1 . In 2016, the world’s population cast aside 49 million tons of electronic waste, known as e-waste. It has been calculated that this number will grow to more than 60 million tons by 2021.
What is causing the upsurge（激增）in e-waste? Technology is becoming more and more widespread, covering almost every aspect of our lives. Meanwhile, the lifespan of devices is getting shorter-many products will be thrown away once their batteries die, to be replaced by new devices. Companies intentionally plan the obsolescence（过时）of their goods by updating the design or software and discontinuing support for older models, so that now it is usually cheaper and easier to buy a new product than to repair an old one. Since prices are falling, electronic devices are in demand around the world.
As more people buy electronic equipment，manufacturers（制造商）are beginning to face shortages of the raw materials needed to make their products, so recycling and reusing materials from discarded（扔掉的）products and waste makes economic and environmental sense.
Recycling e-waste is practiced both formally and informally. Proper or formal e-waste recycling usually involves taking apart the electronics, separating and sorting through the materials and cleaning them. Companies must obey health and safety rules to reduce the health and environmental hazards of handling e-waste by using pollution-control technologies. All this makes formal recycling expensive. Informal recycling is typically unlicensed and uncontrolled. At informal recycling workshops, men and women recover valuable materials by burning devices to melt away non-valuable materials. Usually they do not wear protective equipment and lack any awareness that they are handling dangerous materials.
With the amount of e-waste growing around the world, recycling alone will not be enough to solve the problem. In order to reduce e-waste, manufacturers need to design electronics that are safer, and more durable, repairable and recyclable. The best thing you can do is resist buying a new device until you really need it. Try to get your old product repaired if possible and, if it can’t be fixed, resell or recycle it responsibly. Before you recycle your device, put any broken parts in separate containers and close these tightly to prevent chemicals from leaking. Wear latex gloves and a mask if you’ re handling something that’s broken.
1. Which of the following is the reason for e-waste’s increasing sharply?| A．The results of updating devices. |
| B．The methods of recycling e-waste. |
| C．The causes of devices’ price dropping. |
| D．The shortages of protective equipment. |
| A．To increase the variety of electronic products. |
| B．To lower the costs of technology innovation. |
| C．To relieve the lack of raw materials. |
| D．To improve the poor quality of e-devices. |
| A．Influence. | B．Harm. | C．Limits. | D．Costs. |
| A．Their ways of reusing waste are encouraged largely. |
| B．They are blamed for generating all the dangerous chemicals. |
| C．They aim to discover rare materials from waste for new products. |
| D．Their workers are unaware of the danger from dealing with devices. |
| A．Everyone should take action to reduce e-waste. |
| B．Companies should be mainly responsible for reducing e-waste. |
| C．Fixing a device could cause more pollution than buying a new one. |
| D．E-waste could be broken down by burying it underground for a long time. |
2 . Phoenix, Arizona, the USA was shaken by a big sandstorm recently. It was a huge dust storm that struck Phoenix a little after 7:00 p.m. local time.
Arizona has sandstorms particularly during the monsoon(季风) season which usually starts from mid-June until the end of September. However, this was so far the biggest. The cloud of dust turned day into night. Some trees were downed, gardens were destroyed and it cut off power for thousands of local people along the area, but luckily no death happened. A number of the people’s pools became dirty with dust. People who lived in Phoenix for more than 40 years said that this was the first time they had experienced this huge dust storm. It could greatly influence people’s health.
The big dust cloud started in Tucson traveling north across the desert. The huge storm ran up to the 60 miles per hour. It was more than 100 miles wide and a mile high. Besides Phoenix and nearby cities, the storm also reached Yuma area in southwestern and far western Arizona. It reduced the visibility (能见度) in these areas, putting off the flights at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.
The storm only takes place in Arizona, the Sahara Desert and areas of the Middle East, because of the dry environment and large amounts of sand. Because of the serious shortage of rain, there’s a large possibility that the water is polluted because of the storm.
1. In what season do sandstorms usually take place in Arizona?| A．In fall and winter | B．In summer and fall |
| C．In winter and spring | D．In spring and summer |
| A．the storm | B．the wind |
| C．the desert | D．the state |
| A．people’s health was not influenced |
| B．it didn’t do harm to people’s gardens |
| C．all the local people in the area survived |
| D．the electricity power was not at all affected |
| A．its severe dryness and lots of sand | B．its being too far away from the sea |
| C．its being close to the Sahara Desert | D．its looking like areas of the Middle East |
| A．Phoenix, Arizona has more sandstorms. |
| B．Sandstorms do a great deal of harm to people |
| C．We must do something to prevent sandstorms. |
| D．Phoenix, Arizona experienced a huge sandstorm. |
3 . Scientists have not found any signs of life on Mars yet,but they say a robotic vehicle called “Curiosity” is helping them learn a lot about the planet’s history and climate.
Curiosity landed on Mars in August 2012 after travelling through space for more than eight months.It was sent to Mars by scientists from NASA in the United States.
Curiosity is about the size of a car and has six wheels.It also has a robotic arm,cameras,and instruments that allow it to examine things it finds on the surface.Then it sends the information back to the earth.
Curiosity’s main task is to find out if anything could live on Mars,either now or in the past.On Nov.2,NASA scientists held a press conference (新闻发布会) to discuss what Curiosity had found in its first two months on Mars.
Curiosity has found soil that is similar to the sand formed by volcanoes (火山) on the earth.Scientists say that studying the minerals in Martian soil will help them understand what conditions were like on the planet in the past.Curiosity also found smooth stones like the ones found on river beds and seashores on the earth,where their rough edges have been worn down by water.Mars is very cold and dry now,but scientists say the smooth stones tell them that a river used to run through the place where they were found.
Curiosity has been testing the atmosphere around Mars for a type of gas called methane (甲烷),but so far it has not found any.On the earth,most methane is produced by plants or animals.Methane on Mars might indicate that some type of tiny plants or animals lived there.
Curiosity is the fourth robotic vehicle to be sent to Mars.It will continue to explore the planet for about two years.
1. Which of the following descriptions about Curiosity is TRUE?| A．It landed on Mars in January 2012. |
| B．It is small in size and has four arms. |
| C．It took over eight months to arrive in Mars. |
| D．It was sent to Mars by scientists from Russia. |
| A．there’s no air on Mars | B．Mars is warm and wet now |
| C．the soil on Mars is rich | D．there used to be water on Mars |
| A．smooth stones | B．rivers |
| C．robotic vehicles | D．volcanoes |
| A．some tiny animals once lived on Mars |
| B．there are no plants or animals on Mars now |
| C．the atmosphere around Mars is full of methane |
| D．Curiosity is designed to test the atmosphere around the earth |
| A．Humans benefit a lot by going to Mars. |
| B．Scientists will stop the research on Mars soon. |
| C．It is possible to build an earth-like environment on Mars. |
| D．A robotic vehicle helps scientists get useful information from Mars. |
4 . A perfectly preserved wreck (沉船) that has lain unnoticed in the icy Baltic Sea for over 500 years has finally been confirmed. The European ship was first observed in 2009, when a sonar(声呐) exploration by the Swedish Maritime Administration (SMA) indicated a large object in the area. However, it was not until early 2019 that researchers from Soton and MMT found evidence of the sunken ship using underwater robotic cameras.
When the team observed the pictures of the 60-foot-long shipwreck, they were surprised to discover it was 99 percent complete. The scientists considered that the wreck's good condition is due to its place in the Baltic Seabed, where the oxygen levels are low. Oxygen is key to most ocean life's survival. Therefore, such an environment where the shipwreck stays reduces or completely removes the creatures that feed on rotting wood.
So although this ship is contemporary to the times of Christopher Columbus, it shows a remarkable level of preservation after 500 years at the bottom of the sea. Dr. Pacheco-Ruiz, who led the MMT effort, said,“It's almost like it sank yesterday. It's a truly astonishing sight."
The scientists are unsure what let the ship sink. However, the ship's guns, which are in their"ready to fire" positions, indicate it may have been the victim of a naval battle. Since the ship dates back to the early 16th century, historians predict it may have sunk during Sweden's three year independence war with its Danish rulers between 1521 and 1523. Alternatively, it could also have been involved in the border dispute (争端) between Russia and Sweden from 1554 to 1557.
The ship is by far the best-preserved shipwreck ever found from the Age of Exploration, when Europeans explored the world by sea.
What's more exciting is that the ship is similar to the Pinta and La Nina, which Comlubus famously sailed toward North America. The scientists, who continue to observe the shipwreck hope the boat's design will expose some of the technologies available to the Italian explorer during his 1492 voyage of discovery.
1. What scientific achievement did Soton 's and MMT' s researchers make?| A．Discovering a wreck using sonar. |
| B．Getting the wreck out or icy water. |
| C．Identifying the object found by SMA. |
| D．Making the ancient wreck well preserved. |
| A．It is generally unfit for creatures to live in. | B．It is tough for scientists to do research. |
| C．It contains too many harmful gases. | D．It is filled with rotting wood. |
| A．his curiosity about the time when the ship sank |
| B．his amazement at the ship's previous grandness |
| C．his surprise at the wreck's well-preserved condition |
| D．his shock at the sinking of the great European ship |
| A．The damage to the ship. | B．The causes of the ship's sinking. |
| C．The construction of the ship. | D．The possible function of the ship. |
| A．Recovering the ancient ships, the Pinta and La Nina. |
| B．Finding every aspect of life in the Age of Exploration. |
| C．Exploring the role the ship played in Columbus' exploration. |
| D．Leaning about Columbus' voyage according to the ship's design. |
5 . Spring lifts our spirits. It's a time for Nature to bring us back to life after a cold season. I live not far from the Kairaku Park, which is one of the largest gardens in Japan, and famous for its near 10,000 plum trees. I am fortunate to have them all outside my backyard, and take advantage of the walking paths daily.
I see the same trees and swans every day, but that day was different. At the edge of the small lake, I saw some new -born black swans. They were pretty and cute. They stayed with their mom.While taking a few photos of the sunset, I was interrupted by a high sound going on for some time. So, I turned around and saw one little swan was stuck by two stones. Its mother was trying to make it out but failed. I tried to get near but the mother was ever so angry! She wouldn't allow me to get close, so I turned to an old man sitting on the bench and said,“Excuse me, the swan baby can't move and I want to help it, but the mother is extremely angry! Could you please do me a favor?"
After hearing my words, the man smiled at me first and then agreed to help me. He drove the mother away with great efforts, and for several times, he was almost hurt by the mother. Thanks to him, I was able to get there and push the little swan out of the gap finally. Oh, I really hoped it wasn't injured, but at least it was alive and swimming!
In spring, I become more physically active. Things around don't make us, but Nature does, and it keeps us going. I am positive that all of us have a little piece of nature in our own neighborhoods. Somewhere we will be reminded why natural life is so important-- -because we grow with it! Personally, I am happy that baby birds can put a smile on my face! I struggle for having a small number of "things" in life, and being filled with simple reality--at one with Nature.
1. What can we know about the author from Paragraph 1?| A．Her favorite season is spring. | B．She enjoys doing outdoor sports. |
| C．Her backyard is filled with plum trees. | D．She is satisfied with her living environment. |
| A．She took a few photos of the sunset. |
| B．She made a little swan's mother angry. |
| C．She met some swans and helped one of them. |
| D．She met an old man and made friends with him. |
| A．Well-known. | B．Warm-hearted. | C．Selfish. | D．Outgoing. |
| A．Nature. | B．kindness. | C．The garden. | D．The things around. |
| A．is really a nature lover | B．is short of some life skill |
| C．asks people to help the weak | D．calls on more people to protect the environment |
6 . Not all vegetables need lots of sunshine. Mark Hoffman and his wife own a bed-and -breakfast guesthouse in rural Kempton, Illinois. They often serve their guests fresh products from the garden.
The Hoffmans have been growing food and flowers for twenty-five years. For almost ten of those years, Mr. Hoffman has been experimenting and working with shade (阴凉) plantings. He says, “The bottom line here is that most plants will produce more in full sun. But if you do not have full sun, there are other choices.”
For example, he grows tomatoes near oak trees. Oak trees can produce a lot of shade. But Mr. Hoffman says his tomato plants grow as long as they get five hours a day of direct sunshine, especially morning sun. Not only does this go against the traditional advice that tomatoes need six，eight，even twelve hours a day of full sun, it also shows how plants and trees roots can share nutrients and water．Mr. Hoffman also planted asparagus（芦笋）around a tree at its drip line，the area below the outer limit of the branches. So when it rains，all the rain drips down right on the asparagus．Mr. Hoffman says plants with wider leaves seem to do better in shady environments. He also found that his potatoes did better partly in shade than in full sun.
Moving them out of the sun helped control an insect problem. Mr. Hoffman does not use pesticide (农药). Instead, he planted the potatoes in the shade, especially on the east side of the tree. The potatoes get morning sun, but they are shaded during the hottest part of the day. Some insects dislike shade, and the hottest part day is when they do the worst of their damage.
Time of day, sun intensity (强度), shadows from trees, walls and buildings all influence how much sunlight falls on plants. And people interested in shade planting should also remember something else. The term “shade” can describe different amounts of darkness. It can even mean different things in different parts of the world.
1. What’s the author’s purpose of writing the passage?| A．To present a kind of eco-friendly lifestyle. |
| B．To recommend an approach to manage a website |
| C．To show vegetables can be planted in the shade. |
| D．To introduce Mark Hoffman and his family. |
| A．five hours a day | B．Six hours a day |
| C．Eight hours a day | D．Twelve hours a day |
| A．Food and flowers produce more in the shade. |
| B．Food growing in the shade contains more nutrients. |
| C．Sun can affect the production of some plants. |
| D．Food growing in the shade is the best choice for most plants. |
| A．asparagus prefer to grow in the shade. |
| B．how plants and tree roots share water. |
| C．vegetables grow better in partial shade. |
| D．how leaves gain sunshine under the tree. |
| A．environment | B．traveling |
| C．lifestyle | D．agriculture |
1. 简述城市空气污染的危害；
2. 提出解决该问题的建议：
（1）尽量少开车；
（2）不随地扔垃圾；
（3）关闭一些工厂；
3. 发出号召。
注意： 1. 词数100左右；
2. 可适当增加细节，以使行文连贯；
3. 开头和结尾已给出，不计入总词数。
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
1. 垃圾分类的意义；
2. 在学校如何进行垃圾分类（例如：可回收垃圾收集等）
3. 希望大家积极参与
注意：词数不少于100；可适当加入细节，使内容充实，行文连贯。
参考词汇：垃圾分类 rubbish classification
My fellow students,
I’m Li Jin, chairman of the Students' Union.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
9 . Although it has been revealed in recent years that plants are capable of seeing, hearing and smelling, they are still usually thought of as silent.But now, for the first time, Itzhak Khait and his colleagues at Tel Aviv University in Israel found that tomato and tobacco plants made sounds at frequencies humans cannot hear when stressed by a lack of water or when their stem is cut.Microphones placed 10 centimetres from the plants picked up sounds in the ultrasonic(超声波的) range of 20 to 100 kilohertz, which the team says insects and some mammals would be capable of hearing and responding to from as far as 5 metres away.A moth(蛾) may decide against laying eggs on a plant that sounds water-stressed, the researchers suggest.Plants could even hear that other plants are short of water and react accordingly, they guess.
Plants exposed to drought stress have been shown to experience cavitation—a process where air bubbles(气泡) form, expand and explode inside tissue that transports water.These explosions produce sound, but they have only ever been recorded using devices directly connected to the plant.
On average, drought-stressed tomato plants made 35 sounds an hour, while tobacco plants made 11.When plant stems were cut, tomato plants made an average of 25 sounds in the following hour, and tobacco plants 15.Unstressed plants produced fewer than one sound per hour, on average.
The researchers trained a machine-learning model to distinguish differences between the plants’ sounds and the wind, rain and other noises of the greenhouse, correctly identifying in most cases whether the stress was caused by dryness or a cut, based on the sound’s intensity(强度)and frequency.Water-hungry tobacco appears to make louder sounds than cut tobacco, for example.
Enabling farmers to listen for water-stressed plants could “open a new direction in the field of precision agriculture”, the researchers suggest.They add that such an ability will be increasingly important as climate change exposes more areas to drought.Anne Visscher, working at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in the UK, warns that the results can’t yet be broadened out to other stresses, such as salt or temperature, because these may not lead to sounds.In addition, there have been no experiments to show whether moths(飞蛾） or any other animal can hear and respond to the sounds the plants make, so that idea remains speculative for now, she says.
1. What does the new study find about plants?| A．Stressed plants tend to lack water. |
| B．The stressed plants can make sounds. |
| C．Some plants can take in humans’ sounds. |
| D．Some plants can have a bad effect on animals. |
| A．It may contribute to the plants’ sounds. |
| B．It may lead to plants experiencing drought. |
| C．It is determined by the number of air bubbles. |
| D．It was identified and recorded for the first time. |
| A．35 | B．11 | C．25 | D．15 |
| A．why some tobacco makes louder sounds. |
| B．why the surroundings are vital to plants. |
| C．how important the sound’s intensity and frequency are. |
| D．how to distinguish between the sounds to know what the stress is. |
| A．reasonable | B．tentative | C．inspiring | D．ridiculous |
10 . A proposed dam near the Grand Canyon would flood miles of the Little Colorado River Gorge, resulting in severe consequences for sacred Native American cultural sites and local wildlife, an environmental group has warned.
If the plan eventually gets the green light, the 24-story structure will be built across the Little Colorado River about 6 miles upstream from the point where it meets the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon National Park. In fact, the dam’s planned location lies within the Navajo Nation Native American territory.
The dam would measure 240 feet high and 500 feet wide. The plan also involves a second 140-foot-high dam as well as other construction. The developers say the project would be able to produce 3,300-gigawatt(千兆瓦)hours of power.
The permit for the Little Colorado River site has now been accepted by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission(FERC), meaning the project is one step closer to becoming a reality. However, environmentalists are concerned about the damage that such a project could cause.
The Center for Biological Diversity(CBD) — a national, non-profit organization dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild areas—has warned that the dam would cause flooding that has the potential to "eliminate" miles of river habitat for an endangered, federally protected fish known as the humpback chute(弓背鲑), which is found in the Grand Canyon.
Meanwhile, the CBD says that the project would “industrialize" lands near two sacred cultural sites of the Hopi Tribe, whose reservation is entirely surrounded by the Navajo Nation territory. Taylor McKinnon, a senior public lands campaigner at the CBD, said in a statement, "This would create profound cultural and biological harm. There will be an enormous effort to stop this dangerous proposal in its tracks."
The FERC says that public will be allowed to comment on or seek to prevent the project until November 22.
1. What is mainly talked about the dam in Paragraph 2?| A．The amount of work. | B．The appearance. |
| C．The location. | D．The influence. |
| A．The cultural and biological harm. | B．The destruction of Indian homes. |
| C．A decrease in the amount of water. | D．The abolition of Indian reservation. |
| A．They will seldom come into sight. | B．They will disappear from the earth. |
| C．They will be listed as endangered. | D．They will move to other rivers. |
| A．Favourable. | B．Indifferent. | C．Beneficial. | D．Damaging. |
| A．Two Voices on the Dam | B．Two Different Opinions on Energy |
| C．The Protection of Culture | D．A Coming Debate on the Dam |
