1 . The over 48,000 orange trees in Seville, Spain, not only fill the city’s air with the pleasant smell of orange blossoms in spring, but they also produce over 16,500 tons of fruit every winter. Though that makes the capital of southern Spain’s Andalusia region Europe’s top orange-producing city, the fruit is too sour to be consumed fresh. While some of the produce is used to make orange jam and an alcoholic drink, most of it ends up in Seville’s landfills (填埋场). However, that may change soon thanks to a clever idea to use the oranges to produce clean energy.
The trial program is being launched by the city’s council and park department in cooperation with Emasesa, Seville’s water supply and sanitation (卫生) division. Juice from 38. 6 tons of oranges will be left to ferment (发酵) in a specialized facility. The methane (甲烷) released from the fermented liquid will be captured and used to drive a generator to produce clean power. The officials estimate the test run will produce about 1,500 kWh of energy—enough to run one of Emasesa’s water purification plants. To ensure there is no waste, the orange skins, peels, and flesh will be used as fertilizer.
“It’s not just about saving money. The oranges are a problem for the city, and we’re producing added value from waste,” said Benigno Lopez, head of Emasesa’s environmental department.
If successful, by 2023, the city hopes to recycle all the oranges and add the electricity produced back into its power transmission network. In trial runs, one ton of oranges produced 50 kWh of clean energy—enough to cover the daily electricity needs of five homes. The project team estimates that if all the fruit is recycled, it will produce enough energy to power as many as 73,000 residences.
“This project will help us to reach our targets for reducing emissions, energy self-sufficiency, and the circular economy,” Juan Espadas Cejas, mayor of Seville, said in the press conference announcing the trial scheme.
1. What do we know about oranges in Seville from the first paragraph？| A．They are usually picked in spring. |
| B．They are mostly used to make jams and juice. |
| C．They are not recommended to be eaten fresh. |
| D．They make Seville the world’s top orange-producing city. |
| A．Different uses of oranges. |
| B．How to produce power from juice. |
| C．An introduction to the trial program. |
| D．Why the trial program was put forward. |
| A．Seville hasn’t carried out the trial program yet. |
| B．The electricity produced will be used to purify water. |
| C．The electricity produced will go to Seville’s power plants. |
| D．Seville may need to recycle 14,600 tons of oranges to power 73,000 homes. |
| A．Seville Is Turning Waste into Wealth |
| B．Seville Is Seeking Market for Oranges |
| C．Seville Is Contributing to Global Warming |
| D．Seville Is Dealing with the Electricity Shortage |
2 . Beavers (海狸) and their dams can positively impact essentially any environment they’re placed in, even the extreme heat of the Moab Desert in Utah. And that is what a university researcher has founded. Looking for solutions to drought and wildfires, a Utah State University student Emma Doden began relocating (搬迁) beavers caught in other parts of the state into small, struggling waterways around the Price and San Rafael rivers.
Studies have shown that beaver dams can vastly improve the quality of wetlands and streams leading to better animal life and improved river health. It was for this service that the “ecosystem engineer” was targeted by Doden as a potential rescuer, even if the idea relocating beavers to the desert caused a few raised eyebrows. “We believed the system could support a lot more beavers”, Doden said, “and we wanted to supplement it with beavers.”
“Beaver dams are gaining popularity as a low-tech, low-cost strategy to build climate resiliency (还原能力) at the landscape scale,” says one study. “They slow and store water that can be accessed by plants during dry periods, effectively protecting riverside ecosystems from droughts.” Another study found that the ponds which are created on the dammed side of the beaver homes can store huge amounts of sediment (沉淀物) then distribute it more safely around the river ecosystem.
This is the case, the study found, both in entirely wild areas with no human activities and those near to intense agricultural regions, meaning that no matter the conditions of sedimentation, beaver dams can help keep waterways clearer. Doden’s university has a program for catching beavers and relocating them to the desert, where they will build dams to provide these benefits. “The eventual goal is to get them to build dams,” she said. “The dams are what are going to increase habitat complexity and restore water.”
1. Why did Emma Doden begin relocating beavers into other places?| A．Because beavers can positively impact the environment there. |
| B．Because the number of beavers has increased sharply. |
| C．Because beavers have the ability to survive in extreme conditions. |
| D．Because beavers are doing harm to the environment in original places. |
| A．It surprised some people. | B．It could cause damage to the desert. |
| C．It would pose a threat to the lives of beavers. | D．It was resisted by many researchers. |
| A．Expensive. | B．Profitable. | C．Eco-friendly. | D．Technology-demanding. |
| A．Entertainment. | B．Health. | C．Education. | D．Science. |
On a hot September afternoon, Peter and his friend Isabel were on their way to the library. When they passed by Tubman park, Isabel suggested cutting through it to get to the library. As they entered the park, the sight of the swings (秋千) and the merry-go-round brought back a flood of memories of their childhood spent there. But now everything looked so old, sad, and dirty. Litter lay on the ground next to an overflowing trash bin. There were still young schoolchildren playing there but they had to avoid the trash that littered the playground. A little boy told them that the city took the other trash cans away and the remaining one never got emptied often.
As they headed toward the library, the two high school students wrinkled their forehead. In the library, they encountered Mrs. Evans, their kind-hearted fifth-grade teacher, retired yet still passionate. Mrs. Evans listened as Isabel and Peter eagerly explained what they’d seen. Finally, she recommended them to go to the City Hall to voice their concerns.
The next day, Isabel and Peter went into the building of the City Hall but were met with an impatient officer. They were informed that the city couldn’t help with their problem due to a tight budget. Discouraged, they left and turned to Mrs. Evans for help.
Under her guidance, they decided to ask Go Green, a non-profit organization whose goal is to protect the environment, for help. “This group is good at raising money for projects just like yours, ” said Mrs. Evans. She promised to arrange them to present their ideas to Go Green. Hearing this, their face lit up.
Two main tasks remained ahead: researching ways to clean up the park and preparing a convincing presentation. As Isabel was good at researching while Peter always had a talent for speaking, they cooperated quite well. Isabel learned from a science magazine that a new type of trash bin can squeeze the trash down without being emptied often, which saves time, money, and energy. Based on this, Peter practiced his presentation over and over again.
注意：1. 续写词数应为150左右；2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
A week later, Peter stood nervously at the back of the hall where Go Green was meeting.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________After the meeting, Isabel excitedly told Peter the good news.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________4 . The rechargeable lithium-ion (锂离子) battery market is worth more than ＄50 billion. Lithium-ion batteries, whose demand continues to go up day by day, are used in a wide range of electronic devices. They are made of four main components, and cathode (阴极) is one of them. The cathode’s active material type is what determines the capacity of a battery.
A recent study, led by Wang Yan, a material scientist of Worcester Polytechnic Institute, finds that lithium-ion batteries made with recycled cathodes work better than those with new cathodes.
“The battery industry is expected to grow sharply in the next decade. This high demand has led companies to go to extremes, like increasing deep-sea mining, to gain access to the minerals used in lithium-ion batteries,” Wang said. “Mining minerals will have environmental impacts. Recycling spent lithium-ion batteries offers a way out.”
But until now, the prospect of using recycled materials in lithium-ion batteries has some manufacturers (制造商) worrying that it could impact performance. Thus, lithium-ion batteries are still not widely recycled. Aware of decreasing resources and environmental impact, Wang and other researchers set out to find a way to make recycling lithium-ion batteries economically practical. Through experiments, they could recover more than 90% of the key metals from spent batteries. These recovered metals became the basis of the new recycled battery’s cathode’s active material.
In tests between Wang’s team’s recycled batteries and brand-new batteries of the same composition, the recycled batteries outperform the new ones in their ability to maintain capacity. It took 11,600 charge cycles for recycled cathode batteries to lose 30 percent of their original capacity. That was about 50 percent better than the 7,600 observed cycles for new cathode batteries, the team reported. Those thousands of extra cycles could translate into years of better battery performance, even after repeated use and recharging.
1. What can we learn about lithium-ion batteries from the first paragraph?| A．They are high in price. |
| B．They are in great demand. |
| C．They are limited in use. |
| D．They are simple in composition. |
| A．The target users of recycled batteries. |
| B．The ways to get minerals for batteries. |
| C．The major reasons for recycling batteries. |
| D．The complex process of recycling batteries. |
| A．Declining mineral resources. |
| B．Difficult recycling techniques. |
| C．Serious environmental problems. |
| D．Inefficient battery performance. |
| A．The battery industry is going to develop dramatically. |
| B．Recycling batteries reduces impact on the environment. |
| C．Scientists can recover key materials from spent batteries. |
| D．Recycled batteries outperform new ones in charging circles. |
5 . Professor Veena Sahajwalla, 2022 Australian of the year, has created a solution to our massive trash problem: waste microfactories. These little trash processors (处理器)—some as small as 500 square feet— house a series of machines that recycle waste and transform it into new materials with thermal technology. The new all-in -one approach could leave our current recycling processes in the dust.
In 2018 she launched the first microfactory, establishing a model of recycling that enables businesses and communities to develop commercial opportunities while addressing local waste problems. A second one began recycling plastics in 2019. Now, her lab group is working with university and industry partners to commercialize their patented Microfactory technology. “The small scale of the machines will make it easier for them to one day operate on renewable energy, unlike most large manufacturing plants. The approach will also allow cities to recycle waste into new products on location, avoiding the long, often international, high-emission journeys between recycling processors and manufacturing plants. With a microfactory, gone are the days of needing separate facilities to collect and store materials, extract (提取) elements and produce new products,” says Sahajwalla.
Traditionally, recycling plants break down materials for reuse in similar products-like melting down plastic to make more plastic things. Sahajwalla’s invention advances this idea by taking materials from an old product and creating something different. “The kids don’t look like the parents,” she says. Sahajwalla refers to this process as “the fourth R,” adding “re -form” to the common phrase “reduce, reuse, recycle”.
Professor Veena Sahajwalla’s programs help to develop innovation and promote cooperation with industry, ensuring that sustainable materials and processes become commercially practical solutions for dealing with waste.
1. What is the purpose of the first paragraph?| A．To introduce a new type of trash processor. |
| B．To introduce the process of recycling waste. |
| C．To prove the seriousness of the trash problem. |
| D．To show the current situation of trash recycling. |
| A．The founding of waste microfactories. |
| B．The influences of waste microfactories. |
| C．The advantages of waste microfactories. |
| D．The shocking scale of waste microfactories. |
| A．Extracting materials from the waste. |
| B．Generating new materials with waste. |
| C．Updating the whole recycling process. |
| D．Transforming waste into similar products. |
| A．A fiction novel. | B．A business report. |
| C．A science magazine. | D．A chemical textbook. |
6 . The Australian Koala Foundation says Australia has lost about 30 percent of its koalas over the past three years. The non—profit group says drought, wildfires and development projects played a part in the drop in the koala population. They are asking the government to do more to protect the creature’s environment.
The group said the koala population has dropped to less than 58,000 this year from more than 80,000 in 2018. The biggest decrease(减少) was in the state of New South Wales, where the numbers have dropped by 41 percent. Deborah Tabart leads the Australian Koala Foundation. She called the drop quite huge. Only one area in the study was estimated(预估) to have more than 5,000 koalas. Some areas were estimated to have as few as five or ten.
Tabart said, “What we’re concerned about are places like western New South Wales where the drought over the last ten years has just had this cumulative(积累) effect, river systems completely dry for years, and red gum plants, which are the lifeblood of koalas, are dead.” The loss in New South Wales likely sped up after large forest areas were destroyed by wildfires in late 2019 and early 2020. But some of those areas already had no koalas.
Tabart said the country needs a koala protection law. Land clearing by property developers and road builders has also destroyed the koala’s environment. “I think everyone gets it that we’ve got to change. But it bulldozers (推土机) keep working, then I really fear for the koalas,” Tabart said.
1. How did the author develop the second paragraph?| A．By giving numbers. | B．By telling stories. |
| C．By following the time order. | D．By comparing opinions. |
| A．The harm to koalas from wildfires. |
| B．The bad effect of development. |
| C．The death of various trees. |
| D．Some causes of the decrease in koalas. |
| A．Fighting against climate change. |
| B．Making a special law. |
| C．Stopping housing building. |
| D．Keeping wildfires from spreading. |
| A．Australia’s Wild Animals Are Facing Big Danger |
| B．Effects of Australia’s Wildfires Are Beginning to Show Up |
| C．Australia Lost One-Third of Its Koalas in Last Three Years |
| D．Koalas in Australia Could Disappear from the Earth in the Future |
7 . Along the Ulungur River in Altay, the northernmost area of Xinjiang, lives a species of beaver. This animal, which feeds on the shrubs (灌木) that grow near the river, has a strong sense of territory (领地) and won’t leave its surroundings easily. So if people ruin the river, the beavers’ homes will be destroyed and they will no longer survive. But fortunately for these picky animals, they have a responsible protector, Beaver Princess, Chu Wenwen.
Chu had a very different childhood. She was introduced to the wild at the age of 2 by her father who is an animal conservationist. So when the other children were reciting ancient Chinese poems and English alphabet,Chu was working hard to remember the names of different animals and plants. So instead of being a white-collar worker after graduating from Beijing Forestry University, Chu decided to return home and follow in her father’s footsteps.
In Chu’s hometown of Altay, there are 466 species of wild animals and 74 state-protected ones living in the surrounding 110,000 square kilometers. In 2018, Chu founded the Altay Natural Conservation Association which is aimed at animal protection.
The first public project Chu started was for beavers. “We took the beavers as a priority because they were greatly endangered at that time,” Chu said. “The beavers, which can build dams, are known as ‘engineers’ in the animal kingdom. Their dams can change water levels, gather fish, attract birds to nest and bring insects,” Chu explained.
Chu developed the “Beavers Canteen” program which calls on people to donate to help plant a species of shrub that is an important food resource for the beavers. The shrub is also the building material of the beavers. The clever animal makes full use of it.
1. What can we know about beavers?| A．They feed on shrubs and fish. |
| B．They abandon their homes easily. |
| C．They are good at finding new territory. |
| D．They are particular about their surroundings. |
| A．Chu had a difficult childhood. |
| B．Chu dreamed of being a white-collar worker. |
| C．Chu could identify different plants and animals. |
| D．Chu preferred reciting poems to English words. |
| A．Chu likes beavers most. | B．Beavers can build dams |
| C．Chu took her father’s advice. | D．Beavers will probably go extinct soon. |
| A．Beaver Princess | B．Beaver Projects |
| C．How to Protect Beavers? | D．How to Improve Environment |
In March 2018, a couple opened the first Zero Green in Bristol,
9 . Ever wondered how many Tyrannosaurus rex (霸王龙) ever walked around the Earth? The answer is 2.5 billion over the two million or so years in which the species existed, according to a calculation published today in Science. The figure has allowed researchers to estimate just how rare it is for animals to fossilize.
Researchers led by Charles Marshall used a method employed by ecologists studying contemporary creatures to estimate the population of T. rex during the late Cretaceous period.
The team used their estimates of the total range of T. rex across modern North America, combined with their estimates of the dinosaur’s weight, to calculate that, at one time, around 20,000 T. rex would have been alive on the planet. That translates to around 3,800 T. rex in an area the size of California, or just 2 T. rex moving around Washington DC. Calculating that T. rex survived for about 127,000 generations before disappearing, the researchers came up with a figure of 2.5 billion individuals over the species’ entire existence. Only 32 adult T. rex have been discovered as fossils, so the fossil record accounts for just 1 in about every 80 million T. rex. This means that the chances of being fossilized were small.
These numbers suggest that fossils in general are rare, and that many species that were less widespread than T. rex were probably never preserved, says Marshall, who adds, “The fossil record is our only direct knowledge of these past histories of our planet.”
Thomas Holtz, a researcher, says that “we always knew that the chance of any individual becoming a fossil was rare, but we lacked the calculation to figure out how rare”.
But he says it would be good “to see someone ground-truth these kinds of estimates against living species to get a better sense of accuracy”. He’d also like to see comparable studies made on disappearing species with more abundant fossils, which might allow us to better understand historic ecosystems.
1. Which of the following was used to figure out the population of T. rex?| A．The method used by researchers to study fossils. |
| B．The approach to calculate kinds of wildlife. |
| C．The way applied by ecologists to study modern creatures. |
| D．The system to compare various studies on disappearing species. |
| A．By making a comparison. | B．By listing the figures. |
| C．By giving an explanation. | D．By presenting examples. |
| A．T. rex owns quite a few fossils. |
| B．The fossils record all the past of our planet. |
| C．Many species lived together in their whole life. |
| D．Fossils of some species may never be stored. |
| A．The Figure of T. rex Helps Calculate How Rare Their Fossils Are |
| B．Scientists Applied Fossils to Understand Past Ecosystems |
| C．A New Method to Figure out the Number of T. rex |
| D．The Fossil Record to Uncover the History of Our Planet |
10 . More and more birds are flying to settle in Qinghai Lake, one of the highest inland lakes in China, thanks to the protection efforts of the local government. Covering an area of over 4,000 square kilometers, Qinghai Lake is also the country’s biggest salt lake.
Located in Qinghai Province of Northwest China, the lake is famous for the two islands at its northwest point — Cormorant Island and Egg Island. The two islands have plenty of floating grass and various fish, offering rich food sources to birds. The islands have become a paradise for different kinds of groups of birds and have been called “Bird Islands”.
Each March and April, when ice and snow covering the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (高原) start to melt, over 20 kinds of birds fly to the Bird Islands to lay eggs. During the months, flocks of birds cover the whole sky over the islands and bird eggs can be found everywhere. Visitors can hear the singing of birds from miles away. These have become a world-famous symbol of the lake.
To protect this paradise for birds and support calls for ecological protection, China set up the Qinghai Lake National Natural Reserve at the end of1997. Meanwhile, the State has pointed out that the Bird Islands and Spring Bay of Qinghai Lake were central reserves.
Inspectors and conservators often patrol (巡逻) the lake, enriching local residents’ knowledge of related laws and spreading knowledge about animal protection to visitors. They are making great efforts to call on people to love and protect the birds. At the same time, they have built special fences around the island area to prevent wolves, foxes and other carnivorous animals, as well as illegal hunters from breaking up the birds’ building nests, laying eggs and breeding (繁殖). As a result, more and more birds are coming to the islands for sheltering and breeding.
1. Why are more and more birds coming to the biggest salt lake in Northwest China?| A．Because it is getting warmer and warmer. |
| B．Because it is being reformed. |
| C．Because the environment is getting more agreeable to them to live in. |
| D．Because the people there are becoming richer and richer. |
| A．Floating fish and various grass. |
| B．Grass growing in the water and different kinds of fish. |
| C．Salt water and plenty of grains. |
| D．Corn from the local farmers. |
| A．over 20 kinds of birds come to the Bird Islands before March |
| B．flocks of birds fly up to the whole sky over the islands to lay eggs |
| C．visitors can see the birds from miles away |
| D．the government has taken many measures to protect the district |
| A．a newspaper | B．a document |
| C．a storybook | D．a science book |
