1 . Wondering what you can do to celebrate Earth Day on April 22? You’ve come to the right place. We’ve gathered a comprehensive list of Earth Day activities, both fun and environmentally-conscious, to help raise awareness and make a difference. If you’re ready to learn more about joining the global celebration, initiating real change, and doing your part to save our planet, read on!
·Walk or ride your bike.
·Use a refillable water bottle.
Consider going with a stainless-steel refillable bottle for a super long-lasting option.
·Plant a tree.
Pick a tree species that’s native to where you live. If you’re unsure, ask an employee at your local nursery or garden department. Choose the best planting spot to meet the tree’s needs, dig a properly sized hole, and water the tree well to give it a good start.
·Visit a local farmer’s market.
Eating locally grown food is much better for the environment. For example, locally-grown food doesn’t have to be transported long distances to end up on grocery store shelves.
·
See if your community is holding an environmental fair. If your community doesn’t have one planned, consider starting one yourself! It’s the perfect day to get together for a fun and educational celebration of the Earth. Any money raised can go towards a local environmental restoration project or group.
| A．Attend a local Earth Day event. |
| B．Educate your community on environmental awareness. |
| C．Going car-free for the day will reduce harmful carbon emissions. |
| D．That means your money won’t be wasted on unnecessary spending. |
| E．If physically doing this is unrealistic for you, there are other choices! |
| F．Normally, plastic water bottles end up in garbage cans after a single use. |
| G．You’ll also be giving back to your community by supporting local farmers. |
2 . A possible treatment for Florida’s disastrous red tides (赤潮) took another step toward widespread use after successful testing in Sarasota Bay.
This study, led by UCF Assistant Professor of Biology Kristy Lewis, is the first successful test of any red tide treatment technology in open water using large water containers (容器). These containers — about six feet in diameter — extend from the waters’ surface to the ocean floor, allowing scientists to test real ocean conditions within a controlled setting. Four containers were treated with a clay (黏土) solution, while the other four served as a control.
The clay along with the Karenia brevis algae (海藻), which is responsible for Florida red tide, is put on the ocean floor. Lewis has spent the last three years carefully testing the impact of introducing this clay into the ocean ecosystem. She not only looks for changes in the water’s quality, but also wants to know how the clay affects the health of sea life. “We want to make sure the treatment is not worse than the disease,” she says.
At first, the test was simply to measure the influence of the clay on the ecosystem, but an unexpected red tide event caused Lewis to make the test practical. The results suggest the clay performed as expected, but there’s still a question of whether the bad effects of algae remain active on the ocean floor. Water collected during the test should provide an answer. Next steps depend on the test results, but there are already plans to survey what happened to the clay-coated algae when it’s used near seagrass beds.
Visiting Sarasota. Florida, in the middle of a red tide event reminded Lewis just how important the research is to keep the state’s coast healthy. Lewis says she’s prepared to go another three years if that’s what it takes to find an acceptable solution to red tides.
1. What was the purpose of the study?| A．To plant more seagrass. | B．To fight against red tides. |
| C．To collect clean water. | D．To produce containers. |
| A．Her original work plan. | B．An unforgettable tour. |
| C．Her team’s suggestion. | D．An unexpected red tide. |
| A．Work with the locals. | B．Report Florida red tides. |
| C．Further her research. | D．Study seafood industry. |
| A．Nature. | B．Business. | C．Education. | D．Lifestyle. |
3 . Thanks to the 1999 Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, 26 endangered species in Australia have seen their populations recover.
It seems like that we're always hearing about new animals that have become endangered, but there's some good news in Australia: 26 animal species no longer meet the criteria to be listed as threatened. Australia’s biodiversity has been in decline, with more than 1, 700 species and ecological communities known to be on the line. In 1999, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act was passed to introduce protections for endangered animals. The burrowing bettong is one of 26 Australian species that have returned from the edge of extinction.
Seemingly these are working, as a recent study published in the journal Biological Conservation reviewed the animals that were previously or currently listed as threatened between 2000 and December 2022, and discovered that 26 species had recovered to no longer meet the criteria. Species that have seen improvement include the charmingly named burrowing bettong, the golden bandicoot and the bulloo grey grasswren.
Factors behind this improvement include habitat management, control of introduced predators (捕食者) and translocation of endangered animals to predator-free islands. However, the species have not been officially delisted at this time. The EPBC Act only allows species to be delisted if doing so will not have a negative effect on their survival, and researchers believe that conservation gains could be lost should management efforts be stopped.
Dr Michelle Ward, a conservation scientist at WWF Australia, told The Guardian, “The key problem with delisting species is that then they no longer have monitoring and no longer need certain funding plans.”
However, it is promising that researchers have found signs of improvement. Hopefully this will continue among these and other species!
1. What do the underlined words “on the line” in paragraph 2 probably mean?| A．Out of place. | B．At risk. |
| C．Under control. | D．On the increase. |
| A．Some animals are facing extinction. |
| B．Burrowing bettong is a charming species. |
| C．The criteria to be delisted were hard to meet. |
| D．26 endangered species’ populations are recovering. |
| A．their living situation is severe | B．the delisting consequences are uncertain |
| C．the conservation gains are short | D．the habitat management level is poor |
| A．Unconcerned. | B．Doubtful. | C．Positive. | D．Worried. |
4 . Several art projects are on show to warn people of the climate change happening around us.
Video on the walls
Photographer Camille Seaman has traveled to both the North Pole and the South Pole, where she has captured the disappearing ice in photographs and video. Camille Seaman made a video with some of her most powerful photos of melting ice for people in four coastal cities to display on their buildings. The video ends with a prediction that sea level will rise by 2050 without relative action.
Mural (壁画)changing color
Temperatures in Austin, Texas, are on the rise, and climate change will put the city at higher risk of extended drought, wildfires, intense rain and flooding. Artist Lope Gutiérrez-Ruiz designed a unique mural that changes color as it gets hotter. This art work calls for people to change the world and change climate change, underlining the importance of individual actions to the collective future.
Public billboard (广告牌)
Artist Christine Sun Kim released a public billboard on the 710 Freeway called The Sound of Temperature Rising. It points to the reality of climate disaster that has become all too clear on the West Coast and the need for significant change now. The illustration features a graph (图表) of music notes that get progressively longer and redder.
Anti-Extinction Library
Globally, species are disappearing at an unheard-of rate. In response, architect Mitchell Joachim created The Anti-Extinction Library in New York. The sculptural piece is not only beautiful but also functional. Their unique egg-shaped library has a special freezer storing test tubes with the frozen cells and DNA of rare animals and plants. It’s important for people to realize we must quickly work to protect the rights of different species in our area.
1. What is the key feature of the mural?| A．It lights up at night. |
| B．It moves with the wind. |
| C．It plays music when it rains. |
| D．It changes color with temperature. |
| A．Camille Seaman’s. | B．Lope Gutiérrez-Ruiz’s. |
| C．Christine Sun Kim's. | D．Mitchel l Joachim’s. |
| A．To praise artists’ participation. |
| B．To call for people to take action. |
| C．To show the severe result of climate change. |
| D．To facilitate the combination of art and climate. |
My name is Nassra, a second-year student at Tanzania Institute of Accountancy as well as an artist of 22 years old. My journey through art has led me to become
What we usually consider waste may be useful when we think about it in a different light. Discarded (丢弃的) or waste items provide plentiful but largely
In my hands, glass bottles, plastic bags, and other waste items that would otherwise end up
People
6 . Issues such as global warming and sustainability have become passionate concerns for many of the concert industry’s fans and increasingly for the musicians. Coldplay, a pop band whose members scored their first big hit in 2000 with a song called Yellow, announced in November that it wouldn’t go on tour to promote its latest album, Everyday Life, until it could find a way to make concerts more sustainable and greener to the environment.
It’s not always easy to walk the talk. A growing number of artists, including Peggy Gou, have environmental demands built into their contracts when they tour, such as bans on plastic tableware. But there’s almost no way of avoiding carbon emissions produced by a tour, which involves moving hundreds of people and tons of equipment across large distances.
Lisa Pomerantz, who books travel for acts says that real change will require action by venue owners, concert promoters, and the fans. Major acts like Coldplay can afford to stop touring while figuring out how to lessen their environmental impact. But lesser-known artists can’t stay off the road, since streaming earnings haven’t been able to compensate (弥补) for the collapse in CD and downloaded music sales. Even when concerts are aggressive about being more sustainable, the impact of audience travel can easily swamp (淹没) their efforts. For bigger acts, this can represent as much as 80% of the carbon footprint, according to a 2015 study. Another analysis showed that roughly a third of the tour’s carbon footprint came from a venue’s power consumption.
Still, even the most green-conscious bands must balance their desire to be more sustainable against the financial necessity of touring. “I absolutely think you can go on tour and have a concern about the environment. It’s a matter of just keeping our carbon footprint as low as possible,” says Flavian Graber, lead singer of We Invented Paris.
1. Why did Coldplay stop its promotion tour?| A．Because it had already released a hit. | B．Because it wanted a more environmentally friendly concert. |
| C．Because its latest album needed further improvement. | D．Because they could afford the money. |
| A．Make it. | B．Talk it. | C．See it. | D．Appreciate it. |
| A．Stopping bands’ promotion tours. |
| B．Downloading music on the Internet. |
| C．Cutting down venues’ water and electricity consumption. |
| D．Combining efforts of bands, audiences and venue owners. |
| A．Achievable. | B．Fruitless. | C．Challenging. | D．Controversial. |
7 . The impact of fast fashion on the environment is significant. Recently Zara, one of the largest fast-fashion retailers (零售商) in the world, put forth a concept that only sustainable fabrics are used in clothing production. But how can Zara ever be sustainable? They produce around 450 million garments (衣服) a year and release 500 new designs a week, about 20,000 a year. Zara’s fast-fashion model has been so successful it has inspired an entire industry to follow them.
Clothing production doubled from 2012 to 2022. The average consumer bought 60 percent more clothing in 2022 than in 2012, but kept each garment half as long. And less than one percent of all clothing produced globally is recycled.
I spend a lot of time reading the corporate social responsibility reports of large brands and interviewing micro-to-small sized enterprises to see how they approach sustainability. The largest significant difference between them is culture.
Small brands focus on creating a culture of sustainability by using strategies like producing made-to-order, so they are not making more than what is sold. Most small brands are opting to work under, an “anti-fashion calendar”. They choose not to follow the intense seasonal calendar that fashion functions under. They do this because waste is one of their biggest concerns. They also design clothing to be of the highest quality, ensuring durability and longevity, so you may keep it longer.
Fast fashion is a “grow or die” business, and the fast-fashion growth model used by all large companies is predicated on limitless growth. Large global corporate retailers are not seeking to change their fundamental business model or create cultures of sustainability. That would require re-working their entire business structure and ultimately hurt their bottom line.
I would start to believe Zara and other large fashion brands had good intentions to fight climate change if they started to look at how to move away from their continuous offerings of weekly new products. They need to introduce alternative sustainable business model practices. One small step could be to offer repair or tailoring services. Tailoring creates clothes that fit perfectly, subsequently increasing their emotional value, so that we love them and keep them longer.
1. What does the author intend to show with the numbers about Zara in paragraph 1?| A．Zara is not eco-friendly. | B．Zara is popular with consumers. |
| C．Zara is a large fast-fashion retailer. | D．Zara is a success in fashion industry. |
| A．Designing clothing as needed. | B．Designing clothing seasonably. |
| C．Producing clothing as needed. | D．Producing clothing seasonably. |
| A．The fast-fashion retailers. | B．The profits from fast fashion. |
| C．The culture of sustainability. | D．The relationship with consumers. |
| A．How to make consumers love their clothes. |
| B．How to make consumers buy less clothing. |
| C．How large fashion brands offer weekly new products. |
| D．How large fashion brands improve their services. |
Spotted lanternflies (斑点灯笼蝇) are an invasive species. Since 2014, they have been seen all across the eastern United States. The insects are harmful to many plants, and can disturb entire ecosystems. State officials have urged people to kill spotted lanternflies wherever they see them.
When Joy saw the pests in her school courtyard, she thought she had to do something. “I’ve always wanted to take environmental action,” she says, “and show people that no one is ever too small to make a difference.”
So she started a club called Squash (压扁). Its mission is to kill spotted lanternflies around the school. More than 20 students have joined. At first, they trapped the pests in empty water bottles and then squashed them. In a single day, the club managed to kill more than a hundred spotted lanternflies.
Joy wanted to do more. With research, she discovered a plant called milkweed. It’s nutritious for pollinators (传粉昆虫) such as monarch butterflies but poisonous to spotted lanternflies. Joy thought that using milkweed along with the traps made specifically for spotted lanternflies would be a better way to kill them. The issue was that they didn’t have enough money to buy milkweed and the traps.
The kids were hoping to raise money for their school to address the big problem. Their goal was to raise $200, the cost of the equipment needed to kill spotted lanternflies around their school. They got part of the way there, with about $75. They decided to attract more fundraisers. “We discovered that if you find your voice,” Joy says, “you can do much more.”
In May, Joy and other students from Squash gathered in Columbus Park, in New York City. They set up a table with lemonade, cookies, and origami figures for sale. The money will be used to buy milkweed and the traps.
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。
To attract more attention, the students divided their work into various roles.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________As the day progressed, the students’ efforts paid off.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________9 . Let’s say you’re in the far future and you’re looking for evidence of previous civilizations. Where would you look? The first place would be in the rocks. Rocks keep time. Recently, the discovery of rocks made from plastic debris (碎片) in Brazil’s volcanic Trindade Island is sparking alarm. Melted plastic has become twisted with rocks on the island, which researchers say is evidence of humans growing influence over the Earth’s geological cycles.
Plastic rocks have been previously found in various parts of the world. Researchers documented plastiglomerates-rock, sand and other debris fused together by melted plastic-in Hawaii in 2014, for instance. Another human-made and plastic-based rock is pyroplastics. Described in 2019 from the shores of Cornwall in southwest Britain, pyroplastics form from burned plastic waste. In laboratory experiments with white or colored plastic pieces, if burned, the plastic melts and forms a gray or black mass. resembling at first glance a rocky pebble. According to geophysicist Douglas Jerolmack, “all around the world where there’s trash being openly burned in mass quantities, you can imagine there are even larger melted plastic deposits” where plastiglomerate could form.
Plastic pollution making its way into the formation of rocks suggests humans are having an effect on what was previously considered a natural occurrence, said Santos, who along with others is continuing research into plastic pollution on Trindade Island. “This is new and terrifying at the same time, because pollution has reached geology, ”Santos told Reuters. The finding of plastic rocks also suggests, some experts say, that a new geological epoch has begun: The Anthropocene epoch. Regardless of whether this represents a new epoch, Santos said, “the pollution, the garbage in the sea and the plastic dumped incorrectly in the oceans are becoming geological material preserved in the Earth’s geological records.”
The researchers are yet unsure of the environmental impacts of plastic rocks. Burned plastic can contain high concentrations of potentially toxic elements, like lead and chromium, derived from the pigments used to dye the plastic material. Buried in the ground, plastic has the potential to survive millions of years and even enter the geological record.
1. Why does the writer raise a question in the first paragraph?| A．To introduce the text topic. | B．To test the readers’ knowledge. |
| C．To present a study finding. | D．To raise the readers’ awareness. |
| A．They are rarely seen in the rocks. |
| B．They look like rocky pebbles if burned. |
| C．They are white or coloured plastic pieces. |
| D．The more trash is burnt, the more they will be. |
| A．Plastic pollution has greatly changed the formation of rocks. |
| B．The impacts that plastic rocks bring still need some further study. |
| C．Geological materials preserve human’s irresponsible behaviour to environment. |
| D．Buried plastic in the ground is unlikely to survive after entering the geological record. |
| A．Plastic Rocks: The Root of the Environmental Impacts |
| B．Plastic Rocks: The Geological Record of Human Development |
| C．Plastic Rocks: The Markers We’re Laying Down in Deep Time |
| D．Plastic Rocks: The New Geological Materials We’re Unsure of |
10 . In Japan, the new year began with disaster as a 7.5 magnitude earthquake struck the Noto Peninsula (能登半岛) on the country’s western edge on Monday. More than 2,000 active fault lines (断层线) lie beneath Japan, making it one of the most earthquake-prone countries in the world.
Many scientists have long considered earthquake forecasting to be impossible. But given recent improvements in artificial intelligence, some researchers have been studying whether that could change.
Last fall, researchers at the University of Texas at Austin increased such hopes for earthquake prediction with a seven-month trial in China. In all, the algorithm (演算法) successfully forecast 14 earthquakes, each within about 200 miles of its actual epicenter (震中). Meanwhile, it missed one quake and predicted eight that never happened. The trial was part of an international A.I.-design competition, one of a few such events held in recent years to advance earthquake prediction technologies.
Sergey Fomel, a geoscientist at UT Austin and a member of the research team, says in a statement. “We’re not yet close to making predictions for anywhere in the world, but what we achieved tells us that what we thought was an impossible problem is solvable in principle.”
Additionally, machine learning could help detect hidden patterns in data or collect more data to better inform earthquake forecasting, Hutchison writes for MIT Technology Review. For example, some researchers are showing how A. I. might use recordings from a specific seismic site to anticipate an earthquake’s magnitude. One team has built and trained neural networks to predict where aftershocks may occur after an initial strike. And others are using machine learning to identify and extract seismic waves—the vibrations that spread through the earth during tectonic activity (构造活动)—from other noises in the ground.
1. What’s the function of the first paragraph?| A．To explain a concept. | B．To introduce a new topic. |
| C．To supply a summary. | D．To provide an example. |
| A．The recent progress in theories. | B．The use of traditional methods. |
| C．The increasing number of earthquakes. | D．The advancements in artificial intelligence. |
| A．The trial was conducted by Chinese. | B．The algorithm was totally successful. |
| C．A. I. shows promise in earthquake prediction. | D．The A. I. competition only focused on earthquakes. |
| A．Japan’s Vulnerability to Earthquakes | B．Helper in Predicting Earthquakes—A.I. |
| C．The Impossibility of Earthquake Prediction | D．International Efforts to Predict Earthquakes |
