1 . Rain Collection

What do you like to do on a rainy day —sit inside and listen to the pitter-patter on the roof or splash outside and feel the cold drops on your face? Whatever you choose, rain is vitally essential in the nature.

    1     It fills rivers and lakes, slowly sinks into the earth, nourishes our plants, and keeps the land alive and beautiful. In the past, people obtained their water from rain, wells, or nearby rivers. Now, many of us live in places where water is piped in, sometimes from far away. Removing so much water from nature and sending it to great distances harm the living things that also need that water.

As climate change heats up the planet and causes extreme weather, more places face water shortages.     2     . One easy place to look for more water is the sky!

Humans have collected rain since ancient times.     3    . They are tapping into this clean and rich source of water provided by nature. By harvesting the rain we can reduce the amount of water we take from rivers and out of the ground.

Even in dry climates, there is a lot of potential rainwater that can be effectively harvested and utilized. This rich yet often overlooked resource has the potential to significantly contribute to water conservation efforts, especially in regions facing water shortages. Just one inch of rain falling on a medium-sized house produces over 600 gallons of water.    4    .

Nowadays, rainwater is still used as a primary supply in many places in the world, like Vietnam and Hawaii. In places with piped-in water, rainwater is not commonly used, but this is changing. Rainwater harvesting is getting more popular since it’s easy to do and helps create water security.

A．Large roofs can, hence, collect greater amount of water.

B．Rainwater can also be used for fountains and ponds.

C．We all deeply depend on the nourishment of rain.

D．To secure future water supply, we need new sources.

E．Now, many people are returning to this practice.

F．Rainwater is clean but it gets dirty from the roof.

2 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passage coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.

The First Space Cat

In a few weeks, space scientists will celebrate a remarkable event — the 60th anniversary of the launch of the first cat into space, an astronautical success that has never been repeated.

In the early 60s, dogs and monkeys were the animals usually used by scientists to find out exactly     1    dangerous the conditions were in outer space. And they were also used to assess if humans     2     survive trips beyond the edge of Earth’s atmosphere.

A total of 14 street cats     3     (gather) at France’s space agency for selection as cat astronauts, but the cats were not given names on purpose in order to prevent scientists from becoming too fond of them. The cat selected to travel to space was simply known     4    C341. C341 flew on a French rocket in October 1963, taking it to a place     5    no cat had gone before.

Then,     6    the news of its flight was announced on 18 October 1963, the French press decided this cat had to have its name. They picked “Felix” after a cartoon cat character, only     7     (discover) that C341 was female, so her name was then adjusted to “Felicette” as a result. In putting Felicette in one of its rockets, France added a new species to the list of animals that scientists     8     (send) into space before. Previously, two garden spiders, Anita and Arebella, had been taken to the Skylab     9    (orbit) around the moon.

“In the 60s,     10    (concern) about the possible danger for a human to be in outer space, scientists and engineers primarily undertook animal space flights to see if they suffered or their lives were threatened by the weightlessness or increased radiation or other effects they might experience up there,” said astronomer Jake Foster at the Royal Observatory Greenwich. “The fact that they did not fail paved the way for humans to begin journeys into space.”

3 . Flamingos (火烈鸟) make long friendships

When it comes to making friends, humans often seek people with similar interests and personalities.     1    . The long-legged birds can form friendships that last for years, and they depend on their friends for support when they fall out with rivals.

Scientist Dr Paul Rose had already spotted that flamingos seemed to form narrow exclusive circles.     2    . To find out why flamingos befriend some but not others, they studied both Chilean and Caribbean flamingos living in a nature reserve in Gloucestershire, England.

Each bird wore a ring around one leg with a unique code to tell them apart. McCully spent months studying their behaviour and built a personality profile for each flamingo. She found that confident, aggressive flamingos walked proudly around in their friendship groups, while the quieter birds carefully avoid those individuals.     3    .

McCully and Rose found that for the Caribbean birds, personality seemed to matter more in friendships than it did for Chilean flamingos. Caribbean birds were more likely to defend their friends and the confident ones had much larger social groups than the quieter birds. The researchers found this surprising because in many ways, including body shape and how they search for food in the wild, the two species are very similar.

    4    . In that case, all personality types are represented and each flamingo has the chance to find a like-minded friend. McCully and Rose said, “If humans require friendships to be happy, is it really such a great leap to think that flamingos might need the same?”

A．Their long-lasting relationships are important for survival in the wild.

B．He teamed up with Fiona McCully, a scientist in animal behaviour.

C．The scientists conclude that it’s important to keep flamingos in a large flock.

D．According to a recent study, so do flamingos.

E．This avoidance may serve to prevent the fights.

F．New research shows that flamingos with brighter colors tend to be more aggressive.

4 . One summer midnight several years ago, standing outside a wooden cabin in Michigan River, I looked up. The sky was filled with thousands of stars, the sight of which was almost enough to make me, a non-believer, offer a word of ___________ up into the star-filled sky. But to whom? Perhaps to Johan Eklof, author of The Darkness Manifesto.

As a bat scientist, Eklof’s work on bats requires a specific kind of darkness—the ___________kind, unpolluted by light. But this category of darkness is ___________. In the 1980s, Eklof tells readers, two-thirds of the churches in Sweden’s southwest housed bat colonies. Not any longer. “Today, forty years later, research I’ve done with my colleagues shows that this number has been reduced by a third, ___________ light pollution and other factors. Because the churches are all ___________ like carnivals(嘉年华) in the night,” he writes. “We are surrounding ourselves with light.”

Excess light is incredibly ___________ to the complex eco-systems nocturnal (夜间活动的) animals inhabit. It ___________ away the bats that Eklof studies. It frightens light-sensitive moths, leaving them easily ___________ to predation(捕食) or flying endlessly into lights that will never return their love. Baby turtles crawl away from the shoreline toward the lights of distant coastal cities and reef fish eggs go unhatched. Birds do not migrate ___________ and even they forget to sing. Modern advancements such as LED lights could significantly reduce some of the worst impacts, but they have not. At least, not yet.

It is worth mentioning that middle-aged writer like Eklof can ____________ for a darker world — for darkened campuses and unlit parking lots. But darkness is not safe for everyone. We need to address the social issues that make lighted places so ____________ in the first place.

The bottom line: We can change if we want to. Some of the solutions to light pollution— motion-detecting lights, shielded lights that do not ____________ light upward, artificial light with wavelengths that is similar to natural light—are already within our grasp, if we just ____________ them. “We could just turn it all off, but I guess we don’t want to,” said Eklof in a recent interview. “____________, it’s vital we find a middle way.”

Right now it is hard to know what that middle way might look like. In 50 years, every city could be equipped with an array of programmed and ____________ low-impact LED lights. Or we might have completely forgotten what darkness is—the sky filled with little moons.

1.

A．honour

B．gratitude

C．optimism

D．determination

2.

A．artificial

B．brilliant

C．faint

D．absolute

3.

A．achieved

B．distracted

C．enhanced

D．threatened

4.

A．resulting from

B．bringing about

C．judging by

D．contributing to

5.

A．decorated

B．restored

C．lit

D．faded

6.

A．effective

B．sensitive

C．positive

D．destructive

7.

A．scares

B．blows

C．pulls

D．turns

8.

A．accustomed

B．subject

C．available

D．restricted

9.

A．on duty

B．in turn

C．on time

D．in public

10.

A．stimulate

B．advocate

C．negotiate

D．account

11.

A．challenging

B．appealing

C．demanding

D．outstanding

12.

A．absorb

B．stretch

C．transform

D．reflect

13.

A．reach for

B．apply to

C．long for

D．adapt to

14.

A．Therefore

B．Furthermore

C．However

D．Instead

15.

A．fundamentally

B．scientifically

C．environmentally

D．economically

6 . Directions: Fill in each blank with a proper word chosen from the box. Each word can be used only once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. urgent     B. transformative     C. presents       D. grabbed     E. declaration F. collective G. capacity H. worsening I. determined J. foundation K. responsibility

Save the World

The United Nations issued a report last week warning that humans are destroying nature at such a rate that life on Earth is at risk. When the report came out, it naturally     1     headlines. But obviously it did not hijack the news agenda in the manner of a major terrorist attack or     2     of war.

The report from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) is clear on what’s at stake and what needs to change. IPBES chair Robert Watson says the “overwhelming evidence”     3     an “ ominous (凶兆的)picture”.   “The health of ecosystems on which we and all other species depend is     4     more rapidly than ever,” Robert Watson said. “We are biting the very     5     of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide.” The report says it’s not too late if we make “    6     changes” ----fundamental, system-wide reorganization ----- at every level from local to global, we need to focus on how to make that happen.

First, don’t immerse yourself in despair, because despair leads to inertia (惰性) and doing nothing means certain disaster. Every action to save nature will improve our     7     and personal futures and the only action to respond to a threat of this scale is with     8     action rooted in optimism. Second, we need focus, just like when rescue teams arrive on a scene and use the concept of “triage(伤员鉴别分类)” to ensure the most     9     cases get treated first. Saving the natural world needs that kind of thinking. We don’t have the     10     to do everything at once. We need to make hard choices.