1 . When the British poet Alfred Lord Tennyson described nature as “red in tooth and claw”, he was telling us that the natural world can be cruel as well as beautiful.
Most people living in urban areas rarely encounter wild animals in their natural surroundings.
Earlier this year, a herd of elepants in Yunnan left their home in the Xishuangbanna National Nature Reserve and went on a meandering journey through the province. They destroyed crops and buildings along the way. Villages in their path had to be evacuated because of the potential dangers they posed to villagers. Animal experts haven’t determined why the elephants went on their journey.
Maybe we should try to stay away from them.
| A．A walk in the woods can be dangerous. |
| B．It is a way to protect the wild animals, and it’s also our responsibility. |
| C．In Canada, people have a more realistic attitude towards wild animals. |
| D．In simple terms, we should try to keep proper distance from wild animals. |
| E．Hence they misunderstand that wild animals are just as friendly as Disney characters. |
| F．Thanks to active environmental conservation, the number of the elephants grew larger. |
| G．A reasonable possibility is that they probably needed more room and more food to survive. |
Located in southwest China’s Sichuan Province, the Jiuzhai Valley runs more than 50 kilometers, towards the Sichuan Basin. The Jiuzhai Valley got
More than 400 million years ago, the region was
In 1978, the Jiuzhai Valley
Now a network of wooden walkways has been built to provide a
3 . Deadly floods hit China’s Henan province in July, 2021. Being caught in a flood is incredibly dangerous.
●Avoid bridges that cross rapidly-moving water.
●Listen to emergency broadcasts for further instructions.
●Stay inside a car trapped by fast-moving water. Only get out if the water begins to flood the car itself, then move to the roof of the vehicle.
●
●Avoid power lines. A downed power line can cause surrounding water to become charged, leading to electrocution.
●After the flood, don’t drink or use flood water first. Use only bottled, boiled, or treated water for drinking, cooking, bathing, etc.
| A．If told to evacuate, do so. |
| B．If trapped within a flooding building, move to the highest floor. |
| C．Firstly, as little as one foot of flood water can sweep cars away, |
| D．Safely cleaning your home if it has come in contact with flood water. |
| E．Apart from that, return to your home only after local authorities have said it is safe to do so. |
| F．Flash floods are known to rip trees out of the ground, destroy buildings and cause bridges to collapse. |
| G．The after effects of the flood can be just as deadly, as it may be impossible to deliver essential supplies to the area. |
4 . “A lot of the time when climate change is discussed in mainstream media, people are asking ‘can humans overcome this?’, or ‘what technology can solve this?’. It’s high time we recognized that animals also have to adapt to various changes. We know some animals change their skin colors to escape from natural enemies or due to environment pollution,” says Ryding. “The climate change that we have created is putting a lot of pressure on them, and some species try to adapt by shapeshifting (变形). ”
Strong shapeshifting has particularly been reported in birds. Several species of Australian parrot have shown, on average, a 4%—10% increase in beak (鸟喙) size since 1871, and this is positively linked with the summer temperature each year. North American dark-eyed juncos, a type of small songbird, had a link between increased beak size and short-term temperature extremes in cold environments. There have also been reported changes in mammalian species. Researchers have reported tail length increases in wood mice and leg size increases in masked shrews (鼩鼱).
“The increases in some body parts size we see so far are quite small—less than 10%—so the changes are unlikely to be immediately noticeable,” says Ryding. “However, some body parts such as ears are predicted to increase.”
Ryding intends to investigate shapeshifting in Australian birds firsthand by 3D scanning museum bird specimens from the past 100 years. It will give her team a better understanding of which birds are changing their body parts and why. “Shapeshifting does not mean that animals are coping with climate change and that all is ‘fine’,” says Ryding. “It just means they are adapting to survive it—but we’re not sure what the other ecological consequences of these changes are, or indeed that all species are capable of changing and surviving. ”
1. What may cause animals’ shapeshifting according to Ryding?| A．Human hunting. | B．Climate change. |
| C．Natural enemies. | D．Polluted surroundings. |
| A．Giving examples. | B．Cause-effect analysis. |
| C．Making comparison. | D．Process analysis. |
| A．Animals can well adapt to changes and survive. |
| B．Influence of animals’ shapeshifting is uncertain. |
| C．Rdying will research into bird museums in Australia. |
| D．All adaptations of animals to climate change are beneficial. |
| A．Technology. | B．Health care. | C．Environment. | D．Education. |
5 . New Zealand’s government recently announced it will help pay for poorer families to replace their old cars with cleaner hybrid or electric vehicles.
The government plans to spend $357 million on the test program. The move is part of a wider plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Greenhouse gases are believed to cause warming temperatures in the Earth’s atmosphere. New Zealand plans to provide aid for businesses to reduce emissions and have buses that run on environmentally safe fuel by 2035. The government also plans to provide food-waste collection for most homes by 2030.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said in a statement, “We’ve all seen the recent reports on sea level rise and its impact right here in New Zealand. We cannot leave the issue of climate change until it’s too late to fix.”
The plan is a step toward New Zealand’s stated goal of reaching net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Reaching net-zero emissions means not creating more carbon in the atmosphere than oceans and forests can remove. Ardern said that reducing dependence on fossil fuels would help protect families from extreme price increases. The plan also sets a goal of reducing total car travel by 20 percent over the next 13 years. The programs will be paid for from a $ 2.8 billion climate emergency response fund. Officials said that over time, money collected from polluters would pay for the programs rather than taxes from families.
Some critics of the plan say it continued to be less restrictive on New Zealand’s huge agriculture industry. Agriculture creates about half of the nation’s total greenhouse gas emissions. But the industry is also important to the economy as the nation’s biggest export earner.
David Seymour is the leader of New Zealand’s ACT political party. He said that some of the announced programs are proven to be ineffective and have been tried and failed overseas. People should be able to choose how they reduce emissions through the market-based emissions trading plan.
1. What does the author intend to convey in Paragraph 2?| A．The urgency of investment. | B．The measures to be taken. |
| C．The popular test program. | D．The harm of emissions. |
| A．It’s urgent to take steps on climate change. |
| B．Sea level rise has little effect on New Zealand. |
| C．He laid stress on the importance to tackle pollution. |
| D．It draws public attention to solve environmental problems. |
| A．Families. | B．Polluters. | C．Car makers. | D．The government. |
| A．Dynamic emission reduction scheme. | B．The impact of exports on the economy. |
| C．Specific standards for emission reduction. | D．The nation’s total greenhouse gas emissions. |
6 . Cats have a reputation as a cold and distant domesticated(家养的)animal. But they do feel affection towards their humans: they simply express it differently and it’s not just cat people saying it! Now there’s science to prove it, too.
Oregon State University researchers concluded that cats really do actually love their humans after conducting a new study on kittens, modeled after previous research on dogs and babies.
The study, published in Current Biology, examined how kitten subjects reacted after spending two minutes with their caregivers, being left alone, then reuniting for another two minutes. After the experiment, they sorted each kitten by their stress level called “attachment style. ”
64% of the kittens showed a “secure attachment style ” to their caregivers, meaning the cat seemed upset when they left the room but “displayed a reduced stress response” upon their return. On the other hand. about 30% of the kittens were found to have an “insecure attachment style”, which means their stress levels did not decrease upon their person’s return to the room. That said, this data is consistent with the study on human children—so the smaller percentage with insecure attachment styles is not specific to cats, contrary to popular belief.
Also of note: the percentage of cats with “secure” attachment styles is actually higher than dogs“, only 58% of dogs showed the ”secure“ attachment, while 42% were categorized as insecure.
1. What is the conclusion of the study?| A．Cats love babies much more than adults. |
| B．Cats are more friendly to humans than dogs. |
| C．Cats show a cold attitude towards humans. |
| D．Cats love their caregivers in their own way. |
| A．By their sound. | B．By their reaction. | C．By their movement. | D．By their expression. |
| A．More kittens belong to the insecure attachment style. |
| B．The study result is different from that of the human kids. |
| C．More kittens feel less stressed after their caregivers’ return. |
| D．Most believe the secure attachment style only exists in kittens. |
| A．comparison | B．narration (story-telling) | C．repetition | D．cause and effect |
A cliff (悬崖) wall in the mountains of the Shennongjia Nature Reserve, China’s Hubei Province, is home to over 700 wooden boxes,
What makes the Shennongjia Nature Reserve so special for beekeeping
While many people stay up to celebrate the Double Eleven shopping festival, Elsa Tang in Beijing avoids online shopping. Whenever she
In fact, Tang is not the only person
Yu Yuan, 29, is a zero-waster. Five years ago, Yu
The idea of a zero-waste life was first put forward by French author Bea Johnson. Her idea was: Live a life while hardly
9 . The mangrove tree might not look very impressive, but it is an essential part of our ecosystem. However, more than half of the mangrove forests have been destroyed in the past century. Several World Heritage Sites have been listed largely because of their mangrove ecosystems. Among them are the Sundarbans across India and Bangladesh, the Everglades National Park in the US, and the Great Barrier Reef in Australia.
Being a World Heritage Site requires for the mangroves to be protected. However, one country in Asia has gone further by having a five-year program to protect and conserve all their mangroves. They even have a mangrove museum and observe World Mangrove Day. This country is Sri Lanka. Why are mangrove trees so important to Sri Lanka and to other countries where mangroves grow?
The mangrove tree grows along coastal saltwater shorelines. They have adapted to the harsh coastal weather and have deep roots. This means that they are strong and cannot be easily removed. In countries where natural disasters such as tsunamis and cyclones occur, the forests provide protection. The villages in Sri Lanka with full mangrove forests have suffered less damage when hit by these natural disasters. The reason is that the mangroves break up the force and strength of the waves.
The mangroves also quickly absorb carbon dioxide and send oxygen into the atmosphere. This makes them an important part of the fight against climate change. They absorb far more carbon dioxide than other types of forest, and store it in their structure and even in the soil. This is important as carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is believed to be a cause of detrimental changes in the weather, such as global warming.
The strong roots also provide protection for young fish as they grow. With the oceans around the world being overfished, it is important to maintain the ecological balance in the oceans. For Sri Lanka, one of the threats to the mangrove forests is the shrimp farms being set up. To build saltwater ponds for the shrimps, the mangroves are cut down. This has resulted in fewer fish surviving among the mangrove roots and fewer fish being caught by the fishermen. The local fishing communities noticed that they were losing money and it made them aware of how important the mangroves were. They are now helping to conserve the forests.
Sri Lanka is showing that a nation can preserve all of its mangroves. The conservation model they have can be used by other countries. It might take many years of planning, but the benefits of saving mangroves definitely outweigh the costs.
1. What do we know about the mangrove trees from the passage?| A．They are mainly grown in Australia. |
| B．They can prevent young fish from growing. |
| C．They have been damaged by natural disasters. |
| D．They are less impressive but important to the ecosystem. |
| A．A world mangrove festival has been founded. |
| B．Saltwater ponds for the shrimps have been set up. |
| C．A 5-year mangroves protecting program has been started. |
| D．More mangroves along the coastal areas have been grown. |
| A．The mangroves can keep the ecological balance in the oceans. |
| B．The mangroves are essential for fighting against climate change. |
| C．The mangroves have deep roots and hold the soil in place firmly. |
| D．The mangroves can break up the force and strength of the waves. |
| A．Positive. | B．Negative. | C．Doubtful. | D．Unclear. |
1.低碳节能的做法；
2.低碳节能的益处；
3.呼吁大家共同参与。
注意：1.词数80左右；
2.可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯；
参考词汇：低碳 low carbon 节能energy conservation
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