1 . Rather than continue living a comfortable urban life, this British family has sold their London home in favor of launching the world’s smallest nature reserve to save a nation’s coral reef system. Karolina and Barry Seath—along with their two young daughters—are preparing to move to an island in the Seychelles (非洲塞舌尔群岛)measuring just 1,300 feet long by 980 feet wide (400 by 300 meters).
They’ve launched a charity and teamed up with(与……合作)local biologists in an effort to bring the coral reefs back to life in the smallest African country, which have been almost wiped out by rising sea temperatures. Their land-based coral farm will be only the second of its kind in the world, the other being on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, to specialize in regrowing coral to restore the reefs.
47-year-old Barry, who is a former policeman, said, “We are just a normal husband, wife and two kids, living the sort of life that most others do, but we felt the need to make a positive change for ourselves, our children, and the world we had largely taken for granted.”
Over the course of several vacations to the Seychelles, the Seaths witnessed the gradual deterioration(恶化)of the reefs. “Every time we visited, we noticed the coral was getting worse and worse,” said Barry. “All the tourists say the same thing. They love the beaches but are really disappointed with the coral.”
Barry felt it was time to make a change and show his daughters an alternative way of eco-friendly living. He then teamed up with experts at the Marine Conservation Society Seychelles in order to develop the facility. Once it is complete, it will be the first large-scale, land-based coral farm in the Indian Ocean. The eco-warriors hope to use the facility to grow around 10,000 corals per year. Barry said, “Our long-term goal is to show everyone that—with just a relatively small investment—you can have a big positive influence on the marine environment.”
1. In what way do the British family save the coral reefs in the Seychelles?A.They bought an island in the Seychelles. |
B.They helped to tackle the raising water. |
C.They cooperated with the local biologists to launch a coral farm. |
D.They sold their London home to collect money. |
A.The tourists should do their part to protect the barrier. |
B.The tourists take the beauty of the Seychelles for granted. |
C.The family feel the urge to save the corral from being worsened. |
D.The family lives the same kind of life in the Seychelles as before. |
A.It will be 1,300 meters long and 980 meters wide. |
B.It will be the first of its kind in the Indian Ocean. |
C.It will focus on fighting with rising sea temperatures. |
D.It will be larger than the one on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. |
A.Local people will live an eco-friendly life. |
B.No one will be disappointed with the coral in the Seychelles. |
C.Everyone can make a difference to the sea environment. |
D.They will grow around 10,000 corals per year on their coral farm. |
A
She told Reuters she is helping cultivate reading in the kids as well make them aware
They are all carrying trash bags and Raden’s three-wheeler quickly fills up with them as the books fly out. She’s happy the kids are going to spend
She collects about 100 kg of waste
The literacy rate (识字率) for above-15-year-olds in Indonesia is around 96 percent,
3 . Food waste contributes to ever-growing landfills (垃圾堆).
Don’t buy too much food whenever you go grocery shopping.
Always make a shopping list.
Use the “First-In-First-Out” method. For example, placing the newly bought foods at the back of the fridge or cupboard will encourage people to use the ones that are in the front row. This will ensure that you know what you have and reduce food waste.
A.It can help keep your grocery trips short. |
B.Having a fully filled fridge may look nice. |
C.Your fridge may be too crowded to function well. |
D.It is a waste of your money, as well as your effort. |
E.Some people like to store up food for emergencies. |
F.Foods need proper storage to prevent them going bad. |
G.If you can’t see what foods you have, you’ll forget them. |
4 . If you’re a real fitness addict, you certainly know the ultimate running challenge is to take part in a marathon. It seems every major city and town around the world hosts an annual marathon, with thousands of athletes running an exhausting 42.1 kilometres. While many runners’ motivation is to beat their personal best and cross the finishing line without collapsing, they’re also doing it for a good cause — to generate funds for charity.
But like other major events, the marathon also generates a massive carbon footprint. Thousands travel – some by plane — to the location, and waste from food packaging and goody bags gets left behind by viewers and runners.
This is becoming a big issue for cities — how to host a worthwhile event, encouraging people to exercise and help charities, while protecting the environment? Several cities have developed formal plans to reduce their environmental impact and promote sustainable ideas. One event in Wales, for example, introduced recycling for old running kit. It’s something that this year’s London Marathon tried to tackle by reducing the number of drink stations on the running route, giving out water in paper cups and offering some drinks in eatable seaweed capsules. They also trialled new bottle belts made from recycled plastic, so 700 runners could carry water bottles with them during their run.
Meanwhile, some people still think running a marathon could be our best foot forward in helping the planet. Dr Andrea Collins from Cardiff University told the BBC: “Training for a marathon makes you more sustainable in day-to-day activities. I started walking or running to work every day. Being environmentally friendly while training kind of sticks with you and becomes a way of life.”
So while you may not be the top runner in a marathon, let’s hope the event, in terms of sustainability, certainly is!
1. What can we know about a marathon from paragraph 1?A.Everyone desires to join in it. | B.Athletes can finish it with ease. |
C.Local governments disapprove of it. | D.It can contribute to charitable causes. |
A.Holding a sustainable event. | B.Raising funds for charities. |
C.Encouraging people to exercise. | D.Recycling old running facilities. |
A.Favorable. | B.Intolerant. | C.Doubtful. | D.Conservative. |
A.Make Marathons Greener | B.How to Run Marathons Properly |
C.Participate in Marathons Actively | D.What Is Left Behind after Marathons |
5 . Buildings, pollution, poor soil, insects, and even car crashes can add to tree loss. However, between 2016 and 2021, the city of Seattle in Washington state was reported to have lost about 255 hectares of tree covering, for which climate change was blamed. Then came the driest summer on Seattle’s record books in 2022. The drier conditions and hotter temperatures have left many trees with brown leaves, naked branches, and extreme seeding. These are all signs of tree stress.
According to Nicholas Johnson, a tree expert for Seattle City Parks, if this warming climate continues we are going to have a lot of trees die. Just like people, under the heat trees get weak.
Researchers from France and Australia studied the effect of hotter temperatures and less rain on more than 3,100 trees and plants in 164 cities across 78 countries. They found about half the trees in the cities were experiencing climate conditions beyond their limits. They also found that by 2050 nearly all trees planted in Australian cities will not survive.
It’s not the gradual change but these extreme swings of too much water, too little water, too much wind, and terrible storms that are going to cause these rapid changes. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina destroyed about 10 percent of the trees in New Orleans, Louisiana. And in 2021, Hurricane Ida uprooted many new tree plantings.
To settle the problem of tree loss, non-native trees have been brought to cities for some time. In the city of Bellevue, Washington, experts are growing different kinds of trees specifically for climate change. On city grounds, they are planting baby giant sequoias, just a few centimeters tall. The giant sequoias are not native to the Pacific Northwest area. But the trees can deal with the lack of rain and insects. Once these trees are established, they grow incredibly fast. Having many different kinds and ages of trees is important to keeping urban forests alive.
“Life always finds a way,” said Nicholas Johnson. “And in Seattle, people are helping life find a way.”
1. What is the first paragraph mainly about?A.The bad condition of trees in Seattle. |
B.The terrible climate in Seattle in recent years. |
C.Natural reasons for tree loss. |
D.The signs of tree stress. |
A.Buildings. | B.Pollution. |
C.Extreme climate. | D.Car crashes. |
A.By improving planting methods. |
B.By changing the kinds of trees. |
C.By treating trees as babies. |
D.By improving the soil quality. |
A.Indifferent. | B.Negative. | C.Skeptical. | D.Positive. |
6 . The students stand on a pier (码头) over the Harlem River in New York City. They stare down into the brown water. Their teacher, Mr. Rodman, pulls a long rope out of the river. Fastened to the end of the rope is a metal cage and inside are oysters (牡蛎). Taking turns, the students measure all the oysters, and then compare notes. The biggest oyster is over 2 inches long, much bigger than a healthy size for its age! They also measure the level of oxygen. As more oysters grow, the water should become clearer and hold more oxygen. Also, other animals should move in.
Oysters are soft-bodied animals, and share the underwater community with plants, fish, and other life. They are food for crabs and other animals. As new oysters grow, they attach their shells to older ones,forming big reefs with many small spaces where other animals live. Oysters eat algae (藻类). If algae grow too fast,they can decrease oxygen from the water-and even fish need oxygen to breathe!
But what happened to the oysters 100years ago in New York Harbor? Before then, lots of oysters lived in these waters. They were shipped to restaurants around the world. By the early 1900s, people were eating them faster than they could grow. Pollution was pouring into the waters. The harbor became seriously polluted. Since the 1970s, new laws have helped reduce poisonous waste. Some fish started to swim through again. But oysters were still missing-until recently.
The Billion Oyster Project began in 2014 to help bring oysters back to New York Harbor. The project has recruited (招募) more than 6,500 students at more than 100 middle schools and high schools to help grow, distribute, and study the oysters.
Finally, the students put the oysters back in the cage. Mr. Rodman lowers the cage into the river. In a few months, they will check the cage again. When the oysters are big enough, they will be moved to join a healthy reef in the middle of the harbor.
1. Why do students come to the pier over the Harlem River?A.To do research. | B.To go fishing. |
C.To buy oysters. | D.To clean up the river. |
A.What oysters are like. | B.How oysters get fed. |
C.Why algae grow fast. | D.What role oysters play. |
A.People’s love of eating oysters boosted their numbers. |
B.More oysters than before lived in waters in the 1900s. |
C.Polluted water was partly to blame for the missing of oysters. |
D.New laws in the 1970s were crucial to oysters’ recovery. |
A.Oysters Raised in New York Harbor |
B.The Harlem River Polluted Heavily |
C.Nature’s Helpful Crew Brought Back |
D.Teacher Devoted to Wildlife Protection |
7 . Introduced species have a bad reputation. It has been believed that the species mix in a particular place should remain as unchanged as possible. But this is just an opinion. Other opinions are possible. A study published recently by Dov Sax of Brown University, thus asks how the benefits of introduced species might be better assessed, so that opinions can be more informed. Specifically, he identifies several aspects for that.
Initially, whether introduced species provide direct human advantage is taken into account. Dr. Sax and his colleagues ignored crops, since their benefits are obvious. But they included transplanted grass species that have gone wild,yet provide grazing(牧草)for domestic animals, and introduced forest trees that produce wood for construction.
Another factor is their possible benefit to the ecosystem into which the introduction has happened. Such introduction is sometimes made to reduce the risk of a localised species becoming extinct. Pyne’s ground plum(李子),native to a handful of sites in the central basins of Tennessee but now transplanted to others, falls into this category.
The last value is experienced on an emotional rather than a practical level. Lots of people feel good about native wildlife, which is generally the main motive for its conservation. But that feel-good factor can extend to introduced species as well. Such value can cut both ways, however. For example, ring-necked parakeets, an Asian and African species, have been spreading through Britain for several decades. Some find them a colourful addition to the local wildlife, others a noisy competitor for native birds.
In light of their analysis, Dr. Sax and his team therefore suggest that researchers studying introduced species should in future create a clear distinction in their studies between changes that have happened and judgments about the value of those changes. In addition, when making those judgments, they should acknowledge all types of values, rather than focusing narrowly on one or two of them.
That done, many species will surely still be accused of possible damage. But others, badly thought of in the past, may not.
1. What is Dr. Sax’s study aimed to do?A.Kecp track of introduced species. |
B.Get introduced species fully understood. |
C.Compare opinions on introduced species. |
D.Identify consequences of introducing species. |
A.To provide graze for local animals. |
B.To produce wood for construction. |
C.To build a new local ecosystem. |
D.To save local species from dying out. |
A.They don’t care about it. |
B.They consider it acceptable. |
C.They can’t put up with it. |
D.They hold divided opinions on it. |
A.Focusing on main values. |
B.Evaluating evident changes. |
C.Analyzing previous researches. |
D.Presenting all-round assessments. |
China on October 12 officially announced the first group of national parks. Home to nearly 30 percent of the key wildlife species found in China, they cover
The
The Three-River-Source National Park
Commercial activities are banned in the national parks and are all put
9 . Coral reefs are the rainforests of the ocean. They exist on vast scales and are equally important havens of biodiversity. Reefs occupy 0.1% of the oceans.
Corals are useful to people. Without the protection which reefs afford from crashing waves, low-lying islands such as the Maldives would have flooded long ago, and a billion people would lose food or income. However, reefs are under threat from rising sea temperatures. Heat causes the algae (海藻) with which corals are living together to generate toxins (毒素) that force those coral to leave.
Research groups around the world are coming up with plans of action to see if that will help, such as identifying naturally heat-resistant corals and cross-breeding such corals to create a new type.
Doubters doubt humanity will get its act together in time to make much difference.
A.This can cause a coral’s death. |
B.But there are grounds for optimism. |
C.And they host a quarter of marine species. |
D.Coral’s global ecosystem services are worth up to $10trn a year. |
E.This mix of natural activity and human intervention is important. |
F.This research can also be brought to bear on trying to save entire ecosystems. |
G.However, the assisted evolution of corals does not meet with universal enthusiasm. |
10 . From Dec 7 to 19, delegates from around the world met at the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (also known as COP15), in Montreal, Canada. After two weeks of intense debate at COP15, delegates agreed on Dec 19 to adopt a landmark plan to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030. “Finally, we reached our destiny. We adopted the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework,” Huang Runqiu, COP15 president and China’s minister of ecology and environment, announced on Dec 19.
The new framework is a commitment by 196 parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity to conserve at least 30 percent of the Earth’s land and ocean area by the next decade. It also will increase the expected annual financial assistance from developed countries through 2030 to help developing nations with biodiversity protection.
The aim of COP15 is to ensure biodiversity loss is changed by 2030, and that humans are able to live in harmony with nature by 2050.To realize these objectives can be very challenging. At COP10 in Nagoya, Japan in 2010, the parties agreed on the 20 Aichi Biodiversity Targets (爱知生物多样性目标). But, as of now, none of the 20 objectives has been fully realized.
It is important to turn consensus into effective actions. Yet, as recent talks have shown, an aspect of effective international action on stopping climate change is the cooperation of developed countries. Developed countries, however, have fallen short of their responsibility as they have failed to fulfill the obligations according to the COP convention to provide funding and technology to poorer nations who lack the means to combat climate change.
To solve this problem, the framework creates a new biodiversity fund within the UN’s existing Global Environment Facility. This came about as a compromise between developing nations, which wanted a new fund, and developed countries, which did not. In addition, a global youth initiative (倡议) was also released, hoping young people to be leaders and advocates for biodiversity conservation.
1. What is the aim of COP15?A.To save at least 30 percent of the Earth’s land and ocean area by next decade. |
B.To stop biodiversity loss and promote harmony between man and nature. |
C.To strengthen the cooperation between developed and developing countries |
D.To provide funding and technology to poorer nations to fight climate change. |
A.To show the parties didn’t fulfill the obligation |
B.To show the objectives were too high to realize |
C.To show it is difficult to realize the objectives of COP 15 |
D.To show Japan didn’t hold the meeting successfully. |
A.Statistic. | B.Emotion. | C.Intervention. | D.Agreement. |
A.International cooperation is important. |
B.A new framework is made in the COP15. |
C.Joint efforts are needed to fight climate change. |
D.Historic COP 15 deals are released on biodiversity. |