1 . An earthquake is literally an earth-shattering experience! There you are enjoying an afternoon nap, having a cup of coffee in the morning, or even sleeping on a cold winter night when —WHAM! —the entire crockery (陶器) shelf collapses, and all the plates and cups break into pieces. A painting on the wall nearly knocks you down as it falls.
What should one do in an earthquake? The prime-time (黄金时间的) news gives no warning, nor is there a time of year, like the monsoon (风) season, when an earthquake always occurs. Unlike a tornado or hurricane, there is no known way of predicting an earthquake.
Though about 500, 000 earthquakes occur each year, only 100 of them cause damage! However, an earthquake can strike any time of the day or night, so it needs to be prepared for when you have the misfortune of being caught in the middle of one.
If you’re indoors, stay indoors, unless you’re on the ground floor, where you can easily run outside. The best thing to do if you’re indoors is to hide under a strong piece of furniture like a bed or desk. Do not head for the stairway if you’re living on an upper storey, because stairways can collapse.
If you’re driving, get out of traffic and stop on a wide and open road. Do not stop on a bridge, or in another case, under one. Stay inside your car until the shaking stops. Before you restart driving, look out for fissures (裂缝), breaks in the road, and bumps or cracks. Inside your home, be careful not to turn on the gas until you’re sure the cylinder (气罐) is safe, and there is no leak.
Avoid using your telephone unless there’s an emergency. You could be occupying lines that are needed by other people. Lastly, if you’re not trapped or seriously hurt, do not expect fire fighters, army or police to help you. They may be busy rescuing people in greater need than you!
1. What does the underlined word mean in the first paragraph?| A．worthwhile | B．amazing | C．endangered | D．earthshaking |
| A．No better way has been found to predict earthquakes yet. |
| B．The monsoon season disorders because of global warming. |
| C．The prime-time news can not receive timely information. |
| D．Earthquakes are accompanied by hurricanes or tornadoes. |
| A．On the rooftop. | B．Under the stairway. |
| C．Under a table. | D．In a wardrobe. |
| A．Hurry up to get out of the car. | B．Park away from the bridges. |
| C．Call the police for help at once. | D．Turn on gas pipe immediately. |
2 . A recent report revealed that, in the US alone, 27 million tons of plastic ended up in landfills in 2018, but only 3. 1 million tons were recycled. Worldwide the numbers are similarly bad, with just 9% of plastic being recycled. The statistics are even worse for certain types of plastic. For example, out of 80,000 tons of polystyrene(聚苯乙烯) containers generated in the United States, only a small amount (less than 5,000 tons) was recycled.
Now, researchers at The University of Queensland have found a species of worm with an appetite for polystyrene could be the key to plastic recycling on a mass scale. The superworm can eat through polystyrene, thanks to a bacterial enzyme(酶) in their gut. To study how superworms react to purely plastic food, researchers broke up 135 of the creatures into three teams: one was fed only wheat bran(麸皮), another was fed only plastics, and the third was given nothing.
“We found the bran-fed worms have been significantly healthier than the plastic-fed or starved worms, more than doubling their weight over the three weeks they have been monitored. Though the plastic-fed worms made less impressive gains, they still put on more weight than the starved worms,” Dr. Rinke said.“This suggests the worms can get energy from plastics, most likely with the help of their gut microbes.”
Researchers used a technique called metagenomics to find several encoded enzymes with the ability to degrade(降低) polystyrene. The long-term goal is to engineer enzymes to degrade plastic waste in recycling plants.
“Superworms are like mini recycling plants, eating the polystyrene and then feeding it to the bacteria in their gut,”Dr. Rink e said. It’s hoped this bio-upcycling will promote plastic waste recycling and reduce landfills. Researchers said they aim to grow the gut bacteria in the lab and further test its ability to degrade polystyrene. Then they can look into how to upscale this process to a level required for an entire recycling plant.
1. What problem do the statistics in paragraph 1 indicate?| A．Landfills are poorly managed. |
| B．It takes a long time for plastic waste to break up. |
| C．Many plastic containers are of poor quality. |
| D．The rate of recycled plastics are very low. |
| A．By making a comparison. | B．By collecting data. |
| C．By introducing a concept. | D．By referring to a previous study. |
| A．Superworms could survive on only eating polystyrene. |
| B．Superworms showed little interest in wheat bran. |
| C．Plastic-fed worms had an obvious increase in weight. |
| D．Bran-fed worms had a longer lifespan than plastic-fed worms. |
| A．Conduct experiments on other worm species. |
| B．Improve gut bacteria's ability to degrade plastics. |
| C．Raise superworms on a mass scale to solve plastic pollution. |
| D．Apply the bio-upcycling technology to recycling plants. |
| A．Air pollution. | B．Garbage sorting. | C．Endangered species. |
4 . I grew up in a remote mountain town in the Philippines. My family led a fairly idyllic life, raising goats and growing vegetables and fruits. My brothers and I would play in the nearby river and mountains, reading and doing all the fun things in the nature without worries.
Later I went to college abroad, and I would go back about once a year to visit. That’s when I started to notice changes in my hometown. I watched the river turn from clear to brown to black. Houses and farms replaced the trees. There was smog, and plastic garbage piled up. Seeing my childhood home go from a clean mountain town to a deforested, polluted, and overcrowded place really impacted me. Over time, I began to see my hometown as a place of unsustainable development.
While I worked on addressing deforestation with the United Nations in Indonesia, I vividly remembered seeing forests burned into black landscapes as far as the eye could see. Experiences like that have both terrified me and lit a fire within me to work harder. Thankfully, I began to see that there is another path. I saw success stories in places I worked-Indonesia, Costa Rica, Ecuador-places that are investing in nature and changing the culture and the mindset of what development looks like. I saw places realizing not only economic benefits-from, say, tourism—but also more benefits of ecosystem services.
The work of WWF and other organizations is critical in promoting success stories according to their local context. Each community, region, and country is different, so solutions must meet their different needs. Coming from a rural community in a developing country gave me a clear outlook on addressing ecology and sustainability issues and is something I carry with me in my work.
1. What does the underlined word “idyllic” in paragraph I mean?| A．Simple and peaceful. | B．Busy and noisy. |
| C．Quiet and boring. | D．Tough and tiring. |
| A．Smog and garbage in the city. |
| B．Beautiful rivers in different colors. |
| C．Houses and farms in foreign countries. |
| D．Damaged environment in his hometown. |
| A．Success stories he learned. | B．Economic benefits from tourism. |
| C．Some disasters he witnessed. | D．Slow development of his hometown. |
| A．Communities are faced with common challenges. |
| B．People have different outlooks on rural development. |
| C．Ecology issues should be addressed locally and differently. |
| D．Organizations play the most important role in sustainability. |
5 . According to the World Food Program, one third of the food of the world is lost or wasted. It’s up to some 1.3 billion tons every year, worth about $1 trillion. Moreover, a report in 2021 Sugests that 8 to10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions (排放) are associated with wasting food.
“For our parents and the older generations,‘clearing your plate’ is more about saving some food for a rainy day.”Liu Jichen, founder and CEO of Clear Plate, an anti-food wasting program, told us.
The idea for Clear Plate came to Liu after one dinner at a restaurant in late 2017. The customers who finished all the food they’d ordered would be given a card, and then they could exchange their cards for rewards. “Yet it was limited to one restaurant’s actions, so I thought, why not try it on a larger scale (规模)? And how?” Liu wondered. And then he teamed up with some of his friends,founded a startup and developed the Clear Plate applet.
“The Clear Plate team is trying to deal with the issue (问题) of food waste. After a meal, users of WeChat take photos of their clean plates, post these on WeChat, collect points, and then exchange their points for gifts or charity donations,” Liu explained.
Starting in 2018, Clear Plate has now more than 4.3 million users with about 45 million participations in anti-food wasting actions, reducing food waste by 1,700 tons and carbon emissions by 6,600 tons. Liu’s determination represents a small change of the Chinese lifestyle and more people are turning toward a healthier, greener and more low-carbon lifestyle.
1. How much food of the world is wasted every year according to the World Food Program?| A．About 1 billion tons. | B．About 1.3 billion tons. |
| C．About 8 billion tons. | D．About 10 billion tons. |
| A．A plate. | B．A point. | C．A photo. | D．A card. |
| A．In 2016. | B．In 2017. | C．In 2018. | D．In 2021. |
| A．The program Clear Plate. |
| B．The World Food Program. |
| C．The world food wasting. |
| D．An introduction to WeChat. |
The 1975 film Jaws was a great success,
7 . Walking along any beach in the world, you will find plastic of some kind on the shoreline, offering a reminder of the throwaway culture of the present day world. Now, a study has sounded a fresh warning on the damage caused to the marine (海洋的) ecosystem due to plastics, which eventually has an effect on human health due to the seafood we eat
In a paper titled “A Growing Plastic Smog”, researchers called on governments around the world to take firm action to handle the “plastic pollution” of the world's oceans.
The plastics break down over time into minute particles(微小颗粒) that cannot be seen by eyes, but find their way into the ocean ecosystem and into the seafood humans consume. “Microplastics are a problem because they are mistaken for food and eaten by small marine animals.” Charlene Trestrail said. “Once eaten, microplastics can damage an animal’s intestines(肠), and give out potentially harmful chemicals inside animals.”
Charlene Trestrail, a researcher at the University of Technology Sydney, said “the study shows just how big the problem is and that much of the blame was placed on the plastics industry for failing to recycle or design for recyclability.”
Paul Harvey, an environmental scientist, said “Globally, we have reached a point where we can no longer ignore the plastic pollution pandemic(流行病) that is infecting our oceans. This research shows us that beach cleanups and citizen science projects that focus on the environmental problems of plastics have little impact on solving the problem.”
Marcus Eriksen, lead author of the study, said that the findings were a “stark warning that we must act now at a global scale”. “Cleanup is useless if we continue to produce plastic at the current/rate, and we have heard about recycling for too long, while the plastic industry refuses any commitments to buy recycled material or design for recyclability. It is time for policymakers, governments and businesses to wake up and take the issue seriously.”
1. What is the third paragraph mainly about ?| A．The effect of chemicals. | B．The harm of microplastics. |
| C．The food of marine animals. | D．The breakdown of microplastics. |
| A．Plastics industry. | B．Government. | C．Tourists. | D．Cleaners |
| A．Useful. | B．Negative | C．Positive | D．Indifferent |
| A．The tendency of plastic pollution. |
| B．The bad effects of plastic pollution. |
| C．The measures to deal with plastic pollution. |
| D．The reason for plastic pollution in the ocean. |
8 . Ms Yuting Zhou is an early-career environmental advisor working on industrial wastewater pollution management, In her work, she’s learning about an important type of environmental pollution, and finding ways to help companies manage water resources better.
When we asked Yuting how old she was when she got interested in environmental problems, we were surprised by her response. “I must have been about six years old. I used to watch an American TV series about an environmentalist Superhero named Captain Planet.”
There is one serious pollution event somewhere in the world. The concern about environmental issues deeply influenced Yuting. But how does one prepare to be a “Superwoman”? For Yuting, it came down to a reflection on what she might be good at — in her case, the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) subjects-and making considered choices in her education.
She began to study environmental engineering, and found a passion for the subject. “During my graduate studies.” I researched different kinds of health effects.
While she developed valuable skills that would help her in her career, she also learnt more about herself and her role in the world. “I learnt that science requires a scientific proof through repeated and sometimes long processes. Although I completed and published my research in a top academic journal, I realized that I’m not fit for laboratory work. I needed more interaction with people, and to solve real-life problems.”
Within three days of graduating, Yuting was on a plane heading to Kenya. She was excited about working for the United Nations because there were people from various industries and backgrounds gathering to improve the environment and create a more sustainable (可持续的) future — a lot like the setting of Caprain Planet which brought light to her in the first place.
1. What first exposed Yuting to environmental problems?| A．An American TV series. | B．A famous environmental expert. |
| C．A famous and popular hero. | D．A serious pollution event. |
| A．How she could make use of her talent. | B．What organization she should join. |
| C．How she could become a superwoman. | D．What she would focus on studying. |
| A．Publishing lots of papers about them. | B．Conducting many researches on them. |
| C．Carrying on many a related experiment. | D．Reaching out to as many people as possible. |
| A．She met with people from all walks of life. | B．She knew the key to success. |
| C．She changed her attitude to life. | D．She learned how to chat with others. |
On Monday, May 12, 2008, an earthquake of magnitude 8.0
The rescue work
Now, more than 10 years on, the people suffered the earthquake are living a new life. The new towns have been
1. 活动时间和形式；
2. 野生动物面临的严峻形势；
3. 号召同学们保护野生动物。
注意: 1. 词数100左右；
2. 首句已为你写出。
Our club is going to hold a campaign to protect wild animals.
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