1 . Flip-flops (人字拖) are the most popular type of shoe in the world. They’re comfortable, they’re easy to wear and they’re inexpensive. Unfortunately, most of them are also terrible for the environment. In Kenya, this is a huge problem, and around 90 tons of flip-flops wash up on its shores annually.
In the late 1990s, when Julie Church was working as a marine (海洋的) conservationist in Nairobi, she found an entire beach “just covered in flip-flops”. Around that time, Church also noticed children making toys out of the thousands of flip-flops that had made their way to the country’s beaches. She began working with the kids’ mothers to encourage them to not just collect the shoes, but also turn them into artworks. The families could then sell this art at local markets, providing another means of income.
The idea took off, and in 1998, Church founded Ocean Sole as a nonprofit. This year alone, the organization has upcycled more than 750,000 flip-flops and collected more than 47,000 kilos of waste. Additionally, Ocean Sole directly impacts more than 1,000 Kenyans, many of whom work as flip-flop collectors or artists, and contributes 10% to 15% of overall income to career and educational programs for residents, as well as beach cleanup and conservation efforts.
Ocean Sole is continuously growing and looking to keep waste off Kenya’s beaches and out of its water. When it comes to growing the Ocean Sole organization, Church has three “mantras (真言)”: trust to trade, trade to awareness, and awareness to protection. Church would like to put together toolkits and other resources to bring this concept to other places around the world that have similar problems. Ocean Sole is also encouraging companies to use more eco-friendly materials when making flip-flops. “I think it’s time for us to start looking for an alternative shoe, or an alternative material, to fit that kind of fashion need,” Church has said. “Our products need to develop.”
1. What was the main reason for founding the nonprofit?| A．To help Kenyans get healthy. |
| B．To develop children’s hands-on skills. |
| C．To protect Kenya’s marine environment. |
| D．To provide children with artistic flip-flops. |
| A．It is growing in a controlled way. |
| B．It has a smaller impact than expected. |
| C．It is running for profit since founded. |
| D．It has achieved many things with one move. |
| A．Lead the fashion trend. | B．Advance their products. |
| C．Practice her three “mantras”. | D．Develop global cooperation. |
| A．Environmental challenges in Kenya. |
| B．Flip-flops are out of date in Kenya. |
| C．Ocean Sole turns flip-flops into art. |
| D．Ocean Sole develops a new national art. |
2 . Catherine Krestyn furnished (布置家具)her home mainly with hard rubbish, such as the chairs, doors and lamps, which have been collected from the street where she lives. And it’s a way of life she’s sharing with her community in the hope of making a difference.
Catherine leads a 6,000-strong online group called Boroondara Hard Rubbish Rehome, where members upload pictures of their hard rubbish piles for eager locals to find. She started the group in 2022 with her childhood friend Jennie Irving, hoping to build a community of thrift (节俭)where they lived. The pair have stopped more than 7,000 kg of hard rubbish going to landfill since they founded the group.
Some items are ready as they are, like chairs and lamps, and others take a bit of effort to clean up, like the old, wooden doors.
Local teacher Ruth Polgar discovered the group while surfing the Internet and has since decorated her classroom with second-hand items, including artwork she has rehomed from a neighbour. “We regularly take unneeded items from the group and use them for our school projects,” she says.
Running the group can be really challenging for Catherine. But she doesn’t resent those who have to let go of their possessions because of stressful circumstances. “If you’re downsizing or if you’re clearing an old house, quite often you’re desperate for access to easy options,” she says. “Hard rubbish piles are often that option.”
All Catherine wants to do is give her community a way to reduce their waste, and to send a message to those in charge that things need to urgently change.
“The government has big targets around sustainable development leading into 2030. We want to start speeding that up even sooner,” she says. “We’re suffering from our own waste really, so anything that we can all do on a practical level helps. We should first make lifestyle choices and be prepared to go second-hand.”
1. Why did Catherine set up Boroondara Hard Rubbish Rehome?| A．To create a community of thrift. | B．To donate her collection to charity. |
| C．To collect hard rubbish for locals. | D．To decorate the houses for the homeless. |
| A．She prefers second-hand items. | B．She buys items on the Internet. |
| C．She supports Catherine’s cause. | D．She teaches art at a local school. |
| A．Feel angry about. | B．Feel pleased with. |
| C．Show sympathy for. | D．Show interest in. |
| A．Setting ourselves a big goal. | B．Giving throwaways a second life. |
| C．Meeting the government’s requirements. | D．Replacing old furniture regularly. |
3 . Children in the Indonesian city of Bogor are cleaning up a local lake on their own in small boats, called kayaks, out on the water.
They direct the kayaks to
About 20 children join in the
The trash problem in Indonesia is
But as waste continues, youth-led
| A．handle | B．observe | C．remove | D．raise |
| A．Recently | B．Fortunately | C．Gradually | D．Finally |
| A．dealt with | B．put down | C．taken over | D．burnt up |
| A．aid | B．effort | C．game | D．offer |
| A．limit | B．expose | C．devote | D．adapt |
| A．record | B．habit | C．route | D．hobby |
| A．patient | B．crowded | C．connected | D．popular |
| A．formed | B．visited | C．joined | D．reported |
| A．thrown | B．found | C．collected | D．sold |
| A．common | B．simple | C．concrete | D．strange |
| A．unloaded | B．unmanaged | C．unfolded | D．unburied |
| A．enough | B．ready | C．famous | D．responsible |
| A．memory | B．emotion | C．health | D．wealth |
| A．tiny | B．tidy | C．regular | D．clear |
| A．number | B．risk | C．result | D．symptom |
| A．ceremonies | B．experiments | C．trials | D．cleanups |
| A．literature | B．culture | C．festival | D．economy |
| A．praising | B．advertising | C．ending | D．repeating |
| A．randomly | B．pitifully | C．abruptly | D．instantly |
| A．spread | B．admire | C．follow | D．counter |
4 . When wind blows through a bigleaf maple (大叶枫), paper-thin, wing-like seeds called samaras gently spin towards the ground. The fruit’s tissue allows the wind to guide it further away from the tree. Inspired by the seeds, researchers designed a tiny, winged microchip, no larger than a grain of sand, that is powerful enough to monitor environmental pollution and airborne disease.
Called the microflier, the microchip has no motor to push it forward in the air but instead was designed to catch the wind. To perfect the microchip’s flying capability and shape, scientists took inspiration from the forms of various airborne seeds. The research team improved various designs until the microfliers flew slowly and more steadily than nature’s samara seeds. The slower falling rate allows the microchip to keep flying for longer, which gives it more time to collect data and monitor air pollutants and airborne diseases.
To perfect the microflier’s flight, researchers took inspiration from children’s pop-up books to create the three-dimensional wings. Usually, electronic microchips are flat, two-dimensional objects, but something flat won’t take flight. To make the 3-D shape, John A. Rogers and his team built a stretched rubber base that the microchip rests on. The wings pop into flight mode when the rubber base is relaxed.
The chip gathers data with sensors across its surface that can sense and monitor pH levels, test for heavy metals or chemicals, and track air pollution. An antenna (天线) on the microflier then sends all the collected data to a computer or phone. Rogers and his team are planning to test out the electronic chips soon by dropping thousands of the chips in a field. The microfliers will change color depending on the number of heavy metals present in the field where they land. A drone will then fly over the area and take photos of the microflier’s colors, allowing researchers to map out the pollutants.
Rogers and his team also designed the microchips to break down over time to prevent environmental pollution.
1. What is the winged microchip designed to do?| A．Guide seeds from the tree. | B．Prevent airborne diseases. |
| C．Keep track of air qualities. | D．Catch the wind to fly away. |
| A．Where researchers draw inspiration. | B．How the microflier has improved. |
| C．What the microchip does for humans. | D．Why the microflier flies more stably. |
| A．Drop chips in the field. | B．Monitor the soil color. |
| C．Map out air pollutants. | D．Handle soil pollution. |
| A．Winged microchips for monitoring environment |
| B．Microflier: A flying device of spreading seeds |
| C．Drone: A photographer of microflier’s colors |
| D．Electronic chips for finding airborne diseases |
South Koreans have enjoyed their first close-up look of new baby giant pandas at a name-revealing ceremony that is also
What to name the twin sisters was widely discussed among netizens after they were born on July 7 in theme park Everland. The names were
The baby pandas,
Everland said it would monitor the twins’ health
6 . Scientists have been experimenting with playing sounds to plants since at least the 1960s, during which time they have been exposed to everything from Beethoven to Michael Jackson. Over the years, evidence that this sort of thing can have an effect has been growing. One paper, published in 2018, claimed that an Asian shrub known as the telegraph plant grew substantially larger leaves when exposed to 56 days of Buddhist music — but not if it was exposed to Western pop music or silence. Another, published last year, found that marigolds and sage plants exposed to the noise of traffic from a busy motorway suffered growth difficulty.
Plants have been evolving (进化) alongside the insects that eat them for hundreds of millions of years. With that in mind, Heidi Appel, a botanist now at the University of Houston, and Reginald Cocroft, a biologist at the University of Missouri, wondered if plants might be sensitive to the sounds made by the animals with which they most often interact. They recorded the vibrations made by certain species of caterpillars (毛毛虫) as they chewed on leaves. These vibrations are not powerful enough to produce sound waves in the air. But they are able to travel across leaves and branches, and even to neighbouring plants if their leaves touch.
They then exposed tobacco plant — the plant biologist’s version of the laboratory mouse — to the recorded vibrations while no caterpillars were actually present. Later, they put real caterpillars on the plants to see if exposure had led them to prepare for an insect attack. The results were striking. Leaves that had been exposed had significantly higher levels of defensive chemicals, making them much harder for the caterpillars to eat. Leaves that had not been exposed to vibrations showed no such response. Other sorts of vibration — caused by the wind, for instance, or other insects that do not eat leaves — had no effect.
“Now speakers with the right audio files are more often being used to warn crops to act when insects are detected but not yet widespread,” says Dr. Cocroft. “Unlike chemical pesticides, sound waves leave no dangerous chemicals.”
1. What can we learn about plants from the first paragraph?| A．They may enjoy Western music. | B．They can’t stand Buddhist music. |
| C．They can react to different sounds. | D．They can make different sounds. |
| A．Plants can make a cry for help. | B．Plants evolve alongside insects. |
| C．Plants are sensitive to the sounds. | D．Plants have been studied for years. |
| A．They can recongnize harmful vibrations. | B．They look like laboratory mice. |
| C．They can threaten the caterpillars. | D．They can release poisonous chemicals. |
| A．Disadvantages of chemical pesticides. | B．Application of the experimental results. |
| C．Interaction between plants and insects. | D．Warning system of widespread insects. |
7 . If you’ve seen the film Finding Nemo, you might remember the character Dory and her attempts to speak “whale”. Now a team of scientists say they could be one step closer to doing that. They used computer technology to analyze whale sounds and think they have translated their first whale word.
Sperm whales don’t speak a “language” in the same way as humans do, but they communicate by using a series of clicks. Scientists from Project CETI, an organization dedicated to translating sperm whale language, have spent years listening to the creatures. They have placed microphones on whales and planted underwater microphones off the coast of the Caribbean island of Dominica to overhear the animals’conversations.
Now the team is using artificial intelligence(AI, computer technology that allows a machine to imitate human intelligence by learning as it goes along) to find patterns in the whales’ sounds. The scientists have been trying to match the sound patterns with the whales’ behavior to see if certain “words” match certain actions. This could reveal the meaning of each individual sound or set of sounds.
So far, the scientists think they understand the signal for “dive”. They have also mapped out a kind of sperm whale phonetic alphabet (phonetic means turning sounds into symbols). However, like Dory, they have a long way to go before they can truly speak “whale”. Unlocking the language of sperm whales could help to protect them. Whales are an important part of marine (海洋) ecosystems all over the world. Their bodies also store large amounts of carbon, which helps to reduce pollution in the atmosphere. If humans spoke “whale”, it could be possible to warn them away from dangerous objects and areas, such as fishing nets they can become tangled in or shallow shorelines where they can get stranded.
1. How do sperm whales interact with each other?| A．By making sounds. |
| B．By using microphones. |
| C．By tail movements. |
| D．By eye contact. |
| A．Giving an example to show that whales don't speak a language. |
| B．Presenting new evidence on the interaction methods of whales. |
| C．Introducing a scientific way to locate the position of the whales. |
| D．Employing a novel approach to interpret the whale’s language. |
| A．To imitate the sounds made by whales. |
| B．To understand the behavior of fishers. |
| C．To tell whales about potential danger. |
| D．To reduce pollution in the atmosphere. |
| A．Unclear. |
| B．Hopeful. |
| C．Doubtful. |
| D．Indifferent. |
8 . A new study reveals that trees can communicate and warn each other of danger. “For the first time, researchers have been able to visualize plant-to-plant communication,” said Masatsugu, senior author of the study.
The idea of talking trees started to take root in the 1980s. Two scientists found that damaged trees began producing chemicals that made their leaves unappetizing and indigestible to discourage insects. The trees then sent chemical signals to one another through the air. Over the past four decades, scientists have observed this cell-to-cell communication in more than 30 plant species.
Past research shows plants communicate with their surroundings by releasing chemicals known as volatile (易挥发的) organic compounds. One class of these compounds are released when a plant is injured: green leafy volatiles. These are released by, as the name suggests, pretty much every green plant with leaves, and are produced when a plant experiences physical damage. An example of these compounds is the smell released from fresh-cut grass.
In the new study, Masatsugu and his colleagues manually damaged leaves and placed insects on tomato plants to trigger the release of various green leafy volatiles. After testing many of them, the team found it seemed to increase calcium ions (钙离子) inside cells. The calcium signaling is like a switch to turn on the defense responses from the plants.
With this new understanding, researchers say plants could be immunized against threats and stressors before they even happen. For instance, exposing healthy plants to insect-ridden plants or the associated green leafy volatiles could boost their genetic defenses, so farmers use less pesticides. The revelation could also help make plants more resilient (有复原力的) during a drought, signaling the plants to conserve more water.
1. What does the new research find?| A．Trees can inform other trees of potential threats. | B．Trees can make themselves attractive. |
| C．Trees will send signals first once damaged. | D．Trees will work together to trick insects. |
| A．They defend insects. | B．They kill insects. |
| C．Some of them can be smelt. | D．Some of them can be seen. |
| A．By protecting trees from insects. | B．By classifying green leafy volatiles. |
| C．By increasing calcium ions inside cells. | D．By causing the release of certain chemicals. |
| A．Its target. | B．Its process. | C．Its application. | D．Its background. |
Foster homes play
10 . Renewable energy sources can help combat climate change, but dietary choices also play a significant role. Opting for plant-based diets or lab-grown food can reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the food system. We highlight the potential of dietary changes and the importance of providing choices instead of mandates （命令）.
Research shows that a global shift towards vegetarian（素食的） diets could cut emissions from food system by over half. Even small changes towards plant-based diets can have a meaningful impact. Substituting conventional food with lab-grown alternatives could prevent 1 degree of future warming. These findings demonstrate the power of dietary changes in addressing climate challenges.
Dietary choices are influenced by factors like culture, religion, and economics. It is unrealistic to expect everyone to become vegetarian immediately. Respecting individual choices is crucial in promoting sustainable diets. By offering information and raising awareness, individuals can make choices according to their needs and values while contributing to collective efforts.
Transforming industrial food production is necessary, but individual choices are still vital. Education and awareness campaigns can inform people about the environmental impact of different dietary choices and empower them to make informed decisions. Combining individual actions with systematic changes can create a powerful force for human health and the planet. Rather than expecting immediate vegetarianism, acknowledging the impact of small changes is important. Gradual shifts towards more sustainable dietary choices, like reducing animal product consumption and increasing vegetable intake, can result in significant environmental benefits when multiplied across populations.
In conclusion, addressing climate change requires multiple approaches, with dietary choices playing a crucial role. Offering choices while recognizing the challenges associated with dietary shifts is essential. By combining personal dietary changes with broader efforts to reshape the food system, we can make substantial progress towards a healthier planet while respecting individual preferences.
1. Which is a dietary choice to reduce greenhouse gas emissions?| A．Choosing plant-based diets. |
| B．Choosing renewable energy sources. |
| C．Giving the command for dietary changes. |
| D．Increasing consumption of processed food. |
| A．By answering questions. | B．By listing a figure. |
| C．By analyzing the reasons. | D．By using a quotation, |
| A．Indifferent. | B．Skeptical. | C．Favorable. | D．Objective. |
| A．Small changes in life choices can make big impacts |
| B．Renewable energy sources can reduce gas emissions |
| C．Lab-grown nutritional food could prevent future warming |
| D．The power of dietary choices in fighting climate change |
