1 . A powerful earthquake hit Morocco on Friday night, killing over 2,500 people and causing huge damage over a large area. The quake was one of the most powerful ever recorded in Morocco. It’s also the country’s deadliest earthquake in over 60 years. So far, the earthquake is reported to have killed over 2,680 people. It has injured over 2,500 others. The earthquake was especially dangerous because it happened at night, when people were asleep in their homes.
Marrakesh is a big city that’s popular with tourists. Many of its modern buildings seem to have survived the earthquake, but the old part of the city, Medina, was hit hard. It has buildings that are over 1,000 years old. Many of those buildings were demolished.
Outside of Marrakesh, the earthquake caused even more damage. In the Atlas Mountains, the earthquake’s center, there are many small villages, some of which were nearly destroyed.
Many of the people in the area live in simple houses made of mud bricks, which is a traditional way of building in Morocco. But it’s not strong enough to protect against earthquakes. Although the Moroccan government has laws that require buildings to be built more safely, these rules are often ignored.
Rescue workers have been working hard to save those affected by the quake. In larger cities, rescue efforts seem to be going well. But it has taken a lot longer for help to reach remote areas in the mountains. Many of these villages are difficult to get to. The earthquake caused landslides, blocking roads, and making these places even more difficult to reach. In some areas, phone and electrical service were also knocked out, leaving these places completely cut off. That means that the local people in some remote areas have had to deal with the situation on their own. In some areas, people have been digging through the broken stones or bricks with their hands, trying to find survivors. Many people are sleeping outside, unsure if their houses are safe.
Many outside countries have offered to help Morocco. Some countries have offered teams of experts; others have offered supplies.
1. What do we know about the earthquake in Morocco?| A．It only killed 2,680 people. | B．It occurred during the day. |
| C．It was the deadliest in recent decades. | D．It injured less than 2,500 people. |
| A．Destroyed. | B．Decorated. | C．Protected. | D．Constructed. |
| A．Necessary help from other countries for the quake-hit area. |
| B．The current serious situation faced by people in disaster areas. |
| C．Possible causes of the earthquake happening in Morocco. |
| D．Reasons why the earthquake caused so much damage in Morocco. |
| A．Rescue workers in big cities are in short supply. |
| B．Villagers in the quake-hit area try to save themselves. |
| C．Most of the houses in remote areas are reported safe. |
| D．Rescue workers can easily get in touch with mountain people. |
2 . It happens in every disaster (灾难): For those in need, people often donate (捐赠) things that turn out to be more of a trouble.
Juanita Rilling remembers it happened in 1988 when she was a disaster expert trying to help people suffering from a hurricane (飓风) in Honduras. “One morning I received a call from one of our logistic operators (物流运营商), and he explained to me that there was a plane carrying medical supplies that needed to land,” says Rilling. “But the ground was full, with lots of donations that no one had required. The plane—full of needed supplies—had to find someplace else to go. And it ended up stopping everyone’s plans by about 48 hours, which is important time in a disaster.”
Rilling now runs the Center for International Disaster Information, which is trying to make sure things like that don’t happen again. So when Superstorm Sandy hit, Rilling’s group started a project to encourage money donation. “Even a small donation can make a big difference and can quickly become exactly what people affected by a disaster need most,” Rilling says. But despite this, donators do that over and over. About 60% of the things donated after a disaster couldn’t be used. Often it’s old clothing or food.
Meghan Hara, who deals with kind donations for the American Red Cross, says she knows that some people are careful with giving money. And she doesn’t think that the need to give something concrete (实物) should be completely stopped.
“Part of what people are doing is that they’re helping, and they’re trying to help. What we need to work out is how to effectively deal with that,” Hara says.
1. What caused needed supplies to be put off after the hurricane in 1988?| A．Workers on the plane. | B．A weather report. |
| C．Useless donations on the ground. | D．The call from the operator. |
| A．Clothing. | B．Money. | C．Medicine. | D．Food. |
| A．Supportive. | B．Doubtful. | C．Uncaring. | D．Worried. |
| A．Studies on natural disasters. |
| B．The benefits of helping others. |
| C．Tips on choosing useful donations. |
| D．The ways of managing people’s donations. |
3 . For Vishwanath Mallabadi from Bangalore, India, there is no such thing as a useless object or “waste”. Give him anything—abandoned metal or plastic items, old devices, dysfunctional printed circuit boards — and he’ll create art out of it.
Vishwanath’s passion is particularly relevant in the current age, where India generates more e-waste than it can recycle. From 2019 to 2020, the country generated a total of more than 1 million tonnes of e waste. Of this, only 22.7 percent was collected, taken apart and recycled. The eco-artist has upcycled and transformed nearly 200 kg of e-waste into usable products and proposes eco-art as a means to deal with waste management.
Vishwanath’s father, D M Shambhu, was a famous sculptor and painter, but he wanted his son to choose medicine and become a doctor. However, Vishwanath, who was interested in upcycling second-hand objects right from childhood, decided to pursue a BFA in Applied Art. He later went on to work in a company as a high-level administrator and retired two years ago. “In my free time and during the weekends. I used to conduct experiments in e-waste and try to develop something unique,” he recalled.
So far, the eco-artist has created more than 500 objects. These include a six-foot tall sculpture made from upcycled computer keyboard keys, and a painting inspired by Vincent Van Gogh’s The Starry Night, using upcycled resistors (电阻器) on wood. Among his other artworks are a 42×38 inch figure statue created from upcycled keyboard keys on a sun board finished with plastics, a deer made of colorful used wires, plants and flowers from computer parts, and eco jewellery from upcycled digital wrist watch parts.
“The work involves selecting the e-waste objects—the texture, shape, and colour etc, and visualising and conceptualising the final product. It might take weeks and months for sculptures. However, sustainable initiatives and upcycled art are nowadays in demand in multinational companies opting for a sustainable culture,” he said.
1. What does the author try to convey in paragraph 2?| A．The seriousness of e-waste in India. |
| B．Vishwanath’s passion for environment protection. |
| C．The achievements of waste management in India. |
| D．Vishwanath’s attitude towards dealing with e-waste. |
| A．A passionate eco-artist. | B．A private doctor. |
| C．A famous sculptor. | D．A senior manager. |
| A．The deer and the plants. | B．The sculpture and the figure statue. |
| C．The painting and the flowers. | D．The deer and the eco jewellery. |
| A．Exciting but unprofitable. | B．Creative but useless. |
| C．Demanding but worthwhile. | D．Efficient but costly. |
4 . Whether you call them feral pigs, boar, swine, hogs, or even razorbacks, wild pigs are one of the most damaging invasive species on Earth, and they’re infamous for damaging agriculture and native wildlife.
A big reason they’re so harmful is that they uproot soil at vast scales, like tractors ploughing a field. Our new research, published recently, is the first to calculate the global extent of this and its effects on carbon emissions.
Our findings were horrible. We discovered the total area of soil uprooted by wild pigs is likely the same area as Switzerland. This releases 4.9 million tonnes of carbon dioxide each year the same as one million cars. The majority of these emissions occur in Oceania. A huge portion of Earth’s carbon is stored in soil, so releasing even a small part of this into the atmosphere can have a huge impact on climate change.
It’s estimated that wild pigs destroy more than US$74 million worth of crops and grass each year in Australia, and more than US $270 million in just 12 states in the USA. Wild pigs have also been found to directly threaten 672 vertebrates (脊椎动物) and plant species across 54 different countries. This includes Australian ground frogs, tree frogs and multiple orchid species which are imperiled, as pigs destroy their habitats and hunt them for food.
Their geographic range is expected to expand in the coming decades, suggesting their threats to food security and biodiversity will likely worsen. But here, let’s focus on their contribution to global emissions.
One such study was conducted for three years in hardwood forests of Switzerland. The researchers found wild pigs caused soil carbon emissions to increase by around 23% per year. Similarly, a study in the Jigong Mountains National Nature Reserve in China found soil emissions increased by more than 70% per year in places disturbed by wild pigs.
1. Why are wild pigs unpopular according to the text?| A．For their threat to humans. | B．For their damaging effects. |
| C．For their consuming too much food. | D．For their bad effects on tractors. |
| A．Leading to dry and acid soil. |
| B．Damaging the source of drinking water. |
| C．Increasing too much soil carbon emissions. |
| D．Reducing the area of agricultural land greatly. |
| A．In pain. | B．In alarm. | C．In chaos. | D．In danger. |
| A．The threat of wild pigs |
| B．Wild pigs on a global scale |
| C．A new problem faced by farmers |
| D．The impact of emissions on climate change |
5 . British chip maker Walkers is being flooded with mail deliveries of its own packaging. An online petition (请愿) with more than 312,000 signatures so far encourages those who signed to mail their empty chip plastic bags to Walkers as an act of protest against the bags’ non-recyclable design.
As petition organizer Geraint Ashcroft explained, the majority of chip packets, made from plastic coated with metal, are not recyclable and have been found fully undamaged up to 33 years after consumption. The UK alone consumes 6 billion bags of chips a year, and Walkers turns out 11 million bags daily. Ashcroft wrote, “At today’s consumption rate in 33 years’ time, there will be 200 billion packets either sent to landfill or polluting our oceans. Many will be eaten by fish or birds, leading to a slow death.”
Mailing the bags to Walkers is a way to hold the company accountable for its packaging and to pressure it to come up with a better design. But it is controversial. Because the Royal Mail postal service isn’t happy about the sudden in flow of packages, asking people calm down to help with ease of delivery. Critics on Twitter also question the logic of buying a product in order to protest against its producer and suggest that giving up chips altogether would improve one’s health as well as the environment.
Walkers issued a statement on Wednesday, saying it will make its packaging plastic-free by 2025. “We have received some returned packets and recognized the efforts being made to bring the issue of packaging waste to our attention. The returned packets will be used in our research as we work towards our commitment of improving the recyclability of our packaging.”
1. Why do people mail their empty chip bags to Walkers?| A．To oppose Walkers’ plastic packaging. |
| B．To exchange them for some new chips. |
| C．To make Walkers use them once more. |
| D．To appeal to people for not using the bags. |
| A．The production of plastic bags. |
| B．The cause of animals’ death. |
| C．The potential harm of chip bags. |
| D．The opinion of Geraint Ashcroft. |
| A．Explainable. | B．Responsible. | C．Significant. | D．Anxious. |
| A．Doubtfully. | B．Indifferently. | C．Positively. | D．Cautiously. |
6 . Global animal populations are declining, and we’ve got limited time to try to fix it. That’s the outcome of a new report from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), which analyzed years of data on wildlife populations across the world and found a downward trend in the Earth’s biodiversity.
According to the Living Planet Index, animal populations across the world decreased by 69% between 1970 and 2018. Not all animal populations decreased, though, and some parts of the world saw more dramatic changes than others. But experts say the loss of biodiversity is a worrying sign of what’s to come for the natural world. “The message is clear and the lights are flashing red,” said WWF International Director General Marco Lambertini.
According to the report’s authors, biodiversity loss mainly results from land-use changes driven by human activities, such as infrastructure (基础设施) development, energy production and deforestation. But the report suggests that climate change — which is already causing wide-ranging effects on plant and animal species globally — could become the leading cause of biodiversity loss if rising temperatures can’t be limited to 1.5℃.
Lambertini said the crisis of biodiversity loss and climate change is already responsible for plenty of problems for humans, including less access to food and water and a rise in the spread of diseases. He said world leaders should take major steps to deal with environmental damage. They are locked in old-world thinking, with no sign of the brave action needed to achieve a nature-positive future.
WWF chief scientist Rebecca Shaw told a radio station that humans have the opportunity to change how they do things to benefit nature. “We don’t have to continue the patterns of development we have now. And we have an opportunity to change the way we produce, what we cat and how we consume food and what we waste when we consume our food,” Shaw said. “Little things that we can do every day can change the direction of animal population declines.”
1. What does the new report indicate about the animal populations?| A．The drop in animal populations began in 1970. |
| B．The degree of the decrease is relatively low. |
| C．All species on Earth have witnessed a drop in population. |
| D．Global animal populations are declining at an alarming speed. |
| A．Land-use changes. | B．Deforestation. |
| C．The climate change. | D．The high temperatures. |
| A．Critical. | B．Favorable. | C．Tolerant. | D．Neutral. |
| A．How to develop economy. | B．How to prevent food waste. |
| C．How to maintain sustainable diets. | D．How to stop animal population decline. |
7 . The South Bronx is one of the poorest and most polluted places in America, with smog-choked freeways and smelly wastewater treatment plants.
“We’re a dumping ground,” Omar explains. “All the garbage from the rest of New York City ends up here.”
But Omar started looking at garbage in a different way. “A lot of what people throw away is perfectly good,” he says. “Just look at that stuff from construction sites—doors, sinks, toilets, People will buy those things. It’s only called garbage because somebody threw it away.” Omar was just out of college and working for an environmental group called Sustainable South Bronx when he started considering how to get this “good garbage” to people who could use it. Instead of destroying old things, why not clean them up and resell them? Why not hire people in the community to do the work? Better yet, why not make this business a “cooperative,” which means the people working in the business own it and share the profits?
Out of this, Omar started the first cooperative in the country devoted to reusing construction waste. To start his business, Omar put up advertisements along the trash-filled neighborhood streets, looking for people to work with him. He soon found four other devoted workers. They rented a warehouse and started looking for donations of used materials.
In April 2008, Omar’s cooperative, Re Builders Source, opened its business and began selling construction supplies to neighborhood builders and home owners. With the help of city officials, he also began planning a new training program to help local residents learn the skills to get good jobs that help the environment and even start their own cooperatives. Workers were trained to carefully take buildings apart so that things like doors and windows can be reused instead of being sent off to a landfill. Deconstructing buildings this way could be a huge industry with many good jobs for people who need them.
“If you have a use for something, “Omar says, “it’s no longer waste.”
1. Why is the South Bronx mentioned in the first paragraph?| A．To lead in the topic of the article. |
| B．To serve as the background information. |
| C．To contrast with the other districts. |
| D．To introduce a famous place. |
| A．To provide jobs for local people. |
| B．To deal with dumped rubbish. |
| C．To promote harmony among neighbors. |
| D．To make money from garbage. |
| A．Selfish and realistic. | B．Creative and business-minded. |
| C．Practical and self-focused. | D．Devoted and iron-hearted. |
| A．Knowledge starts with practice. | B．One good turn deserves another. |
| C．Four eyes see more than two. | D．Kill two birds with one stone. |
8 . Ocean water can be used to cool buildings. This idea could help cities reduce their carbon footprint and slow climate change. Although plentiful, ocean water is too salty to drink. But it could serve as an important and still largely untapped resource which was known to few people for many coastal cities. The idea came to Zi Zhang shortly after she moved from Michigan to Hong Kong a few years ago to get a PhD in engineering.
In 2013, Hong Kong built a system that used seawater to cool part of the city. The system pumps cold seawater into a plant with heat exchangers. The seawater absorbs heat to chill (冷却) pipes full of circulating water. That chilled water then flows into buildings to cool their rooms. This type of system tends to use far less energy than typical air conditioners. Zhang wondered: How much water and energy had this way saved Hong Kong? And why weren’t other coastal cities doing this? Zhang and her team set out for answers. The group focused on Hong Kong and two other big coastal cities: Jeddah and Miami. The idea was to see what it might look like if all three adopted city-wide saltwater systems. The cities’ climates were quite different. But all three were densely populated, which should minimize some costs.
All three places would save lots of freshwater, the researchers found. Miami could save 16 percent of the freshwater it uses each year. Hong Kong, with more non-drinking-water needs, was saving up to 28 percent. Estimated energy savings ranged from just 3 percent in Jeddah to 11 percent in Miami. These savings came from the more efficient saltwater air conditioning. Also, the cities would need less energy to treat salty wastewater than they have been using to treat sewage now.
Though costly to build, saltwater-cooling systems could pay off in the long run for many cities. And because these systems use so much less electricity, they’re greener and emit (排放) less carbon-rich greenhouse gases. Scientists refer to this as a type of decarbonization (脱碳).
1. What does the underlined word “untapped” in paragraph 1 mean?| A．Well-known. | B．Unexploited. | C．Infrequent. | D．Abnormal. |
| A．The functions of seawater. | B．The energy use in buildings. |
| C．The purpose of Zi Zhang’s research. | D．Hong Kong’s seawater use system. |
| A．To prove Zi Zhang’s idea. | B．To attract readers’ attention. |
| C．To show the writer’s caution. | D．To explain Zi Zhang’s theory. |
| A．Objective. | B．Ignorant. | C．Doubtful. | D．Approving. |
9 . Cows produce much methane (甲烷) the world’s second worst greenhouse gas, as they break down the grass. They are a large source of the greenhouse gases that are driving climate change. Now scientists have shown the pollution from cows can be reduced by adding a little seaweed (海藻) to their food.
Recently, the researchers from the University of California studied 21 cows on a farm for about five months. They taught the cows to get their food from inside a special hood, which allowed the scientists to know the amount of the methane the cows were giving off. They used a small amount of seaweed, which they mixed with the cows’ food.
The consequences were surprisingly good. In some cases, the cows produced 82% less methane. The improvement depended on the kind of food the cows were given. Even the worst-polluting cows produced 33% less methane. Over the five months, the scientists didn’t see any signs that the cows’ stomachs were getting used to the seaweed and starting to produce more methane again. What’s more, the cows that were fed seaweed gained just as much weight as the other cows.
But there are still some big problems with the idea of feeding cows seaweed. For one thing, there’s not enough seaweed to feed all of the cows in the world. So farmers would have to figure out a way to grow lots of seaweed. A bigger problem is that for most of their lives, cows live in the fields, where they eat grass. That means there’s no chance to feed them seaweed every day.
Still, as the study shows, something as simple as feeding cows seaweed can help reduce some of the pollution causing the climate crisis.
1. Why did the researchers carry out the study?| A．To improve the cows’ living conditions. |
| B．To test the effects of the seaweed. |
| C．To measure the amount of methane produced by cows. |
| D．To discover healthier grass to reduce the pollution from cows. . |
| A．The background of the subjects. | B．The process of the research. |
| C．The content of the experiment. | D．The results of the study. |
| A．Seaweed is pretty rare in the world. |
| B．It’s hard to mix seaweed with grass. |
| C．Cows can hardly have daily access to seaweed. |
| D．Cows fed with seaweed gained weight easily. |
| A．Doubtful. | B．Positive. | C．Unclear. | D．Negative. |
10 . Manchester City are the current champions of the English Premier League, and now they’re championing the cause of landfill waste by offering edible (可食用的) coffee and tea cups at their 55,000 seater Etihad Stadium. They played their first home match of the season, drumming Norwich City 5-0 while producing 0 pounds of disposable (一次性的) hot drinks cups--a disaster in a coffee loving country where a shocking 2.5 billion disposable cups are used every year.
“It is the first time that an ‘edible coffee cup’ has been introduced. This fantastic and innovative solution provides an amazing solution to waste, just eat your cup,“ reads a statement from the Etihad Stadium.
The cup is made by a Scottish startup called BioBite, and is essentially a 100-calorie biscuit in the shape of a cup．Made with wafer (薄脆饼) in much the same way as an ice cream cone，the cup will stay leak-proof for 12 hours, and even more amazingly, crunchy for one-half the duration of a “football” match. According to the company’s website, the cup is fully recyclable, but the taste of coffee-soaked cup is actually delicious.
There are several problems with making an edible coffee cup, however; and it’s why there still isn’t one today in the largest drinking chains.
Edible cups truly might be the best solution, provided firms like BioBite can bring the cost-per-unit down. 240 of their biscuit cups cost $111, about 14 cents more than what Starbucks pays for the cup, the plastic lid, and the wood stirrer.
Another limiting factor is that a wafer is not exactly the fuel of a healthy society. If there were a company that could make the wafers out of some kind of vegetable fiber, something many western diets are nutritionally short of, then you’re talking about a real revolution.
1. What is the purpose of writing the first paragraph?| A．To introduce the Manchester City. |
| B．To arouse the awareness of preserving the environment. |
| C．To put forward the subject of using edible cups. |
| D．To cover a football match of Manchester City. |
| A．The popularity of the cup. | B．The advantages of the cup. |
| C．The ways of using the cup. | D．The process of making the cup. |
| A．Western diets are short of nutrition. |
| B．Wafers are made from vegetable fibers. |
| C．The revolution for making cups is carried on. |
| D．Western eating habits need improving. |
| A．Stubborn. | B．Carefree. | C．Supportive. | D．Objective. |
