In November 2023, China launched a three-year action plan to promote the use of bamboo as a replacement     1     plastic. Actually, I’ve been using bamboo products more often over the years.

The look and feel of bamboo are absolutely above and beyond plastic,     2     there must be more positive aspects to bamboo other than just aesthetics (美学). When compared to    3     (healthy) plastic, bamboo is a highly renewable, natural material that is biodegradable (可生物降解的) and     4     (become) the “green gold” of modern times in recent years because it has so many good qualities.     5     (live) in a time when most of our homes are filled with plastic, I think it’s time     6     (wake) up to the green alternative and realize     7     (it) full potential as a planet protector.

This super-powered plant is actually a grass and looks like a weed in terms of     8     quickly it can grow and where it can live. The production costs of bamboo are     9     (extreme) low due to the easy availability of this material, and it requires almost zero adjustment when people produce bamboo products. From household objects to decorative settings, the quantity of uses bamboo has     10     (go) beyond our wildest dreams and I’d love to see it becoming more popular as time goes on.

The use of bamboo in science and technology is really exciting. In the Warring States period, Li Bing     1     (lead) the local people to build the Dujiang Weir, the first irrigation network in the world,     2     bamboo played an important role. During the Han dynasty, the Sichuan people successfully sank     3     1,600-meter-deep well with thick bamboo ropes. This technology didn’t spread to Europe     4     the 19th century and in 1859 Americans sank the first oil well in Pennsylvania by     5     (employ) the technology.

Papermaking     6     (be) one of China’s four ancient great inventions. In the Han dynasty, people began to use bamboo     7     (make) paper, which was of excellent quality and fair price. Even now it is considered as one of the important materials in papermaking. Some of the Xuan paper for traditional Chinese painting is also made     8     bamboo.

In the Yuan dynasty, a man     9     (plan) to send a person on the chair to space tied a big bamboo tube filled with gunpowder onto each of the four legs of a chair. Although it appears amusing, it is regarded as the     10     (early) “manned rocket design”.

3 . 阅读下面短文，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

Plant lovers believe that talking to plants helps them grow. Scientists have discovered there could be real     1     (true) in this belief. Researchers have discovered that plants give off sounds when they are stressed. The sounds are quite similar     2     a human cry. Unfortunately, plant sounds are at too high a frequency for the human ear     3     (pick) up. Humans can only hear frequencies of up to 16 kilohertz (赫兹). Using special Al technology, scientists can now pick up sounds     4     (send) out by plants that are up to 250 kilohertz. The Al can also tell differences between different types of plant sounds.

The research     5     (do) in a greenhouse at Israel’s Tel Aviy University. Lead researcher Professor Lilach Hadany said: “Plants usually give off sounds when they     6     (be) under stress. Each plant and each type of stress is connected with     7     specific sound.” She suggested that crop fields could be quite     8     (noise), saying “While unable to be picked up by the human ear, the sounds given off by plants can be heard by bats,     9     (mouse) and insects. Understanding these sounds could help us know when crops need watering,     10     means farmers could water their crops more efficiently and thus save water and money.

Food from the air

Everyone has seen plants growing, but have you ever thought     1     they get their food? In the seventeenth century, a European scientist     2     (call) Van Helmot asked this question. Like most people, he thought that plants must get their food from soil. However, Van Helmot decided       3     (test) the theory with experiments.

First, he dried some soil, put it into a pot and weighed it. Next, he weighed a small tree, planted it in the pot and added rain water. Then, he watered it     4     (regular) with rain water.

After five years, he removed the tree from the pot and weighed it again. He found that the tree had gained     5     huge amount of weight. When he weighed the soil, however, it was almost exactly the same as it had been five years    6    . So Van Helmot drew the    7    (conclude) that the tree grew by drinking water. Though it turned out to be wrong, he showed the importance of the use of scientific evidence to support ideas.

We now know that plants and trees make their own food. Their leaves, when exposed     8     the air and sun, are like factories    9     can change the energy from the sun into chemical energy. During this process (过程), oxygen and sugar     10     (produce). The oxygen is released back into the air, and the sugar is used by the plant as food.

Camellias (山茶花) are available in a great range     1     colors — red, pink, white and mixed colors. For the longest time, the golden camellias lived in a valley     2     was unknown to the outside world.

In the 1960s, Chinese scientists announced their discovery of the golden camellias. It was an     3     (amaze) announcement for the international gardening community. Also, the discovery made     4     achievable to create yellow camellias, though creating a new kind of golden camellia was not very easy.

Unfortunately, in the past, golden camellias were cut down in large numbers because     5     (local) needed the limited land space for farming. In 1986, a nature reserve (自然保护区)     6     (build) in a mountain valley from 200 to 500 meters above sea level, so the camellias could be well protected. Years ago, Huang Zainian and his brothers took up the work. In the past 10 years, the Huang brothers have made a great     7     (contribute) in protecting the camellias. Even in hard times they didn’t cut down any golden camellias.

Year after year, the Huang brothers spent much time working     8     eventually made their hard work pay off. Now the golden camellia is     9     city flower of Fangchenggang. And life for the Huang brothers is greatly improved by     10     (plant) golden camellias.

It’s been nearly seven years since a group of volunteers grew flowers at What Cheer Flower Farm in Rhode Island, with a simple goal: get flowers into the hands of anyone in need. Best of all, each one of the tens of thousands of flowers that What Cheer grows and     1    (delivery) are completely free of charge.

What Cheer was founded by two gardeners     2    often gave away flowers from their own gardens and wanted the idea to grow. What Cheer     3     (regular)brings joy to people at local hospitals, wishing them a quick     4    (recover). “Seeing the     5    (satisfy)smiles on people’s faces who weren’t expecting it is great,” says Stephen Hogan Jr. from the farm.

What Cheer’s flower beds lie in an industrial neighborhood that once     6    (house)a knife factory. In May, the nonprofit was awarded     7    $500, 000 prize from the Environmental Protection Agency for its continued efforts     8    (bring)life to the once polluted land.

“Not only do we give this space back to the neighborhood,” says Achen, “but we are also an eco-friendly spot with the ability to help local insect and bird     9    (population), and that’ll only make people’s lives better.” What cheer indeed can cheer people     10    !What’s good about a flower is that it doesn’t need anything else. Your only job when someone gives you flowers is to enjoy them.

Scientists in Florida have     1     (successful) grown plants in moon soil collected during NASA’s Apollo missions (任务) in the 1960s and 1970s.

    2     NASA-supported study at the University of Florida used soil collected by astronauts    3     (grow) Thale Cress 2 (拟南芥). To compare results, plants were also grown in Earth soil    4     was made to be similar to moon soil. The researchers     5     (add) water and then seeds to the soil, as well as daily nutrients (营养物). After just two days, their growth started.

According to Professor Anna-Lisa Paul, all the plants looked the same     6     the sixth day. After the sixth day,     7    , it was clear that the plants growing in moon soil were not as healthy as those growing in Earth soil.

DNA testing showed that those Thale Cress 2     8     (plant) in the moon soil were under stress. It was also found that the plants grew in different ways in soil from different parts of the moon. The soil collected during the Apollo 11 mission had been on the moon’s surface several billion years     9     (long) than the other soil, and the plants grown in it were the weakest.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson believes this research will help future space missions and that resources on the moon and Mars     10     (need) to develop food for astronauts living and working in space.

The ginkgo (银杏) tree is thought to be one of the oldest living trees,     1     (date) back to more than 290 million years ago. It is native     2     China, Japan and Korea, but it is also now grown in Europe and the United States. The earliest records of ginkgoes are found in Chinese herbology literature such as Compendium of Materia Medica.

Ginkgoes are large trees,     3     (normal) reaching a height of 20 — 35 meters, with some in China being over 50 meters. The adult tree has a large crown and long branches, and it is usually deep-rooted and resistant to wind and snow damage. With a combination of     4     (resistant) to diseases and insects, some of the trees     5     (claim) to be more than 2,500 years old.

With fan-shaped leaves, ginkgoes are green both on the top and bottom. But during autumn, they turn bright yellow and then fall, which make up     6     beautiful scene. Ginkgoes come in two sexes, with some trees being female     7     others male. The fruit has a soft, fleshy and yellow-brown outer layer     8     is attractive in appearance.

Because ginkgoes     9     (be) around for so long, people have used them for many purposes. It’s commonly used for memory and thought problems, vision problems and many other conditions, but there is no good scientific evidence     10     (support) most of these uses.

Plants cannot move from place to place, but seeds can. They can travel great distances. They may be carried by the wind or upon the water. They may also be carried by animals or people. Seeds     1     (carry) by the wind often have special shapes. Maple seeds have wings that spin and keep them in the air for longer, allowing them to land in all kinds of places.     2     (depend) on the strength of the wind, they can sometimes travel for hundreds of kilometres.

Coconuts are carried along by ocean     3     (current). When a coconut falls from a tree onto the beach, the sea picks     4     up at high tide and carries it away to grow somewhere else. Its hard shell allows it to float on the water for    5     long time. Another way for seeds to travel is through the digestive systems of animals. Many plants produce     6     (attract) fruits that animals like to eat. The animal receives the nutrients of the fruit,     7     it does not digest the seed, which is passed out some time     8     (late). Of course, animals move, so the seed can easily end     9     a long way away from the parent plant, especially if the fruit     10     (eat) by a bird.

With high yield and superior quality, Chinese hybrid rice varieties have been introduced around the world,     1     (benefit) more people. The export of China’s hybrid rice technology started many years ago. In 1979, China provided hybrid rice seeds to another country for the first time, and 40 years later, in     2     (real), China’s hybrid rice has been planted in dozens of countries in the world.

In the past 40 years, Chinese scientists     3     (devote) to providing assistance to many other countries. China has trained more than 14,000 hybrid rice professionals for more than 80 developing countries through international training courses. This technology has spread     4     more and more places in the world so far.

Yuan Longping,     5     cultivated the world’s first high-yield hybrid rice strain not only earned respect from Chinese people but also the global community. His hybrid rice research has been     6     (entire) saving millions of people from hunger. Yuan’s dream was     7     (solve) the global food shortage and promote hybrid rice around the world. China has achieved     8     great wonder, feeding nearly one fifth of the world’s population with less than nine percent of the world’s total land. And China is     9     (will) to contribute to global food security and calls for joint efforts to end global hunger and poverty.

It     10     (believe) that Yuan’s dream will come true one day.