1 . Beginning construction in 1632, the Taj Mahal is located in this city of Agra. It is considered one of the most beautiful sites in the world. In fact, it was named one of the new seven wonders of the world.
But it could become more difficult to see and to glimpse this glorious site because of pollution. It’s an unhealthy, even hazardous (危险的) problem for parts of India. Delhi, Kolkata, and Mumbai were among the 10 most polluted cities on earth this week, according to a Swiss company called IQAir.
CNN’s Michael Holmes explains what it all means. India’s iconic monument almost lost in the smog in the city of Agra. We are facing difficulty in taking pictures of Taj Mahal due to pollution. The Taj Mahal is not clearly visible. Every year, when the temperatures drop and farmers burn their fields, the air turns toxic (有毒的) in many Indian cities.
Delhi is notoriously (声名狼藉) ranked among the world’s most polluted cities. And the current air quality there has once again reached hazardous conditions, forcing primary schools to temporarily close and many people to work from home or just stay indoors altogether. The problem is so serious. A recent air quality life index report says poor air quality could shorten an average Indian’s life expectancy by more than five years, if World Health Organization guidelines on controlling pollution aren’t met. And it’s even affecting one of the country’s favorite pastimes.
India is currently hosting the Cricket World Cup with Bangladesh set to play Sri Lanka in a match in Delhi. But the air quality is so poor. Some players are wearing masks and both teams have canceled training sessions. The coach of Bangladesh’s team says the conditions have not been ideal.
1. Which is the least polluted city according to the text?| A．Agra. | B．Mumbai. | C．Delhi. | D．Kolkata. |
| A．Forest fires and farmers’ burning. | B．Low temperature and forest fires. |
| C．Global warming and low temperature. | D．Low temperature and farmers’ burning. |
| A．Taj Mahal is one of the most beautiful scenic spots. |
| B．All schools were forced to close in many Indian cities. |
| C．Indians may have a shorter lifespan if no measures are taken. |
| D．In the Cricket World Cup, India is set to play Bangladesh in a match. |
| A．To reveal the real cause for air pollution. |
| B．To express concern for the athletes in the match. |
| C．To prove the Taj Mahal has lost its charm in smog. |
| D．To show the impact of air pollution in India on all sides. |
2 . Emmanuel Mendoza, a college student, is currently running a study at Texas A&M University, where he’s mixing simulated (模拟的)Martian (火星的) soil and frass(粪便)from fly larvae(幼虫)to find just the right recipe for growing plants on Mars.
The seed of this idea was planted when Mendoza was in middle school, watching Ridley Scott’s 2015 film The Martian, in which Mark Watney becomes stuck on the planet and grows potatoes to survive. “That got me really interested in what nutrients or what soil structure Martian soil has that we could potentially take advantage of, ”Mendoza said.
Now, he’s running an experiment growing English peas in simulated Martian soil. “I definitely considered potatoes like Mark Watney, ”he said. “But the fact was that I couldn’t necessarily get the data I wanted out of them. ”
He wanted to be able to measure plant growth as it occurred throughout his experiment. Since potatoes grow underground, he’d only be able to collect data once they were done growing. In the end, Mendoza chose to grow English peas because they’re self-pollinating(自花传粉), grow fairly quickly and he can see the shoots climb.
Martian soil, though it does contain other essential nutrients, isn’t exactly ideal for plants from Earth. It tends to be rocky and lacks the right organic (有机 的)matter. Here’s where the larvae come in. Mendoza turned to the larvae of black soldier flies, which produce a waste known as frass. “They can break down almost any biomatter and turn it into really useful matter, “Mendoza said. “And then you can use the frass as a nutrient alternative to soil.”
For this experiment, Mendoza mixed different percentages of simulated Martian soil and frass to see what best supported growing English pea plants. Now, he said he’s seeing growth across all his plants—even the ones growing in 100%simulated Martian soil.
1. Why does the author mention the film The Martian?| A．To show Mendoza’s enthusiasm for films. |
| B．To illustrate Mark Watney’s intelligence. |
| C．To prove Mark Watney’s interest in gardening. |
| D．To introduce the origin of Mendoza’s experiment. |
| A．He was unwilling to repeat others’ study. |
| B．English peas grew far faster than potatoes . |
| C．Potatoes needed stricter living conditions. |
| D．It was more convenient to collect the data. |
| A．It serves as certain essential nutrients. |
| B．It loosens the soil for plants to grow. |
| C．It makes the soil become quite rocky. |
| D．It helps black soldier flies grow stronger. |
| A．Doubtful. | B．Pleased. | C．Intolerant. | D．Disappointed. |
3 . My parents have a boxer dog called Boris which is as badly behaved as his name might suggest. He is known to
Even my mother might
The sofas and chairs in their sitting room are covered in books-not because my parents love to read, but in an attempt to
The story between my parents and Boris is repeated across our community. Usually, our gang of dogs gathered almost daily,
I have met so many people whose daily
| A．get up | B．come up | C．put up | D．sit up |
| A．love | B．food | C．service | D．massage |
| A．plates | B．meals | C．meats | D．vegetables |
| A．complain | B．worry | C．explain | D．conclude |
| A．greedy | B．naughty | C．lovely | D．proud |
| A．observe | B．prevent | C．notice | D．keep |
| A．Fortunately | B．Naturally | C．Incredibly | D．Consequently |
| A．deliver | B．rearrange | C．carry | D．equip |
| A．as | B．or | C．nor | D．also |
| A．provided | B．supported | C．united | D．surrounded |
| A．barrier | B．bond | C．border | D．belief |
| A．gone | B．grown | C．slept | D．cloned |
| A．run | B．housework | C．dialogues | D．walks |
| A．difficulties | B．loneliness | C．relationships | D．troubles |
| A．body | B．diseases | C．soul | D．sufferings |
4 . There are a lot of chemicals that can cause indoor air pollution. A recent project conducted has found over 900 different substances in our home are related to it. Many researchers have already examined the causes of indoor air pollution.
It has been proved that different kinds of chemicals can be released by building materials and new furniture. Everything from painting and decorating products, bathroom cleaners and beauty products can contain these chemicals.
As a research from Denmark has highlighted, cooking, particularly roasting can damage our body. Roast dinners contain many potentially harmful pollutants.
As far as cooking emissions are concerned, no one is suggesting switching to takeaways.
| A．In the long run, these changes lead to cancer. |
| B．They might also arise from cooking at home. |
| C．A wide range of sources are under investigation. |
| D．Therefore, what results from indoor air pollution? |
| E．However, most of us have ignored their bad effects. |
| F．So, what are the main contributors to poor air quality? |
| G．But we can change how we cook to deal with the emissions. |
5 . The song of the Florida grasshopper sparrow is unusual and surprisingly insect-like. But it almost fell silent forever. In 2012, Joel Sartore, the founder of National Geographic Explorer and Photo Ark received a call from the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service: The songbird, an important ecological link in Florida’s dry grassland, was on the edge of extinction. With only a few dozen males showing up in counts, it was among North America’s most endangered bird species.
Sartore flew to Florida to photograph the bird and work with conservationists to raise awareness of the species’ difficult situation. The story appeared in outlets, such as newspapers, magazines and even the Internet, helping boost government funding for a breeding program. Thanks to these steps, there are now as many as 180 adults in the wild and researchers are working hard to bring the species back from the brink of extinction.
Like other examples of species survival, the push to save the sparrow is “a remarkable story of belief and cooperation,” says Sartore. It also shows what it takes to protect an endangered species: research, narratives, partnerships, resources and time. This journey shows the society’s mission to illustrate and protect the wonder of the world. Over the past 136 years, we’ve developed a unique Explorer-led model, combining science, exploration, education, and storytelling to drive impact. We support Explorer in more than 140 countries, including Sartore and others whose work appears in this issue: biologist André Green II, photographer Lynsey Addario and education advocate Ara Kusuma.
Sartore has been creating an “ark” of animal photos for 17 years. Portraits of more than 15, 000 species invite audiences to connect and care. With the society’s support, the images have appeared on landmarks and U. S. postage stamps, prompting on—the—ground conservation efforts such as an initiative of National Geographic Explorer and Photo Ark.
As Sartore says, “The sounds of birds are the sounds of a healthy planet. When we save a bird or another species, we’re actually saving ourselves.”
1. How does the author introduce the topic?| A．By clarifying a concept. | B．By offering an example. |
| C．By giving an explanation. | D．By quoting a remark. |
| A．Stores. | B．Media. | C．Exits. | D．Books |
| A．A funding program from the government. |
| B．An ark of animal photos in the magazine. |
| C．A unique initiative for species protection. |
| D．A joint effort from different professionals. |
| A．The urgency of species’ protection. |
| B．The promotion of cooperative methods. |
| C．The importance of coexistence. |
| D．The situation of human survival. |
6 . Relatives of starfish, brittle stars (海蛇尾) spend most of their time hiding under rocks in the ocean or digging in the sand. These shy marine creatures have no brain to speak of—just nerve cords running down each of their five wiggly arms, which join to form a nerve ring near their mouth.
“There’s no processing center. Each of the nerve cords can act independently. Instead of a boss, it’s like a committee. That seems to be enough to learn by association,” said lead author Julia Notar. This type of leaning involves associating different stimuli via a process called classical conditioning (条件反射).
Classical conditioning has been demonstrated in a handful of previous studies in starfish. But brittle stars and similarly brainless starfish have not been tested.
To find out if brittle stars have the ability of learning, the researchers put 16 black brittle stars in individual water tanks and used a video camera to record their behavior. Half the brittle stars were trained by dimming the lights for 30 minutes whenever the animals were fed. Every time the lights went out, the researchers would put a bit of shrimp in the tanks, placed just out of reach. The other half got just as much shrimp and also experienced a 30-minute dark period, but never at the same time—the animals were fed under lit conditions.
Whether it was light or dark, the animals spent most of their time hiding behind the filters in their tanks, only coming out at mealtime. But only the trained brittle stars learned to associate darkness with food. They didn’t need to smell or taste the shrimp to react.
Notar said the results are exciting because classical conditioning hasn’t really been shown definitively in this group of animals before. “Knowing that brittle stars can learn means they’re not just robotic scavengers (清道夫) cleaning up the ocean floor,” Notar said. “They’re potentially able to expect and avoid predators (捕食者) or expect food because they’re learning about their environment.”
1. What is paragraph 1 about?| A．The living habits of brittle stars. | B．The features of a brainless creature. |
| C．The characteristics of the starfish. | D．The definition of classical conditioning. |
| A．The hiding time in tanks. | B．The change of feeding location. |
| C．The amount of the shrimp. | D．Light conditions at mealtime. |
| A．Brittle stars can be trained to make a connection. |
| B．Brittle stars can clean up the ocean floor. |
| C．Brittle stars’ nerve cords can act independently. |
| D．Brittle stars have a sharp sense of smell. |
| A．Brainless brittle stars can act like robots. |
| B．Brittle stars might keep away from catchers. |
| C．Brittle stars are the only ocean floor cleaners. |
| D．Brittle stars are adaptable to new environment. |
7 . On Sunday night, the police found a baby koala in a bag in the town of Wishart in Queensland, Australia, during a traffic stop. Queensland police spokesperson Michael Beatty said that the officers asked a 50-year-old driver if she had anything to report. She then told the officers that she had a baby koala in her bag.
“Not quite believing their ears, the officers cautiously opened the bag and found this lovely boy and we’ve called him Alfred,” the spokesperson said. “The young koala is about 6 months old and weighs 1.5 kg. It appears to be healthy, though it was very thirsty.”
The police are warning people who find koalas to turn them over to authorities, rather than try to take care of them themselves. Koalas are protected in parts of Australia, including in Queensland, where they have been listed as “threatened” under the Nature Conservation Act.
Of course, koalas are also violent animals. One particularly wild koala even attacked a farmer in South Australia when she was riding along a muddy road.
“As it started running towards me, I thought I’d better speed up,” the terrified farmer told reporters. “But the road was too muddy, So I abandoned my bike and ran away. Fortunately, it ran up and attached itself to the dirty wheel — perhaps mistaking it for a eucalyptus tree.”
Deakin University biologist Desley. Whisson has some tips in case you experience this predicament. “Koalas more generally run from than to people. The farmer did the right thing by moving away from her bike,” she said. “The best advice I can give to people is to not fight with a koala displaying unusual behaviour. Make sure that there is another object between you and the koala so that it can’t climb you. Or you can just simply run. Their fingers are very sharp.”
She also believed the koala might have been confusing the sound of the bike with that of a koala mate.
1. What do the police in Wishart most likely want to tell the public?| A．Koalas are protected by law all over Australia. |
| B．It is illegal for the public to keep koalas in Queensland. |
| C．The public should stay away from violent animals. |
| D．Baby koalas are too violent to be kept in bags. |
| A．They enjoy climbing bikes. | B．They have good eyesight. |
| C．They can be dangerous. | D．They weigh about 1.5kg. |
| A．Boring animal. | B．Interesting event. |
| C．Pleasant meeting. | D．Difficult situation. |
| A．A research paper. | B．The Nature Conservation Act. |
| C．A news report. | D．An announcement from the police. |
8 . Most people don’t know much about electric eels (鳗鱼), except that they produce electricity. Although not endangered, electric eels only live in one small region of the world and are hard to keep in captivity (圈养), so most people have never seen one.
The most important fact to know about electric eels is that they are not actually eels. Although it has a long body like an eel, the electric eel is actually a type of knifefish. Scientists have been confused about it for many years. The electric eel was first described by Linnaeus in 1766. At present, the electric eel is the only species in its family. It is only found in muddy, shallow waters surrounding the Amazon and Orinoco rivers in South America.
An electric eel living in water, needs to rise to the surface and breathe about once every ten minutes. In the wild, electric eels live about 15 years. In captivity by human being, they may live 22 years.
An electric eel has three organs in its belly that produce electricity. Together, the organs make up four-fifths of an eel’s body, allowing it to deliver low voltage or high voltage or use electricity for electrolocation. In other words, only 20 percent of an eel is devoted to its vital organs.
A shock from an electric eel is like the brief and sudden hit from an electric stick. Normally, the shock can’t kill a person. However, the eels can cause heart or respiratory failure from multiple shocks or in persons with underlying heart disease. More often, deaths from electric eels shocks occur when the sudden hit knocks a person in the water and they drown. Eel bodies are insulated, so they don’t normally shock themselves. However, if an eel is injured, the wound can make the eel vulnerable to electricity.
1. What can we learn about electric eels according to the passage?| A．They are close to getting extinct. | B．They are used to living in clear rivers. |
| C．They can breathe once every ten minutes. | D．They can possibly be raised in captivity. |
| A．The living area. | B．The origin of the name. |
| C．The shape of their body. | D．The reason for producing electricity. |
| A．High voltage can shock an electric eel itself to death. |
| B．Three organs in an electric eel’s belly produce electricity. |
| C．Three organs in the belly can produce different voltages separately. |
| D．Shocks from an electric eel may be a contributing cause of a person’s death. |
| A．A website about biology. | B．A paper about endangered species. |
| C．A science fiction about animals. | D．An engineering course about electricity. |
9 . The tickbird and the giraffe have a connection relationship that some scientists describe as win-win relationship and some as parasitism (寄生). This interspecies partnership is imbalanced in favor of the giraffe because it can live without the tickbird, while the tickbird is dependent on the giraffe for food resource.
The giraffe is a large mammal that lives in Africa along with other large grass-eaters. All these and many others host the tickbird. This bird has long been thought to remove ticks (扁虱) from its host, to the benefit of both—the bird eats the ticks, and the host is relieved of blood-sucking, disease-carrying insects—but recent studies reveal that this process is less than good. A secondary benefit to a host from the tickbirds’ presence is a sort of early warning system, since the birds make a loud sound if they sight an enemy. This is of less benefit to the giraffe than to other hosts because the giraffe has the advantage of great height and keen eyesight and is fully capable of spotting predators without the bird’s assistance. The tickbird is likely of greater benefit in this capacity to the nearsighted rhino.
They cross through the host’s hair looking for insects as their food. According to the researcher Paul Weeks, reporting in the journal Behavioral Ecology, tickbirds can and do enlarge tick bites and other wounds on their host body to seek for food resource, making the host-tickbird relationship unfair. The host, like the giraffe, however, would have a hard time keeping tickbirds off itself. So they tolerate the birds who cling to their bodies and chow down selectively at the buffet on the giraffe’s body.
1. Which statement about the tickbird is TRUE?| A．It doesn’t rely on the giraffe for food. |
| B．It removes ticks from its hosts. |
| C．It makes gentle sounds when it spots an enemy. |
| D．It brings more benefit to its hosts than it gets from them. |
| A．Because the giraffe has no tick on its body. |
| B．Because the giraffe has its own warning system. |
| C．Because the giraffe is tall and has sharp eyesight. |
| D．Because the giraffe is strong enough to protect itself. |
| A．stick to | B．lead to | C．keep away | D．hold back |
| A．Tickbird and Giraffe: Unequal Relationship | B．Tickbird and Giraffe: Friendly Relationship |
| C．Tickbird and Giraffe: Mysterious Relationship | D．Tickbird and Giraffe: Conflicting Relationship |
10 . How has global warming changed your life? Perhaps you experience hotter summers. But for reindeer herders (驯鹿游牧民), the influence goes far beyond that.
Living in the Arctic region spreading from Russia to Sweden, local reindeer herders make a living by herding. For generations, they have been living in harmony with the cold winters with their deep understanding of snow and ice types, weather patterns and animal behaviors. This allows them to predict and prepare for winters.
However, the warming Arctic is messing up these traditional signals, making herders’ traditional ways of predicting weather less useful. In 2014, during the winter migration (迁徙) southward with their reindeer in North Russia, something unexpected happened. Heavy rainfall formed an ice shield above the lichen (地衣), normally covered by soft snow. Unable to access the lichen beneath the ice, the reindeer suffered from hunger, resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands of them.
The warming climate goes beyond threatening reindeer herders’ livelihood; it also threatens their culture. “We are an Arctic people, and our culture is written in snow. But climate change means the snow will get less and less,” Henrik Blind, a member of Sami herding family in Sweden, told The Guardian. In his language, there are over 300 words to describe snow. But with less snow, the Sami culture faces the risk of losing elements of its cultural identity.
Despite these challenges, herders have been cooperating with scientists to better deal with climate change. For example, for scientists, the difference between various types of snow is hard to tell. But local people who live with snow every day can see what scientists fail to see. At the same time, satellite data from modern scientists could help predict disasters for the local people. To combine these two different knowledge systems together, the US National Science Foundation set up the Center for Braiding Indigenous Knowledge and Science this September. The goal is to recognize the value of indigenous (土著) knowledge alongside modern research methods.
“We must realize we can’t over-consume our planet. This is urgent. We need to listen to all the indigenous people who know how to live in harmony with the planet,” Blind told The Guardian.
1. What led to the deaths of many reindeer during their winter migration southward in 2014?| A．A disease outbreak after heavy rainfall. |
| B．Food shortage due to ice-covered lichen. |
| C．Attacks by other wildlife. |
| D．Unexpectedly strong snowstorms. |
| A．By reducing language diversity | B．By threatening their cultural elements. |
| C．By changing traditional eating habits. | D．By challenging ice type descriptions. |
| A．To spread indigenous customs. | B．To test modern research methods. |
| C．To predict global natural disasters. | D．To bridge their knowledge gap. |
| A．Supportive. | B．Opposed. | C．Worried. | D．Uninterested. |
