1 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passages 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.

Every year, around 30 million visitors swarm into Venice, a place of under 50,000 residents. The population has shrunk by 70 percent in the past 70 years in Venice,     1     the residents have been driven out by ballooning rents and cuts in services.

Burano—a one-square-mile island in the north lagoon—draws thousands of visitors daily. They take a 40-minute vaporetto (waterbus) ride from Venice     2     (see) the island’s candy-colored cottages and the leaning bell tower.

Now, as residents on the island, some Buranelli are fighting back,     3     (make) the island a launching ground for ecotourism. A clutch of the island’s fishermen are doubling up on their jobs—casting their nets as well as showing tourists the fragile lagoon and why it needs     4     (preserve).

Life on Burano has revolved around the water. A fishing settlement with a history     5     (date) back to the Roman era, the island’s relative separation from Venice, has kept its traditions undamaged     6     medieval times.

Yet     7     (work) with tourists is increasingly important for the fishermen’s livelihoods. Wholesale seafood prices nearly     8     (halve) during the pandemic, and although they recovered, they decreased again in late 2022.

“I’m proud of my work but I’m also aware that in a few years there won’t be anyone left     9     (do) it,” one of the local fishermen says. Numbers of both crabs and fishermen are sharply declining: “When I was a child, there were 100 moecanti on Burano; now we are 19,” he says. Climate change     10     (raise) lagoon temperatures over the last decade. While the crabs aren’t endangered, fewer of them are swimming into fishermen’s nets.

2 . 语法填空

    1     (attract) by the description of a beautiful city in the newspaper, Jack decided to do something for the     2     (surround) of his own city. First, he took     3     cycling to save resources. Then he called on people to save grain, because he found     4     hard to tolerate wasting in daily life. After that,     5     (guide) by an expert, he had his previous plan     6     (adjust) and tried to make a switch.     7     (unite) with a group of people     8     had the same interest as him, he made an effort to handle the     9     (pollute) river. Though     10     (reject) sometimes, he never gave up. Supported by many citizens, he was optimistic about the future of his city.

3 . 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.

Imagine you are out fishing on the high seas - the wind and water are clean and comfortable and you begin bringing up your first catch of the day. That's when everything goes wrong. Your fishing nets are tangled up (缠成一团) in older, abandoned fishing tool, and you're unable to untangle them. Your equipment    1    (ruin), and all of the fish you have worked so hard to catch are trapped. They will die    2    you are unable to draw or free them. Ghost fishing has claimed yet another victim.

Ghost fishing is what abandoned fishing tool does. It still catches fish, but no one benefits. Trapped fish die and attract scavengers (清道夫)    3     also get caught, creating a vicious cycle. In fact, lost fishing tool, or "ghost tool," is among    4    (great) killers in the oceans. This tool further reduces the already declining number of fish.

Environmental agencies estimate that 10 percent of all seawater litter is lost or deserted fishing tool    5    (equal) 640,000 tons every year. Fortunately, these agencies are asking why this is happening and what    6     be done to stop it.

It's not the intention of the majority of fishermen to lose their tool. In most circumstances bad weather is to blame. But in other cases fishermen throw their tool in the ocean on purpose, risking expensive fines. But to them, it's worth the risk    7    (free) up space onboard, cut fuel costs or avoid paying handling fees.    8     equipment loss is accidental or not, a strategy involving tool identification seems to be a practical solution.

By marking tool with electronic tags and utilizing GPS technology, owners are more likely to recover lost tool and less likely to abandon it. Currently, ownership regulations are reportedly very weak. Leading the effort for tagging fishing tool and creating accountability is the GGTI (Global Ghost Tool Initiative).    9     (launch) in 2015, the GGTI is the first organization of its kind. It's brought together an organization of governments, fishing-industry executives, seafood companies and non-profits. Their efforts to get back and recycle the tool    10    (improve) marine environment, protecting fish and fishermen's way of life.

Ghost fishing poses a serious threat to the fishing industry worldwide, and a global effort is needed to solve it.

6 . 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.

In 1831, a 22-year-old English biologist called Charles Darwin boarded the HMS Beagle in Plymouth and set off on an incredible voyage. His aim was to observe the natural world in places     1     had not been studied in much detail. Almost 200 years later, another mission, the Darwin 200, has invited a team of conservationists to retrace back the Beagle’s journey.

HMS Beagle’s mission was to map the harbours of South America. Darwin was invited along     2     (survey) the natural world. His observations on the Galapagos Islands, around 560 miles off the coast of Ecuador, changed the way Darwin saw nature,     3     (lead) to Darwin’s most famous work: his theory of evolution (进化论). This explained     4     species change over time to adapt to their environments, a process called natural selection. It has been described as “    5     (big) single idea in the history of human thought”.

What is Darwin 200’s mission? The Darwin200 ship     6     (sail) more than 40,000 miles and stop at 32 ports in four continents. Specially     7     (choose) conservationists will join at different stages for a week each to carry out wildlife studies.    8     the journey, the ship’s crew will make films that explain Charles Darwin’s discoveries.

The Darwin 200 team will travel in a 50-metre-long Dutch sailing ship called Oosterschelde, which     9     (build) in 1918 and has been restored fully for this voyage. The ship’s captain said, “She has sailed the distance from here to the Moon and back twice!    10     I may handle the most difficult situations, I trust her to bring me back home safely.”

The ship is due to reach the Galapagos Islands in April 2025

7 . 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.

At first, the scientists wondered whether it was a mistake. Just 21 days     1     leaving the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen, an arctic fox had arrived in Greenland. And in less than three months, the fox made it to Canada.

The fox averaged nearly 30 miles a day — some days, though, it walked almost 100 miles. The data was real, the scientists decided as the fox kept going. The creature’s traveling last year,     2     (document) in a recent paper, wowed Tarroux and his fellow Norwegian researcher Eva,     3     the animal is known for its endurance and ability to survive in harsh polar areas.

Scientists already knew that some of the foxes, native     4     Arctic areas all around the Northern Hemisphere, made long journeys: DNA exchange links far-flung fox populations in areas connected only by sea ice.

But the fox these researchers followed stood out for just     5     fast it covered more than 2,700 miles — and shed light on far-north fox sighting which explorers wondered about as far back as the 1800s.

“We didn’t really know how they     6     (do) that and how long it would take for an individual to do this kind of trip,” Tarroux said.

The coastal fox the researchers tracked, also known as a blue fox, landed in Ellesmere Island in Canada on 1 July 2018. Of the 50 or 60 animals the scientists put trackers on for a study, it was the only one     7     ventured outside of Norway.

The researchers think the fox     8     have set off because of a food shortage, but they’re not sure. The tracker stopped     9     (work) in February, so researchers no longer know the fox’s whereabouts, but it     10     (detect) for the last time on the same Canadian island in the Nunavut territory.