1 . Mutualism—win-win ecological partnerships perfected over evolutionary time-lengths—is a less-known ecological relationship that is also weak and easily hurt by the effect of a rapidly changing planet.

Bees and flowers are typical examples of mutualism. Some bee tongues are perfectly evolved to tap into certain flowers. By specializing in those plants, the longer-tongued bees reduce competition with insects that can't access those sweet foods.

That mutualistic relationship, however, has been impacted in at least one population of bees and flowers. As certain flowers in Colorado have become rarer due to warming temperatures, the tongues of the bumblebees（大黄蜂）that historically fed on them have become shorter.

Like many of their relatives, bumblebees are on the decline. To find out what's going on, a team of researchers headed to Colorado. The researchers examined bumblebee samples collected on three mountains from 1966 to 1980 and also gathered a fresh set, which they collected in the same places from 2012 to 2014. They performed the task of measuring all the historic and recently caught bees' tongues.

As the team reports in Science, both of the species tongues have declined in length over time. The team found a nearly 25-percent decrease in tongue length between the bees collected decades ago and those living in the same region today.

Next they turned to the flowers. Looking at contemporary and historic botanical data, the scientists confirmed that the number of flowers with short tubes did not increase in large quantities. They found that in response to warmer temperatures, flowers have been moving up the mountains and becoming rarer at lower altitudes. This altitude-climbing effect has ultimately resulted in an approximate loss of millions of flowers.

The findings paint a telling picture: hotter summers caused bumblebees' choice flower species to disappear, forcing them to evolve shorter tongues to tap into the remaining food sources. Then, competition with generalist species, more time and energy needed and a forced reliance on alternative sources all likely contributed to the bees' overall decline.

1. What was the cause of bumblebees' tongues shortening in Colorado?

A．Decrease of certain flowers.	B．Fight within populations.
C．The pollution of their food.	D．Common growth problems.

2. What do we know about the research on bumblebees?

A．Clear results were published.	B．It was based on assumptions.
C．It was carried out for decades.	D．It intended to study bee diseases.

3. Why do flowers in Colorado tend to move up the mountains?

A．For more sunlight.	B．For cooler environment.
C．For more growing space.	D．For defence against insects.

4. What is the text mainly about?

A．A research on bees' tongues.	B．Facts and causes of bees' decline.
C．The relation of flowers and bees.	D．The climate influence on mutualism.

2 . 阅读下面材料,在空白处填入适当的内容(1个单词)或括号内单词的正确形式,并将本题的答案写在答题卡上。

There were other creatures that I didn’t want to get too close to—an eel with its strong sharp teeth, with only its head showing from a hole,     1     (watch) for a tasty fish (or my tasty toe! );and     2     giant clam half buried in some coral waiting for something     3     (swim) in between its thick green lips. Then there were two grey reef sharks, each about one and half meters long, which suddenly     4     (appear) from behind some coral. I told     5     (me) they weren’t dangerous but that didn’t stop me from feeling scared to death for a moment!

The water was quite shallow but     6     the reef ended, there was a steep drop to the sandy ocean floor. It marked a boundary and I thought I was very brave when I swam over the edge of the reef and hung there looking down into the     7     (deep)of the ocean. My heart was beating     8     (wild)—I felt very exposed     9     such deep clear water.

What a wonderful,     10     (limit) world it was down there. And what a tiny spot I was in this enormous world!

3 . We’ve been hearing for decades about the complex intelligence of plants; but a new study, conducted by researchers at the University of Missouri, managed to figure out one new important element: plants can tell when they’re being eaten, and they don’t like it.

The word “intelligence”, when applied to any non-human animal or plant, is imprecise and sort of meaningless: research done to determine “intelligence” mostly just aims to learn how similar the inner workings of another organism is to a human thought process. But these studies do give us insight into how other organisms think and behave, whatever “think” might mean.

The researchers were seeking to answer an unusual question: does a plant know when it’s being eaten? To do that, the researchers had to first make a precise version of the vibrations (振动) that a caterpillar (毛虫) makes as it cats leaves. The theory is that it’s these vibrations that the plant can somehow feel or hear. In addition, the researchers also came up with other vibrations the plant might experience, like wind noise.

This particular study was on the thale cress. It actually produces some mustard oils (芥子油), which are mildly poisonous when eaten, and sends them through the leaves to stop caterpillars. And the study showed that when the plants felt or heard the vibrations made by caterpillars, they sent out extra mustard oils into the leaves. When they felt or heard other vibrations? Nothing. It’s a far more dynamic defense than scientists had realized: the plant is more aware of its surroundings and able to respond than expected.

There’s more research to be done; nobody’s quite sure by what mechanism the plant can actually feel or hear these vibrations. But it’s really promising research; there’s even talk of using sound waves to encourage crops to, say, grow faster, or send out specific defenses against attacks. Imagine knowing that a frost is coming, and being able to encourage plants to fruit faster by simply blasting them with music. That’s the kind of crazy sci-fi future this indicates.

1. What does the underlined part “other organisms” in Paragraph 2 refer to?

A．Intelligence of plants.	B．Non-human living things.
C．Human thought processes.	D．The inner workings of plants.

2. What is the role of mustard oils produced by the thale cress?

A．Keeping the plant’s surroundings safe.	B．Acting as defenses to stop caterpillars.
C．Making the plant aware of the vibrations.	D．Sending warnings against caterpillars’ coming.

3. What does the underlined word “Nothing” in Paragraph 4 indicate?

A．The plants failed to identify other vibrations.

B．The plants sent out more mustard oils into the leaves.

C．The plants could identify vibrations from caterpillars.

D．The plants prevented caterpillars from eating the leaves.

4. What is the last paragraph mainly about?

A．The plans for the study.	B．The problems with the study.
C．The significance of the study.	D．The achievements of the study.

4 . Directions: Fill in each blank with a proper word chosen from the box. Each word can be used only once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. removed; B. guaranteed; C. quality; D. ranks                 E. threats; F. access; G. long-term; H. unproductive        I. effective; J. overlooking; K. characterize

Coffee’s Climate Crisis

Howard Schultz wants to know if I drink coffee. The Starbucks boss is sitting on a balcony     1     the company’s leafy farm in the Costa Rican province of Alajuela, where I’m told the coffee — harvested and roasted on-site — is a must-try. Like more than 60% of Americans, I drink coffee at least once a day. The Costa Rican blend Schultz pours me has a special taste that mixes citrus and chocolate flavors.

But the future of my cup of Costa Rican Arabica is not     2    , Schultz says. After nearly four decades at Starbucks, he is leaving at the end of June, and in the role of executive chairman for almost 15 months, he has been looking past Starbucks’ day-to-day operations to its     3     challenges and opportunities. Climate change     4     high among them. As temperatures rise and droughts intensify, good coffee will become increasingly difficult to grow and expensive to buy. Since governments are reacting slowly to the problem, companies like Starbucks have stepped in to save themselves, reaching to the bottom of their supply chains to ensure reliable     5     to their product. “Make no mistake,” Schultz tells me, “climate change is going to play a bigger role in affecting the     6     and integrity of coffee.”

This farm, with its verdant vistas and a trickling waterfall, seems far     7     from the rising sea levels, unbearable heat and destructive storms that     8     climate change. But global warming is exactly why Starbucks bought the 600-acre plot in 2013, and why Schultz makes the 3,500-mile trip from Seattle a few times a year as he has done on this March day. The farm is Starbucks’ field laboratory into the     9     posed to coffee by climate change and its testing facility for how it can adapt to the challenge. Schultz hopes that the research here will inform agricultural practices for millions of farmers across the globe, including the ones that supply the company. “We have to be in the soil, growing coffee, to understand firsthand how to fix the situation,” he says. Study after study has laid out the threat climate change poses to the coffee industry. Rising temperatures will bring drought, increase the range of diseases and kill large swaths of the insects that pollinate coffee plants. About half of the land around the world currently used to produce high-quality coffee could be     10     by 2050, according to a recent study in the journal Climatic Change.

5 . Plenty of harvests of corn and other major crops rely on a mysterious phenomenon known as hybrid vigor (杂交活力). When highly naturally-born varieties are crossed, their next generations are taller, hardier, and bear more grain, Researchers report that this vigor is somehow influenced by microbes (微生物) in the soil, perhaps through a plant's immune system .

Charles Darwin was one of the first researchers to describe hybrid vigor. In the early 20th century, biologists began to apply this effect to agriculture by creating naturally-born parent plants that produced hybrid seeds. By the 1940s, almost every farmer in the United States was planting hybrid corn, and the harvests multiplied.

Biologists have proposed several theories about the cause of hybrid vigor, but no definitive explanation has emerged.

Maggie Wagner, plant biologist at the University of Kansas, and her colleagues wondered whether microbes might be it involved. Last year, Wagner and her colleagues found an interesting clue in a field study. They discovered that the leaves and roots of hybrid corn had microbial communities that are different from those living on naturally-born varieties of corn. “Something about being a hybrid makes a plant interact differently with microbes,” Wagner says. It could be that the naturally-born corn's immune systems react more actively to beneficial microbes, compromising their growth. Alternatively, hybrid plants may be better able to defend against weak pathogens (病原体) in the soil.

Wagner says the finding highlights the need for plant growers to match the hybrid crops to the microbial communities with which they live. The findings help scientists realize the importance of understanding the role of soil microbes in making agriculture more productive and sustainable, “This holds great promise.”

1. How did people use the effect of hybrid vigor in agriculture?

A．By producing naturally-born parent plants that bore hybrid seeds.

B．By creating naturally-born parent lines that produced hybrid vigor.

C．By providing more microbes communities that could produce more seeds.

D．By looking for hybrid parent plants in the field that produced hybrid seeds.

2. What can we know from paragraph 4?

A．Hybrid plants react worse to weak pathogens in the soil.

B．Wagner connected hybrid vigor with microbial communities.

C．Being naturally-born makes a plant interact differently with microbes.

D．Hybrid corn and naturally-born corn have similar microbial communities.

3. What effect would Wagner's finding have?

A．Making farmers know what to grow to resist certain diseases

B．Helping scientist realize the importance of spreading soil microbes.

C．Showing the significance of associating soil microbes with specific crops.

D．Highlighting the need for plant growers to find more microbial communities.

4. What may be the best title for the text?

A．Hybrid corn: a double-edged sword

B．How can farmers grow hybrid crops?

C．Hybrid vigor: a mysterious phenomenon

D．What role do soil microbes play in the harvests of corn?

6 . It turns out that sunflowers are more than just a pretty face: the ultraviolet (紫外线的) colours of their flowers not only attract pollinators (传粉者), but also help the plant regulate water loss, according to new research.

The yellow sunflower is a familiar sight, but it’s hiding something from the human eye — an ultraviolet bullseye (靶心) pattern, invisible to humans but not to most insects including bees. These bullseye patterns have long been known to improve the attractiveness of flowers to pollinators by increasing their visibility.

“Unexpectedly, we noticed that sunflowers growing in drier climates have flowers with larger ultraviolet bullseyes, and found that those flowers are able to keep water more efficiently. This suggests that these larger ultraviolet bullseyes help plants adapt to these drier environments,” says Dr. Marco Todesco.

Dr. Todesco and his colleagues grew almost 2,000 wild sunflowers of two species at the university in 2016 and 2019. They measured the sunflowers’ ultraviolet patterns, and analyzed the plants’ genes, and found that wild sunflowers from different parts of North America had ultraviolet bullseyes of very different sizes.

Larger floral ultraviolet patterns that have more of these compounds could help reduce the amount of water loss from a sunflower in environments with lower humidity (湿度), preventing too much water loss. In humid, hot environments, smaller ultraviolet patterns would promote the water loss, keeping the plant cool and avoiding overheating.

Sunflowers are planted for various purposes, including sunflower oil production, a roughly $20 billion industry in 2020. This research could help add to knowledge about how to attract pollinators, potentially increasing crop yields, says Dr. Todesco. “This work also helps us understand how sunflowers, and potentially other plants, better adapt to different areas or temperatures, which could be important in a warming climate.”

1. What do we know about sunflowers?

A．They don’t need pollinators.

B．Their flowers have special functions.

C．Their flowers can drive the insects away.

D．They can be grown in extremely cold areas.

2. What did Dr. Todesco and his colleagues do?

A．They analyzed 2000 kinds of sunflowers.

B．They planted sunflowers to carry out research.

C．They travelled to different parts of South America.

D．They helped people in North America plant sunflowers.

3. What is Dr. Todesco’s attitude to the research on sunflowers?

A．Positive.	B．Doubtful.
C．Negative.	D．Critical.

4. What can be the best title for the text?

A．A Hidden Function of Flowers of Sunflowers

B．Researchers Found a New Species of Sunflower

C．Sunflowers Can Change the Colours of Sunshine

D．Ultraviolet Bullseye Patterns Attract More Insects

7 . Scientists have long considered the question of whether and how plants communicate. For years, the topic sparked controversy. Books like 1973’s The Secret Life of Plants suggest that plants grow well if you sing or play classical music. Such statements were later debunked: Any evidence that music helps plants grow is not convincing at all. Still, researchers firmly believe there is some sort of communication going on between plants.

Plant communication is a complicated topic. What we do know is that plants have a wide range of mechanisms for communicating with each other and their surroundings. “It’s quite clear that plants are not just unresponsive victims, but that they are very aware of nearby things,” says Richard Karban, an entomologist at the University of California. “And they respond to reliable information.”

When a plant sends out chemicals in the air in response to a perceived threat, other sensitive leavcs on that same plant, as well as the leaves of their neighbors, perceive those signals and subsequently increase their own defenses. Karban’s research, for instance, shows that plants sound the alarm when they’re attacked by pests, so that other plants respond by growing faster and stronger. Even other species, like tobacco, can sense and react to the alarm.

In a study published in the journal Cell this March, Lilach Hadany, a professor at Tel Aviv University, put tomato and tobacco plants in an isolated box and then recorded ultrasonic (超声的) sounds. They experimented with, cutting stems or leaving them without water to simulate drought. The researchers found that the plants emitted (popping and clicking sounds at around 60 decibels in response, approximately as loud as human chatter. These sounds were at an ultrasonic frequency that humans can’t naturally hear, however. Hadany’s team even matched different sounds to the plants’ environment. And each type of stress could be matched with a specific, identifiable sound.

“We don’t know if they’re using the sound, or if the sounds are emitted in a completely passive way due to physiological changes,” Hadany says. “But we do know they are in the air, and they contain information.”

1. What does the underlined word “debunked” in Paragraph 1 mean?

A．Confirmed.

B．Ignored.

C．Disproved.

D．Promoted.

2. What does Karban’s research indicate about plant communication?

A．Plants can make no response to their attackers.

B．Chemicals are sent by plants to attack the perceived threat.

C．Plants rely little on their neighbors’ information to survive.

D．The alarm sounded by one plant travels beyond plants and species.

3. What can we learn about the sounds emitted by plants from Hadany’s study?

A．The sounds are loud enough to scare away pests.

B．The sounds are produced when plants are in danger.

C．The sounds can be heard by man without equipment.

D．The sounds can be matched to the human environment.

4. What is the purpose of the text?

A．To inform readers.	B．To compare things.
C．To warn readers.	D．To advertise things.

8 . Now a group of Italians have created the world’s first underwater garden for terrestrial plants. Called Nemo’s Garden, the project was launched by the Ocean Reef Group as a means to experiment with food supply diversity, should climatic changes make parts of Italy too dry to farm. The large self-sustaining, totally-contained biospheres would in theory be scalable, and perhaps in the future might look like the underwater city from Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.

The challenge existing in growing plants underwater, given that they are normally at home in soil, was but one obstacle Nemo has had to overcome. The six air-filled greenhouses suffered major storm damage in October 2019, and before they could be fully repaired, COVID-19(新冠病毒) had all the researchers sheltering in place.

Yet the team never gave up hope, as Euronews reports, and the months of abandonment did not harm the facility in any way. June 6th saw the garden fully-operational again, including their live stream where one can watch the plants grow. The biospheres(生物圏), which sit eight meters under the surface off the coast of Noli in Liguria, use solar energy for their minimal electrical needs, and evaporated seawater condenses(凝结) on the glass of the ceiling which waters the plants. A diver swims under and up into the air pocket of the pod to harvest what’s ready to eat.

The project website says that increased pressure like that found under the ocean is actually beneficial to the speed at which plants can come up, though they admit very little research has been published on the topic—after all, not so many people are currently trying to grow strawberries it underwater.

The conditions create a really intense flavor in the vegetables, and also allow the plants’ environment to be completely controlled, with nothing impacting their life dial the growers don’t want. For now Nemo’s Garden is essentially a research lab, but if tie idea were expanded, it’s expected to be able to keep food security for the peninsula, and the world.

1. Why was Star Wars: The Phantom, Menace mentioned?

A．To stress it is known to the world.

B．To prove it has becomes u popular destination.

C．To illustrate it is the first existing underwater city.

D．To explain Nemo’s Garden has similarities with the underwater city.

2. What might be the difficulty in growing underwater plants according to Paragraph 2?

A．COVID-19.	B．Broken greenhouses.
C．Frequent storms   .	D．Shortage of soil.

3. Which word can best describe the group of Italians taking up Nemo’s Garden?

A．Strong-willed.	B．Self-confident.
C．Open-minded.	D．Well-paid.

4. What is the effect of increased stress on plants?

A．It helps them sell well.	B．It contributes to good taste.
C．It promotes their growth.	D．It increases growing period.

9 . 听下面一段独白，回答以下小题。
1. What kind of area do Bill and Sally live in?

A．A hot area.

B．A high area.

C．A dry area.

2. What do Bill and Sally do?

A．They are gardeners.

B．They are designers.

C．They are builders.

3. What is used to protect the delicate plants now?

A．Trees.

B．Glass houses.

C．Fences.

4. How does the speaker describe Bill and Sally’s work?

A．Successful.

B．Unsatisfactory.

C．Impossible.