1 . When most of us read the words “plant-based diet”, we tend to think of foods such as salads and grain. But there is another option — the newest super-food: seaweed. The brownish-green oceanic plant like matter that washes up on beaches is in fact edible. Nori, the papery sheets used to wrap sushi rolls, is likely the most well-known and enjoyed seaweed, but these large leafy algae (海藻) come in hundreds of colorful varieties. Seaweed helps to support other life in the ocean and to clean the water surrounding it. When out of the water, seaweed can bring more nutrition and minerals to our diets.
“Even though we try to eat healthily, we’re relying on land-based and soil-based agriculture for the most part,” said Sarah Redmond, founder and owner of Springtide Seaweed in Gouldsboro, Maine. “Seaweed is a really interesting alternative because it provides the nutrients that are really hard to find in other land plants.”
For humans, seaweed is a one-stop shop for our necessary nutrient needs. “Seaweed is an excellent source of dietary fiber and minerals,” said Mary Ellen Camire, professor of food science and human nutrition at the University of Maine.
Though nutrition varies slightly between green, brown and red varieties, across the board seaweed contains a number of vitamins, including B,C,E and K, omega-3 fatty acids, protein and 10 times more minerals than land-based plants, according to a recent study.
However, you don’t need to pile your plate high with seaweed. “Some brown seaweed is very high in iodine (碘),” Camire said. “It has so much iodine that consumers are advised to eat it no more than three times per week.”
Seaweed is just as beneficial to the planet as it is to our personal health. Seaweed pulls carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and uses it to make more carbohydrates (碳水化合物). “We are not sure how much seaweed farming it would take to have a significant effect on global warming, but it helps,” Camire said.
Seaweed also consumes elements that can harm the ocean. It can also provide a place for smaller sea creatures to hide from their enemies, establishing environments that can help restore diverse ocean life in over-fished habitats.
1. What does the underlined word “edible” in paragraph 1 mean?| A．Fit to be eaten. | B．Large in size. | C．Hard to notice. | D．Good for health. |
| A．It can replace most vegetables and grain. | B．It provides people with important nutrition. |
| C．It attracts Mary Ellen Camire to agriculture. | D．It is bad for people’s health in the long run. |
| A．Choose seaweed low in iodine. | B．Combine seaweed with other foods. |
| C．Control the amount of seaweed you eat. | D．Remove brown seaweed from your plate. |
| A．By setting up new habitats for sea creatures. |
| B．By releasing friendly gases into the atmosphere. |
| C．By providing plenty of carbohydrates for fishers. |
| D．By using carbon dioxide to produce useful substances. |
2 . Readers can explore the wonders of nature with Big Tree. The book was written by famous author and illustrator (插画家) Brian Selznick. It is filled with detailed black-and-white illustrations, which took years to complete.
The story introduces Merwin and Louise, two tiny Sycamore seeds (梧桐树种子) who began life during the time when dinosaurs (恐龙) travelled around the Earth. After they fell from their mother tree, they started a dangerous 147-million-year adventure to the modern day.
After reading it, I met with the famous author and illustrator at his home in La Jolla, California. Selznick explained the lessons that nature offers about helping our planet and each other. “All of us can do something to help the real seed,” Selznick said. “No matter how small you feel, there’s always something you can do.”
As for his main goal when writing Big Tree, Selznick said, “Readers feel like they are learning about interesting stories when they read Big Tree, but actually and secretly, they are learning about real science. That’s why I wrote Big Tree.”
In order to write Big Tree, Selznick went to the New York Botanical Garden, where he talked to a wonderful park manager. She walked him through the forest and talked about the way leaves work, the way trees grow and the way trees experience time.
Selznick said he learned a lot while creating Big Tree. “The manager thinks that forests are really communities. It really surprised me,” he said. “We live in communities, and when we run into trouble or danger, we communicate with each other to find solutions. Trees are doing the same thing. We’re all part of a community. And that, to me, was a really important part of Big Tree.”
1. What does paragraph 2 mainly focus on?| A．The main idea of Big Tree. | B．The discussion about Big Tree. |
| C．The review of Big Tree. | D．The story behind Big Tree. |
| A．To show the illustration art. | B．To share an interesting story. |
| C．To encourage readers to learn. | D．To make real science interesting. |
| A．He did some research. | B．He planted some trees. |
| C．He asked others’ advice. | D．He stayed in the forest alone. |
| A．Trees are important for communities. | B．Trees can communicate with each other. |
| C．Trees can protect people against danger. | D．Trees run into trouble more often. |
1. Why is the baobab’s trunk really fat?
| A．It is shaped by people. |
| B．It stores a large quantity of water. |
| C．It must be strong enough to support the tree. |
| A．About 12 metre. |
| B．About 15 metre. |
| C．About 30 metre. |
| A．Shops. |
| B．Wildlife habitats. |
| C．Bus shelters |
4 . Why do plants grow in some places and not in others? Why does some land have so much growing on it, while other land has almost no plants growing on it at all?
To grow, plants need several things. One is warmth. In very cold places almost nothing grows. Plants also need water. In very dry parts of the Earth only a few unusual plants can grow. That’s why dry deserts everywhere are almost not covered by trees or grass.
Plants must also have a place in which to put down their roots and grow. They find it difficult to grow on hard land. The town is built on hard land. The plants here have only the soil found between the cracks of the stones to grow in.
Another thing plants must have before they can grow is food.
What will happen if we try to make things grow on the sandy beach? A few plants, such as beach grass, will grow in sand, but most plants won’t. Even if the weather is warm enough and we water the plants each day, many of them will die because the sand on this beach has almost no food for plants.
1. According to the passage, plants need things to grow well.| A．two | B．three | C．four | D．five |
| A．缝隙 | B．表面 | C．夹层 | D．底部 |
| A．there isn’t enough sunlight | B．there is too much water |
| C．it is too crowded there | D．it has little food for plants |
| A．science | B．history | C．travel | D．math |
5 . When micro-plastics end up in farm fields, the pollution can damage plant growth. But two young researchers now report that combining fungi (真菌) with certain farm wastes can partly overcome that problem.
May Shin, 20, and Jiwon Choi, 18, met in a research design class at the Fryeburg Academy, a high school in Maine. May had desired to explore how micro-plastics might affect the ecosystem. Jiwon was crazy about plants and fungi. The young scientists cooperated to test how long-lived plastics might affect farm crops.
Scientists have shown certain fungi can aid root growth and a plant’s nutrient uptake. Those organisms are named arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF). Certain farm wastes, like straw, can provide nutrients to plants and help stabilize their roots. Such wastes are also known as mushroom substrate (基质) and people often grow mushrooms in them.
May and Jiwon planted over 2,000 scallion (大葱) seeds in pots of soil. Half the seeds got soil polluted with micro-plastics. The rest grew in plastic-free soil. The plants then were further divided into four groups. The young scientists added AMF to the soil in one group. Another group had a top layer of mushroom substrate. A third group got both treatments. The last group got none. For three weeks, the pair tracked how many scallions sprouted (发芽) in each group and measured the plants’ height once each week.
About twice as many scallions sprouted in clean soil compared to that containing plastic bits. But among plants surviving in the polluted soil, a combination of AMF and mushroom substrate helped them out. Those getting both treatments grew 5.4 centimeters per week. That was faster than either of the treatments alone or those getting none.
Jiwon and May then looked at the plant roots with a microscope. Where AMF had been added, it grew into those roots. That increased the scallion roots’ surface area, May said, which should promote their uptake of nutrients. So “I see this project as coming up with a sustainable solution for plant growth in polluted soils,” said May.
1. Why did May and Jiwon work together?| A．To see the effects of long-lived plastics on farm crops. |
| B．To find the relationship between plants and fungi. |
| C．To design a research on the growth of plants. |
| D．To explore the way that the ecosystem works. |
| A．To prove the existence of micro-plastics. | B．To compare fungi with farm wastes. |
| C．To tell the advantages of farm wastes. | D．To provide some related information. |
| A．Its purpose. | B．Its design. | C．Its findings. | D．Its reasons. |
| A．By keeping the plants more resistant to pollution. | B．By allowing the plants’ deep area more freedom. |
| C．By making nutrients more available to the plants. | D．By exposing the roots to a larger surface area. |
6 . This summer, Guinness World Records chose a big cherry as the heaviest ever recorded. A Carmen cherry, harvested by brothers Giuseppe and Alberto Rosso, clocked up 33 grams with a circumference (周长) of around 5 inches. At their farm, Cascina Canape, in the Piedmont region of northern Italy, the Rosso brothers claim to have grown many cherries of similar size over the last few years. But it was only in 2021 that they decided to “get serious” in seeking official recognition for their fruit.
However, this is the second time the world record has been broken for the heaviest cherry in 2021. Another grower, from Ferrara, in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy, harvested a cherry this year weighing 26.45 grams. Perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising that the record was broken twice in Italy, since the country is Europe’s largest cherry producer. Yet Piedmont, where the latest record was set, is not one of the many Italian regions that grow the most cherries, such as Puglia, Emilia-Romagna, Veneto, Campania, and Lazio.
Though their farm is only 15 acres, the Rosso brothers grow over 70 types of cherries. Consumers today tend to buy the larger, sweeter fruits, and the winning Carmen variety has both of these characteristics. But to achieve the record size, nothing can be left to chance, “Pruning (修剪) is very important,” explains Alberto. “The main purpose is not to overload the plant with fruits: if there are too many, they may all ripen. But then we would have cherries of smaller dimensions with less sugar in them, because the plant would not be able to feed everyone in the same way.”
Also, one may think that large cherries must grow on very large trees. It’s actually the opposite: many new cherry tree types are only about 13 feet high, yet they are the ones that produce the largest fruits.
1. What can we learn about the winning cherry?| A．It is 5 inches in height. |
| B．It is 26.45 grams in weight. |
| C．It was brought in by two Italian brothers. |
| D．It was from the region growing the most cherries. |
| A．timed | B．grew | C．equalled | D．weighed |
| A．Those growing in Piedmont. | B．Those small trees pruned properly. |
| C．Those extremely tall trees. | D．Those with cherries ripening fast. |
| A．A journal. | B．An advertisement. | C．A textbook. | D．A brochure. |
7 . There’s a great example of the power of persistence(坚持) in the way Chinese bamboo grows. When farmers plant the seeds and
Of course, the bamboo is growing the whole time even though it’s not
As Angela Duckworth shares in Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, our natural talent gives us a(n)
| A．tend | B．expand | C．restore | D．occupy |
| A．influential | B．permanent | C．visible | D．complex |
| A．growth | B．trend | C．view | D．chance |
| A．hatches | B．mounts | C．explodes | D．arises |
| A．contrary | B．comparable | C．beneficial | D．responsible |
| A．shape | B．weight | C．height | D．standard |
| A．intense | B．urgent | C．constant | D．apparent |
| A．wise | B．sensitive | C．fortunate | D．humble |
| A．measure | B．support | C．recover | D．preserve |
| A．work | B．bother | C．consumption | D．discipline |
| A．Obviously | B．Incredibly | C．Occasionally | D．Surprisingly |
| A．memorable | B．respective | C．efficient | D．consistent |
| A．excuse | B．option | C．advantage | D．motivation |
| A．Hence | B．Nevertheless | C．Therefore | D．Furthermore |
| A．look up to | B．make up for | C．stand up for | D．live up to |
| A．seeks | B．counts | C．varies | D．differs |
| A．faith | B．source | C．reward | D．warning |
| A．Evaluating | B．Devoting | C．Mentioning | D．Recognizing |
| A．lessen | B．blame | C．ground | D．submit |
| A．bring back | B．bring down | C．bring in | D．bring about |
8 . In organic（有机的) farming, crops, meat and other food are produced without chemicals. Fertilizers, and antibiotics (化肥与抗生素) are not allowed. During thousands of years of civilization the raising of animals and growing of plants have always been organic.
Chemicals for farming first came up at the turn of the 20th century. Widespread use of chemicals began after World War II. In the 1950s and 60s farmers started using chemical fertilizers and antibiotics. Recently, however, more and more farmers have been returning to more natural ways of producing farm products.
Instead of chemicals, organic farming uses a lot of organic matter to give crops the nutrients that they need to grow. Clover, for example, has a lot of nitrogen (氮) in it and farmers use it to make the soil better. Manure from animals and compost (混合肥料) are also used to enrich the soil. These fertilizers also help protect the soil, not destroy it after a few years.
Organic farmers also use crop rotation (轮作) to protect the good qualities of soils. Chemical antibiotics destroy or weaken many of the natural enemies of pests, like birds or frogs. They also can kill those insects that control a great number of pests. Organic farming creates new living areas for little animals, such as wasps, bugs, beetles and flies by giving them water and food. Weeds are controlled by using special machines. Hay, straw and wood chips are put between the rows of plants to stop weeding.
Many agricultural products can be produced in an organic way. Meat, dairy products and eggs come from animals that are fed organically and can graze outdoors. They live in conditions that are natural to them. Cows, for example, are kept in pastures and fields. Vegetables and fruit are also produced with organic methods.
1. What of the following best describes the organic farming?| A．Time-saving. | B．Environmental. | C．Productive. | D．Developmental. |
| A．Crop roots. | B．Chemical fertilizers. |
| C．Animals’ waste. | D．Agricultural products. |
| A．The new study of soils. | B．Benefits from organic farming. |
| C．A breakthrough in antibiotics. | D．Natural enemies of animals. |
| A．Organic farming and food | B．Importance of organic methods |
| C．Benefits of organic fertilizers | D．Strengths of manure and compost |
