Lovely Team Members
I fell in love with rhinos when I worked in a zoo in the 80s, and spent much of the next 20 years as the keeper of the largest captive (圈养的) group of rare black rhinos.
Being aggressive and stupid is
In the past few years, the number of rhinos has dropped dramatically, during
A couple of weeks before their planned release, the sky was filled with smoke and the flames were blowing over it.
That we and the rhinos had escaped unscathed (未受伤的) was a miracle. The relationship we had built with those lovely animals proved crucial.
2 . Every year millions of breeding monarch butterflies in the U.S. and southern Canada search for milkweed plants on which to lay their eggs. Concern over shrinking habitat （居住地）has urged conservationists to create monarch-friendly spaces along roadsides, which are more than enough within the butterflies range and usually publicly owned. But traffic noise stresses monarch caterpillars out, a new study finds. They eventually do become desensitized to it—but that might cause trouble to them later on, too.
Noise pollution is known to affect the lives of birds, whales and other creatures. But until recently, scientists had never tested whether it leads to a stress response in insects. When Andy Davis, a conservation physiologist at the University of Georgia, noticed online videos of roadside monarch caterpillars apparently trembling as cars came by, he wondered how the constant noise might affect them. Davis built a custom caterpillar heart monitor, fitting a small sensor into a microscope to precisely measure monarch caterpillars’ heart rates as they listened to recordings of traffic sounds in the laboratory.
The hearts of caterpillars exposed to highway noise for two hours beat 17 percent faster than those of caterpillars in a silent room. But the heart rates of the noise-exposed group returned to baseline levels after hearing the traffic sounds nonstop for their entire 12-day development period, Davis and his colleagues reported in May in Biology Letters.
This desensitization could be problematic when the caterpillars become adults, Davis says. A rapid stress response is vital for monarch butterflies on their two-month journey to spend winters in Mexico, as they narrowly escape predators（捕食者）and fight wind currents.
Whether a noisy developmental period reduces monarchs’ survival rates remains unknown, notes Ryan Norris, an ecologist at the University of Guelph in Ontario, who was not involved in the study. But in any case, he believes roadside habitat almost certainly drive up the butterflies’ death rates as a result of crashes with cars. ”There is so much potential road habitat for monarchs and other insects一it would be such a nice thing to capitalize on,” Norris says. “But you just can’t get around the traffic.” Davis adds: ”I think roads and monarchs just don’t mix.”
1. By “They eventually do become desensitized to it”, the writer means that.| A．monarch caterpillars react less strongly to noise |
| B．monarch caterpillars are stressed out by road noise |
| C．conservationists are worried about butterflies habitat |
| D．conservationists no longer create monarch-friendly spaces |
| A．There had been little research on monarch caterpillars. |
| B．Videos showed cars crashed into monarch caterpillars. |
| C．There was no such record of monarch caterpillars’ heart rates. |
| D．He found that monarch caterpillars shook with cars moving by. |
| A．They are likely to need more time to develop. |
| B．They are likely to lose their way on their journey. |
| C．They are more likely to be killed in their migration. |
| D．They are more likely to die before they become adults. |
| A．Monarchs5 survival rates are decreasing each year. |
| B．It is not recommended that roadside habitat be built for insects. |
| C．More capital is needed to study monarchs? developmental period. |
| D．Butterflies’ rising death rates have nothing to do with moving cars. |
3 . Peter and Minke van Wingerden have created something wild: a herd of cows floating on the sea. The Dutch husband-and-wife team’s experiment on sustainable agriculture, called Floating Farm, can be found in the port of Rotterdam. The modernist structure houses 40 cows, who collectively produce some 200 gallons of milk a day. In addition to helping nourish (滋养) the local community, the waterborne farm is playing a part in the global conversation about how the climate crisis is pushing farmers to reconsider how—and where—they produce food.
Floods, extreme heating, droughts and even rising night temperatures have sent the food system off balance. The race to outsmart the constant attack of extreme weather has made the world of farming unrecognizable from what it was only decades ago. A team of scientists in Mexico is developing wheat types that can adapt themselves to different climates, while Jack’s Solar Garden in Longmont, Colorado, is a testbed for the emerging method of solar farming.
Rotterdam has already established itself as one of the most climate-adaptive places in the world. Everything from office buildings to entire neighborhoods are built on water in the city, which is 90% below sea level. The Wingerdens’ Floating Farm was a new but necessary attempt. Should a weather crisis arise, a waterborne farm isn’t necessarily stuck in place. A former property developer with a background in engineering, Peter found his inspiration for the Floating Farm in a climate disaster in New York City, where Hurricane Sandy prevented the delivery of fresh food to millions.
The Wingerdens’ model is ripe for reproduction—which is exactly what the Floating Farm’s team of 14 are working on now. Plans are under way for a floating vegetable farm to move into the space next to the current Floating Farm. Permit applications are also out for similar structures in Dubai, Singapore and the Dutch cities of Haarlem and Arnhem.
The new projects will apply lessons learned from Floating Farm. “You need to build a house in order to know how to build a house,” Peter says. The biggest obstacles he sees ahead, however, are not financial or physical, but rather political and administrative. “One of the biggest challenges we come across worldwide is regulations. Cities need to have disruptive thinking, cities need to have disruptive departments, and cities need to have areas where you can say: OK, this is the experimental zone.” Because what Peter and his team are pulling off is of a different order than the typical sustainability measures. “We are not innovative,” he says. “We are disruptive.”
1. Which of the following is TRUE about the Floating Farm?| A．It is the first modern farming attempt to fight climate change. |
| B．It is a model of new agriculture in the age of climate crisis. |
| C．It has outsmarted other forms of farming like solar farming. |
| D．It copies a similar structure in Dubai ready for reproduction. |
| A．90% of the population in Rotterdam live below the sea level |
| B．The New York City is working hard to fight climate change |
| C．The local community will not be fed without new farming |
| D．Waterborne facilities are necessary to the future of Rotterdam |
| A．in a daring and unusual way | B．in a focused and logical way |
| C．in a careful and detailed way | D．in a rude and unpleasant way |
| A．Is Rotterdam Built on Water? |
| B．Can Floating Farming Survive? |
| C．Are Cows at Sea the Future of Farming? |
| D．Is Extreme Weather Affecting Agriculture? |
4 . When I step out onto the deck, I definitely feel the Arctic chill. That’s not surprising. I’m a good hundred miles inside the Arctic Circle; in fact, you can’t get much farther north and still be in Sweden. This is Abisko Mountain Station, perhaps the crown jewel of the Swedish mountain lodges (小屋). I’m back for a second time to this remote, scenic spot.
Last Autumn, a heavy snowstorm trapped me in my tent for days and eventually forced me to go to the station, a comfortable place. I discovered a different side to Abisko. People come here for many reasons – some to hike, some to climb, some to cross-country ski. But there’s yet another entirely different attraction here. Looking out from the deck of the train station, above a huge lake, in the upper sky of the North Pole, the Aurora, as we often refer to the northern light, mixed with green and red, was giving off ghostly light, rolling across the dark night sky.
The Aurora may be old hat to those who live this far north, but for the rest of us it is an unforgettable experience. The lights here were so appealing to us we quickly forgot the discomfort of the cold.
One of the attractions in Abisko is the Tornetrask. It’s a huge lake, which extends more than 70 kilometres long just north of the station, creates an unusual weather phenomenon that keeps the skies above the station clear even when fog or clouds blanket most of northern Sweden. The sky in this area is mostly clear all year around.
Abisko has a lot to offer to make it an ideal place to view the Aurora. It is far from any city lights. The station operates a ski lift to the top of Nuolja Peak, more than 3,000 feet high. For the first time this year, a cafe at the top of the mountain has been turned into a viewing platform for the Northern Lights, called the Aurora Sky Station. Also, the station posts forecasts each night of expected Aurora activity, collected from scientific observations arriving via computer, so visitors may choose the best viewing time.
1. What was the reason for the author’s first visit to the lodge?| A．He went there in search of the Aurora. | B．He needed equipment to keep him warm. |
| C．He was forced there by the weather. | D．He had to make his food supply there. |
| A．severe and struggling | B．familiar and unexciting |
| C．strange and shocking | D．mysterious and adventurous |
| A．There is a mountain viewing platform. | B．Weather forecasts are available. |
| C．There are no city lights nearby. | D．There is a café shop there. |
| A．despite the severe weather, it’s an impressive place |
| B．people have overestimated its popularity |
| C．it’s not as popular as it deserves to be |
| D．the cold weather worsens the Aurora viewing experience there |
5 . It’s 2076 and the skies are looking decidedly milky. On windy plains and in parts of the seas that have been turned over to wind farms, a different kind of tower has been built alongside the turbines (涡轮). They take in CO2 out of the atmosphere. Vast parcels of land have been given over to forest. Trees are grown, harvested and burned for energy in power plants that don’t let CO2 escape to the atmosphere. Instead, emissions are captured and driven underground. Powdered minerals are put into the water to absorb CO2 and reduce ocean acidification.
All these technologies are a desperate action to reverse more than two centuries of greenhouse gas emissions. But they are not entirely up to the task and, anyway, we are still releasing greenhouse gases. “I think it’s very likely that in 60 years we’ll be using both technologies,” says John Shepherd of the University of Southampton, UK. He is referring to the two flavors of geoengineering: absorbing CO2 out of the air and using a sunshade to reflect some of the sun’s rays back out into space.
There is no denying that climate talks are going too slowly and not so smoothly. Even if industrial emissions were to drop rapidly — a big if — some sections pose an intractable problem. We have no real replacement for aeroplane fuel and feeding people demands intensive agriculture, which accounts for a quarter of global emissions.
Computer models suggest there will be winners and losers. While a sunshade could lower global average temperatures to pre-industrial levels, there would be regional differences. Northern Europe, Canada, Siberia and the poles would remain warmer than they were, and temperatures over the oceans would be cooler. Global warming is predicted to make wet regions wetter and dry ones drier. Models suggest a sunshade would correct this, but, again, not in a uniform way.
Shepherd fears all this will feed into international arguments. He imagines some kind of global council where governments seek a climate that meets their needs. Some might prefer a slightly warmer temperature, for tourism or agriculture. But nations whose coral reefs (珊瑚礁) draw in visitors will probably want more CO2 absorbing technologies.
In spite of all these concerns, most scientists hold that revolutionary technology and people’s awakening can shine a light on solutions in ways that are impossible now. There is undoubtedly a long way to go when we address problems facing mankind, but we can always anticipate something.
1. What is described in the first paragraph?| A．Future scenery and farming methods. |
| B．The development of transport technology. |
| C．The serious pollution problem in the very near future. |
| D．Future technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. |
| A．solvable | B．untypical |
| C．tricky | D．existing |
| A．climate talks haven’t achieved the expected results |
| B．industrial emissions will decrease greatly in 60 years |
| C．technologies to reduce CO2 emission aren’t used properly for now |
| D．sunshades outshine intensive agriculture at capturing CO2 emissions |
| A．Effective CO2 absorbing technologies have come into wide use. |
| B．With greenhouse gas reduced, global warming can be addressed. |
| C．Future climate will improve with human efforts but threats still remain. |
| D．Future climate will restore to a normal state with advanced technology. |
6 . An interesting study found capuchin monkeys (僧帽猴), like humans, are guided by social emotions. Try paying one monkey with grapes and another with cucumbers for the
That experiment by Brosnan and Frans de Wall published in 2003 in Nature was one of the first to show that animals may have an assessment for
Social animals, which are interdependent for a living, will
One study
According to Brosnan, that tendency to share rewards fairly probably developed as a result of the way capuchins work together to hunt. “If we are hunting and I am not giving you much of the kill, you would be better off finding another
However, interpreting animal behavior through human eyes can be
| A．various | B．enormous | C．equal | D．superb |
| A．risk | B．restart | C．quit | D．fancy |
| A．mature | B．content | C．passive | D．shocked |
| A．stability | B．reputation | C．endurance | D．fairness |
| A．necessities | B．rewards | C．emotion | D．cooperation |
| A．naturally | B．barely | C．surprisingly | D．occasionally |
| A．evolved | B．communicated | C．delivered | D．referred |
| A．denies | B．predicts | C．indicates | D．suspects |
| A．discover | B．receive | C．expect | D．present |
| A．Instead of | B．Thanks to | C．Regardless of | D．Prior to |
| A．diligent | B．dominant | C．generous | D．outgoing |
| A．save | B．admire | C．share | D．refuse |
| A．partner | B．role | C．hunt | D．task |
| A．critical | B．pessimistic | C．problematic | D．marvellous |
| A．set aside | B．thrown away | C．held onto | D．aimed at |
76. 每年4月22日是世界地球日(World Earth Day)。为积极响应世界地球日活动，你校学生会开展了宣传海报的评比活动。现已初评得出如下的前三名海报，并在全校范围评选最佳海报。写封邮件给你校学生会，内容须包括：
你选出的最佳海报及其简介;
你的理由。
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8 . The term “seal” is often used to refer to both seals and sea lions, but there are several characteristics that set seals and sea lions apart.
Seals and sea lions are both in the order Carnivora and suborder Pinnipedia, thus they are called “pinnipeds.” Pinnipeds are mammals that are well-adapted for swimming. They usually have a streamlined barrel shape (桶形) and four flippers at the end of each limb (四肢). They also give birth to live young and nurse their young. Pinnipeds are protected by a thick layer of fat under their skin and fur to keep them warm in water. There are three families of pinnipeds: the Phocidae, the earless or true seals; the Otariidae, the eared seals, and the Odobenidae, the walruses.
Characteristics of Phocidae (Earless or True Seals)
Earless seals have no visible ear flaps, although they still have ears, which may be visible as a dark spot or small hole on the side of their head.
“True” seals:
Have no external ear flaps.
Swim with their hind flippers. Their hind flippers always face backward and are furred.
Have front flippers that are short, furry and thick in appearance.
Can be found in both marine and freshwater environments.
Characteristics of Otariidae (Eared Seals, Including Fur Seals and Sea Lions)
One of the most noticeable features of eared seals is their ears, but they also move around differently than true seals.
Eared seals:
Have external ear flaps.
Are only found in marine environments.
Swim with their front flippers. Unlike earless seals, their hind flippers can turn forward, and they are able to walk, and even run, on their flippers. The “seals” you may see performing at marine parks are often sea lions.
May gather in larger groups than true seals. Sea lions are much more vocal than true seals, and make a variety of loud, barking noises.
Characteristics of Walruses
Wondering about walruses, and how they differ from seals and sea lions? Walruses are pinnipeds, but they are in the family, Odobenidae. One obvious difference between walruses, seals and sea lions is that walruses are the only pinnipeds with tusks—a pair of long pointed teeth. These tusks are present in both males and females.
Other than tusks, walruses have some similarities to both seals and sea lions. Like true seals, walruses don’t have visible ear flaps. But, like eared seals, walruses can walk on their flippers by rotating their hind flippers under their body.
1. According to the passage, which of the following statements about pinnipeds is true?| A．Pinnipeds are good swimmers. |
| B．Pinnipeds are afraid of cold weather. |
| C．Pinnipeds are of the Phocidae family. |
| D．Seals and sea lions are pinnipeds, while walruses are not. |
| A．the sea lion cannot play ball | B．the true seal cannot hear well |
| C．the sea lion doesn’t have ear flaps | D．the true seal can’t walk with hind flippers |
A． | B． |
C． | D． |
9 . As Frans de Waal, a primatologist (灵长动物学家), recognizes, a better way to think about other creatures would be to ask ourselves how different species have developed different kinds of minds to solve different adaptive problems. Surely the important question is not whether animals can do the same things humans can, but how those animals solve the cognitive (认知的) problems they face, like how to imitate the sea floor. Children and some animals are so interesting not because they are smart like us, but because they are smart in ways we haven’t even considered.
Sometimes studying children’s ways of knowing can cast light on adult-human cognition. Children’s pretend play may help us understand our adult taste for fiction. De Waal’s research provides another interesting example. We human beings tend to think that our social relationships are rooted in our perceptions, beliefs, and desires, and our understanding of the perceptions, beliefs, and desires of others — what psychologists call our “theory of mind.” In the 80s and 90s, developmental psychologists showed that pre-schoolers and even infants understand minds apart from their own. But it was hard to show that other animals did the same. “Theory of mind” became a candidate for the special, uniquely human trick.
Yet de Waal’s studies show that chimps (黑猩猩) possess a remarkably developed political intelligence — they are much interested in figuring out social relationships. It turns out, as de Waal describes, that chimps do infer something about what other chimps see. But experimental studies also suggest that this happens only in a competitive political context. The evolutionary anthropologist (人类学家) Brain Hare and his colleagues gave a junior chimp a choice between pieces of food that a dominant chimp had seen hidden and other pieces it had not seen hidden. The junior chimp, who watched all the hiding, stayed away from the food the dominant chimp had seen, but took the food it hadn’t seen.
Anyone who has gone to an academic conference will recognize that we may be in the same situation. We may say that we sign up because we’re eager to find out what other human beings think, but we’re just as interested in who’s on top. Many of the political judgments we make there don’t have much to do with our theory of mind. We may show our respect to a famous professor even if we have no respect for his ideas.
Until recently, however, there wasn’t much research into how humans develop and employ this kind of political knowledge. It may be that we understand the social world in terms of dominance, like chimps, but we’re just not usually as politically motivated as they are. Instead of asking whether we have a better everyday theory of mind, we might wonder whether they have a better everyday theory of politics.
1. According to the first paragraph, which of the following shows that an animal is smart?| A．It can behave like a human kid. |
| B．It can imitate what human beings do. |
| C．It can find a solution to its own problem. |
| D．It can figure out those adaptive problems. |
| A．We talk with infants in a way that they can fully understand. |
| B．We make guesses at what others think while interacting with them. |
| C．We hide our emotions when we try establishing contact with a stranger. |
| D．We try to understand how kids’ pretend play affects our taste for fiction. |
| A．Neither human nor animals display their preference for dominance. |
| B．Animals living in a competitive political context are smarter. |
| C．Both humans and some animals have political intelligence. |
| D．Humans are more interested in who’s on top than animals. |
| A．we know little about how chimps are politically motivated |
| B．our political knowledge doesn’t always determine how we behave |
| C．our theory of mind might enable us to understand our theory of politics |
| D．more research should be conducted to understand animals’ social world |
10 . Canada geese are a common and plentiful North American bird found in many urban parks, golf courses, airports, or areas with large lawns near water. They are a large waterbird with a fairly brown body, pale breast, and long black neck with white cheeks.
Canada geese are particularly attracted to urban areas for the many grassy lawns near small bodies of water. They can often be seen feeding on lawns or playing in shallow water by tipping forward and extending their necks underwater to reach for plants. Canada geese prefer to gathering in large flocks (群) and can be seen flying over in the classic V formation.
In Chicago, Canada geese may remain in the city throughout the year, although some geese get used to moving long distances to more southern sections for the winter or northward in spring to breed. Each breeding season, pairs build large open cup ground nests and lay 2 to 8 eggs which are raised in a single brood (窝). Urban habitats are also attractive to this species as neatly-maintained lawns make it easy when grazing with young to keep watch for approaching enemies. It is, however, their use of these urban areas that often leads to conflicts with humans.
As Canada geese numbers rise, so do their conflicts with humans. Canada geese’s daily activities may damage gardens and landscaping. Geese may also cross roads when searching for food or walking between nesting sites and bodies of water, slowing movement or posing a potential risk on the roadway. Although direct injuries by fierce geese are uncommon, people sometimes fall and pick up injuries when surprised by a charging goose. Additionally, people often feed the birds. Not only are the types of food people typically provide, such as bread, unhealthy for the birds, but this encourages high concentrations of geese leading to more harmful behavior and higher risk of diseases. Lastly, plane-bird conflicts are estimated to be rising, likely due to increasing numbers of planes, but also increases in populations of certain bird species, including Canada geese. Although crashes rarely result in an accident, they often cause costly damage to planes.
1. What do we know about Canada geese from the first and second paragraph?| A．They are a valued and rare species. |
| B．They like to spend time near water. |
| C．They always live quietly and separately. |
| D．Their appearance is in a uniform and single color. |
| A．feeding (paragraph 2) | B．playing (paragraph 2) |
| C．gathering (paragraph 2) | D．moving (paragraph 3) |
| A．adore humans | B．threaten humans |
| C．frustrate humans | D．safeguard humans |
| A．Frequent air crashes. | B．Damage to city view. |
| C．Traffic jam and danger. | D．Indirect human injuries. |
