2 . In a time when climate change becomes a more pressing issue, we sometimes may fail to realize that individual contributions have a huge effect on the big problem. Fortunately, there are some apps which can help the environment with the click of a button.

Happy Cow (Free)

Buying and selling secondhand is a more responsible and environmentally friendly way to consume and part of the solution to reducing the carbon emission (碳排放) of mass production. This app helps users anywhere in the world make a little extra money from things they no longer need and moreover, how good it is to find that hidden treasure at a great price!

My Footprint (Free)

Created by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), this handy app provides you with a wealth of detail on the latest facts and information on climate change issues as well as enabling you to track your carbon footprint and see how different areas of your life contribute to this. With this knowledge, you can then take part in challenges of your choice to help reduce your footprint.

Too Good To Go (Free)

With the aim of reducing the masses of food waste from shops and restaurants, this app helps to connect users with local businesses that have unsold produce to be collected for a small part of the cost. The app is the most direct way for you to get involved-all you have to do is search, place your order and go to pick it up!

Good On You ($ 2.99)

This app is a must-have that gives you the power to check the influence of brands (品牌) on issues that mean most to you. With more than 3,000 brands currently listed, and the option to request others to be added in time, this is a handy source of environment-friendly shopping information.

1. Which app can record the environmental impact of your daily life?

A．Happy Cow.

B．My Footprint.

C．Too Good To Go.

D．Good On You.

2. What can Good On You be used for?

A．Collecting users’ opinions about fashion.

B．Providing the latest shopping information.

C．Recommending the most fashionable brand.

D．Publicizing the brands’ environmental impact.

3. What feature do the apps share?

A．They are free of charge.	B．They prevent food waste.
C．They contribute to green life.	D．They help users save money.

5 . A United Nations group of experts predicted that global warming would reach extreme levels by the early 2030s. The likely result: ever-worsening weather disasters and related events—hunger, extinction of some plant and wildlife species and the spread of infectious diseases.

There is still time to avoid these disasters, but the window for action is closing quickly. Yet the reality is, few countries are on track to meet their existing goals to address climate change. Luckily, there is one bright note in this otherwise black picture: individual innovators are stepping up to try to find solutions to fight climate crisis using technology in new and creative ways.

When Beth began working in the fashion industry, she was disappointed to find that many makers tended to largely guess what people would actually buy. As a result, companies overproduced clothes, creating needless waste and environmental pollution.

To reduce unsold products and material waste in the fashion industry, in 2015, Beth began her own company, Unspun, which seeks solutions by making on-demand custom clothing tailored to a buyer’s body using a 3D-body scan. “We will never make clothes before they have a home.” said Beth. Its self-developed 3D-weaving(编织) machine enables customisation using a body scanner.

Unspun launched its first 3D woven items using the innovative tech last year. Since then, the company has produced thousands of pairs of pants, hats, bags in a test run for a large European retailer(零售商).

Unspun doesn’t intend to keep its novel production technique to itself. The company is in the process of building microsites around the world to localize 3D weaving production. For example, the company has set up its office in Hong Kong with a focus on business development, marketing and customer services. “Our goal is to reduce the global human carbon footprint by 1 percent, and the only way to realistically get there is to become a platform, working with forward-thinking brands (品牌) to collectively cleanup the industry,” says Beth.

1. What does the underlined words “bright note” in paragraph 2 refer to?

A．Experts’ prediction.	B．Individual contribution.
C．The window for action.	D．A new technology.

2. The company “Unspun” was setup to________.

A．avoid blind production	B．promote the sales of clothing
C．produce 3D-weaving machines	D．take the lead in the fashion industry

3. What is the author’s purpose in mentioning Hong Kong?

A．To test out3D-weaving machine.

B．To stress its commercial advantages.

C．To show an application of Beth’s idea.

D．To illustrate the significance of teamwork.

4. What can be a suitable title for the text?

A．Beth: Rising to Fame Overnight

B．Unspun: Weaving Clothes With Zero Waste

C．Global Warming: Issuing a Warning to Earth

D．3D-weaving Machine: Hitting the Market Soon

6 . Why is the man feeling so hot?

A．The sun is shining stronger.

B．His car is giving off too much heat.

C．There is more pollution in the air.

7 . The effects of noise can reach organisms (生物体) without ears. Because of the way living things rely on each other, noise pollution may actually stop some forests from growing, a new study suggests. In a New Mexico woodland of pine trees, researchers found far fewer tree seedlings (小苗) in noisy sites than they did in quiet ones.

The study area is dotted with gas wells, some of which are quiet and some of which have compressors (压缩机) that create a constant noise. This allowed Jennifer Phillips, a behavioral ecologist at Texas A&M University-San Antonio and her colleagues to compare sites that were similar except for noise level. In areas that had been noisy for at least 15 years, the researchers found only about 13 pine seedlings, compared with 55 pine seedlings per hectare (公顷) in quiet areas.

The differences in plant growth were probably caused by changes in animal behavior, said Phillips. For example, noise might drive away certain pollinators (传粉昆虫) such as bees, bats and moths. In the case of pine trees, the problem was likely a lack of animals to disperse seeds. Pines depend on birds to carry their seeds away from the parent tree, and birds are known to avoid noise. The differences between the sites aren’t yet obvious to someone walking through them, said Sarah Termondt, a botanist (植物学家) with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service who helped conduct the study. That’s probably because pines are slow-growing, with most of the mature trees in such woodlands being over a century old.

The study raises questions about the future of the area. “If the noise stays there long term, are we going to lose this important ecosystem of the pine which supports so much wildlife?” said Phillips. The study was published today in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society.

1. What does the new study focus on?

A．The influence of noise pollution on plants.

B．The way the organisms receive noise.

C．The harm of noise pollution to insects.

D．The effects of noise pollution on humans .

2. What can be learned from paragraph 2 and 3?

A．Gas wells dotted in the area provide favorable conditions for the study.

B．The study sites are different in many ways including their noise level.

C．It is difficult for plants to live without noise and animals.

D．People can easily find the difference between the noisy and the quiet sites.

3. What does the underlined word “mature” in paragraph 3 mean?

A．Seedling.	B．Thin.
C．Grown-up.	D．Tall.

4. What does Phillips mean by saying the words in the last paragraph?

A．Noise pollution is obviously a trouble that can be avoided.

B．Noise pollution could be a threat with the power to change ecosystems.

C．The pine forest is important because it supports so much wildlife.

D．Wildlife should be well protected for the future of this area.

8 . Re-purposing diapers to make building materials would reduce the amount of garbage that goes to a landfill. It could also make homes more affordable. Maybe giving used diapers a new use could help tackle both problems.

Building material—especially those that are used for strengthening structures — are often expensive. They’re often the biggest hurdle to making homes affordable. So researchers have previously investigated unusual materials that could save costs. These materials included many that would otherwise pile up as waste, such as fly ash.

“There is a big need in developing countries such as the Southeast Asian nation, Indonesia. There, demand for low-cost housing outstrips what’s available. The number of people in Indonesia’s cities has climbed by about 4 percent per year in the last 30 years. By 2025, more than two-thirds of Indonesians are expected to live in urban areas. Indonesia’s population boom is intensifying the demand for housing,” says Siswanti Zuraida, an environmental engineer in Indonesia.

“Despite the need for more affordable housing, there are significant problems that stand in the way of adopting diapers,” Zuraida says. Used diapers contain wood pulp, cotton and plastic, which are potentially useful building materials. Diapers plastic components would have to be separated from the organic fibers, a complicated recycling process currently available only in developed nations. And Indonesia’s building regulations restrict together-materials to bricks, wood, steel and concrete (which is used to hold bricks together) — materials that also bear a high cost in terms of carbon emissions.

But reusing diapers might not be that environmentally friendly, especially on a large scale. “It’s tricky to separate dirty diapers from waste and disinfect them. So it would take a lot of energy to recycle diapers. It’s maybe worthwhile to start thinking about ways to replace single-use diapers with something less frequently thrown away,” says Christof Schrofl, a chemist who works at Technische Universität Dresden in Germany.

1. Which statement describes the idea of re-purposing diapers best?

A．No pains, no gains.	B．Waste not, want not.
C．Kill two birds with one stone.	D．Great minds think alike.

2. What is the meaning of the underlined word in Paragraph 2?

A．Phase

B．Barrier.

C．Goal.

D．Advantage.

3. What can be inferred from the fourth paragraph?

A．It is illegal to use diapers as building material in Indonesia.

B．Making building materials has little effect on climate warming.

C．The plastic components in diapers can make buildings stronger.

D．Developed countries have difficulty separating organic fibers on diapers.

4. What is Schrofl’s attitude towards reusing diapers?

A．Indifferent

B．Supportive.

C．Admiring.

D．Objective.

9 . Aristotle was among the first thinkers to become interested in the red snow on Mount Parnassus in the 4th century BC. The Greek philosopher owed the colour to hairy worms living in freezing conditions at high altitude. The phenomenon has puzzled scientists ever since. Now a team of French researchers find that snow is getting redder all the time.

The red is indeed produced by organisms in the snow - not by hairy worms, but by microalgae(微藻类)that inhabit ecosystems up to 3, 000 metres above sea level. The microalgae that are green and invisible in the winter become loaded with pigments(色素)in the summer which protect them from the sun, turning the snow reddish. It's when the sun's rays become strong that the microalgae create a protective layer of red molecules(分子) that are like a sun cream.

The researchers say on their website, “The appearance of ‘red snows’ seems to be more and more frequent at high altitudes, as well as in the Arctic and Antarctic regions.” One explanation for the spread of red snows could be global warming, the scientists say. Microalgae capture carbon dioxide when exposed to light, turning it into organic matter and placing it at the foundation of ecosystems in soil, water and snow. With climate change, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is increasing. “It is therefore expected that certain microalgae respond positively to this increase, behaving as markers of climate change,” the website says.

Yet scientists are unsure about what impact the microalgae have on melting glaciers and snow. They suspect that because the red pigments absorb the heat they are accelerating environmental change. “Even if it is fantastic to see microalgae developing in the snow, one of the consequences is... the disappearance of their environment,” the researchers added.

1. What caused the red snow according to the Greek philosopher?

A．High altitude.	B．A kind of worms.
C．The microalgae.	D．The freezing conditions

2. Why do the microalgae turn red in the summer?

A．To generate a sun cream.

B．To be loaded with pigments.

C．To attract people's attention.

D．To defend themselves from the sun.

3. What can we learn about the red snow in paragraph 3?

A．It can contribute to global warming.

B．It can indicate the rise of carbon dioxide.

C．It increases carbon dioxide in ecosystems.

D．It disappears from the Arctic and Antarctic regions.

4. Which of the following is a suitable title for the text?

A．Red snow sends a warning.

B．Microalgae grow in red snow.

C．Microalgae stand climate change.

D．Red snow dances at high altitude.