2 . The “no-mow (不割草)” movement is catching people’s attention, and I’ve joined it after having the luck to see how beautiful a natural meadow (草地) can be.

Several years ago, I moved to a tiny town in Oregon. When we pulled up to the house where we would be staying, I took one look at what I saw as the overgrown grass. The sea of grass took my breath away. “This is going to be a huge job,” I thought to myself.

I grew up in New York. My grandfather taught me how to mow our lawn (草坪) when I was 8 years old．And I took care of that lawn until I left for college. Later, I bought my own house in Connecticut, and the house came with a small lawn. By then I had been writing for Audubon magazine and had learned how pointless lawns were. I wanted to build a butterfly garden and plant some plants. I was sick of mowing. But I kept the lawn, as I was concerned about the future resale value of a house without a back lawn.

Once I had spent several weeks getting used to Oregon life, learning the local culture and finally settling down, I realized the meadow that surrounded my new home wasn’t an untidy lawn, but one of the local types of ecosystems. And in my first weeks enjoying my new favorite place in the world, I was pleased with the huge amount of life the meadow supported.

There are lots of insects, but that only means lots of healthy food for the songbirds that I now share my home with. Because of the birds, many insects are eaten, so I’ve not had any insect problems. Contrary to what many people expect from high grasses, I’ve found that I have fewer harmful insects, because it is a balanced system. There are butterflies, vegetables and beautiful wildflowers. The meadow is never the same. It changes from week to week because it’s a living system.

1. How did the author feel when she first arrived at the new house in Oregon?

A．Tired

B．Embarrassed

C．Shocked

D．Interested

2. How was the author’s life in Oregon?

A．She started enjoying the natural grass there.

B．She failed to join the “no-mow” movement.

C．She was worried about the untidy environment there.

D．She was busy improving the locals’ living conditions.

3. What does the author mainly say about the meadow in the last paragraph?

A．It provides a more balanced ecosystem.

B．It supplies many kinds of food to the author.

C．It causes many insect problems for the author.

D．It helps reduce the author’s writing pressure.

3 . Sixteen miles off the windswept coast of northern Scotland, the future of renewable energy is taking shape. Turning rhythmically in the breeze, the five enormous turbines of the Hywind Scotland wind farm look like any other off-shore wind project, except one major difference — they’re floating.

While conventional offshore turbines sit atop mental and concrete towers fixed into the seabed, Hywind’s turbines rest on floating steel structures that rise and fall with waves. Carefully balanced, they remain upright despite the waving conditions. This simple sounding, yet extremely complex design is changing the way green developers view offshore wind.

It could prove to be an important development as the world attempts to meet the net zero carbon emission targets that countries committed to in the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. The energy department as a whole currently accounts for around three quarters of all the greenhouse gases emitted by human activity.

To cut those emissions, green electricity will need to be at the main source of global energy, according to the International Energy Agency. It says that by 2024, half of the world’s energy needs will have to be met by electricity produced in a net zero way.

With growing numbers of electric vehicles, combined with increased demand for electricity to replace fossil fuels in domestic and industrial uses, electricity networks will also need to become far more flexible with more ways to generate and store energy. It means that by 2045, our energy network could look thoroughly different to the way it does today. Projects like Hywind’s floating wind farm offer a present-day glimpse of what the future could look like.

While floating turbines overcome some of the issues that make offshore wind farms in deep waters impossible, there are still challenges to be overcome. There are some concerns about what impact large wind turbines might have on the marine environment. The price of floating wind projects is also still high — costing almost twice as much per megawatt hour of electricity produced compared to bottom-fixed offshore wind. But those costs are expected to drop as the technology becomes increasingly advanced, as has been seen with other wind energy projects, helping pave the way towards net zero emissions, and a future powered by carbon-free fuel.

1. Which of the following words can replace the underlined word “emitted” in the third paragraph?

A．Released.

B．Replaced.

C．Wasted.

D．Influenced.

2. What is the author’s opinion on floating wind projects?

A．Disapproving.

B．Objective.

C．Doubtful.

D．Indifferent.

3. What is the author’s purpose of writing this text?

A．To share his research on energy.	B．To call on people to save energy.
C．To replace the traditional fossil fuels.	D．To introduce a clean renewable energy.

4 . In the 1970’s, people who managed ponds had a problem with plants and snails in the water. To control the pests, the managers brought four species of carp, a type of fish, from Asia. But some of the fish escaped into rivers and other waterways. Soon, there were lots of fish. And they became troublesome invasive species. These non-native fish can bully ecosystems, quickly taking over. Growing fast and big, they ate lots of the food on which the native fish would normally depend. Bighead carp are an invasive species in the United States. Binbin Wang is using a combination of computer modeling and field experiments to study how the eggs of these and other invasive carp could be transported in the Missouri River.

Today, the descendants (后代) of those carp remain a big problem. And as the fish spawn (产卵), their eggs have been drifting (漂流) far and wide. Anticipating where something will drift can be a challenge. But finding answers may handle the crisis.

At the University of Missouri in Columbia, civil and environmental engineer Binbin Wang is working to figure out where eggs of the invasive fish are spreading in the Missouri River. If science can get ahead of the problem, there’s hope that people may figure out how to stop it. But if science is too slow to answer this question, legions of carp eggs will grow into adults that out-compete their neighbors. Stopping their spread would help reduce the overall damage they cause.

Drifting may seem somewhat random, but scientists are doing researches to make useful predictions possible. Some of these drift detectives want to know if large icebergs threaten offshore oil platforms. Others hope to track the polluted air or water-and determine where they’re coming from. The work is challenging. It also can be very rewarding. Most importantly, their findings may point toward solutions for some important environmental threats.

1. The scientists track the drifting of carp eggs in order to ________ .

A．ensure the quality of their eggs	B．protect the native fish
C．stop them from polluting the water	D．make it easier to transport them

2. What does the underlined word “crisis” in paragraph 2 refer to?

A．The carp’s spawning.	B．The direction of eggs’ drifting.
C．The extinction of the invasive fish.	D．The spread of the invasive fish.

3. What can we learn from the passage?

A．Where carp eggs are drifting is still a barrier to the research.

B．Researches have already found ways to stop the drifting of eggs.

C．It’s easy to predict the direction of the drifting of invasive fish eggs.

D．Cleaning the polluted water is the best solutions to environmental treats.

4. What’s the author’s attitude towards the drift detection?

A．Indifferent.

B．Unclear.

C．Positive.

D．Doubtful.