1 . What should the man do to save his plant?

A．Give it more food.

B．Give it less sunlight.

C．Give it less water.

2 . The consequences of climate change weigh on all of us. Terms such as “climate change anxiety”, “eco-anxiety” and “solastalgia” are regularly used to describe the negative emotional states created by thinking and worrying about climate change and environmental destruction.

Climate fiction, or cli-fi, has been advertised as one of the ways to help save the world, with an emphasis on how imagining our future might make us reconsider our relationship with the natural world. Cli-fi novels often portray dystopian (反乌托邦的) scenarios where humanity barely survives amidst flooded or desolate wastelands, using these apocalyptic visions as warnings to spur action and prevent such dark outcomes. But do dystopian fictions help us engage with the climate crisis? An empirical (经验主义的) study of the effects of   climate fiction on readers attitudes or actions found little evidence that those who read cli-fi have a stronger engagement with environmental concerns.

Writing about a climate-changed future does more than bring up the anticipated negative emotions. Of course, sitting with the climate crisis is challenging. It demands we wrestle with guilt, shame, responsibility, rage and despair. Clare Moleta said her climate anxiety was a bit more concentrated while writing her novel Unsheltered, but also that the manifestations (表现) of this anxiety were familiar to her; I had waking patches in the night over that time, where I’d be very intensely imagining something and sad about it.

But many of the writers spoke of the writing process as helping, not worsening, their anxiety. For some, writing about climate change gave them a sense of purpose. Jennifer Mills stated that having a book to write gives you something to do. It makes you feel like you have some power over the events that are happening around you.

To imagine the complexity of the lived experience of what lies ahead, and to insist that life will go on and history will keep happening, we need to shift from worrying about the effects of cli-fi texts to thinking about the benefits of writing creatively as we imagine our possible futures. As Mireille Juchau observes, the sense of control when writing on a difficult topic helps to manage anxiety. Whether it’s climate change, or something else, when I’m preoccupied, writing helps put some order into the chaos.

1. How does cli-fi affect readers?

A．It enhances their environmental concerns.

B．It fails to inspire their environmental action.

C．It leads to their measurable behavior changes.

D．It strengthens their engagement with climate crisis.

2. What did Clare Moleta experience when writing her novel Unsheltered?

A．Great excitement of the plot.	B．The sadness over the climate crisis.
C．A long period of sleepless nights.	D．A guilt complex of her climate anxiety.

3. What do writers benefit from creating cli-fi?

A．Empowering them with a drive to act.	B．Helping them reduce anxiety fast in life.
C．Increasing their understanding of history.	D．Developing more advanced writing skills.

4. What’s Mireille Juchau’s attitude toward writing cli-fi?

A．Positive.

B．Cautious.

C．Disapproving.

D．Unclear.

3 . “Why birds sing is relatively well-understood,” says Ins Adam, a behavioral scientist at the University of Southern Denmark. The big question for her was: Why do birds sing so frequently?

Previous research suggests that constant singing uses a lot of energy and exposes birds to others, making them vulnerable by revealing their location and territory, which is highly dangerous. However, in a new study published in the journal Nature Communications, Adam and her colleagues offer a new explanation for this risky behavior. They suggest that songbirds may need to exercise their vocal (发声的) muscles to maintain top performance in their songs.

These findings may also be relevant to human voices. Adam points out that if we apply these bird results to humans, any period of not speaking might lead to a loss in vocal performance. This insight suggests that songbirds could one day help us improve how we train and restore our own voices.

Adam assumed the muscles that produce birdsong required daily exercise, so she designed an experiment on zebra finches — small Australian songbirds. Light is what attracts the birds to sing, so she prevented them from singing for a week by keeping them in the dark almost around the clock. The only exceptions were a few half-hour periods each day when the lights were turned on so the birds could eat and drink.

After a week, the birds’ singing muscles lost half their strength. Adam then tested whether this muscle loss affected the quality of the birds’ songs. Although she couldn’t hear any difference when comparing a male’s song before and after the period of darkness, a group of female birds showed a clear preference: six out of nine preferred the song from a male who had been exercising his singing muscles daily.

“This study highlights that achieving mastery in any skill requires a lot of practice,” says Ana Amador, a scientist at the University of Buenos Aires who was not involved in the research.

1. Which of the following best explains “vulnerable” underlined in paragraph 2?

A．Rarely found.	B．Easily targeted.
C．Directly poisoned.	D．Actively defended.

2. Why are human voices mentioned in the text?

A．To illustrate Adam’s idea by comparison.

B．To assess Adam’s previous work accurately.

C．To show the significance of studying birdsong.

D．To stress the distinction between human voices and birdsong.

3. What is the basis for Adam’s experiment?

A．Birds need little practice for better singing.

B．Light is a contributory factor in birds’ singing.

C．Weakening muscles result in less attractive songs.

D．Male birds produce songs to attract female birds.

4. What’s the best title for the text?

A．Singing Invites Trouble to Birds

B．Songbirds Help Restore Human Voices

C．Vocal Muscles: the Secret of Birds’ Singing

D．Daily Singing: Essential for Birds’ Vocal Muscle Fitness

4 . When I was asked to take part in a forest bathing, I packed a swimsuit, assuming it must involve a refreshing swim in the water.     1    

I met Forest Therapy (治疗) guide Melanic Choukas- Bradley and several other women who’d come along for the adventure at an urban forest. Here, I began to get it. Forest bathing isn’t a bath. We sat on the banks of the river, but we did not get in the water.     2     We did walk the forest tracks, but we wandered with no destination in mind.

The aim of forest bathing, Choukas-Bradley explained, is to slow down and become fully bathed in the natural environment. She helped us tune in to the forest’s smells, tastes and sights.     3     As we passed through the trees, we touched their trunks, feeling the roughness beneath our fingers. We smelled the flowers, each breath being a celebration of nature’s beauty.

There’s a growing body of evidence that shows forest bathing can help boost mood and reduce stress.     4     A 2011 study comparing city walks to forest walks found the forest environment led to greater reductions in blood pressure, despite both activities requiring equal physical effort.

    5     Most of human history was spent in environments that lack buildings and walls, and our bodies have adapted to living in the natural world. But today most of us spend much of our life indoors. Perhaps the new forest bathing trend is a recognition that many of us need a little nudge to get back out there.

A．It’s not a hike, either.

B．It turns out that my interpretation was literal.

C．The benefits of nature can be accessed simply.

D．Forest bathing frees us from worldly engagements.

E．The idea that spending time in nature is good is not new.

F．Indeed, medical researchers have demonstrated its benefits.

G．We took in the peaceful surroundings by using all our senses.

5 . Environmental journalist Adria Vasil has a message that might disturb your shopping plans. Avoid returning online purchases, she urges, since the vast majority are thrown away or burned.

In an interview, Vasil explained that it’s often not worth a company’s time or money to send someone to eyeball the product and say,’ Is this up to standard? Is this returnable? Did someone damage the box in some way?’ And if it’s clothing, it has to be re-pressed and put back in a nice package.

Shopping habits have changed in recent years, and the amount of associated waste has also exploded. Over the past five years, returns by Canadians have increased by 95%. A huge part of the issue is a practice called “bracketing”, where someone orders multiple sizes in order to get the right one and then ships back the ones that don’t fit. Brands(品牌) do not want to deal with those returns. They’d rather just get rid of them. Nor do they wish to donate them because that could “devalue” their brand.

Vasil urges shoppers to reconsider returning goods. If something doesn’t fit, ask if it can be passed on to someone else or donated. She suggests buying second-hand items. What she doesn’t say directly is that perhaps we should change our consumption model. Not only could this limit consumerism and the purchase of goods we don’t really need, but it would also force us to visit the store in person, which has the added benefit of supporting local business owners.

Store policies could be changed to limit returns. There’s already a precedent. The Package Free Shop, run by zero waste expert Lauren Singer, has a no- returns policy and says that if there are any issues with a product, they’ll be addressed on a case-by-case basis.

But really, if we’re being honest, just start taking responsibility for our shopping habits. Everything will leave a footprint on the earth, so we need to reduce manufacturing demand. Buy only what you need and will use, and make the extra effort to go to a store and try something on.

1. According to Adria Vasil, ______.

A．online purchases might be reduced	B．returns cannot be sold at full price
C．all the return s must be repackaged	D．return s may result in additional labor costs

2. What is the main reason for the large number of returns?

A．Brands’ willingness to receive returned items.	B．Unreliable sizing standards for online clothing.
C．The popularity of bracketing among consumers.	D．An increase in the purchase of non-essential goods.

3. What does the underlined word “this” in paragraph 4 probably refer to?

A．Avoiding online shopping.	B．Giving up returned goods.
C．Refusing new purchases.	D．Donating second-hand products.

4. What can we infer from the last two paragraphs?

A．Online stores should handle return s differently.

B．Consumers should adopt responsible shopping habits.

C．Zero- waste shops are the ultimate solution to returns.

D．Returns are crucial for maintaining customer satisfaction.

6 . 根据短文内容，判断正误（正确“T”，错误“F”）。

Fresh mushrooms are harvested (丰收) every year during the rainy season in southwestern China. There is a street filed with mushroom restaurants in Kunming the provincial capital of Yunnan. Every year from July to September, thousands of visitors come to the normally quiet restaurants to have a taste of Yunnan’s famous mushrooms.

Mushrooms are a great attraction for tourists and locals (本地人), especially when cooked in the hotpot. Local people look for a kind of green mushroom known as qingtoujun green-headed mushroom. It is slightly toxic (有毒的) and has to be very well cooked before it is eaten. Another popular one is the bamboo mushroom, also known as zusun. It looks like an egg when you look from the top in the village markets, you can always find the freshest songrong which grow in the cooler parts of northern Yunnan. There are also mushrooms are found only in Yunnan, like the ganbajun. It becomes a dish to be enjoyed with rice or Yunnan’s famous rice noodles.

Mushrooms are nature’s gift, but if you don’t want to go to hospital, please be careful when you have them!

1. Every year from July to September, visitors come to Yunnan to have mushrooms. ________
2. Both tourists and locals like Yunnan’s mushrooms. ________
3. You may go to hospital if you have not well cooked green-headed mushrooms. ________
4. You can only find songrong in Yunnan. ________
5. The author introduces five kinds of mushrooms in the text. ________

7 . Nowadays, saving wild animals has become very important. Cities growing bigger and industries making more things have hurt the places where animals live. This has caused many kinds of animals to become fewer and fewer, which is bad for nature and for us.

Protecting wild animals is important because it keeps nature in balance. Every animal, even the tiny ones, has a job in nature. For example, bees help plants make seeds, which gives food and homes to other animals. If we don’t have bees, it can cause problems for all the other animals.

Also, saving animals helps keep different kinds of the same animal. This is good because it makes animals more able to deal with changes in their world, like the weather getting warmer. By keeping animals safe, we might find new medicines or learn new things from them.

We can help animals in many ways, like making special areas for them to live in safety, and making laws to stop people from hurting them. One good thing that happened is the American bald eagle getting more and more after people worked hard to save it.

But saving animals is not just for governments and big groups. Everyone can help. We can make good choices in our lives, like using less plastic and buying things that don’t hurt the earth. This way, we can all help protect animals.

1. Why is protecting animals important?

A．It keeps nature in balance.	B．It makes cities bigger.
C．It helps industries grow.	D．It increases the number of people.

2. Why is having many kinds of the same animal important?

A．It helps them survive changes.

B．It makes one kind of animal more.

C．It stops new animals from coming.

D．It makes sure one kind of animal wins.

3. What is an example of animals being saved?

A．Bees disappearing more.

B．The weather getting warmer.

C．The American bald eagle coming back.

D．The dodo bird disappearing.

4. How can people help save animals?

A．By using more plastic.

B．By not caring about what they buy.

C．By buying things that hurt the earth.

D．By making good choices that help the earth.

8 . Plants are known to respond to seasonal changes by budding (发芽), leafing, and flowering. As climate change stands to shift these so-called phenological (物候的) stages in the life cycle of plants, access to data about phenological changes — from many different locations and in different plants — can be used to draw conclusions about the actual consequences of climate change.

However, conducting such analyses require a large amount of data and data collection of this scale would be unthinkable without the help of citizen scientists.

“Mobile apps like Flora Incognita could help solve this issue. The app allows users to identify unknown wild plants within a matter of seconds. When I take a picture of a plant with the app, the observation is recorded with the exact location as well as a time stamp,” says the first author Karin Mora, research fellow at Leipzig University.

Although satellite data also records the phenology of entire ecosystems from above, they do not provide information about the processes taking place on the ground.

The researchers developed an algorithm (算法) that draws on almost 10 million observations of nearly 3,000 plants species identified in Germany by users of Flora Incognita. The data show that each individual plant has its own cycle as to when it begins a flowering or growth phase. Furthermore, the scientists were able to show that group behaviour arises from the behaviour of individuals. From this, they were able to conclude ecological patterns and investigate how these change with the seasons. For example, ecosystems by rivers differ from those in the mountains, where phenological events start later.

It is known that climate change is causing seasonal shifts — for example, spring is arriving earlier and earlier. How this affects the relationship between plants and pollinating insects and therefore potentially also food security is still being subject to further research. The new algorithm can now be used to better analyse the effects of these changes on the plant world.

1. What is the significance of data about phenological changes?

A．It can serve as the indicator of weather.	B．It can help people to select the best seeds.
C．It can show the actual effects of climate change.	D．It can be used to change the life cycle of plants.

2. What does the underlined part “this issue” in paragraph 3 refer to?

A．Collecting data.	B．Sorting out species.
C．Identifying plants.	D．Checking climate change.

3. What conclusion did researchers draw using the new algorithm?

A．Spring is becoming longer and longer.	B．All plants have their own growth cycle.
C．Group behaviour affects individual behaviour.	D．Ecological patterns in different areas are similar.

4. What is the passage mainly about?

A．How citizen scientists use mobile apps to collect data.

B．How climate change is affecting the growth of plants.

C．How a plant app helps identify the impact of climate change.

D．How Flora Incognita allows users to identify unknown wild plants.

9 . China’s Terraced Fields: A Cultural and Natural Heritage

In the heart of China, there are breathtaking landscapes that are not just a feast for the eyes but also a testament to human ingenuity. These are the terraced fields, or rice paddies, built on the slopes of mountains and hills. Unlike flat fields, these terraces are shaped like steps, allowing water to flow from one level to another, making it possible to grow rice in areas where it would otherwise be difficult.

The most famous of these terraced fields can be found in Yuanyang, Yunnan Province. Known as the Yuanyang Rice Terraces, they stretch over vast areas, forming a sea of green during the planting season and a mirror-like landscape when flooded for the rice to grow. These terraces are not just a marvel of engineering; they are also a living cultural heritage, reflecting the wisdom and traditions of the Hani people who have been farming them for over 1,300 years.

The Hani people have developed a unique water management system to support their terraced fields. Water from the mountain forests is channeled through a network of ditches and canals, ensuring that each terrace gets the water it needs. This system not only supports rice farming but also maintains the ecological balance of the region.

In addition to their practical function, the terraced fields have become a major tourist attraction, drawing visitors from around the world. Their beauty changes with the seasons, offering different sights throughout the year. In spring, the terraces are flooded and gleam in the sunlight, while in summer they are covered in lush green. Autumn brings the golden harvest, and winter transforms them into a tranquil, snow-covered landscape.

1. What are terraced fields?

A．Fields built on flat land for growing wheat.

B．Fields built on the slopes of mountains for growing rice.

C．Gardens for growing flowers on hills.

D．Parks for people to visit and relax on mountains.

2. Where are the most famous terraced fields in China located?

A．In the north of Beijing.	B．In the west of Shanghai.
C．In the south of Yunnan.	D．In the east of Guangzhou.

3. Who are the people that have been farming the Yuanyang Rice Terraces for over 1,300 years?

A．The Han people.

B．The Hani people.

C．The Yi people.

D．The Miao people.

4. What is one of the main reasons the terraced fields in Yuanyang attract tourists?

A．They are used for growing vegetables.

B．They are home to rare animals.

C．They change their appearance with the seasons.

D．They are the largest flat fields in China.

10 . Whether playing tricks or holding funerals in the wild, crows have surprised the public with their unexpected capabilities. But their “intelligence” knows no bounds. A new study published in Current Biology revealed for the first time that crows can use statistical logic to solve problems.

Crows have a large brain for their size and a particularly noticeable forebrain, associated with statistical and analytical reasoning in humans. “In our lab, crows have shown complicated numerical competence and careful consideration during decision-making,” said Dr. Melissa Johnston, a fellow at the University of Tübingen. In her recent work, Johnston and her team pushed these abilities to a new extreme, testing statistical reasoning.

In the experiment, two crows were first trained to peck (啄) at various images on touchscreens to earn food treats; and gradually they had to choose between two of these images, each corresponding to a different reward probability. “Crows were tasked with learning rather abstract quantities and then applying that combination of information in a reward maximizing way,” Johnston detailed. Over 10 days of training and 5,000 trials, the two crows managed to pick the higher probability of reward, showing their ability to use statistical inference. To researchers’ much surprise, even after a month without training, the crows still perform well every time.

Statistical reasoning involves using limited information about a situation to draw conclusions and make decisions. People unknowingly use such cognitive ability every day. When we select cafes for social meetups, our brains automatically weigh collected statistics from past observations and favor the one more capable of meeting needs. Similarly, crows remembered and analyzed the connections between the images and the reward probabilities to make themselves get the most treats possible.

Crows once symbolized misfortune and death, causing them disliked even killed by people. Actually, they are among the few animals to adapt to urbanization successfully due to underestimated intelligence. “I think these studies do help change public views and improve our relationship with these lovely animals,” Johnston stated.

1. What makes crows’ intelligence possible?

A．Their limitless abilities of tricks.

B．Their social leaning in the wild.

C．Their physical structure of brains.

D．Their training received in the lab.

2. Which of the following best describes the research process in paragraph 3?

A．Instruct, task, and retest.

B．Train, perform, and record.

C．Assume, prove, and reflect.

D．Prepare, teach, and examine.

3. How does the author explain statistical inference in paragraph 4?

A．By sharing a personal experience.

B．By quoting a previous study.

C．By making a detailed comparison.

D．By using a common example.

4. What can be a suitable title for the text?

A．Food Prize Competition: Crows Choosing Rewards

B．Urban Bird Survival Strategies: Living with People

C．Beyond Tricks: Surprise of Crows’ Statistical Reasoning

D．Animal Behavior Study: Training Crows in Experiments