Maria and Peter lived in a coastal city. The greatest pleasure in summer for them was to swim at their local beach after school. But one day they started to lose their enthusiasm for swimming in the waters. More often than not, they would find plastic bags thrown on the beach. Worse sill, as they swam in the water, some plastic bags would float around them and even stick to their legs when they walked to the shore.
They were upset and decided something needed to be done to stop the beautiful sea becoming consumed by waste.One weekend,Maria and Peter brought a big bag to the beach and determined to clean it up. Sweat streamed down from their forehead while they bent down and picked up the plastic bags. To their disappointment, after a day’s hard work, there were still many plastic bags lying on the beach or floating in the water. Going home with aching legs and arms, Maria and Peter were almost defeated by a strong sense of failure.
That night over dinner with their parents, the pair ate silently. Noticing their low spirits, Mother asked gently, “You two looked so down. What happened?”Exchanging glances with Peter, Maria replied in a low voice,“It’s those annoying plastic bags. We tried to clean up but it was just impossible.”Understanding the pair’s disappointment, their father patted them on the back and comforted,”Well, it’s really hard for just two of you to fix such a big problem.”“Just two of us.”complained Maria and Peter, looking at each other.Suddenly, an idea lashed through their minds, their eyes shining with excitement.“Yes,that’s the point! We should make more people aware of the problem and encourage them to take action!” the pair said in chorus.
注意：1.续写词数应为150左右;
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
Quickly finishing their dinner, the pair went upstairs and started planning.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Excited and nervous, they posted the video and article on WeChat.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Each morning, 68-year-old amateur cyclist Cui Yue starts his ride along the Tanglai Canal in Yinchuan, capital of northwest China’s Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region,
The over-2,000-year-old canal that Cui frequents
Along the canal’s 75-km section running through urban Yinchuan, several parks have been built with walking and cycling
Thanks to
3 . Transport is undergoing a massive transformation so it can meet society’s demands for a low- carbon economy. Introducing electric vehicles (EV) and declining gasoline use are helping, but zero-carbon hydrogen can speed up both the transition (转变) and long-term decarbonization of transport.
In the US, transportation produces the largest share of all greenhouse gas emissions (排放) in the economy at 29%, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. More than 90% of transport fuel is petrol based, but if more vehicles used hydrogen, emissions of this kind would plummet.
However, hydrogen is not considered an ideal replacement for gasoline as an engine fuel for cars because it is harder to store safely. And while fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) that turn hydrogen into electricity can compete with EV performance-and even out-compete them on range and refill time, extra energy is needed to produce the hydrogen needed for fuel. Also, finding investment for storage, pipelines and fuel stations is still a challenge for many nations.
Currently, governments worldwide are backing green hydrogen projects to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in heavy industries like freight (货运), steel, and energy storage. But hydrogen transport will need rapid production methods to create the fuel needed for the world’s road fleet.
Thankfully, research is advancing all the time. Nanoscale (纳米级的) thin films are applied to improving the chemical process to rapidly harvest hydrogen from the seawater. The same technology has been successfully used in solar power devices with higher efficiency-to-cost rates. Since hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe and as seawater makes up about 96% of all water on Earth, there is a virtually limitless supply.
Even wastewater and solid waste can create green hydrogen. Researchers at Princeton University are using sunlight to separate hydrogen from industrial wastewater. Chemical plants that currently face high costs for cleaning wastewater could transform it into clean hydrogen supplies.
1. What does the underlined word “plummet” mean in Paragraph 2?| A．Stop. | B．Decrease. | C．Continue. | D．Disappear. |
| A．Ways of storing hydrogen safely. |
| B．Benefits of fuel cell electric vehicles. |
| C．Challenges of using hydrogen as car fuel. |
| D．Differences between gasoline and hydrogen. |
| A．The application of solar power devices. |
| B．The method of identifying water elements. |
| C．The invention. of the water transport system. |
| D．The use of the nanoscale thin-film technology. |
| A．Clean Energy Hydrogen Ready to Take Off |
| B．Traditional Fuels Bound to Reach a Dead End |
| C．How We Can Generate Energy from Hydrogen |
| D．What the Future of Transportation May Be Like |
4 . Microplastics — tiny pieces of plastic waste less than five millimetres long that have been degraded by waves, wind and ultraviolet rays — have been discovered in the deepest oceanic trenches and within the stomachs of the organisms that live there, but we have little idea about where the great majority of them end up. More than eight million tonnes of plastic enters our oceans every year, comprising between 80 and 85 percent of all marine trash, but with inadequate data, there are concerns that these figures could be underestimates.
Currently, most of the data we have on microplastics are accidentally captured by research ships, which use plankton nets to collect marine-microorganism samples. However, researchers Christopher Ruf and Madeline Evans from the University of Michigan have discovered an innovative way to identify and track concentrations of microplastics in the ocean.
The technique relies on NASA’s Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS), a constellation of eight micro-satellites used to predict hurricanes that calculate wind speeds above the ocean by measuring the roughness of surface waters. As the satellites are continuously recording, Ruf and Evans realised that they collect a great deal of additional data. It was while analysing these data that they noticed some differences-times where the surface of the ocean appeared to be much smoother than it should, given the prevailing wind (盛行风) conditions.
Knowing that water isn’t roughened as much when it contains a lot of floating material, Ruf and Evans identified a pattern that linked areas of unusual smoothness and predicted microplastic distributions. They found that the difference between their measurements, and how much rougher the surface would be if winds of the same speed were blowing across clear water, was “highly correlated with the presence of microplastics, and the degree of the difference also correlated with the concentration of the plastics.”
The research reveals that there are seasonal variations,where the concentrations of microplastics tend to be higher in the summer and lower in the winter in a very clean, periodic way, which Ruf explains mirrors the way in which the ocean circulation changes throughout the year. It also confirms, as was previously thought, that rivers are the main source of ocean microplastics.
Raising awareness of the issue of ocean microplastics among the public and politicians is just one of the researchers’ future aims; they are also in conversation with Duteh non-profit The Ocean Cleanup and Finnish clean-technology specialist Clewat, which are interested in using the information to more efficiently target their trash-collection campaigns.
So far, only one year’s worth of data have been processed since CYGNSS was launched in 2016. By looking at a longer time period, Ruf and Evans aim to determine whether the seasonal pattern is repeatable, and whether the concentration of micmplastics in the ocean is getting worse.
1. What is Paragraph 1 mainly about?| A．The limited knowledge about ocean microplastics. |
| B．The harm of ocean microplastics to sea creatures. |
| C．The methods of degrading ocean microplasties. |
| D．The previous research on ocean microplasties. |
| A．has offered data about the repeatable seasonal pattern |
| B．guides research ships to gather data about sea animals |
| C．provides unexpected data about the changes of sea surface |
| D．was designed to measure the distribution of ocean microplastics |
| A．Microplastics will end up in the stomachs of the ocean organisms. |
| B．Mlicroplastics play a vital role in the yearly ocean circulation changes. |
| C．The surface of the ocean can get smoother with more microplastics in it. |
| D．The new way of tracking microplastics has helped prevent ocean pollution. |
| A．To introduce the technology of CYGNSS. |
| B．To present a way to study ocean microplastics. |
| C．To test an assumption on ocean microplastics. |
| D．To propose a new means of protecting the ocean. |
5 . For the past two months, Mandy Chen, a second-year student at Beijing University of Technology, has been posting photos of herself to Taobao, posing with a reusable cup, climbing stairs and switching off lights.
After seven days of posting her photos, Chen exchanged the points for a dozen of biodegradable rubbish bags from Taobao. Everyone can get an endless supply of free trash bags if they keep going, according to Chen.
Chen uses Carbon88, a platform launched last August by Alibaba Group Holding, to help the more than 800 million users on Taobao adopt a sustainable lifestyle. The platform rewards users for over 70 low-carbon behaviours.
| A．It encourages them to reduce their carbon footprint. |
| B．And her efforts to save electricity prevented 65.50 grams. |
| C．It’s a valuable addition to current carbon-reduction policies. |
| D．Carbon reduction has helped increase Chen’s environmental awareness. |
| E．Within minutes, she receives a dozen points from the app as a reward. |
| F．They range from taking public transport to shopping of second-hand items. |
| G．She is now saving points for something better, like snacks and water bottles. |
6 . Many news reports focus on climate change these days. Extreme heat, wildfires, floods, homeless polar bears... How do you feel when reading worrying news about climate change? You may believe that people are becoming insensitive to the warming planet, accepting that it is only getting worse.
A research team at Pennsylvania State University, US, reported otherwise. To record how the news can impact people’s emotions, participants were first exposed to negative news stories about climate change for three days. They then continued to read negative news headlines for seven days. In the first three days, the participants experienced greater fear and less hope, which can potentially hurt an audience’s belief that they can do anything to tackle the problem.
However, during the seven-day-long exposure, the fear peaked and then held steady (稳定的). “We saw the opposite pattern in our second study. The more exposure people had to these threatening news stories each day, the more likely they are to think that they can make a difference in tackling climate change,” Christofer Skurka, the paper’s lead author told the Pennsylvania State University website.
According to the researchers, one possibility is that when the public hears about climate change threats, they may convince themselves that they have control over the situation. They will then believe that their actions may make a difference.
Knowing that everyone is able to help is only the first step. According to a study that analyzed information from 430 different studies, what motivates people the most to change their behavior is social comparison. For example, if a person’s neighbors follow a low-carbon lifestyle, such as driving electric cars, the person may feel social pressure and become more likely to follow this behavior. This happens because people usually judge their own behavior and follow social norms (规范). Another effective motivation is providing financial rewards to consumers, helping them save money.
“There are so many routes to our goals,” Matthew Goldberg, the co-author of the study, told Scientific American. As Goldberg pointed out, future research like this can help policymakers decide how best to encourage people to ward more climate-friendly habits.
1. How did the participants react to negative news in the second study?| A．They found the news unbelievable. |
| B．They lost hope in tackling climate change. |
| C．They experienced greater fear for the future. |
| D．They felt a strong sense of social responsibility. |
| A．Effective policy. | B．Healthy lifestyle. |
| C．Social influence. | D．Financial support. |
| A．Responses to climate change education. |
| B．T he effectiveness of community initiatives. |
| C．T he impact of social norms on environment. |
| D．Ways to encourage climate-friendly behavior. |
| A．Doubtful. | B．Optimistic. | C．Objective. | D．Indifferent. |
It was a lovely spring morning in the mountains of my home. Here was full of natural atmosphere. The sky was blue, the sun was warm, and the air was fresh. As driving along the winding road, I could see thousands of wild flowers in bloom. When I turned round, I slowed down as I saw some volunteers picking up garbage along the side of the road. I just smiled as I saw them doing some cleaning in spring for Mother Earth and my mind suddenly floated back in time to another spring morning long ago.
When my children were younger, I used to walk along a small route around the lake near my home. It was also on a spring morning that I noticed much garbage lying along the route. The next day, I brought a big garbage bag and started to slowly pick up the garbage along my way. All kinds of deserted objects lay all over the floor. There were pop cans, plastic water bottles, wrappers for candy bars, empty chip bags, pieces of broken fishing line and even an old shoe. Every time I stopped, I picked up a piece of garbage. And I even fished some garbage out of the edge of the water. By the time I circled the lake, the garbage bag had been nearly full.
Tired but happy, I put the bag in an empty garbage can. I stopped before I headed home and took one last look at the lake as the sun set. It looked more beautiful than ever and I felt like the angels were looking down upon it with me and sharing my smiles.
I always think that at times this world’s problems can seem overwhelming and you may wonder what you can do to make a difference. But the truth is that every good thing you do matters a lot! I do believe every time I stop to pick up a single piece of garbage, I can make a difference. As my children are adults now, I decide to spend more time protecting the environment.
注意：1.续写词数应为150左右；
2.请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
I begin to encourage others to develop the environmental awareness.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Many days have passed, and the surroundings have improved a lot.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
8 . In the three decades since Darah Lady’s grandmother first arrived in this distant area of northern Brazil, clearing the forest by hand to build a house for her 14 children, the family has pushed deeper and deeper into the Amazon. It has been driven by a saying that good fortune comes when nature gives in to human control.
Yet their growing community there could ruin not only their children’s future but also that of the entire planet. More global pandemics (流行病) are on the way, scientists say, and the next one is likely to crop up from a community like Darah Lady’s, where people are taking up more and more space of the natural world and erasing the buffer zone (缓冲区) between themselves and habitats that existed long. As people cut down forest, they not only speed up the global warming but also greatly increase their risk of exposure to disease.
Scientists also say disease hot zones are expanding from Africa to South America, and that deforestation has already led to a rise in spreading disease. Zoologists have found that a third of all known disease outbreaks around the world were due to rapid land use change.
Darah Lady’s community of Maruaga is filled with risks for the spread of viruses (病毒). Their family has already battled zoonotic illnesses — the term used to describe diseases spread between animalsand humans.
When 40% of a land area has been destroyed, according to Tom Gillespie, a university researcher, the region hits a sort of tipping point: Wild animals are pushed closer to humans for food, and viruses begin to spread.
Darah Lady seemed to notice the slight dfference of deforestation. “I get kind of sad,” Darah Lady said, “Because the forest is something I’ve loved since I was little. And they are deforesting, right? It’s destroying nature.”
1. What do you know about Darah Lady?| A．She built a house for her 14 children. |
| B．She made a big fortune in Amazon. |
| C．Her family cut down trees for growing crops. |
| D．Her family lived in Amazon for decades. |
| A．The loss of the buffer zone. |
| B．The effect of global warming. |
| C．The lack of species variety. |
| D．The expansion of wildlife habitats. |
| A．A possible treatment for diseases. |
| B．A real example of the prevention of diseases. |
| C．A further explanation of the spread of diseases. |
| D．A supporting evidence for the danger of diseases. |
| A．Entertainment. | B．Design. |
| C．Education. | D．Environment. |
9 . The impact of the man-made climate crisis on Antarctica is scientifically undeniable: stable ice shelves are retreating, air temperature increased by 3 degrees Celsius. krill(磷虾)numbers are declining, melting ice is contributing to sea level rise, and polar bears and seals are getting displaced. “Antarctic biodiversity could decline substantially by the end of the century if we continue with business as usual.” Jasmine Rachael Lee, lead author of the University of Queensland study says.
Published in the journal PLOS Biology, the study finds population declines are likely for 65% of the continent’s plants and wildlife by the year 2100. The most vulnerable(脆弱的)species is the Emperor penguins. In October 2022, the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service listed Emperor penguins as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act(ESA), as experts predict the flightless seabird will see a 26% to 47% dip in its population by 2050. “This listing reflects the growing extinction crisis and highlights the importance of the ESA and efforts to conserve species before population declines become irreversible(不可逆转).” said Service Director Martha Williams at the time.
Aside from Emperor penguins, other Antarctic specialists, like the Adélie penguin and dry soil nematodes, were also highly vulnerable. We urgently need a combination of global and local conservation action to best conserve Antarctic species. Global action and global voices to help relieve climate change—because the biggest threat to Antarctica is coming from outside of it. And then we need local actions to help protect biodiversity against local threats and give them the best chance of adapting to climate changes. This will help to save our iconic(代表性的)species like the Emperor penguins and all of Antarctica’s unique and highly adapted inhabitants. It will also help humankind, as we rely heavily on the priceless services the Antarctic provides in regulating our climate and capturing sea level in its ice sheets.
1. What can we learn from Paragraph 1?| A．The impact of climate crisis is usually denied. |
| B．Conservation efforts are badly needed. |
| C．Air temperature on Antarctic increases 3℃ annually. |
| D．Sea level rise results in seabirds losing their habitats. |
| A．To serve as a call to protect wildlife on Antarctic |
| B．To reflect the growing population of wild species. |
| C．To prove the effectiveness of the Endangered Species Act. |
| D．To highlight the severe impact of rising temperature. |
| A．Reducing the chances of making a trip to Antarctic. |
| B．Making joint efforts to relieve climate change. |
| C．Attempting to provide essential nutrients to the ecosystem. |
| D．Continuing to carry forward the Endangered Species Act. |
| A．Plants and Wildlife on Antarctica Will Decline Quickly |
| B．Antarctic Species Are Vulnerable to Human Threats |
| C．More Action Should Be Taken to Protect Wildlife on Antarctica |
| D．The Best Conservation Strategy Will Be Carried Out Soon |
10 . Microplastic pollution is increasing greatly around the globe, according to a study of plastic particles (微粒)carried in the air.
People are already known to breathe, drink and eat microplastics, and research suggests that pollution levels will continue to rise rapidly. The researchers said that breathing in these particles can be harmful to lung tissue and lead to serious diseases.
Professor Natalie Mahowald, at Cornell University in the US and part of the research team, said, “ But maybe we could solve this before it becomes a huge problem, if we manage our plastics better, before they accumulate in the environment and move around everywhere.”
The research, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Acadenry of Sciences, examined airborne (空气传播的)microplastics, which have been far less studied than plastics in oceans and rivers.
The team gathered more than 300 samples of airborne microplastics from 11 sites across the western US. These were the basis for atmospheric modeling that estimated the contribution from different sources (来源),and it was the first such study to do so.
They found that roads were the main factor (因素)in the western US, linked to about 85% of the microplastics in the air. These are likely to include particles from tires and brake pads on vehicles, and plastics from litter that had been broken down.
The researchers extended their modeling work to a global level and this suggested that while roads are also likely to be the major driver of airborne plastics in Europe, South America and Australia, plastic particles blown up from fields may be a much bigger factor in Africa and Asia.
Professor Andreas Stohl of the University of Vienna’s Faculty of Earth Sciences said, “The study confirms the global-scale (全球规模的)nature of microplastic transport in the atmosphere and does a good job in highlighting highly relevant and concerning possibilities, but more measurement data is needed to get a better idea of the sources.”
1. What can be known about microplastic pollution from this text?| A．The particles can do great harm to our lungs. |
| B．Airborne microplastics have been widely studied. |
| C．It has become the most pressing environmental problem. |
| D．There is less plastic in the air than in oceans and rivers. |
| A．Its results differ across many continents. |
| B．Africa and Asia are suffering most from it. |
| C．Roads and fields are largely to blame for it. |
| D．It spreads fast from one continent to another. |
| A．To predict the potential damage of microplastics. |
| B．To understand the nature of microplastic pollution. |
| C．To improve the method of collecting samples of microplastics. |
| D．To collect more data to understand the sources of microplastics. |
| A．Effects of microplastics on human health |
| B．Microplastic pollution on the global scale |
| C．Possible solutions to microplastic pollution |
| D．Microplastic pollution rising quickly in the air |
