1 . 阅读下面短文，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

A new way to restore Earth’s biodiversity—from the air

Every year, humans change 10 million hectares of land, and not for the better. Right now, there is     1     much damaged land around the world that we need to fix this fast. Fortunately, technology can help. Restoration is     2     enormous, complex challenge. It cannot be done by     3     ( simple ) planting trees. We need to bring native ecosystems back     4     life, which requires deep     5     ( ecology ) expertise. Until now, we have been limited to poor copies, like vast plantations of a single kind of tree.

But drones (无人机) change that by allowing us     6     ( gather ) data and plant the right mix of vegetation (植被) quickly. And the machine-learning     7     ( analyze ) enables us to monitor our restoration work. For example, in Australia, we’re using drone - based planting and ecology - trained AI to restore thousands of hectares of land mined for coal. Many native forests here in Australia     8     ( destroy ) by catastrophic bushfires over the last few years. This means reduced food sources and safe habitats for koalas. A new project will accelerate the restoration of thousands of hectares of koala forests.

With these technologies     9     ( combine ), we’re able to expand restoration from a small island to an entire continent. We can return forests to land     10     a mine used to be, or recreate ecosystems like the one we’re hoping to restore on Lord Howe Island.

2 . Unusually bright light in the sky that appeared suddenly last June has got astronomers in great excitement. After months of study, they still aren’t sure what the object — universally referred to as the “Cow” — is. Whatever it is, says astronomer Liliana Rivera Sandoval of Texas Tech University in Lubbock, “It’s super strange.”

The Cow first appeared in telescope observations on 16 June 2018, in what turned out to be a small galaxy (星系) about 200 million light years away. “When we saw that we thought, let’s get on this,” says Daniel Perley, an astronomer at Liverpool John Moores University.

The early observations confirmed the Cow was truly strange. It didn’t show the obvious changes in its light output that an exploding star would make. Sandoval says as soon as she and colleagues knew the Cow was truly distant, they requested time on NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory to see what the Cow was doing in X-rays. Although the X-ray brightness varied over the early weeks, “the spectrum (光谱) didn’t change, which is very unusual,” she notes. After 3 weeks, the X-ray signal began to vary more wildly while also dropping off   in brightness.

Many astronomers agree that the long and steady duration of the event means that it was powered after an initial explosion by some form of central engine. But what that engine may be is also far from clear. Some argue that it could be a very unusual star whose central part has collapsed (坍塌) inward after it exploded. Others say it is a tidal disruption event — a star being torn apart by a black hole. But that usually requires the supermassive black hole in the center of a galaxy, and the Cow is situated in its galaxy’s arm. So, some say, it could be a tidal disruption event generated by an intermediate mass black hole, although evidence for the existence of such smaller black holes remains controversial. “All explanations have problems,” Sandoval says, “I hope there are more Cows.”

1. What is astronomers’ main concern about the Cow?

A．What it is.	B．How it forms.
C．When it appears.	D．Where it is from.

2. What did Sandoval and her team hope to find out about the Cow in X-rays at NASA?

A．What the Cow was doing.

B．How far the Cow is from the earth.

C．Whether the Cow is an exploding star.

D．Why the X-ray signals varied wildly.

3. What do Sandoval’s words at the end of the text probably mean?

A．The research results help little.

B．More Cows will appear.

C．Extra attention should be paid to the Cow.

D．More information is needed.

4. What is the best title for the text?

A．A Strange Explosion in Deep Space

B．An Interesting Observation of NASA

C．A Wide Range of Changes in the Galaxies

D．A Great Achievement in Astronomy

3 . Light pollution is a significant but overlooked driver of the rapid decline of insect populations, according to the most comprehensive review of the scientific evidence to date.

Artificial light at night can affect every aspect of insects' lives, the researchers said. "We strongly believe artificial light at night — in combination with habitat loss, chemical pollution.invasive (入侵的) species, and climate change — is driving insect declines, " the scientists concluded after assessing more than 150 studies.

Insect population collapses have been reported around the world, and the first global scientific review published in February, said widespread declines threatened to cause a "catastrophic collapse of nature's ecosystems".

There are thought to be millions of insect species, most still unknown to science, and about half are active at night. Those active in the day may also be disturbed by light at night when they are at rest.

The most familiar impact of light pollution is moths (飞蛾) flapping around a bulb, mistaking it for the moon. Some insects use the polarisation of light to find the water they need to breed, as light waves line up after reflecting from a smooth surface. But artificial light can scupper (使泡汤) this. Insects are important prey (猎物) for many species, but light pollution can tip the balance in favour of the predator if it traps insects around lights. Such increases in predation risk were likely to cause the rapid extinction of affected species, the researchers said.

The researchers said most human-caused threats to insects have analogues in nature, such as climate change and invasive species. But light pollution is particularly hard for insects to deal with.

However, unlike other drivers of decline, light pollution is relatively easy to prevent. Simply turning off lights that are not needed is the most obvious action, he said, while making lights motion-activated also cuts light pollution. Shading lights so only the area needed is lit up is important. It is the same with avoiding blue-white lights, which interfere with daily rhythms. LED lights also offer hope as they can be easily tuned to avoid harmful colours and flicker rates.

1. What is discussed in the passage?

A．Causes of declining insect populations.

B．Consequences of insect population collapses.

C．Light pollution: the key bringer of insect declines.

D．Insect declines: the driver of the collapsed ecosystem.

2. What is the 5th paragraph mainly about?

A．How light travels in space.

B．How light helps insects find food.

C．How the food chain is interrelated.

D．How light pollution affects insects.

3. What does the underlined word"analogues"in Paragraph 6probably mean?

A．Selective things.

B．Similar things.

C．Variations.

D．Limitations.

4. What is the purpose of the last paragraph?

A．To offer solutions.

B．To give examples.

C．To make comparisons.

D．To present arguments.