1 . Recycling is a great way of doing your bit for the environment and helping to protect the earth’s precious resources. However, a new study has revealed that our desire to be sustainable maybe doing more harm than good. According to waste company Biffa, this is because of “wish-cycling” — assuming that items such as disposable coffee cup sand pizza boxes will be recycled if put in the recycling bin. In fact, pollution from those items or other non-recyclables can result in recyclable items that have been put in the correct bin going to landfill. David Heaton, a business director at Biffa, said: “Pollution happens when items are disposed of in the wrong bins or haven’t been cleaned before being recycled.”

Experts at Biffa analyzed the amounts of non-target and non-recyclable materials that entered UK material recycling facilities between 2016 and 2020. It was found that, in 2016, the average pollution rate of recycling waste was 13.4 percent, rising over four years to 17 percent by the end of 2020. This shows that, even as people are becoming more eco-conscious, wish-cycling is increasing both in households and businesses.

The Biffa experts say that one of the best ways to prevent pollution of recycling is to clean recyclable waste before putting it in the bin. They suggest cutting off the top of old pizza boxes and only recycling that part to avoid pollution from the grease (油脂). Check the on-packaging recycling label to check it can actually be recycled When it comes to plastics, Biffa recommends checking the resin code, the number in the plastic triangle, to know whether it should go in the recycling bin. In general, resin codes 1, 2, 4 and 5 are recyclable, while 3, 6 and 7 are not. Larger items, like electronics, furniture and batteries, can also be recycled but often can not go in household recycling bins as they need specialist separating. These will need to be taken to recycling centers or sustainable waste management companies.

“It’s vital as a nation that we get better at effective ‘pre-cycling’— sorting waste correctly before collection to reduce pollution rates,” added Mr. Heaton.

1. What’s the truth of “wish-cycling” according to the first paragraph?

A．The desire to lead a sustainable life.

B．The good intention to help recycling.

C．The habit of throwing items that end up in landfills.

D．The practice of recycling items that can not be recycled.

2. What has experts at Biffa concluded after their analysis?

A．People are becoming more eco-conscious.

B．Wish-cycling is on the rise in recent years.

C．Pollution happens less frequently in recycling facilities.

D．People are used to cleaning recyclable waste before putting it in the bin.

3. Which of the following is a proper way of recycling?

A．Dispose of electronics together with household waste.

B．Skip the step of checking the on-packaging recycling label.

C．Check the resin code of plastics to see whether it is recyclable or not.

D．Cutoff the top of old pizza box and throw the rest to the recycling bin.

4. Which is the most suitable title for the text?

A．Recycling: a Big Project	B．Wish-cycling: a New Trend
C．Wish-cycling: a Growing Concern	D．Pre-cycling: an Effective Method

2 . It’s unlikely that we’ll see a dodo, a flightless bird, walking this earth anytime again, according to Beth Shapiro, a evolutionary molecular biologist.

“When most people think about de-extinction, they’re imagining cloning,” Shapiro said. Cloning, the approach that created Dolly, the sheep in 1996 and Elizabeth Ann, the black-footed ferret in 2020, creates an identical genetic copy of an individual by putting DNA from a living adult cell into an egg cell from which the nucleus (细胞核) has been removed. Adult cells contain all the DNA needed to develop into a living animal. Egg cells then use that DNA as a blueprint to turn themselves into many kinds of cells——skin, organs, blood and bones——the animal needs.

“But no living cells from dodos exist. Instead,” Shapiro said, “you’d have to start with a closely related animal’s genome (基因组) and then change it into one similar to dodos.” For example， mammoths (猛犸) are also extinct，but they were very closely related to modern Asian elephants, so researchers are attempting to bring mammoths back from extinction by creating a hybrid mammoth with some mammoth genes replacing part of the elephant genome in an elephant egg cell. However, there are likely millions of genetic differences between the genome of an Asian elephant and that of a mammoth according to Shapiro.

As for the dodo, its closest living relative is the Nicobar pigeon. Mammoths and Asian elephants are pretty closely related, whereas it had been more than 20 million years since the dodo and the Nicobar pigeon had any common ancestors. Genetic differences between the two bird species are therefore much greater, making it a formidable task to create a successful hybrid in the lab, Shapiro said.

Even if scientists manage to bring dodos back, the island where they once lived is a very different place nowadays, which make it impossible to reintroduce dodos without major intervention.

1. What is Paragraph 2 mainly about?

A．The special role of DNA.

B．The process of cloning.

C．The development of cloning.

D．The complexity of cloning.

2. What does Shapiro want to show by the example of mammoths?

A．Dodos are harder to bring back to life.

B．Their living cells are hard to preserve.

C．Cloning can be used to recreate extinct animals.

D．They share a similar genome with Asian elephants.

3. What does the underlined word “formidable” mean in Paragraph 4?

A．Urgent.

B．Possible.

C．Tough.

D．Different.

4. What is Shapiro’s attitude towards the rebirth of dodos?

A．Favorable.

B．Intolerant.

C．Objective.

D．Negative.