1 . 选用适当的单词或短语补全短文。

A.medical       B.relieve       C.shelter       D. growing       E. alternative       F. doubled       G.fantastic       H.marketing       I. present       J. conducts       K.practically

More and more cats and dogs are getting the human treatment. There are pet spas, pet therapists and pet clothes. And the latest trend is pet hospices(临终关怀医院)。

Around the United States, a growing number of vets are offering hospice care and       1    it as a way to give pets ---and their owners---a less anxious, or comfortable passing. The approach, in the spirit of the human variety, involves stopping aggressive     2     treatment and give painkillers and anti-anxiety drugs. Unlike in hospice care for human, euthanasia(安乐死) is a(n)     3    ---and in fact, is a big part of this end-of-life care. When it’s time, the vet    4    it in the living room, bedroom, or wherever the family feels comfortable.

It’s part of a vet’s job to     5     pet owners’ guilt, give them an emotional bridge to their pets’ death and let them grieve at home---rather than in a clinic or animal     6     . The closeness    7    costs 25 percent or more than euthanasia in a clinic, but vets and their clients say it can be worth it.

“They’re in their own environment, not only the pets but the owners as well,” said Dr. Gardner, co-founder of Lap of Love, one of the leaders in this small but     8     market, “Other people and pets are welcome to be     9     . I’ve been to some houses where the owners had barbecues for the dog and invited me and the neighbours. The dog was the man of the hour.”

Dr. Michele Price, a vet in Northern Virginia whose in-home hospice care business has     10     since 2009, got a call about a Labrado named Champ. The dog had received per hospice care for months until recently, when he took a sharp downward turn. Before Dr. Price set up for the euthanasia, pet owners hugged Champ on a quilt next to the fireplace and told him what a good dog he was. As for Champ, “He fall asleep. That was the last thing he remembered.”

2 . 听下面一段独白，回答以下小题。1.

A．He read about it the day before.

B．One of the students asked him about it.

C．He had just read Dr. Frederick Cock’s travel log.

D．The students were required to read about it.

2.

A．Peary wasn’t an experienced explorer.

B．He had reached the pole before Peary did.

C．Peary had announced his success too early.

D．The investigation of Peary’s trip wasn’t thorough.

3.

A．They interviewed Peary.

B．They talked to one of Peary’s companions.

C．They examined Peary’s tools used for the voyage.

D．They conducted a computer analysis of photographs.

3 . The colours of beautiful feathers are often borrowed. Flamingos, for example, owe their pinkness to chemicals called carotenoids that are made by bacteria known (confusingly) as blue-green algae. The birds, when feeding, both ingest these bacteria directly and consume small crustaceans (甲壳纲动物) that themselves live on such bacteria､Blue-footed boobies obtain their eponymous colour similarly, via the fish they eat.

Carotenoids, though, are dual-use molecules. Besides giving these birds colours, they also help to stimulate the immune system. If a bird has some health issues, its immune system will thus use up some of its carotenoid stock defending against these interlopers, and its colour will suffer. If it is in good shape, by contrast, most of the carotenoids it consumes will be used to create colour. This is a difference that potential mates notice and act on, as dozens of experiments have proved. But a study just published in Naturwissenschaften has gone beyond these observations and shown that bright feather is also an indicator of a healthy digestive system.

Wild animals live in a world of constant food scarcity. Squeezing every last calorie and nutrient molecule from what they eat is crucial to their survival. Since carotenoids are obtained as part of this digestive process. Tuul Sepp of Arizona State University and her colleagues wondered if feather brilliance might therefore be a reliable signal of the efficiency with which a bird draws goodness from its food.

To assess that she turned to a test called the “acid steatocrit”. This involves collecting an animal’s faeces(排泄物) mixing them with perchloric acid to liberate the fat molecules within, centrifuging(使离心) the mixture and then measuring the thickness of the fatty layer which has accumulated at the top. The thinner this layer, the more efficiently the animal in question has been digesting any fats it has eaten. Since most carotenoids are bound to fatty molecules called lipoproteins, Dr Sepp reasoned that those birds which the test suggests are collecting fats efficiently from their food will also be brightly coloured.

To investigate this idea, she and her colleagues collected 36 male house finches—birds known for having brilliant red breasts. They photographed their captives and held them in cages for a short time, in order to collect some faeces from each. They then ran the images of the birds ‘breasts through a computer to analyse how red they were, and studied a sample of each bird’s faeces using the acid stratocrat test.

The result was that there is indeed a correlation between the brilliance of a bird’s breast and the efficiency of its fat digestion. If Dr Sepp’s computer can see this, it seems likely female house finches can, too—and will thus have yet another reason to pick the mates with the prettiest feathers.

1. By “The colours of beautiful feathers are often borrowed” the writer means that ________.

A．the colour of birds’ feathers fades with age

B．birds prefer to eat food that look colourful

C．birds’ feathers get colour after they are born

D．the colours of birds’ feathers are a sign of disease

2. Healthy birds have bright feathers because ________.

A．more carotenoid is consumed to create colour

B．their immune system produces more carotenoid

C．they are more likely to defend against certain disease

D．their potential mates are more likely to see bright colours

3. We can infer from Dr Sepp’s experiment that the male house finches that are redder ________.

A．have a less strong digestive system

B．appeal less to female house finches

C．are more able to separate fatty molecules

D．digest fat collected from food more efficiently

4. What can be concluded from the passage?

A．Female birds choose mates based on their act.

B．Birds with poor digestion are literally off colour.

C．Faeces are a useful indicator of birds’ immune system.

D．How efficiently birds process food remains to be studied.

4 . Directions: Complete the following passages by using the words in the box. Each word can only be used once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. force B. mains C. intense D. spell E. respite F. fuelling G. urging H. severity I. underlying J. collapses K. forecast

People across the UK are set to sizzle on what could be the hottest day of the year so far. Temperatures are expected to reach 33℃ for four consecutive days,     1     concerns there could be hundreds of heat related deaths in the UK.

A Met Office amber weather warning for extreme heat comes into     2     today for almost all of England south of Manchester and parts of eastern Wales. It is expected to last until Sunday with temperatures     3     to climb to 36℃.

Temperatures are not expected to drop below the low 20℃ in some areas, even at night. Older people, young children and those with     4     health conditions are more likely to experience adverse health effects, the Met Office said.

“Compared to the July record-breaking heat, this event will be less     5    , but last longer, which could actually have a greater impact on people’s health,” Hannah Cloke, a professor of hydrology at the University of Reading, said.

Both countryside and urban areas are tinder dry,     6     people to take special care. Ten fire engines and about 70 firefighters were called to a grassfire in Rainham, east London, yesterday, the London Fire Brigade said.

The Met Office’s fire     7     index, an assessment of how severe a fire could become if one were to start, is very high for most of England and Wales. The village of Northend in Oxford shire became the first place in the UK to run dry in the hot     8    . Thames Water, which operates in the area, sent water tankers and handed out bottles. The company has said that as a severe drought has made ground conditions worse for water     9    , it will bring in a hosepipe ban for its 15 million customers across London, Surrey and Gloucestershire in the “coming weeks”.

Experts have also warned that cliff     10     could become more of a risk on south coast beaches. Vanessa Banks, of the British Geological Survey, said that clay-like sediments will shrink as soils experience large changes in volume due to changes in water content.

5 . Insects are disappearing. The world has 25 per cent fewer terrestrial insects now than in 1990. This includes those we rely on to pollinate our crops and clean our rivers. If we don’t solve this problem very soon, some species will disappear.

There are many causes for the insect decline, but insecticides (杀虫剂) are a major part of the problem. Those used today are longer lasting and up to 10,000 times more toxic than some that were banned in the 1970s. Adding to the problem is that these pesticides are now applied to crops prophylactically (预防地) and used whether pests are present or not.

Overall, the amount of pesticide applied to the land is decreasing, but this is a grossly misleading statistic. A recent paper found that, between 2005 and 2015, there was a 40 per cent reduction in the amount of pesticide applied to crops measured by weight. But because modern insecticides are so much more toxic, the global toxicity of treated land to pollinating insects has more than doubled in the same period.

Governments and regulating agencies are aware of the problem, and some parts of the world have moved to ban the use of certain insecticides outdoors in an attempt to help bees survive. But the pesticides used instead are just as toxic.

One often-touted approach is to use pesticide-free pest control methods. These varied techniques are gathered under the name of integrated pest management (IPM) and have been around for decades. They offer effective crop protection and include methods such as crop rotation and the use of natural predators. But their adoption has been incredibly slow, because spraying pesticides is viewed as an easier option. As a result, IPM methods are unfortunately seldom used today

Neither changing insecticides nor shifting to IPM is a quick fix. We argue instead that we need a subtle shift in focus, away from killing pests and towards protecting crops.

By using the minimal dose we need to protect crops, we could reduce the amount of insecticide to a fraction of what is used today. Farmers would benefit from these changes. They would spend less money on pesticides and improve crop production by keeping health pollinator insects about. Reducing insecticide doses won’t solve the insect decline problem but it is a move that could win us time to make food production more sustainable and reconcile (使和谐) farmlands and the natural ecosystems we crucially depend on. And that will allow insects to recover.

1. According to the passage, which of the statements is NOT true about the insect decline?

A．Currently-used pesticides are much more toxic than before.

B．Pesticides have played a key role in reducing the number of insects.

C．The amount of pesticides used is much more than before.

D．The toxicity in pesticides lasts longer than before.

2. Which of the following can replace the underlined word in paragraph 5?

A．Broadly-publicized.	B．Recently-created.
C．Frequently-criticized.	D．Generally-proved.

3. What is the best way to treat the insect decline?

A．To protect crops rather than killing out insects.

B．To raise large-scale natural predators of insects.

C．To search and develop new pesticides.

D．To shift to the IPM pesticide-controlling method.

4. What is the best title for this passage?

A．Insects control — there is still a long way to go

B．Insects decline! Take measures right now

C．New findings in the field of insects control

D．Shift in pesticide use could help insects recover

6 . Directions: After reading the passages 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 other.

Fun Facts about Pigeons

Pigeons are the most misunderstood of all creatures. Upon seeing a flock of pigeons, many people want     1     more than to run a mile in the other direction. Pigeons are commonly viewed as carriers and spreaders of disease, but that’s actually not true. People may be surprised to learn that these creatures have a number of     2     (fascinate) characteristics that should not be overlooked.

First, pigeons are highly skilled navigators (领航员). A pigeon can find its way back to its nest after     3     (transport) more than a thousand miles away from it! Because of this ability, humans     4     (use) pigeons to their advantage for centuries.

Another interesting yet not so admirable quality of pigeons is that they appear to be master procrastinators (拖延者). Scientific studies have shown that pigeons often delay the completion of a dull or troublesome task when an immediately     5     (convenient) alternative is available. Maybe pigeons could “give humans a run for their money” when it comes to putting off work!

Next, we come to the unpleasant topic of pigeon droppings. Urban dwellers are used to seeing streets     6     (litter) with these droppings. Although pigeon poo is seen as a problem in modern times, several centuries ago, it was actually considered a valuable commodity     7     its usefulness as a fertilizer.

Finally, it cannot be denied     8     intelligent creatures pigeons are. In addition to their navigation skills and excellent sense of hearing, they can distinguish between the letters of the Roman alphabet and differentiate between human faces in photographs.

So,     9     you feel disgusted upon encountering a pigeon,     10     (remember) that besides carrying little disease risk, these birds are smart creatures with many wonderful abilities.

7 . How do you teach a monkey new tricks? Labs have proved difficult places to train monkeys to respond to different sounds, but in the forests of Senegal’s Niokolo-Koba National Park, researchers were astonished how quickly one species of monkey adapted its behavior to a new sound.

Julia Fischer at the German Primate Center in Gottingen and her team flew drones over a community of green monkeys in the area, to see what they made of a new flying object in their environment. They responded instantly, making alarm calls to warn one another of the potential new threat.

The vocalizations were distant from the ones they made in response to models of leopards and snakes, but almost identical to calls made by a related species of monkey about eagles. The results suggest a hardwired response to the perception of an aerial threat and the use of that specific call.

They monkeys adapted so quickly to the mechanical noise that they began scanning the skies and making the calls even when the sound of the drone was played from the ground. The monkeys were never seen issuing alarm calls in response to birds of prey in the area, suggesting that the birds they usually see aren’t considered a threat. The drones, however, seemed to be perceived as dangerous. “It’s certainly disconnecting, unpredictable, something they’ve not seen before, so it makes sense to alert everybody,” say Fischer. She says she was “blown away” by how rapidly the monkeys appeared to learn. “The listeners are smart. It’s almost impossible to get a monkey in a lab to do an audio task. It isn’t clear why such learning is harder in a lab environment,” she says.

The study involved a year’s worth of fieldwork by a team of eight, who flew the drone about 60 meters above the monkeys. The research wasn’t without incident. Fisher had to duck inside a shelter made of palm leaves at one point, after a baboon ran to attack the leopard model she was holding.

Vervet monkeys in East Africa are related to green monkeys. They have been closely studied for the different calls they make in response to a variety of predators, including pythons, leopards, baboons and martial eagles.

The expectation for the green monkey study was that they would stay silent. come up with a new alarm call or produce one similar to the velvet monkeys’ eagle call. Fischer’s bet was on the eagle call option, and she was proved right. The vocalization appears to be highly conserved by evolution. “It teaches us about how different their vocal communication system is from ours,” says Fischer. “There is a very limited level of flexibility.”

1. What can be learned about green monkeys’ behavioral adaptability to a new sound?

A．They made sounds similar to a new flying object.

B．They alerted each other to possible danger.

C．They responded as though they had seen eagles.

D．They scanned the sky for the source of the sound.

2. In paragraph 4, the writer mentions “birds of prey in the area” in order to ______.

A．compare the different sounds made by the monkeys

B．specify the monkeys’ extraordinary adaptability

C．illustrate these birds pose no threat to the monkeys

D．prove drones are more appealing to the monkeys

3. What can be inferred from the passage?

A．The study conducted by Fischer and her team was painstaking.

B．Monkeys differ greatly in their ability to adapt to a new sound.

C．Researchers have unlocked why monkeys learn quickly in nature.

D．Monkeys turn out to be quite flexible in their vocal communication.

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

A．Unbelievable—Monkeys Should Make Different Sound!

B．How Do Monkeys Get New Tricks?

C．Monkeys See Drones...

D．Vervet Monkeys vs Green Monkeys

8 . Swarm Immunity

Honeybees run vaccination programmes, too. An old saw has it that there is nothing new under the sun.     1     Work just published in the Journal of Experimental Biology by Gyan Harwood of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, confirms that honeybees got there first. It also suggest that they run what look like the equivalent of prime-boost childhood vaccination programmes.

Being gregarious, honeybees are at constant risk of diseases sweeping through their hives. Most animals which live in crowded conditions have particularly robust immune systems, so it long puzzled entomologists that honeybees do not.     2    

Part of the answer, discovered in 2015, is that queen bees vaccinate their eggs by transferring into them, before they are laid, fragments of proteins from disease-causing pathogens.     3     But that observation raise the question of how the queen receives her antigen supply in the first place, for she subsists purely on royal jelly, a substance secreted by worked bees which are at the stage of their lives (which precedes the period that they spend flying around foraging for nectar and pollen) when they act as nurses to larvae. Dr Harwood therefore wondered if the nurses were incorporating into the royal jelly they were producing, fragments from pathogens they had consumed while eating the victuals brought to the hive by the foragers.

To test this idea, he teamed up with a group at the University of Helsinki, in Finland, led by Heli Salmela.     4     Instead of nectar, they fed the nurses on sugar-water, and for these of the hives they laced this syrup with Paenibacillus larvae, a bacterium that causes a hive-killing disease called American foulbrood.

A．With this modified method, we show variation in honey bee immunity in response to different classes of pathogens.

B．Together, they collected about 150 nurse bees and divided them among six queenless mini hives equipped with broods of larvae to look after.

C．Indeed, they actually possess fewer immune-related genes than most solitary bees.

D．Over the years, scientists have uncovered how insect immunity relates to behavior, mating success, ability to find food, nutrition, energy cost, etc.

E．These act as antigens which trigger the development of a protective immune response in the developing young.

F．But it may still come as a surprise that human beings are not alone in having invented vaccination.

9 . 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. swept B. previously C. relocated D. surging E. contaminate F. contain G. hit H. dimming I. commercially J. elevated K. extremely

Wildfires rage as China’s Chongqing suffers unrelenting record heat wave

From: CNN       August 23, 2022

Thousands of emergency responders are battling to     1     fast-spreading wildfires in China’s southwestern city of Chongqing amid a weeks-long, record heat wave in the region.

The fires, which have been visible at night from parts of the downtown area, have     2     forests and mountains around the mega city in recent days. On social media, residents in downtown Chongqing complained of smelling smoke inside their apartments, while others posted pictures of burning embers from the fires reaching their balconies.

Municipal authorities have not yet reported any casualties and said the fires are being kept under control, according to an update on Tuesday morning. More than 1,500 residents have been     3     to safe zones, while 5,000 firefighters, police, local officers and volunteers, and seen firefighting helicopters have been dispatched to help combat the blazes, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

The fires in Chongqing were the result of “spontaneous combustion” mainly caused by     4     high temperatures, Bai Ye, a professor at China’s Forest and Grassland Fire Prevention and Extinguishing Research Center told state-run Beijing Daily.

The wildfires are another knock-on effect of a crippling heat wave China’s worst since 1961 -that has swept through southwestern, central and eastern parts of the country in recent weeks, with temperatures crossing 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) in more than 100 cities.

They are also part of a global trend of wildfires that have ravaged areas from Australia to California, with scientists saying     5     global temperatures due to human-driven climate change increase the risk of these events.

China’s heat wave has also brought     6     demand for air conditioning and reductions in hydropower capacity due to drought conditions that have     7     the country’s     8     critical Yangtze River and connected waterways.

Earlier this week, Sichuan province, neighboring Chongqing, extended temporary power outages at factories in 19 of the region’s 21 cities. The power cuts will now run until at least Thursday, in a move the local government says will ensure residential power supplies. Last week, the province’s capital city Chengdu began     9     lights in subway stations in a bid to save electricity. Chongqing enacted an order for factories to suspend operations for seven days starting last Wednesday, according to state media.

On Tuesday morning, China issued a red alert heat warning, the highest of four color-coded levels, to at least 165 cities and counties across the country. Chinese authorities have     10     said more than 900 million people across the country have been affected by the heat wave this summer.

10 . When most people go to the famous amusement parks in Orlando, Florida, they miss some of the natural wonders the State has to offer. It was in Citrus County on the beautiful west coast of Florida that we went to see the manatee (海牛), which occupies coastal waters and rivers.

Our days started early in the morning at Homosassa Springs. We boarded a boat with Captain Traci Wood from Native Vacations. Having spotted two manatees just below the water, Captain Traci stopped the boat as they slowly swam toward us. They used their tails to drive themselves, steering with their flippers(脚蹼), gracefully moving their bodies through the water in our direction. Our boat was soon surrounded by other members of this gentle species.

Soon we continued our journey. Within a few minutes Captain Traci stopped the boat again and we were given instructions. Whatever you do, she said, remember the three golden rules: minimize splash (拍水) noise; act with very slow movements; and when you touch one of these friendly, gentle grey giants on the back or stomach, never touch with more than one hand at a time. The Endangered Species Act forbids touching a manatee unless it touches you first, and they will let you know. The protection of this endangered species is taken very seriously. But this won’t affect the experience in the least. Most Homosassa manatees are very social and will come to you.

Manatees feed strictly on plants, and they eat a great variety of species, including hyacinth and water lettuce. They’re very big, measuring 3 to 5 metres and weighing as much as 1,600 kilos. Despite this, they look very cute. Manatees are of course wild creatures, although when face to face with them, you’re unlikely to feel any fear.

From December to March, groups of manatees escape the cold winter ocean and bathe in the warm waters near power plants and coastal springs that stay about 23 degrees year-round. Divers and swimmers come to Florida from all over the world for a chance to swim or interact with the manatee in its natural environment, rich in marine vegetation. This rich source of food makes this area an ideal place for the manatees. So the manatees arrive every year by the hundreds to find warmth, nourishment(营养) and maybe, just maybe, to visit us, the curious humans.

1. According to Captain Traci, those who swim with manatees mustn’t________.

A．be under the age of twelve	B．make any noise to annoy them
C．swim so slowly as to be caught by them	D．touch them with both hands at the same time

2. What can be learned about manatees from the passage?

A．They live on other sea animals.	B．They are not dangerous to humans.
C．They remain curious about humans.	D．They are among the biggest sea animals.

3. Why do manatees come to Florida every year?

A．To stay away from the cold weather.	B．To interact with human beings.
C．To give birth to their babies.	D．To clean their bodies.