1 . 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 |
2 . Gene-editing has created a generation of musical crops. It has been known for some time that plants can talk to one another.
Many communicate chemically, both through the air and via their root s— warning each other, for example, of the arrival of herbivorous (食草的) insects in order to co-ordinate their responses to these pests. Those responses are also often a form of communication, namely a further release of chemicals that recruit predators and parasites (捕食者和寄生虫) of said herbivores. These then solve their summoners’(召唤者) problems by having lunch.
Plants’ interactions with sound are less well understood, though it is known that flowers such as evening primroses (月见草) can detect the buzzing of bees and respond by producing sweeter nectar(蜜汁). Moreover, a paper published in this week's Cell, by Lilach Hadany of Tel-Aviv University and her colleagues, describes how plants make noises when they are stressed by drought or physical damage.
Dr Hadany and her team do not yet know whether other plants are listening, but suspect that they might be. None of this is news, however, to Paolo Fril, CEO and chief scientist of the Gene Duplication Corporation (GeneDupe), a biotechnology firm in San Melito, California. Observing that gardeners and greenhouse owners, from Britain’s new king, Charles III, downwards, often talk to their plants, and sometimes even play them music, he and his team have been investigating plants’ aural (听觉) and oral activities for several years, and are now adjusting them using crispr-Cas9 gene-editing technology.
The plan is to create a range of products which Dr Fril hopes will please his firm’s shareholders — which he needs to do after an awkward run-in the company had a few years ago with some animal-rights activists over its previous product, Print-a-pet.
1. How do plants convey information?| A．Through their leaves. |
| B．Through their branches. |
| C．Through the soil. |
| D．Through the chemicals they release. |
| A．The release of the chemicals can also help to protect the plants themselves. |
| B．The example of evening primroses proves crops’ hearing has been well understood |
| C．Herbivores can be killed directly by the chemicals |
| D．Lilach Hadany wrote a paper alone. |
| A．Dr Hadany has known that all the plants can hear |
| B．Britain's new king, Charles III, joined in the research |
| C．that plants can sense sound is not a new story for Dr Fril |
| D．Dr Hadany is considering using crispr-Cas9 gene-editing technology |
| A．To set up his reputation as a scientist. |
| B．To make the company’s shareholders happy. |
| C．To produce a special product to make money. |
| D．To help Tel-Aviv University research the hearing of the plants. |
3 . A new kind of hybrid wheat now available to American farmers may help reduce fears over genetically engineered crops. The new hybrid wheat is being introduced as seed companies worldwide seek to increase production because of reducing grain supplies. The hybrid wheat was developed by a Chinese-owned agriculture company. The product was created with-out genetic engineering. The first seeds to grow the wheat will be released on 2,000 to 2,800 hectares of American farmland next year, according to Reuters reports.
Developers or breeders create hybrid wheat by taking away the natural ability of plants to pollinate (授粉) themselves. Instead, female wheat plants in a field are pollinated by male plants of a different line. The goal of the process is to create seeds that can produce bigger crops and better resist harmful environments. The fertilized female plants produce a new kind of hybrid. Using this hybrid technology permits breeders to choose the best elements from two parent seeds to produce new seeds containing the best characteristics of both.
Producers say when seed companies produce hybrid wheat seeds, some female plants often fail to become fertilized because they depend on unpredictable winds to carry pollen (花粉).Pollen is a substance produced by plants when they reproduce. During some seasons,pollen is released into the air and carried to other plants to be fertilized. Producers say the fertilization of each plant is more certain during wheat’s natural process of self-pollination.
Researchers say the new hybrid wheat has to take long to come to market because the development process is more costly and complex. It could be important in increasing wheat yields and avoiding being linked to GMO development. GMO stands for genetically modified organism. Genetically modified wheat has never been grown for industry purposes because of fears that allergens or poisons might be created. Wheat is used to make numerous major foods worldwide.
Dave Hankey owns a seed company in Park River, North Dakota. He told Reuters, “Because of the resistance to genetically modified stuff, the hybrid wheat would be considered better and safer.”He added it would certainly be the public view.
1. Which of the following leads the new hybrid wheat to be developed?| A．The existing unsafe grain. |
| B．The decreasing output of food. |
| C．The application from American farmers. |
| D．The Chinese agriculture company’s proposal. |
| A．Requiring less fertilizer. |
| B．Producing tinier crops. |
| C．Having better adaptability. |
| D．Improving their natural self-pollination ability. |
| A．It is complex but economical. |
| B．It is simple and fruitful. |
| C．It is temporary. |
| D．It is demanding. |
| A．Indifferent. | B．Resistant. | C．Appreciative. | D．Cautious. |
4 . When gardeners grow varieties of plants in their beautiful gardens, they are happy to see beneficial insects like bees and butterflies surrounding the flowers. But as they take a closer look, they may find some plants are covered in black dots and filled with harmful insects or pests. Some gardeners may immediately reach for chemicals.
If you are wise gardeners, you should first take preventive measures to control the harmful insects.
Prevention
As a rule, prevention is the best treatment. Inspect plants closely, including their leaves, before buying them from the store.
When planting, space plants out to permit them to grow to their full size. Plants too close together can breed harmful organisms, like bacteria.
Pesticides
If you decide a pesticide is necessary, choose it carefully and follow the directions and warnings on the product. Avoid using pesticides in extreme heat, on windy days, or when the plants are wet.
| A．But this is not wise. |
| B．In most cases, chemicals don’t help. |
| C．Treat the plants early in the morning or at night. |
| D．Also do remember the plants need nutrition and care. |
| E．Keep your garden free of fallen leaves, fruits and other wastes. |
| F．Do not bring any plants home that show signs of disease or pests. |
| G．The process starts with the idea that having some pests is acceptable. |
5 . How to Save Money Watering Your Garden
Jessica Damiano writes about gardening. In her latest story, she talks about cost-saving ways to keep your garden watered during the hot months of summer. Let’s look at some of Damiano’s recommendations.
Know when and how to water
How you water is just as important as when you water. If you water quickly every day, it does not help the roots, which can extend over 30 centimeters into the soil.
Catch and reuse water
You can recycle water from boiling vegetables or eggs. Just make sure the water does not have salt in it.
Most gardeners just think about which plants look good and the plants’ sunlight needs. But watering needs should be considered, too. Drought-resistant plants should not be overwatered. It is best to use plants that are native to the area where you live. These plants tend to be resistant to drought. They just need regular watering in their first two years.
| A．Choose native plants |
| B．Instead, water the soil less often, but deeply |
| C．The best time to water plants is in the morning |
| D．It is also good practice to catch and use rainwater |
| E．This helps make the cities greener and improve air quality |
| F．Give some thought to how many plants there are in your garden |
| G．After that, they can live on just rainwater except during heat waves |
6 . 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. |
7 . Tree-planting, intended to help draw down carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, has become a synonym (同义词) for climate action. In our constant focus on trees, we’ve developed a fixed understanding: Trees absorb carbon dioxide, end of story. The reality is that trees don’t grow well alone. They exist within complex communities, helped along by each other as well as the animals they coexist with. The woodland isn’t nature’s only carbon sink: Grasslands and oceans also help reduce the carbon level and rely on a healthy amount of biodiversity.
That’s what the paper, published in Nature, wants to get across. Co-author Oswald J. Schmitz, a professor of ecology at Yale University, said trees might not be able to do their carbon-uptake job efficiently without the right animals in their ecosystem. That’s because animals animate the carbon cycle through their behavior and roles in the ecosystem. He added that the very presence of wild animals could cause feedback effects that change the ecosystem’s capacity to absorb, release, or transport carbon.
In Serengeti, for instance, the sharp decline in wildebeest (角马) population s during the mid-20th century allowed grass to grow wildly, eventually promoting wildfires that consumed 80 percent of the ecosystem annually and led to a net release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. When disease management and bans on illegal hunting helped animal populations recover, a greater share of the carbon stored in plants was consumed by wildebeest and released as waste, keeping it in the system and restoring the grassland as a carbon sink.
Researchers rarely consider wildlife conservation as a strategy to increase an ecosystem’s carbon storage capacity, said Schmitz. “They think that animals either aren’t important enough or that you can’t take up carbon and conserve animals at the same time,” he said. “Our message is that you can and should. It can be a win-win for both biodiversity conservation and carbon uptake.” We need a full picture-with both trees and animals-to explore nature’s full potential.
1. What can we learn from the first paragraph?| A．Actions are needed to reduce carbon dioxide. | B．Trees are a quick solution to the climate crisis. |
| C．People are not thinking through trees properly. | D．Grasslands and oceans help maintain biodiversity. |
| A．Activate. | B．Restart. | C．Disturb. | D．Break. |
| A．The conservation of animals is still a serious issue. |
| B．Animals can swing the ecosystem’s capacity to store carbon. |
| C．Human impacts bring about the reduction in wildlife populations. |
| D．The increase in animal species causes a decrease in carbon uptake. |
| A．Animals Adjust Themselves to Climate Change |
| B．Woodland Isn’t the Only Carbon Sink on the Earth |
| C．The Serengeti Ecosystem Needs Urgent Improvement |
| D．Trees May Fail to Fulfil Their Duties without Animals |
8 . Wildfire season has begun in many places around the world. The dangerous smoke wildfires produce can spread far and wide. It blocks sunlight, poisons the air and damages the health of people and other living things.
Some of those living things could be the plants in gardens, says gardening expert Jessica Damiano, who writes gardening stories for the Associated Press. Damiano lives in New York City and recently experienced several days of very smoky air. Wildfires in eastern Canada were the source.
Damiano, like other people, limited the time she spent outdoors when the air quality was poor. She also wore a face covering when she had to go outside.
But the plants in her garden had no such escape. They had to breathe the poisoned air through the extremely small holes in their leaves.
Pollutants in smoke landing on plants can block sunlight, which is essential for photosynthesis (光合作用). Reduced photosynthesis results in reduced energy. That means slower growth. Additionally, smoke can also affect a plant’s ability to take in nutrients(营养物质).
Brooke Edmunds, a plant scientist and community horticulturalist with Oregon State University Extension, said plants that are affected by smoke for a short amount of time will usually recover quickly. “It depends on how close they are,” she said. “There could also be a localized effect, where one garden is covered in ash(灰烬), and a half-mile away, there’s nothing because that’s the way the wind was moving things around.”
The best thing home gardeners can do is keep an eye on plants. Edmunds suggests giving plants some extra love and care. “Wash the plants gently to remove pollutants left by smoke. Then give them a long, slow drink of water. Most will pull through,” Edmunds said. However, people should not use leaf blower machines to remove ashes from plants because they will risk breathing in what is blowing around.
1. What happened to Jessica Damiano?| A．She had her house burned in a fire. |
| B．She couldn’t afford face coverings. |
| C．She suffered from health problems. |
| D．She had to deal with poor air quality. |
| A．The bad effects of smoke on plants. |
| B．The benefits of growing plants. |
| C．The role of plants in the environment. |
| D．The importance of water to plants. |
| A．Wind has little effect on plants. |
| B．Plants can sometimes make a quick recovery. |
| C．Ashes can spread more than half a mile. |
| D．Plants close to smoke usually grow well. |
| A．By pulling them out of the ground. |
| B．By using leaf blower machines. |
| C．By washing them with great care. |
| D．By giving them a fast drink of water. |
9 . Gardens are some of the most beautiful places on earth. The sad reality of gardening is that weeds compete with the plants you want and take away from their beauty.
Actually using chemical herbicides can have quite a few unintended consequences.
After weeds have already invaded your flower bed or garden, you obviously have to find a way to handle them. There are two basic methods of removing weeds: physical removal and mechanical removal. Physical removal — when using this method you are literally destroying the weeds by putting them out of the ground.
By using some of these natural methods, you can keep your garden looking superb without using dangerous herbicides that could damage your health and the environment.
| A．But herbicides use isn’t the only way to get rid of weeds. |
| B．Then, place garden plants close together to crowd out the weeds. |
| C．You can pull out the weeds by hand or take them out with a shovel. |
| D．As you might imagine, these chemicals poison the environment. |
| E．Here are some solutions to keeping weeds from invading your garden in the first place. |
| F．As for preventing weeds, covering the ground with landscapes fabrics may be a good way. |
| G．As a result, weed control seems to be a never-ending part of sustaining the beauty of a garden. |
10 . Madagascar, the world’s second-largest island country located off Africa’s eastern coast, is an island of diverse ecosystems and a biodiversity hotspot. The country has unique wildlife, with 90% of its plants and animals found nowhere else. Madagascar’s wildlife creates some of the country’s most beautiful scenery and popular spots. One of its conspicuous landscapes, attracting tourists from almost all corners of the Earth, is the Avenue of the Baobabs in the Menabe region. This avenue is made up of numerous baobab trees along the dirt road linking Belon’i Tsiribihina and Morondava, creating a unique and beautiful setting.
Baobab trees are common throughout Madagascar. Of the Earth’s eight species, six are native to the country. Some of the baobabs in the country are about 2, 800 years old, with trunks rising to 150 feet. The avenue is a row of about 25 baobabs stretching about 260 meters. Other baobab trees are also found in the nearby pastures (牧草地). This road is one of Madagascar’s most visited places. It is also the most accessible place to see some of Africa’s oldest baobabs. These trees were once part of a forest that was made up of other plants. However, massive deforestation cleared the area of most trees, leaving the baobabs to grow alone.
The baobab trees along the road and the other species growing in the nearby areas are always under constant threat from the increasing population. The trees also face threats from polluted water from the nearby fields, forest fires, and bushfires. Despite being a popular tourist attraction, the Avenue of the Baobabs has no admission fee or visitor center and generates little money for local communities.
Thankfully, non-governmental organizations in partnership with the government have noticed the area and developed activities to protect the avenue. The Ministry of Environment, Ecology, and Forests declared it a temporary protected area in July 2007. In July 2015, the site was declared a national monument (国家保护区), the first in Madagascar. The government and local communities hope the trees can survive for additional 800 years.
1. What does the underlined word “conspicuous” in the first paragraph mean?| A．New. | B．Cultural. | C．Striking. | D．Changing. |
| A．It is a big forest. | B．It has eight baobab species. |
| C．It consists of many different plants. | D．It has Africa’s oldest baobabs. |
| A．The risk to local baobab trees. |
| B．Natural disasters in Madagascar. |
| C．Poor living conditions in Madagascar. |
| D．The quality customer service of the avenue. |
| A．Curiosity. | B．Caution. | C．Hopefulness. | D．Sympathy. |
