1 . The story started from a popular video, in which a tourist pulled a flower out of the ground in Tibet and boiled it with other food.

He might not know what he dug up was not an ordinary one but snow lotus, an extremely rare species. The exact number existing in the wild is unknown, but scientists believe that the species is dying out and people are not allowed to collect them for private or even scientific use since 2000.

The snow lotus generally only grows above the snowline of the Tibetan Himalayas or Heaven Mountain in Central Asia. In order to survive the harsh environment and strong wind, it grows thick hair on the outside, which keeps the plant from the cold. And it often has to grow around six to eight years before its only flowering time in life.

Only very few plants and animals survive in such an environment. Therefore, each snow lotus is key part of fragile (脆弱的) ecosystem around it. When someone digs one out of the ground, he/she not only wastes the plant’s own years of efforts, but also threatens the ecological (生态的) balance of about one square kilometer around it.

For a long time, many people collect the lotus flowers to sell as herbal (药草的) plants to others, even though their herbal effects are not proved. Regardless of the fact, some traders do misleading advertising about them and illegally sell them at high prices. As a result, the species is in danger. The snow lotus is not the only plant that suffers from the illegal sale of certain people because they carry a sense of mystery. It is time the law offered stricter protection of these rare plants for the ecological environment.

1. What did the author intend to tell us about the tourist?

A．He destroyed an endangered plant.	B．He has good outdoor survival skills.
C．He discovered a special kind of flowers.	D．He has made many popular short videos.

2. Why does the snow lotus have thick hair on the outside?

A．To fight for enough living space.	B．To make the flower less obvious.
C．To protect it from extreme conditions.	D．To prevent it from being dug out easily.

3. What does the author mainly suggest in Paragraph 4?

A．It is hard for people to find a snow lotus.

B．It takes many years for a snow lotus to fully grow.

C．Some rare plants usually grow in weak environments.

D．The snow lotus is very important to the local ecosystem.

4. What lesson can we probably learn from the text?

A．We should call on the public to protect rare plants.

B．We should learn to recognize different plants.

C．We should follow all the laws in our country.

D．We should avoid taking wild plants as food.

2 . Baseball Plant

Where it's found: South Africa

This is a ball-shaped juicy plant. Unluckily, it was unsustainably harvested because more people around the globe have decided to grow baseball plants around them. Luckily, some botanical gardens have started to grow this plant. In this way, it will no longer need to be obtained from the wild so that it does not become extinct.

Corpse Flower

Where it's found: Sumatra, Indonesia

The corpse flower is also listed as an endangered plant and there are about 1, 000 plants growing in the wild. This plant sends out a smell of rotting（腐烂）meat during its nightly peak bloom. This allows it to attract pollinators like flies from miles away. It can grow an astonishing eight feet tall and can weigh up to 170 pounds.

African Starfish Flower

Where it's found: Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Zimbabwe

Don't fall in love with its beautiful flowers, because this is yet another plant that's known for its bad smell. It smells like rotting meat and looks like a rotting animal! Unluckily, it is endangered due to destroyed habitats, plant collectors as well as the Zulus, who use the plant as a cure for hysteria（癔病）.

Hydnora Africana

Where it's found: Botswana, Namibia, Swaziland, Ethiopia

This has an appearance similar to mushroom until the flower opens. At this point, the plant transforms from a leafless brown-gray plant to something that looks more like an animal than a plant. While this is also a smelly plant, it is an edible（可食用的）fruit that is loved by many animals and even humans! It makes for a tasty food when mixed with cream and can also treat conditions like diarrhea（腹泻）.

1. What can be inferred about the baseball plant?

A．It gives out a bad smell.	B．Its flowers have a strange shape.
C．It is a kind of food for the locals.	D．It is endangered in its wild habitat.

2. In which country are corpse plants found?

A．South Africa.

B．Botswana.

C．Indonesia.

D．Ethiopia.

3. What do African Starfish Flower and Hydnora Africana have in common?

A．They have great sizes.

B．They can be used as drugs.

C．They look like rotting animals.

D．They change shapes to keep away enemies.

3 . Students at Beijing’ s Yucai High School have to be very careful when playing football on the school’ s field. That’ s because there is a 100- year-old tree growing in the middle of it. And keeping their eye on the ball too much can result in a painful collision.

Building a football field around a tree sounds pretty stupid. But the school had no choice. It’ s reported that there are historic buildings all around Yucai High School, and this was the only space that could be used for a football field. Before starting working on the field, the school did ask to have the tree moved and planted somewhere else. However, they were told that it was hundreds of years old, and that it was a national treasure.

Having it moved and planted somewhere else was too risky—they might damage or kill the tree. So they were 1eft with no choice but to build the field around it.

Interestingly, Yucai High School is built on the grounds of Beijing’s Royal Gardens of the Ming and Qing dynasties. A reporter for the Beijing News believes that the strangely- located tree is the oldest tree in the Chinese capital. That information has not been checked, but other people think the tree is only 100 years old.

Playing a serious game of football on this field cannot be very pleasant. The tree could“catch” the ball and change its direction from time to time. But the students have no choice but to train on the playground with the tree. Luckily, they can play on a different field in competitions with other schools.

1. If students play football on the school field,________.

A．they might run into a tree	B．they will have a good chance of winning
C．they will fall down more often	D．they can control the ball all the time

2. Why did the school build a football field around a tree?

A．Because the tree was as old as the school.

B．Because the school could only use that place.

C．Because students in the school liked the tree.

D．Because the tree had something to do with the city’s history.

3. Why was the school not allowed to move and plant the tree somewhere else?

A．Because there was no other place for the tree.

B．Because it may have been dangerous for the tree and it might have died.

C．Because the tree was too big to be moved.

D．Because it was more meaningful to keep the tree where it was.

4. What do we know about the tree?

A．It’s the oldest tree in the Chinese capital.

B．It was planted in Ming Dynasty.

C．Some believe it is only one-hundred years old.

D．Students will play on another field to protect it.

4 . 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?

5 . Country diary: a chainsaw massacre in the alder woods

On an overcast, drizzly afternoon at Durham Wildlife Trust’s low Barns nature _________ alder provided the brightest splash of color in the _________

A tree had been felled and sawn into _________. Chainsaw wounds on this species can look like a massacre, because soon after the timber is cut, it turns a lurid shade of red, almost like blood, in stark contrast to the battleship-grey bark, _________ those wounds, which briefly _________ raw meat, fade to orange and finally to chestnut brown.

When this reserve was established half a century ago, around old gravel pits (采沙场), some moisture-loving alders were planted to help _________ a bare, windswept site. Alder wood is one of the finest sources of charcoal, and the plantation trees are old enough now to be coppiced, to produce barbecue fuel.

There is also an important natural alder wood here, created by a cataclysm almost two and a half centuries ago, which led to the designation of the reserve as a site of special scientific interest.

The Great Flood of 1771 _________ Weardale, washing away bridges all the way to the coast. When the water subsided, the course of the River Wear had _________ half a mile south, and the old riverbed became what is now the reserve’s Long Alder Wood, the finest example of its kind in the region.

When it sometimes floods, this tangle of gnarled（苍劲嶙峋的） trees has a _________ of the Florida Everglades（佛罗里达大沼泽） about it, with mossy, fallen trunks sinking back into the ooze (淤泥). Year round, there are wonderful __________ to watch birds from an embankment level with the tree canopy. This afternoon an acrobatic flock of about 30 goldfinches（金翅雀）__________ and chattered through the twigs, feeding on tiny seeds that fall from the woody cones.

Sadly, since the mid-1990s, another__________ has befallen this locally __________ woodland: alder dieback disease has killed around half the mature trees. Coppicing is leading to some regeneration, though in this precious __________ dead timber is allowed to lay where it falls, reserved for the needs of a __________ community of fungi, invertebrates and woodpeckers, rather than back-garden burger-flippers on summer evenings.

1.

A．reserve

B．preserve

C．conserve

D．deserve

2.

A．scene

B．view

C．scope

D．landscape

3.

A．logs

B．materials

C．resources

D．sources

4.

A．Everlastingly

B．Eventually

C．Continually

D．Sustainably

5.

A．assemble

B．present

C．overcast

D．resemble

6.

A．rejuvenate

B．revenge

C．reform

D．remain

7.

A．gone through

B．got through

C．swept through

D．cut through

8.

A．changed

B．shifted

C．reversed

D．revised

9.

A．clue

B．plot

C．evidence

D．hint

10.

A．opportunities

B．possibilities

C．alternatives

D．probabilities

11.

A．schemed

B．crawled

C．bounced

D．scattered

12.

A．misfortune

B．catastrophe

C．setback

D．adversity

13.

A．unique

B．peculiar

C．especial

D．particular

14.

A．frontier

B．territory

C．habitat

D．boundary

15.

A．various

B．versatile

C．multiple

D．diverse

6 . 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!