1 . Since Peter Singer published Animal Liberation in 1975, animal rights activists thought animals should be granted the same rights as humans. Referring to scientific studies showing animals_______“human characteristics”, they argue animals should be protected with the same rights. So why don’t animals have the same legal status (身份) as humans？

The line of reasoning in favor of granting animals equal rights to humans_______the fact that scientists have found characteristics in animals we normally_______with humans. A group of scientists showed monkeys demonstrate self-consciousness at the same level as humans. This has usually served as a justification for human rights, so why don’t we grant equal rights to monkeys？

The truth is,_______convincing scientific evidence, the argument for granting at least some animals the same rights as humans can’t be justified philosophically. An adequate argument for animal rights would require further philosophical inquiry and not just descriptive_______. We can feel pity for animals being treated badly and strive to protect them from such treatment. This,_______, doesn’t mean animals should enjoy the same legal status as humans.

There is a strong reason for_______that rights only apply to humans. While fundamental rights surely are valuable in their nature, they would be worthless without a system to_______them. That is why we expect other people to respect our rights.

The system that defends our rights is the fact that other people are obliged by_______in their behaviors towards us. In our daily life, we experience numerous situations in which bad guys could________from violating (侵犯) our rights. Nevertheless, we see, of course, with some exceptions, that individuals cooperate and respect other people’s rights. Rights and duties are two sides of the same coin, and one cannot________to have certain rights without having to observe the duties.

If it is my claim to live freely on my property without being bothered, my neighbor’s duty prevents him from violating my right to property and life. Suppose, however, he breaks in and damages my property. He will then be held responsible in a court of law, for he has________his duty to respect my rights. This is completely reasonable, but we will certainly face________if my property was violated by an elephant.

If we assume that animals are granted the same legal status as humans,________requires that we now drag he elephant into court. Remember, if an animal were to have such rights, it would logically also have social duties. Therefore, it is now________to the same legal procedures as humans. This raises practical questions: Who will defend the animal in court？And will the animal be able to comprehend what is going on？

1.

A．acquiring

B．desiring

C．displaying

D．respecting

2.

A．explores

B．challenge

C．overlooks

D．emphasizes

3.

A．treat

B．associate

C．deal

D．bear

4.

A．considering

B．despite

C．instead of

D．according to

5.

A．conclusions

B．performances

C．experiments

D．messages

6.

A．in return

B．for instance

C．therefore

D．however

7.

A．denying

B．maintaining

C．recognizing

D．suggesting

8.

A．approve

B．demand

C．ensure

D．reserve

9.

A．contracts

B．possession

C．faith

D．duties

10.

A．profit

B．keep

C．learn

D．result

11.

A．afford

B．claim

C．pretend

D．determine

12.

A．assigned

B．declared

C．failed

D．fulfilled

13.

A．dangers

B．questions

C．charges

D．obstacles

14.

A．agreement

B．justice

C．criticism

D．frustration

15.

A．open

B．addicted

C．subject

D．relevant

2 . Some plants get so hungry that they eat flies, spiders, and even small frogs. What’s more amazing is that these plants occur naturally (in special environments) in every state. In fact, they’re found on every continent except Antarctica.

You’ve probably seen a Venus’ flytrap. It’s often sold in museum gift stores, department stores, and even supermarkets. A small plant, it grows 6 to 8 inches tall in a container. At the end of its stalks (茎) are specially modified leaves that act like traps. Inside each trap is a lining of tiny trigger hairs. When an insect lands on them, the trap suddenly shuts. Over the course of a week or so, the plant feeds on its catch.

The Venus flytrap is just one of more than 500 species of meat-eating plants, says Barry Meyers-Rice, the editor of the International carnivorous (食肉的) Plant Society’ s Newsletter. Note: Despite any science-fiction stories you might have read, no meat-eating plant does any danger to humans.

Dr. Meyers-Rice says a plant is meat-eating, only if it does all four of the following “attract, kill, digest, and absorb” some from of insects, including flies, butterflies, and moths. Meat-eating plants look and act like other green plants -- well, most of the time.

All green plants make sugar through a process called photosynthesis (光合作用). Plants use the sugar to make food. What makes “meat-eating” plants different is their bug-catching leaves. They need insects for one reason: nitrogen. Nitrogen is a nutrient that they can’t obtain any other way. While almost all green plants on our planet get nitrogen from the soil, “meat-eating” plants can’t. They live in places where nutrients are hard or almost impossible to get from the soil because of its acidity. So they’ve come to rely on getting nitrogen from insects and small animals. In fact, nutrient-rich soil is poisonous to “meat-eating” plants. Never fertilize them! But don’t worry, either, if they never seem to catch any insects. They can survive, but they’ll grow very slowly.

1. According to the passage, carnivorous plants ________.

A．only grow in wild field	B．are rare to see
C．are as common as flies	D．cannot grow on Antarctica

2. Venus flytrap preys on insects with ________.

A．its numerous long an thin stalks	B．a container where it grows
C．its insect-catching leaves	D．the lining of tiny trigger hairs

3. We can conclude from the third paragraph that ________.

A．carnivorous plants are dangerous

B．carnivorous plants are fictional

C．carnivorous plants occasionally eat book

D．carnivorous plants are harmless to humans

4. In the eyes of the author, which of the following statements is TRUE?

A．Carnivorous plants cannot grow in acid soil

B．Carnivorous plants can grow in nutrient-poor soil

C．Carnivorous plants will die if they cannot catch any insects

D．Carnivorous plants can get nitrogen from nutrient-rich soil

3 . Space exploration has always been the province of ________：The human imagination readily soars where human ingenuity (创造力）struggles to follow. A Voyage to the Moon, often cited as the first science fiction story, was written by Cyrano de Bergerac in 1649. Cyrano was dead and buried for a good three centuries ________the first manned rockets started to fly.

In 1961, when President Kennedy declared that America would send a man to the moon by the ________'s end, those words, too, had a dreamlike quality. They resonated with optimism and ambition in much the same way as the most famous ________ speech of all, delivered by Martin Luther King Jr. two years later. By the end of the decade, both visions had yielded concrete results and________American society. And yet in many ways the two dreams ended up ________each other. The fight for racial and economic equality is intensely pragmatic (讲求实用的）and immediate in its impact. The urge to explore space is just the opposite. It is figuratively and literally otherworldly in its ________.

When the dust settled, the space dreamers lost out. There was no grand follow-up to the Apollo missions. The technologically compromised space shuttle program has just come to an end, with no ________. The perpetual argument is that ________ are tight, that we have more pressing problems here on Earth. Amid the current concerns about the federal deficit, reaching toward the stars seems a dispensable luxury—________ saving one-thousandth of a single year’s budget would solve our problems.

But human ingenuity struggles on. NASA is developing a series of robotic probes that will get the most bang from a buck. They will serve as modern Magellans,________out the solar system for whatever explorers follow, whether man or machine. On the flip side, companies like Virgin Galactic are plotting a bottom-up assault on the space dream by making it a reality to the public. Private spaceflight could lie within ________ of rich civilians in a few years. Another decade or two and it could go mainstream.

The space dreamers end up benefiting all of us—-not just because of the way they expand human knowledge, or because of the spin-off _______ they produce, but because the two types of dreams feed off each other. Both Martin Luther King and John Kennedy appealed to the idea that humans can ________what were once considered inherent limitations. Today we face seeming challenges in energy, the environment, health care. Tomorrow we will transcend these as well, and the dreamers will deserve a lot of the credit. The more evidence we collect that our species is ________greatness, the more we will actually achieve it.

1.

A．dreamers

B．explorers

C．astronomers

D．novelists

2.

A．after

B．before

C．until

D．while

3.

A．year

B．quarter

C．century

D．decade

4.

A．inspiring

B．public

C．dream

D．freedom

5.

A．attacked

B．industrialized

C．transformed

D．accessed

6.

A．in conflict with

B．in line with

C．in common with

D．keeping pace with

7.

A．aims

B．influence

C．concerns

D．terms

8.

A．ancestor

B．successor

C．forefather

D．advocate

9.

A．situations

B．securities

C．funds

D．schedules

10.

A．just like

B．on condition that

C．as if

D．so that

11.

A．making

B．figuring

C．sweeping

D．mapping

12.

A．reach

B．range

C．control

D．knowledge

13.

A．productions

B．chips

C．technologies

D．substitutes

14.

A．go beyond

B．go through

C．go after

D．go over

15.

A．In ignorance of

B．capable of

C．proud of

D．in favor of

4 . Now elsewhere in the world, Iceland may be spoken of, somewhat breathlessly, as western Europe's last pristine wilderness. But the truth is, once you're off the ______ track of the low-lying coastal areas where everyone lives, the roads are few, and they're all bad, ______ Iceland's natural wonders have been out of reach and unknown even to its own ________For them the land has always just been there, something that had to be dealt with and, if possible, _______—the mind-set being one of land as commodity rather than land as, well, priceless art on the scale of the " Mona Lisa".

When the opportunity arose in 2003 for the national power company to enter into a 40-year ______ with the American aluminum company Alcoa to supply hydroelectric power for a new smelter （冶炼厂）, those who had been dreaming of something like this for decades ______ the opportunity. For a long time, life here had meant little more than a hut, dark all winter, cold, no hope, children dying left and right, plagues, starvation, volcanoes erupting and destroying all vegetation and livestock, all spirit— a world ______ almost entirely around the welfare of one's sheep and, later, on how good the cod catch was. In the outlying regions, it still largely does.

Ostensibly, the Alcoa project was intended to save one of these dying regions— the remote and sparsely populated east— where the way of life had steadily ______ to a point of desperation and gloom. After fishing quotas (定额) were ______ in the early 1980s to protect fish stocks, many individual boat owners sold their allotments or gave them away, fishing rights ended up mostly in the hands of a few companies and small fishermen were virtually ______. Technological advances drained away even more jobs previously done by human hands, and the people were seeing everything they had worked for all their lives turn out to be ______ and their children move away. With the old way of life doomed, aluminum projects like this one had come to be perceived, wisely or not, as a last chance. "Smelter or death."

The contract with Alcoa would infuse the region with foreign ______, an estimated 400 jobs, and spin-off service industries. It also was a way for Iceland to develop expertise that ______ could be sold to the rest of the world and ______ an economy historically dependent on fish. “We have to live,” Halldor Asgrimsson said. Halldor, a former prime minister and longtime member of parliament from the region, was a driving ______ behind the project. “We have a right to live.”

1.

A．beaten

B．explored

C．expired

D．centered

2.

A．so

B．when

C．if

D．as

3.

A．government

B．inhabitants

C．countryside

D．scale

4.

A．designed

B．retained

C．exploited

D．preserved

5.

A．stage

B．contract

C．transition

D．prosperity

6.

A．gave up

B．jumped at

C．rushed to

D．made up

7.

A．revolving

B．developing

C．Stirring

D．Initiating

8.

A．transferred

B．declined

C．grew

D．reformed

9.

A．preferred

B．presented

C．resisted

D．imposed

10.

A．wiped out

B．held up

C．kept down

D．put aside

11.

A．priceless

B．superficial

C．worthless

D．negative

12.

A．investment

B．Exclusion

C．invasion

D．landscape

13.

A．socially

B．immediately

C．accidentally

D．potentially

14.

A．stabilize

B．wreck

C．diversify

D．consolidate

15.

A．force

B．wheel

C．instructor

D．signal

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

A.reliance B.sought C.process D.contributing E.scalable F.delivered G.feasible H.efficient I.positioned J.occurring K.significant

New Path to Plastics

A crucial component could come from existing carbon sources.Ethylene (乙烯)is the world's most popular industrial chemical.Consumers and industry demand 150 million tons every year, and most of it goes into countless plastic products, from electronics to textiles.To get ethylene, energy companies crack hydrocarbons (碳氢化合物)from natural gas in a process that requires a lot of heat and energy,    1     to climate change - causing emissions.

Scientists recently made ethylene by combining carbon dioxide gas, water and organic molecules (分子)on the surface of a copper catalyst (催化剂)inside an electrolyzer - a device that uses electricity to drive a chemical reaction.The    2    , described last November online in Nature, could point the way toward using carbon dioxide as feed-stock for chemicals and potentially fuels, helping to reduce     3    on fossil fuels and to put a dent in industrial carbon emission.

The discovery grows out of work published last year by University of Toronto engineer Ted Sargent, describing a similar process that used more electricity and was less     4    overall.So Sargent says he     5    out researchers at the California Institute of Technology who are "black belts in molecular design and synthesis."

Caltech chemists Jonas Peters and Theodor Agapie and their colleagues experimented with organic molecules to add to the copper catalyst.An arylpyridinum salt turned out to be the Goldilocks molecule, Sargent says it formed a water-insoluble (不溶于水的)film (薄膜)on the copper that     6    the carbon dioxide so its molecules reacted most efficiently with one another, without slowing down the reaction.The result was more ethylene, with fewer by-products such as methane (甲烷)and hydrogen.

Still, the process must become even more efficient before it can be commercially     7    and use carbon scrubbed or captured from facilities such as coal-or gas -burning power plants.Lower energy costs, already    8     with renewable energy sources such as wind, could also help make it more     9    .

"This is a(n)     10    breakthrough," says Randy Cortright, a senior research advisesr at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo., who was not involved in the study.This result, he says, is "something that a lot of people are going to pay attention to, and they're going to be able to build on."

7 . There are thirty-four bridges on the Thames River in London, the following are among the most famous ones.

Tower Bridge

Tower Bridge has stood over the River Thames in London since 1894 and is one of the finest, most recognizable bridges in the World. It is the bridge in London you may see in movies and on advertising writing for London. Tower Bridge is the only Thames Bridge that can be raised. It used to be raised about 50 times a day, but nowadays it is only raised 4 to 5 times a week.

London Bridge

The construction of the first stone London Bridge started in 1176 and finished years later. Houses and shops were once built on the bridge, which made the road so narrow that it was often jammed with people, horses and carts. A ‘keep left’ rule was made in 1733 to keep the traffic moving. This became the rule of the road in Britain. In 1757 the old bridge was pulled down and a new one was built in 1831. Interestingly, that one was pulled down again in 1967 but rebuilt in Lake Havasu City, USA, as a tourist attraction. The present London Bridge was opened in 1973.

Millennium Bridge

The Millennium Bridge is a bridge for walkers. It was built to connect the Tate Modern Art Gallery to the City and St Paul’s Cathedral (圣保罗大教堂) in 2000. Thousands of people rushed to see the new bridge. Almost immediately after opening, the bridge had to be shut because of the dangerous waving caused by too many visitors. It has now been reopened. The bridge is about 320 meters, costs 16 million pounds to build and only takes walkers.

Westminster Bridge

Westminster Bridge is a road and foot traffic bridge over the River Thames between Westminster and Lambeth. The present bridge, opened in 1862, is the second on the site and took the place of an earlier bridge opened in 1750. The British romantic poet, William Wordsworth, wrote a famous poem “Composed Upon Westminster Bridge” in the autumn of 1802.

Want to know more about the bridges on the Thames River? Click here www.bridgesinbritain.com.

1. Which of the following is NOT TRUE according to the passage?

A．The 1831 London Bridge is now in the USA.

B．Tower Bridge is much less frequently lifted today than before.

C．Cars and buses are not allowed to cross Millennium Bridge.

D．Westminster Bridge is for walkers only.

2. The Passage is most probably taken from a ________.

A．school report	B．website article
C．teenage magazine	D．science fiction

3. What can we learn from the passage?

A．William Wordsworth wrote many poems of the bridges on the Thames River.

B．Millennium Bridge wasn’t built strong enough so that it had to be pulled down and rebuilt.

C．That all the traffic is kept left in Britain was from a rule of an old London Bridge.

D．Tower Bridge is the symbol of London because it is the first bridge on the Thames River.

8 . Most people agree that honesty is a good thing. But does Mother Nature agree? Animals can’t talk, but can they lie in other ways? Can they lie with their bodies and behavior? Animal experts may not call it lying, but they do agree that many animals, from birds to chimpanzees, behave dishonestly to fool other animals. Why? Dishonesty often helps them survive.

Many kinds of birds are very successful at fooling other animals. For example, a bird called the plover sometimes pretends to be hurt in order to protect its young. When a predator(猎食动物) gets close to its nest, the plover leads the predator away from the nest. How? It pretends to have a broken wing. The predator follows the “hurt” adult, leaving the baby birds safe in the nest.

Another kind of bird, the scrub jay, buries its food so it always has something to eat. Scrub jays are also thieves. They watch where others bury their food and steal it. But clever scrub jays seem to know when a thief is watching them. So they go back later, unbury the food, and bury it again somewhere else.

Birds called cuckoos have found a way to have babies without doing much work. How? They don’t make nests. Instead, they get into other birds’ nests secretly. Then they lay their eggs and fly away. When the baby birds come out, their adoptive parents feed them.

Chimpanzees, or chimps, can also be sneaky. After a fight, the losing chimp will give its hand to the other. When the winning chimp puts out its hand, too, the chimps are friendly again. But an animal expert once saw a losing chimp take the winner’s hand and start fighting again.

Chimps are sneaky in other ways, too. When chimps find food that they love, such as bananas, it is natural for them to cry out. Then other chimps come running. But some clever chimps learn to cry very softly when they find food. That way, other chimps don’t hear them, and they don’t need to share their food.

As children, many of us learn the saying “You can’t fool Mother Nature.” But maybe you can’t trust her, either.

1. A plover protects its young from a predator by ________.

A．getting closer to its young	B．driving away the adult predator
C．leaving its young in another nest	D．pretending to be injured

2. By “Chimpanzees, or chimps, can also be sneaky” (paragraph5), the author means ________.

A．chimps are ready to attack others

B．chimps are sometimes dishonest

C．chimps are jealous of the winners

D．chimps can be selfish too

3. Which of the following is true according to the passage?

A．Some chimps lower their cry to keep food away from others.

B．The losing chimp won the fight by taking the winner's hand.

C．Cuckoos fool their adoptive parents by making no nests.

D．Some clever scrub jays often steal their food back.

4. Which of the following might be the best title of the passage?

A．Do animals lie?

B．Does Mother Nature fool animals?

C．How do animals learn to lie?

D．How does honesty help animals survive?

9 . If you like to take a walk in the woods in the United States or you prefer to decorate a tree at Christmas, you should know that climate change is making both of those activities a lot more ___________.

Looking at two ___________ and economically important species - the Douglas fir and the Ponderosa pine -scientists found that fires and drought _____________ by climate change make new growth difficult, especially in low-elevation forests, according to a study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Some forests in four regions in California, Colorado, the Northern Rockies and the southwestern part of the United States have crossed ''a(n) ___________ climate tipping(转折)point for post-fire tree generation, '' the study says.

Climate conditions over the past 20 years have _____________ changes that would have taken decades or even centuries to ___________ across broad regions of the country. This is leading to the sudden _____________ of trees and making these lands increasingly unsuitable for tree regeneration.

''Climate changes is _____________ our forests now, not just in some distant future. Maybe in areas where there are really _____________ seed sources, there could be some trees, but it is becoming really hard to get these trees back due to climate change, '' said study co-author Kim Davis.

The problem probably won't get any better, as climate change is making intense wildfires much more ______________. Western foresters say there used to be a fire season. But devastating and ____________ fires have become a reality all year long. In 2018, fire cost California more than $9.05 billion, according to the USA insurance commissioner, the deadliest and most destructive wildfires season in the ________________ history.

A higher number of fires and low seed availability means a high probability that these trees in these regions won't come back, Davis said. This study ______________ on the driest and hottest areas of the Western forests, but researchers will next try to focus on how much will be impacted.

____________, there are some things people can do to ease some of this problem. Forest management plans that reduce high-severity burns can help. Increasingly, forest managers are considering allowing some fires to burn under more moderate conditions, Davis said, Forest ______________can also replant trees after fire, at least in the areas where climate conditions will allow.

1.

A．convenient

B．difficult

C．encouraging

D．frustrating

2.

A．ecologically

B．apparently

C．physically

D．financially

3.

A．destroyed

B．worsened

C．extended

D．established

4.

A．necessary

B．enormous

C．critical

D．invisible

5.

A．accelerated

B．delayed

C．eliminated

D．strengthened

6.

A．transform

B．spread

C．preserve

D．escape

7.

A．extinction

B．decline

C．tragedy

D．increase

8.

A．sustaining

B．abandoning

C．facilitating

D．endangering

9.

A．sufficient

B．limited

C．moderate

D．approximate

10.

A．occasional

B．common

C．essential

D．temporary

11.

A．astonishing

B．hopeless

C．costly

D．irreversible

12.

A．world

B．state

C．human

D．forest

13.

A．concentrated

B．depended

C．insisted

D．commented

14.

A．As a result

B．For example

C．In fact

D．What’s more

15.

A．savers

B．managers

C．researchers

D．advocates

10 . As consumers, especially young ones, become more eco﹣conscious, services are popping up to reduce wastefulness in the flower industry, extending the life of old bouquets（花束） that were previously thrown away the day after a big event.

Considering that the floral（花的）gifting market is expected to reach ﹩16 billion in revenue by 2023, buying from eco﹣friendly businesses can have a huge impact. According to one estimate, the roughly 100 million roses grown for a typical Valentine's Day in the U. S. produce about 9,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions.

“When you realize what the supply chain looks like and the number of hands that touch these flowers. and then they're only appreciated for a couple of hours, it's kind of disgusting when you think about the amount of resources that go into it,” says Jennifer Grove, founder of New York City﹣based flower service Repeat Roses.

While working as a wedding designer and corporate planner, Grove often oversaw the design of floral arrangements, only to see those creations thrown away within a few hours. In 2014 she founded Repeat Roses to make it easier for luxury clients to donate used bouquets. Like a traditional floral service, the company sells high﹣end floral decorations for weddings or social events, but it then recycles or composts（堆肥） them.

If a customer chooses the unique repurposing（改变用途） service, a Repeat Roses team can remove the arrangements from the event and then restyle the flowers into smaller bouquets to donate to hospitals, nursing homes and family shelters. If there's a charity that holds a special place in a customer's heart, the team will ensure the blooms are sent there. “It's a logistics business, and we're trying to make sure we are strategic in where we play matchmaker,” Grove says. When the charities are finished with the flowers, Repeat Roses also picks them back up and composts them. The altruism isn't free﹣prices start at ﹩1,750 for the removal and repurposing service to account for the transportation and labor costs. If you're not willing to spend that much, the company will still compost the flowers from your event instead of sending them to a landfill.

Through these two methods, Repeat Roses estimates it has diverted more than 98 tons of waste from landfills and delivered almost 53,000 floral arrangements to people in need. Although Repeat Roses is a for﹣profit business, the flower repurposing itself is a tax write﹣off for the client. As the fair market value of a client's donated flowers is what's used for the charitable tax credit and is eligible for deduction, Repeat Roses ensures that the beneficiary sends you an acknowledgement letter including details of your donation.

1. Jennifer Grove founded Repeat Roses in order to do the following except .

A．avoid the waste of flowers

B．reduce the pollution to the environment

C．earn money by selling used flowers

D．help some customers do charity work

2. The underlined word “altruism” in Paragraph 5 refers to .

A．the company’s composting the flowers

B．the customers’ donating flowers to people in need

C．the reception of the donation by the people in need

D．the transportation of the flowers to a landfill

3. What benefit does a customer who has donated flowers get？

A．To get a discount when buying flowers.

B．To feel fulfilled because of donation.

C．To get a tax reduction.

D．To receive a letter of compliment.

4. The passage is mainly intended to introduce .

A．a creative way of making money

B．a green trend of waste utilization

C．a way to cut the emission of carbon dioxide

D．a company devoted to charity