings of the albatross (信天翁) might help it fly for longer distances. The black on the top of the bird’s wings absorbs more solar energy, creating a pocket of warm air; the white on the bottom absorbs less. Together, the opposite colors create more lift and less drag, helping the albatross to fly up more efficiently.
Motivated by Hassanalian’s paper, Andy Davis contacted him and they teamed up with three other experts to investigate whether the orange, black. and white patterns on North American monarch butterflies’ wings influenced their flight distance. Specifically, they explored whether these color patterns determined how far the butterflies could fly. They discovered that surviving migratory monarchs had 3% less black pigment (色素) and 3% more white pigment a surprising contrast from the albatross. They also observed larger white spots on Eastern monarchs, which migrate farther than Western and Floridian populations, along with deeper shades of orange. The team assumed that these color patterns might offer an aerodynamic (空气动力) advantage, although the reason for the larger white spots remains unknown.
Should the connection between white markings and flight performance prove true, they plan to apply it to drone technology. “If small coloration (自然色彩) effects can improve like 10% of your efficiency, that’s a lot,” Hassanalian says, “Another aspect is that your drone would be able to carry more, because this coloration helps it gain extra lift.” The enhancement could also benefit other aircraft, but he points out one warning: planes fly at a much faster speed than butterflies, so coloration may not be as relevant to them.
Other butterfly scientists have reacted to their work with both enthusiasm and skeptlesm. “It is a totally new idea and it’s quite exciting,” says Marcus Kronforst, an evolutionary biologist. “I’ve worked on butterfly color patterns my whole life, basically, and never, never considered this. It’s never crossed my mind that it might influence how the butterflies fly.”
1. According to Andy Davis, what remains a mystery of the monarchs’ migration?| A．How the monarchs manage the migration. |
| B．Why the monarchs make the migration. |
| C．Why the monarchs migrate to Mexico |
| D．How the monarchs choose the route. |
| A．To reveal the mechanism of the albatross’ flight. |
| B．To show Hassanalian’s achievements in albatross study. |
| C．To indicate where the researchers drew their inspiration. |
| D．To introduce common color patterns of the albatross’ wings. |
| A．They reduce orange pigment. | B．They limit migration distance. |
| C．They resemble albatross spots. | D．They offer extra lift for migration. |
| A．By conducting an experiment. | B．By making comparisons. |
| C．By doing field research. | D．By studying models. |
| A．Scientifically curious. | B．Cautiously optimistic. |
| C．Technologically skeptical. | D．Environmentally concerned. |
7 . When I began to study flower arranging, I was slowly developing a deeper understanding of the
In our first class, my teacher said that flowers can
Even after the flowers had been
This experience made me feel how
What we came to notice was that flowers could also
When we made our arrangements with this kind of
| A．difference | B．conflict | C．barrier | D．connection |
| A．actually | B．hardly | C．briefly | D．mildly |
| A．ways | B．goals | C．levels | D．measures |
| A．pouring | B．focusing | C．relying | D．forcing |
| A．covered | B．arranged | C．delivered | D．wrapped |
| A．prove | B．grow | C．feel | D．smell |
| A．put | B．cut | C．brought | D．handed |
| A．garden | B．vase | C．cave | D．wall |
| A．first | B．right | C．former | D．equal |
| A．fully | B．apparently | C．mentally | D．firmly |
| A．performer | B．babysitter | C．neighbor | D．caretaker |
| A．amazed | B．moved | C．anxious | D．curious |
| A．simple | B．funny | C．complex | D．foolish |
| A．flowers | B．animals | C．grasses | D．humans |
| A．allows | B．conveys | C．promtises | D．passes |
| A．direction | B．space | C．energy | D．shape |
| A．shake | B．listen | C．breathe | D．inform |
| A．prove | B．select | C．imagine | D．rémind |
| A．beauty | B．secret | C．message | D．treasure |
| A．talent | B．policy | C．devotion | D．technique |
8 . Styrofoam, or polystyrene, is a light-weight material, about 95 percent air, with very good insulation (隔热) properties, according to Earthsource.org. It is used in products from cups that keep your drinks hot or cold to packaging material that protects items during shipping. With the above good features, Styrofoam still enjoys a bad reputation. It cannot be recycled without releasing dangerous pollution into the air. The U. S. Environmental Protection Agency says it is the fifth-largest creator of harmful waste.
But now the common worms which are usually disgusting can come to the rescue, specifically, mealworms. Scientists from the U. S. and China have discovered that mealworms can digest plastic. One mealworm can digest a pill-sized amount of plastic a day. Study co-author Wei-Min Wu says that in 24 hours, the plastic is turned into carbon dioxide.
Since Styrofoam has no nutrition at all, are the worms hurt by eating plastic? Much to the scientists’ surprise, the study found that worms eating Styrofoam were as healthy as worms eating bran (谷糠). The researchers will study the worm’s eating habits and digesting system, looking to copy the plastic breakdown but on a larger scale. Once the way can be put into practice, it will make a revolutionary difference to the disposal of plastic.
“Solving the issue of plastic pollution is important”, says Wu, a Stanford University environmental engineering instructor. After all, our earth is small and landfill space is becoming limited with too much garbage waiting to be dealt with, he says.
About 33-million tons of plastic are thrown away in the United States every year. Plastic plates, cups and containers take up 25 percent to 30 percent of space in America’s landfills. One Styrofoam cup takes more than 1 million years to recycle in a landfill, according to Cleveland State University.
1. What do we know about Styrofoam?| A．It can be used to cool drinks. |
| B．It is a weightless material. |
| C．It is harmful when recycled. |
| D．It is usually used on ships. |
| A．Mealworms have amazing digesting power. |
| B．Mealworms are not bad in their nature. |
| C．Mealworms can rescue people’s lives. |
| D．People misunderstood mealworms in the past. |
| A．To find ways to help mealworms grow larger. |
| B．To imitate their ways of breaking down plastic. |
| C．To help develop their digesting ability. |
| D．To make sure of their safety after eating plastic. |
| A．by raising amounts of mealworms |
| B．by environmental engineering instructors |
| C．using a method inspired by eating mealworms |
| D．without sending out dangerous pollution |
| A．Styrofoam is widely used in daily life. |
| B．Mealworms are genius at eating plastic. |
| C．Plastic recycling may be no more a problem. |
| D．Plastic can be turned into carbon dioxide. |
9 . Canaries, a kind of small yellow songbirds, are more sensitive to carbon monoxide (CO) than people are. Thus they were routinely taken into mines as men went about their work of mining for coal. CO could quickly poison many miners before they even knew what was happening. If a canary stopped singing, this was an indicator of rising CO levels. Now ecologists think they’ve found a “canary” that could predict possible disaster for tropical (热带的) ecosystems—the cricket (a small brown jumping insect).
Crickets are tiny, present in large numbers and, most importantly, noisy. The chirps (唧唧叫声) of individual species are identifiably different. Researchers had previously wondered if ecosystems might be monitored by listening to how the sounds of their crickets change over time.
Amandine Gasc and her colleagues studied cricket populations on Grande Terre Island in New Caledonia, where multiple ecosystems often exist very near to each other. They collected crickets at 12 sampling sites. Four were healthy forest sites, four were shrubland (灌木地) areas, which is often created when people cut down forests, and four were shrubland areas that were turning into forests again. They listened for insects in square zones and ran ten 30-minute collection sessions at each site.
Dr. Gasc described how each ecosystem had, in effect, a distinct “cricket fingerprint”. Species richness varies considerably among the different environments. Of the 20 cricket species found in the healthy forest, 12 were unique to that habitat alone, 2 of the 15 species found in transitioning forests were unique to this habitat and 3 of the 7 shrubland species were unique to shrubland.
Just by looking at the crickets found in a given location, the team found that it was possible to determine whether they were looking at shrubland, forest or shrubland that was changing into the forest. There was no need to examine the other surrounding plants or animals.
What’s more, Dr. Gasc’s team found each habitat contained cricket species that generated their identifiable chirps. This suggests that setting up audio recorders in forests that pick up cricket calls will be an easy, cheap and accurate way to detect the early stages of change in tropical ecosystems.
1. Why did miners take the canary into mines?| A．To bring down CO levels. |
| B．To promote their work efficiency. |
| C．To offer them some entertainment. |
| D．To remind them of the potential danger. |
| A．By analyzing “cricket fingerprints”. |
| B．By comparing plants in different zones. |
| C．By observing the changes in landscapes. |
| D．By referring to previous findings on crickets. |
| A．Healthy forests may attract fitter crickets. |
| B．Crickets are suitable to be indicators in mines. |
| C．Different species of crickets may sound different alarms. |
| D．The species of crickets are strongly related to the environment. |
| A．To enrich the methods of monitoring the crickets. |
| B．To arouse people’s awareness of protecting crickets. |
| C．To correct the previous wrong recognition of crickets. |
| D．To help humans easily monitor environmental changes. |
| A．Canaries: miners’ good helpers. |
| B．How crickets are distributed in tropical areas. |
| C．Crickets: an early indicator of tropical ecosystem health. |
| D．Why cricket chirps are collected on Grande Terre Island. |
10 . As people travelling by air become increasingly aware of their carbon footprint, flying has become not only one of the most polluting industries, but also one with the most potential to turn things around.
After Solar Impulse 2 completed the world’s first flight by a solar-powered aircraft in 2016, airlines and aircraft producers looked to become the first to provide a commercial plane. Bertrand Piccard, one of the pilots responsible for Solar Impulse 2’s journey said, “All the clean technologies we’ve already had can be used everywhere. We have to use them, not only for the environment, but also because they are profitable and able to create jobs.”
The following year saw many projects in the aviation (航空) field as the airline industry acknowledged the future of low- carbon transportation methods. In 2017, Zunum Aero, a small aviation company which focused on delivering a range of hybrid-electric (混合电动的) planes received financial aid from JetBlue and Boeing, whilst EasyJet teamed up with Wright Electric to develop battery-powered aircraft and NASA also announced its plans to develop its own electric aircraft.
Orkney Islands, lying about 20 miles north of the Scottish mainland, are rich in renewable resources, especially the wind energy. Loganair, a Scottish airline, is cooperating with aviation companies to make Orkney the world’s first fully electric airline routes. However, this is never easy. Due to the limited size and weight of a battery that an airplane can carry, airplane producers are faced with a bottleneck — the continued power supply for electric airplanes. They believe the abundant wind energy in Orkney could be the key to solving it.
The benefits of electric air travel transcend its low-carbon emissions. Aviation experts believe these aircraft’s power source will also mean they will be less noisy, smaller, require less maintenance costs, and need a shorter runway to take off and land — this could lead to more airports in small cities and more rural areas being connected to the world at large.
1. What did Bertrand want to convey in his words?| A．The future of aircraft pilots. |
| B．The success of Solar Impulse 2. |
| C．The convenience of commercial planes. |
| D．The significance of using renewable energy. |
| A．By asking for financial support from banks. |
| B．By working together with another company. |
| C．By purchasing patents from other countries. |
| D．By improving the technology on its own. |
| A．Use natural resources to charge airplanes. |
| B．Build more coal-fired power stations. |
| C．Develop shorter airline routes. |
| D．Increase the size of battery. |
| A．Go beyond. | B．Rely on. | C．Differ from. | D．Refer to. |
| A．Making plane tickets cheaper. |
| B．Making the flying time shorter. |
| C．Making the world more connected. |
| D．Making the plane maintenance easier. |
