1 . In Florida’s Everglades, few species are more closely tied to the habitat’s health than an endangered bird, the snail kite. The Everglade snail kite is a raptor (猛禽), similar to a hawk, that eats just one thing: snails, a species that relies almost entirely on a resource usually abundant in the freshwater marshes (沼泽).
Over the last century, as much of the Everglades dried up, droughts contributed to the snail kite’s decline, and by 2007, there were fewer than 800 remaining. But the kite has bounced back recently thanks to an exotic (外来的) snail. It’s a rare case of an invasive species having a positive impact.
Robert Fletcher, a University of Florida professor who directs a snail kite monitoring program, said the invasive species was first spotted in 2004. Within a few years, it had expanded through much of the Everglades. “And it was around that time,” he said, “that we started to see snail kite number increase.”
No one’s sure about how the exotic snails were introduced into the Everglades. They’re related to Florida’s apple snails and are commonly used in home aquariums. The invader, the island apple snail, is larger than its Florida cousin. It lays eggs in the thousands in pink clusters visible on the stalks of many of the marsh plants.
Efforts to restore Florida’s Everglades have helped the snail kite and restored native vegetation. It’s been in the works for more than 30 years with a cost of more than $20 billion. But progress is increasing gradually, albeit hard to measure. In the meantime, scientists say the invasive snail may have helped pull Florida’s endangered snail kite back from the threat of extinction.
But Fletcher is concerned about the potential impact the species will have on the Everglades over the long term. He said, “What we should be thinking about is how we restore native snails to get those benefits rather than relying on this non-native species that can have damaging impacts on the ecosystem.” The invasive snails may already have caused losses to some native marsh plants, which indicates that trouble may come very soon.
1. What does the underlined phrase “bounced back” in paragraph 2 probably mean?| A．Jumped. | B．Moved. | C．Recovered. | D．Returned. |
| A．The loss of habitat. | B．The lack of food due to droughts. |
| C．The increasing number of hawks. | D．The introduction of an invasive species. |
| A．Their eggs are hard to spot. |
| B．Aquariums are an ideal habitat for them. |
| C．They are smaller than native apple snails. |
| D．They quickly increased in population around the Everglades. |
| A．Restoring the native ecosystem is costly and time-consuming. |
| B．The invasive snails pose little threat to the local ecosystem. |
| C．The benefits of the invasive snails outweigh the harms. |
| D．Human efforts apparently have proven to be effective. |
Braving the Waters
Joel Boyers and his wife Melody Among were heading home from the Nashville airport. Among had just earned her helicopter pilot’s licence when Boyers received a call from a stranger. The caller told him that her brother and his two daughters were trapped on their roof in Waverly, 60 miles from Nashville. They were surrounded by rising floodwaters caused by the heaviest rainfall that year.
Desperate, the caller begged, “Could you please, please rescue my loved ones?”
Boyers, 41, looked at the address the caller mentioned while glancing at the storm clouds. “Ma’am,” he said, “no one will fly in this weather ...” But even before he finished the sentence, Boyers knew they would go back up. “I’ve got a daughter myself,” Boyers says. “I’ll see what I can do.” He put the brother’s address into his phone and they drove back to the airport.
Before long they were in the air, unprepared for what they were about to see. It was nothing but raging water below them. There were two houses on fire. Cars in trees. Tons of debris (残骸). No one was going to be able to swim in that.
The flooding also took out cell phone service, meaning that Boyers couldn’t use his phone to pinpoint (精确定位) the house he was looking for. He flew on regardless.
As Boyers controlled the helicopter, Among began searching for people caught out on rooftops, bridges — anywhere they could land and get them on board. Suddenly, she saw a teenager trapped in a tree. The teen, soaking wet and exhausted, was barely out of the water. Since there was no place to land, Boyers lowered the helicopter until it approached to just above the water line. Among jumped out and swam to the tree, where she helped the teen into the helicopter. The teen was shaking and looking behind anxiously when she said, “Thank you so much, but my sister and uncle ... please help them ...”
Boyers dropped off the teen on a patch of land across the street. Then he and Among were back in the air.
注意：1. 续写词数应为150词左右；2. 请按如下格式在相应位置作答。
Seconds later, they spotted two people on the roof of a destroyed house.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Their mission ended 90 minutes after it began, when professional rescue teams showed up.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________3 . Cornwall Council apologised to the public after a citizen complained that one of its buildings was lit up “like a Christmas tree” at midnight during an energy crisis.
On Saturday, a dog walker, Stuart, discovered a brightly-lighted Chy Trevail building in Bodmin, which accommodates more than 600 staff. The witness said, “How can the council explain for leaving all the lights and TVs on? We’re constantly told there is an energy crisis. They put our council tax up. For what reason? Because they employed staff that forget how to use a light switch?”
There were complaints about a similar issue last summer when Lys Kernow, formerly the New County Hall in Truro was pictured with all the lights on past midnight both inside and outside.
A council spokesman admitted it was an error. “Following an investigation, we can confirm some lights at Chy Trevail were left switched on accidentally,” he said, “Training will be given to the workers who made the mistake to ensure this is not to happen again. Cornwall Council is committed to reducing its energy use and has taken many steps to do so, including the installation (安装) of solar panels at both County Hall in Truro and at Chy Trevail. A new lighting control system has also been installed in Truro to ensure the amount of time lights are left switched on is minimised.“
Chy Trevail includes a central hall for the main reception and public facilities, as well as open- plan flexible workspaces over three floors. The building has “a special design driven by a challenging display energy certificate rating and includes 200kw photovoltaics (太阳能光伏) to generate on-site renewable energy, low energy LED lighting, improved insulation, air-tightness and measures to reduce water consumption.
Cornwall Council previously declared a climate emergency and hopes to be carbon neutral by 2030.The local authority has invested in LED lighting at Lys Kernow and uses renewably-sourced energy to power the building, including solar energy from panels installed on the roof.
1. What did Stuart see on Saturday night?| A．Over 600 staff working overtime. |
| B．A Christmas tree being decorated. |
| C．Bright lights burning in a council building. |
| D．Council workers turning on office lights. |
| A．They will be educated. | B．They will be fired. |
| C．They will be blamed. | D．They will be fined. |
| A．Peaceful. | B．Convenient. | C．Low-cost. | D．Energy-efficient. |
| A．Council staff learn a lesson from leaving lights on. |
| B．Cornwall Council is accused of wasting tax money. |
| C．A council building is equipped with high technology. |
| D．A dog-walker made a complaint about an energy crisis. |
Known for its beautiful scenery, Mount Wuyi is the only place in the country
With tea farming dating back over 1,000 years, the mountain’s tea industry has a rich history. The area
The need to strike a balance between farmers’ livelihoods and the local environment has appeared as
The park has a tea farming area of 34.54 square kilometers, accounting
5 . Most major droughts have tended to happen on seasonal or yearly time scales (范围), resulting from variability in large-scale climate patterns such as El Nino. But in the last six decades, there has been a transformation to more droughts that form over just a few weeks in most of the world, researchers of a new study at Nanjing University of Information Science Technology report in Science. This finding has implications for ecosystem conservation and agricultural management.
Some flash droughts develop into seasonal ones, yet even those that do not can cause significant damage to agriculture and contribute to other extreme weather events such as wildfires and heat waves. In the summer of 2012, a severe flash drought across the United States caused over $30 billion in damages. Flash droughts happen two to three times as often in wet regions such as northwest North America, Europe and southern China as elsewhere. Many affected areas transformed from normal conditions to extreme drought within a month,and no climate models predicted it.
As the world continues to warm, causing less rainfall,flash drought frequency is expected to continue to rise. Droughts can happen and strengthen rapidly, but current monitoring systems often cannot catch their beginning on short enough time scales. That makes flash droughts a sort of a hard nut, the researchers say.
“We have to improve these systems,” the lead researcher Yuan Xing says, “by exploring the mechanisms behind flash droughts,perhaps with the help of artificial intelligence.” Dealing with these droughts isn’t just about having a better tool set, Mark Svoboda, who first coined the term “flash droughts”, believes, but also a different mind-set. “It is human nature not to deal with drought until you’re in it. We advocate that drought be dealt with ahead and actively.”
1. What does the study find?| A．Droughts are formed in shorter time. | B．Wildlife is adapting to a changing climate. |
| C．Climate change began sixty years ago. | D．Droughts often happen seasonally or yearly. |
| A．Reasons for flash droughts. | B．Consequences of flash droughts. |
| C．Regions attacked by droughts. | D．Extreme weather caused by droughts. |
| A．They worsen climate change. | B．They happen on a global scale. |
| C．They put agriculture at great risk. | D．They are hard to detect in time. |
| A．Keeping a positive attitude. | B．Turning to AI for help. |
| C．Taking measures in advance. | D．Bettering existing tools. |
6 . By human standards, a few vertebrate (脊椎动物) species have incredible longevity. Some tortoises live for nearly 200 years. Bowhead whales can live even a decade or two longer. But now there’s a new champion: the Greenland shark — which has been swimming in the seas for almost three centuries according to conservative estimates. The shark which grows to more than 6 meters (20 ft) can live up till 272 years, and possibly a hundred years more than that.
Julius Nielsen is a marine biologist and PhD student at the University of Copenhagen. While on a research vessel in Greenland where such sharks were accidentally caught, Nielsen became curious about the creatures.
“And perhaps the biggest of all the mysteries was how long these sharks actually live. Because it has been expected that they can get very old, and that’s based on some observations of very, very slow growth… so the longevity could be exceptional and extreme, but it has just never been possible to investigate.”
That’s because Greenland sharks don’t have the same body structures used for valuing the age of most fish or even other sharks. So Neilsen and colleagues used a new technique based on the lens of the eye. The centers of the lenses can be analyzed by radiocarbon (放射性碳) dating to determine about when the shark was born. They tested 28 female sharks.
“And what we found was that the biggest shark in our analysis, and also the oldest shark, was estimated — the most likely single year age was almost approximately 390 years,” Nielsen said. “That makes the Greenland shark the longest-living vertebrate known to science.” And at the upper limit, it’s possible that the shark is more than 500 years old. The study is in the journal Science.
Also shocking: the researchers estimate that the sharks live at least a century before they reach sexual maturity. “And of course it is absolutely amazing and difficult for a human mind to understand that sexual reproduction begins so late in life.”
In the paper Nielsen and his colleagues said, “And the thing about Greenland sharks is just we don’t know how many sharks are out there.” With a century to do it, humans could accidentally wipe out the entire next generation of these sharks during their long, slow adolescence.
1. What does the first paragraph mainly show?| A．Sea tortoises is called the star of longevity. |
| B．All vertebrate species have incredible longevity. |
| C．Bowhead whales can live longer than a hundred years. |
| D．The Greenland shark can live much larger than we thought. |
| A．It has been confirmed that the Greenland shark can live over 3 centuries. |
| B．The longevity of the Greenland shark confused Julius Nielsen most. |
| C．It is hard to estimate the longevity of the Greenland shark for the same body structures with other animals. |
| D．Humans have understood that sexual reproduction begins so late in life. |
| A．Concerned. | B．Positive. | C．Ironic. | D．Amazed. |
| A．Uncover Existing Longest Sharks |
| B．Global Warming Makes Longest Sharks |
| C．King of Longevity — the Greenland Shark |
| D．Champion of Hunting—the Greenland Shark |
1. 大赛目的；2. 作品要求；3. 参赛方式。
注意：1. 写作词数应为80左右；2. 可适当补充细节，使行文流畅。
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8 . It turns out our plants are just like us in some ways. We turn to medicines to relieve a minor flu or headache, and plants too have their ways of self-medicating. They protect themselves from environmental hazards like insects, drought and heat by producing salicylic acid (水杨酸). It is responsible for the anti-inflammatory action of aspirin, a drug which has been used by humans for centuries to counter pain and inflammation.
Researchers have found that plants’ salicylic acid, which is produced in chloroplasts (叶绿体), is usually generated in response to the stress caused by climate change. “It’s like plants use a painkiller for aches and pains, just like we do,” said plant biologist Wilhelmina van de ven from the University of California, River-side (U. C. R)
“We’d like to be able to use the finding to improve crop resistance (作物抗性),” said U. C. R.plant geneticist Jin-Zheng Wang. “That will be crucial for the food supply in our increasingly hot, bright world.”
Human skin produces ROS (Reactive oxygen species) (活性氧) in the absence of sunscreen. This causes freckles and burns. Similarly, environmental stresses result in the formation of ROS in plants which, at high levels, can cause death.
At low levels, however, ROS serves an essential function in plant cells. “ROS is a double-edged sword,” said Wang. “At non-lethal levels, ROS are like an emergency call to action, enabling the production of protective hormones ( 激素) such as salicylic acid.” The acid then acts to protect the plants’ chloroplasts, known to be the site of photosynthesis.
“With climate change, things like salicylic acid: helping plants stand up to stresses have become more common. So, being able to increase plants’ ability to produce it represents a step forward in challenging the impacts of climate change on everyday life,” said Katayoon Dehesh, UCR professor of molecular biochemistry.
“Those impacts go beyond our food. Plants being in trouble are a sign of what the future holds for us,” she continued. “Plants clean our air by removing the carbon dioxide from it while also offering us shade, and providing habitats for numerous animals. For humankind, the benefits of boosting plants’ ability to survive are becoming increasingly essential.”
1. What is the main function of salicylic acid in plants?| A．To secure plants. | B．To produce chloroplasts. |
| C．To relieve pain and inflammation. | D．To generate hormones. |
| A．Lack of sunscreen. | B．Chloroplastic acid. |
| C．Environmental stresses. | D．Use of Photosynthesis. |
| A．To explore the history and significance of aspirin in human medicine. |
| B．To invent a device that can make plants do self-medicating. |
| C．To compare the differences between plants and humans in self-medicating. |
| D．To improve crop resistance by increasing plants’ ability to produce salicylic acid. |
| A．Plants can be improved to resist environmental hazards. |
| B．Plants produce their own aspirin to cope with stress. |
| C．Plants and humans share some common features and needs. |
| D．Plants contribute to the well-being of humans and animals. |
9 . It was a typical summer day in my small town, with the sun shining and the sky clear. I was sitting on my porch, enjoying the peaceful view of the rolling hills and the calm lake, when suddenly a strong wind blew in from the west. The peaceful sky turned dark as a storm approached.
I went inside, grabbing my raincoat and heading to the barn to secure the animals. The cows were nervous, sensing the approaching storm. I quickly tied them up and ran back to the house, just as the rain started to pour down. The wind was howling and the rain was pounding against the windows. Lightning and thunder followed, making the atmosphere even more electric. I sat by the window, watching the raging storm and praying that everything would be okay.
After what seemed like hours, but was only a few minutes, the storm passed. The clouds moved away, revealing a bright and sunny sky. I walked outside, taking in the fresh air and surveying the damage. The trees were bent over and some branches had been blown off. Our vegetable garden was flooded, but other than that, everything seemed to be fine. I breathed a sigh of relief as I realized that no serious damage had been done.
That evening, as I sat by the fireplace with a cup of hot coffee, I reflected on the experience. It reminded me that nature can be both powerful and unpredictable, but that we must persevere and adapt to whatever it throws at us. The next morning, as I watched the sun rise over the now-calm landscape, I felt a sense of pride knowing that my family and I had weathered the storm together.
1. What does the word “weathered” mean in the last paragraph?| A．enjoyed | B．survived | C．forecasted | D．changed |
| A．Angry | B．Relieved | C．Scared | D．Sad |
| A．Problem and solution | B．Cause and effect |
| C．in order time | D．by Comparison |
| A．The author explains how to prepare for and cope with a storm. |
| B．The author describes how a storm ruined his day and his garden. |
| C．The author compares and contrasts the different weather conditions in his town. |
| D．The author recounts how he and his family withstood a sudden storm and learned a lesson from it. |
10 . The animal kingdom is home to various creatures, some of which have powerful abilities.
Box Jellyfish (水母)
Found mainly in the waters of the Pacific and Indian Oceans, the box jellyfish is one of the most poisonous creatures on Earth. Its feelers can deliver a very painful bite, which can cause heart failure and even death in humans. Due to its special appearance, it is not easy to be spotted in the water, making it a great threat to swimmers and divers.
Saltwater Crocodiles (鳄鱼)
Known as the largest living reptile, saltwater crocodiles are found in the coastal regions of Asia, Australia and America. These huge killers can grow up to 23 feet in length and have extremely powerful teeth capable of breaking bones. They are known for killing other animals in the natural habitats.
African Elephants
While most elephants are generally peaceful creatures, African elephants can be extremely dangerous when threatened. They are the largest land animals on Earth and like eating tree leaves. They can charge at a speed of up to 25 miles per hour and use their long teeth and powerful trunks to defend themselves.
African Buffaloes
African buffaloes are a kind of large herbivorous animal of the cow family found in sub-Saharan Africa. Despite their seemingly quiet appearance, they can become extremely aggressive when threatened. They have sharp horns and a strong charge, making them terrible and dangerous animals to encounter in the wild.
1. What do we know about the box jellyfish?| A．Its bites are harmless. | B．Its feelers are not aggressive. |
| C．It is usually a peaceful creature. | D．It is easy to hide from detection. |
| A．Box jellyfish and African buffaloes. | B．Box jellyfish and saltwater crocodiles. |
| C．African elephants and African buffaloes. | D．Saltwater crocodiles and African elephants. |
| A．Powerful teeth. | B．Strong attack force. |
| C．Quiet appearance. | D．Identical natural habitats. |
