1 . Having lived in California until 1970, my family has felt a number of earthquakes. We have been fortunate, however, to have suffered no bodily harm or property damage.

There is a website that lists all Californian earthquakes recorded from 1769 to the present. The site lists the dates and time as well as the magnitude (震级) and the exact location of any earthquake that measured more than 6.0. There are only a few earthquakes that stand out in my memory and, luckily, none is shown in the website. So, my personal experience with earthquakes might be considered insignificant.

There are three earthquakes that are difficult to forget. The first one was in 1955 and our oldest daughter was walking with me in our backyard in Redwood City in California. As the shaking became stronger, I held her to me with one arm as I held on to one of our fruit trees with the other. All three of us (my daughter, I and the tree) shook for two or three minutes that to us felt like hours.

The second one was in 1963. Our entire family was visiting Disneyland in Southern California. The earth started to shake just as we were beginning to walk from our hotel towards the famous landmark.

My third experience with an earthquake was a lonely one in California. It was in my sixties and I was alone in an old church. As the building started to shake, I quickly headed for the door to go outside. I remember I said a few prayers—something like “Help me get out of here in time, dear Heavenly Father.” Minutes later, I was safe outside.

1. The author writes the passage mainly to tell us about ________.

A．a new film about an earthquake	B．how to survive an earthquake
C．his three earthquake experiences	D．how to save children in an earthquake

2. The earthquakes the author experienced ________.

A．all caused bodily harm	B．are all recorded in a website
C．all measured more than 6.0	D．all happened in California

3. When the first earthquake happened, the author ________.

A．was staying with his daughter	B．was planting fruit trees
C．was holding on to a tree for hours	D．was in a hotel

4. What does the underlined part “the famous landmark” refer to?

A．A church.	B．Disneyland.
C．A building destroyed by an earthquake.	D．The place where the author was born.

2 . 阅读下面短文，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

The 2004 tsunami caused by a powerful earthquake crashed into coastlines across Asia on Boxing Day,in       1    more than 6,500 people were killed. Fishermen,tourists,hotels, homes and cars were swept away by huge waves.

In Sri Lanka,     2     number of deaths was 2,498 and one million more       3    (affect) by the tsunami.In Southern Thailand, the tsunami hurt 1,900 people and left lots of people       4    (miss).

＂I was having breakfast       5    my three children when water started filling my home. We had to leave everything and run to safety. Nothing could be       6    (bad),"said a local Thai woman.

Foreign aid and some charity       7    (organize) were timely sent to the tsunami-hit countries. However,     8     (extreme) dangerous conditions and damaged roads made it difficult       9    (deliver) food and supplies. What people in the disaster-affected area could do was to save     10     (them).

3 . We're so attached to plastic, but we're careless consumers. Waste plastic is entering our ecosystems and food chains with untold consequences. Cleaning up our polluted world of plastic may seem a noble, but thankless task. However, some people are seeing economic opportunity in the mission.

Plastic Bank, a social enterprise from Canada, is monetizing plastic recycling while empowering those most affected by the waste. It works to prevent waste plastic from entering oceans by encouraging people in developing countries to collect plastic from their communities in exchange for cash, food, clean water or school tuition for their children. After collection, plastic is weighed, sorted, chipped, melted into balls and sold on as“raw material”to be made into everything from bottles for cleaning products to clothing.

“I saw in large quantities; I saw an opportunity,”CEO David Katz told the audience at the Sustainable Brands Oceans conference in Porto, Portugal on November 14.“We reveal the value in this material,”he added.

Plastic Bank was founded in 2013 and launched on the ground operations in 2014 in Haiti, the poorest country in the Western, Hemisphere, where close to 60% of the population live under the poverty line. As result of poor waste disposal and recycling infrastructure (基础设施)，plastic waste enters rivers or is burned and poses the health threats to the local residents.

The company says i has over 2,000 collectors working in the country, with its full- time collectors on average 63% above the poverty line thanks to the income they make from the project. Through its app based payment system, many collectors now have bank accounts for the first time, and are able to ultimately escape ultra poverty.

“Nothing we're doing is against the laws of physics,”said Katz. “All the technology exists for us to solve and save the world. It's only creative thought.”

1. What is Plastic Bank aimed to do?

A．Test out creative ideas.

B．Discover new material.

C．Promote plastic recycling.

D．Stop people using plastic.

2. Which of the following shows the process of monetizing in Paragraph 2?

A．Purchasing- collecting—recycling.

B．Exchanging collecting—purchasing.

C．Collecting- exchanging—reproducing.

D．Persuading consuming—reproducing.

3. What do the numbers in Paragraph 5 indicate?

A．Haiti attaches great importance to recycling.

B．Many locals benefit greatly from the project.

C．Collecting is an efficient way to recycle waste.

D．The project has solved unemployment in Haiti:

4. What maybe the best title for the text?

A．Companies stand to ban plastic consumption

B．Technology finds its way to kick off poverty

C．David Katz speaks at the conference in Porto

D．Plastic Bank is fighting against plastic waste

4 . Do you know anyone who plays Ant Forest? It is a game on Alipay. Users collect “energy “ for their “trees” to grow. When their “tree” finishes growing, Alipay will plant a real tree in the desert areas of China.

This is part of China’s efforts to fight desertification . Since 1978, China has planted over 66 billion trees across its dry northern areas, according to China Daily.

Desertification means there are no trees or grass. Water can’t stay in the soil and sand is everywhere.

About 2.6 million square kilometers of China’s land is covered with sand. That’s about 27 percent of the country’s land. It has also caused sandstorms .

By planting new trees, sandstorms in China have been cut by 20 percent in recent years. About 13,000 square kilometers of land have become oases (绿洲).

Ian Teh, a British photographer , traveled through northern China last year. He saw many new oases.

“It was hard to imagine that it was ever a desert,” he told Wired magazine.

1. What is Ant Forest?

A．It is an app that lets people buy things.

B．It is a game that can help fight desertification.

C．It is a forest for people to grow trees in.

D．It is a name for a group of special ants.

2. What has China done to fight desertification in the past 40 years?

A．Planted billions of trees.	B．Built houses in dry northern areas.
C．Moved all the sand to one place.	D．Built oases around cities.

3. Planting new trees has helped China cut down sandstorms by .

A．2.6 percent

B．27 percent

C．20 percent

D．66 percent

4. How did Ian Teh like northern China after his visit last year?

A．It was hard to travel in the desert.	B．It was amazing to see new oases there.
C．It was still full of sand.	D．It was not easy to find any trees in the north.

5 . A new study shows that rising levels of planet-warming gases may reduce important nutrients in food crops.

Researchers studied the effects of one such gas—carbon dioxide—on rice. The researchers grew rice plants in a controlled environment. They set carbon dioxide levels to what scientists are predicting for our planet by the end of the century. They found that the resulting rice crops had lower than normal levels of vitamins, minerals and protein. The researchers said the effects of planet-warming gases would be most severe for the poorest citizens in some of the least developed countries. These people generally eat the most rice and have the least complex diets, they noted.

In the experiment, scientists grew 18 kinds of rice in fields in China and Japan. They pumped carbon dioxide gas over the plants in an effort to create the atmosphere of the future. Rice grown under high carbon dioxide conditions had, on average, 13 to 30 percent lower levels of four B vitamins and 10 percent less protein. The crops also had 8 percent less iron and 5 percent less zinc(锌)an rice grown under normal conditions. However, vitamin E levels increased by about 13 percent on average.

The results are bad news, “especially for the nutrition of the poorer population in less-developed countries,” said the University of Tokyo’s Kazuhiko Kobayashi, who helped to write the report. That includes about 600 million people in Indonesia, Cambodia, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Laos and other nations, mainly in Southeast Asia, the report said.

One of the scientists is Sam Myers of Harvard University in the American state of Massachusetts. He said that findings like this are an example of the surprises climate change create. “My concern is there are many more surprises to come,” he said.

Myers noted that pollution, loss of some species, destruction of forests, and other human activities are likely to produce unexpected problems. He said that you cannot completely change all the natural systems that living organisms have grown to depend on over millions of years without having effects come back to affect our own health.

The new study suggests a way to lower the nutritional harm of climate change. One way, Kobayashi said, is grow different forms of rice that have shown to be more resistant to higher carbon dioxide levels.

1. Which county would be influenced most by planet-warming gases according to the text?

A．China

B．Myanmar

C．America

D．Britain

2. How is Paragraph 3 mainly developed?

A．By comparison.	B．By giving examples.
C．By analyzing causes.	D．By describing a process.

3. What does the underlined sentence in Paragraph 5 mean?

A．Climate change will be difficult to predict.

B．Climate change will lead to more good effects.

C．Climate change will be harmful to environment.

D．Climate change will cause more unexpected problems.

4. Which of the following statements is true according to the text?

A．Myers said we could change all the natural systems for the sake of our health.

B．The poorest people in all the least developed countries would be influenced most.

C．The researchers grew 18 kinds of rice in China and Japan in a controlled environment.

D．Protein in rice grown under high carbon dioxide conditions is increased by 10 percent.

6 . Downing the last drop of an expensive famous brand H₂O as well as remembering to throw the empty bottle in the recycling bin, makes you feel pretty good about yourself, right? It shouldn’t. Even when the bottles are recycled, there are all kinds of other consequences of swallowing bottled water, says Melissa Peffers, the air-quality program manager for Environmental Defense.

The containers are often filled in faraway lands, then shipped from abroad, and stored in refrigerators at your local store. Compare that with the influence on environment of turning on your tap, filling a glass, and drinking up!

Anyone who is choosing bottled water for health reasons is misguided, says Peffers, “Most bottled water is just tap water.” And what comes out of your tap is carefully monitored to follow the strict rules. Consider another fact that bottled water is surprisingly expensive, especially when compared with the alternative, which is almost free, and it is astonishing that America’s desire for bottled water seems impossible to satisfy, reaching nearly 30 billion bottles a year.

“My parents’ generation never had bottled water,” says Isabelle Silverman, an Environmental Defense legal adviser. She has made a commitment to going bottle free. “You don’t need to fetch it home from the store, and it’s cheaper,” she adds.

Bottled water’s role as a status symbol needs to change, Peffers points out. So when a waiter at an expensive restaurant offers “And what’s your drink?” that’s no reason to forget your conviction(信念). “Don’t be afraid to say, ‘I’ll have tap.’ Say it loud enough that the other tables nearby can hear you,” Peffers says. “And then spend that money on a dessert.”

1. In the first paragraph, the underlined sentence “It shouldn’t.” suggest that people _______.

A．shouldn’t feel pleased with finishing the water in the bottle

B．shouldn’t feel good about drinking an expensive brand H2O

C．shouldn’t be content with just recycling empty bottles

D．shouldn’t be satisfied with drinking only bottled water

2. According to the author, tap water is _______.

A．as safe as bottled water

B．morel likely to be polluted

C．healthier than bottle water

D．less convenient than bottled water

3. The underlined part “going bottle free” (in Para. 4) means “_______”.

A．making bottled water free

B．abandoning bottled water

C．recycling use water bottles

D．providing free water containers

4. Why does Peffers ask people to say “I’ll have tap.” loudly?

A．To encourage them to set an example for others to follow.

B．To advise them to save the money for one more dessert.

C．To remind them to be aware of their social status.

D．To persuade them to speak confidently in public.

7 . Four Wild Animal Species Were Endangered

Maybe you can still see them at the zoo. But that doesn’t mean they’re doing alright in the wild.

Tigers

All six tiger species are endangered, with Sumatran tigers and South Chin tigers at a seriously endangered status. The main reasons for their population decline are illegal hunting and destroyed habitats(栖息地), as humans clear forests to gather timber（木材）and build roadways. Only about 3890 tigers presently live in the wild.

Ground squirrels

That’s right, even squirrels are endangered, specifically the San Joaquin ground squirrel. Native to California, USA, these guys have been disappearing since 1979 on account of the construction and human developments going through their habitat. Their total population is unknown , but it could be anywhere between 124000 and 413000.

Giraffes

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature recently put giraffes at a vulnerable status, the level just before endangered. The giraffe population has declined 40 percent in the last 30 years, primarily due to loss of habitat and illegal hunting. Some giraffes are killed just for their tails, which are considered status symbols in Africa.

Asian elephants

The main threat to Asian elephants, one of the most intelligent animals, is their shrinking habitat. As the human population grows, people invade their land to build roads and railway tracks. Elephants in Myanmar are at an especially high risk for being captured and traded or used illegally in the tourist industry. Fewer than 50000 are left on the entire continent.

1. What is the total population of tigers living in the wild?

A．Around 3890.

B．50000.

C．124000.

D．413000.

2. Which of the following is considered one of the most intelligent animals?

A．Tigers.

B．Giraffes.

C．Ground squirrels.

D．Asian elephants.

3. What is the common threat to the four wild animals?

A．Illegal hunting.

B．Disturbed habitat.

C．Developing tourism.

D．Unnecessary construction.

4. Which word can best describe the present situation for protecting wild animals?

A．Satisfactory.

B．Optimistic.

C．Urgent.

D．Stable.

8 . Every year, Americans send millions of tons of food to the landfill (垃圾填埋地). What if you could use all of those rotten vegetables to heat your home? That’s happening in one unlikely laboratory: the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plan in Brooklyn
The plant’s longtime manager, Jimmy Pynn, shows off the plant’s crown jewels: eight huge, shiny, oval-shaped steel tanks known as digester eggs. Each one contains millions of gallons of black material that’s roughly pea soup. Pynn calls it “black gold”. “The digesters like to be fed like us: three times a day,” he says. “They like to be kept warm, 98 degrees. And that’s what we have these guys for: to make methane(甲烷)，which can be used to heat homes or make electricity.”
Right now, what these bacteria are digesting is mostly sewage(污水) mud. But they are being introduced to a new diet food scraps. The hope is that this plant will soon take in hundreds of tons of organic waste from houses and apartments.
“Cardboard packaging, rotten tomatoes, fats, oils, old diary products--those are all great food-stuff for a digester,” says Paul Sellew. “My micro-organisms love that. That’s their five-course meal.”
“Everything in New York City is like big scale when you’re talking about quantities of waste,” says Samantha MacBride. “Right now, it’s all in its infancy. When you’re in an apartment building, to separate out food scraps, it requires a lot of effort and attention,” says MacBride. “It doesn’t have to have unpleasant smell or be inconvenient. But it takes extra work. It’s the first, what I will call the baby step,” says Paul Sellew. “Because ultimately in New York City, just the restaurants alone, you’re talking well over a million tons a year,” he says.
This new industry is trying to build more plants and digesters to handle all of that waste, says Sellew. The costliest part may be finding good locations in or around the nation’s biggest cities.
As for the trillions of bacteria? They’ll work for free--- as long as you feed them.
1. What role are the digester eggs expected to play?

A．To get black gold from daily waste.

B．To produce new diet for humans.

C．To change food scraps into gas.

D．To make crown jewels.

2. According to MacBride, what’s the problem for New York City?

A．Its rapid development causes environmental problems.

B．Its system of separate out food scraps is complex.

C．It fails to pay enough attention to recycling.

D．It has too much amount of waste.

3. What might be the biggest difficulty to build more plants?

A．To get enough organic waste as materials.

B．To find good places for the factories.

C．To grow trillions of bacteria for free.

D．To have money to build digesters.

4. The tone of the last sentence is________.

A．humorous	B．suggestive
C．regretful	D．curious

9 . I was sleeping in my room when my bed started shaking and a loud noise was heard. I woke up and my mom was screaming my name. Next moment I was running along with my younger sister, mom and dad. Before I ran out of the door, I realized my elder sister hadn’t come out yet. So I screamed her name at the top of my voice. My mom said she had gone to her class. Then the four of us, along with many others, were running on the staircase. We lived on the seventh floor, so I thought we would not be able to make it and the building would fall before we managed to reach even the fourth floor. My dad’s head was injured by something falling down. I did try to put my hand over his head. When we reached the sixth floor, the building split into two. We had no way to get down.

The next thing I remember is silence. There were around 30 people on the staircase and none could react. Five minutes later, someone opened the door of the sixth-floor flat. We all went in. We were wondering how would get down. From the balcony of the sixth-floor flat, I saw people standing on the ground floor. All eyes were stuck on us. I could see my elder sister crying.

Our first hope of surviving came when a worker climbed a rope to where we were. That was the first time we thought maybe we could get down. Half an hour passed and we were still trapped. Finally RSS people arrived with ropes. They got people down one by one. My biggest worry was how my dad would get down. Finally after two and a half hours, we all got down.

That day we saw the power of nature. It has taken more than two years to build the flats and it took just one and a half minutes to destroy the structure.

1. What is this passage mainly about?

A．Ways to survive an earthquake.

B．Reasons why earthquakes happen.

C．The love of parents in an earthquake.

D．The writer’s experience in an earthquake.

2. When the building split into two, the writer and his family ____________.

A．were still sleeping

B．were trapped on the sixth floor

C．were looking for a family member

D．were running on the staircase of the seventh floor

3. The first time the writer thought they would probably survive was when____________ .

A．he was encouraged by people on the ground floor

B．someone opened the door of the sixth-floor flat

C．a worker climbed up on a rope

D．RSS people arrived with ropes

4. The earthquake made the writer realize that____________.

A．there is always hope for people

B．the power of nature is really great

C．natural disasters can happen any time

D．human beings are strong in natural disasters

10 . After the earthquake hit northeast Japan on March 11, 2011, many touching stories that I saw with my own eyes happened around me.          

I had to walk home since all the _______ had stopped after the quake. On my way home I _______an old Japanese lady at the bakery shop who was giving out free bread, which made my heart _______. A middle-aged Japanese man was holding a sign that said, “Please use our _______.” He was _______ his house for people to go to the restroom. My friend wanted to _______ others. He stood in the cold with a sign “If you are okay with a motorcycle, I will _______ you to your house.” And then I saw him take one gentleman home, all the way to faraway place! Then the next day I drove to _______ my car with gas. There was a _______of gas now and many gasoline stations were either closed or had very ________ lines. I got ________, since I was behind 15 cars. Finally, when it was my ________, the man smiled and said, “________this situation, we are only giving $ 30 worth gas per person. Is that alright?” “Of course, I’m just glad that we are all able to ________,” I said. His smile gave me so much ________.

I saw a man at the evacuation (疏散) center ________ when people brought food to him. It was the first time in three days that food has been brought to their center. However, after he wiped the tears, his next ________ surprised me. “I am very ________ that we are provided with food. But people in the city next to us haven’t ________ any food at all. Please go to that centre as well.” And when hearing that, I realized there is a bright future on the other side of this ________.

1.

A．traffic

B．rescue

C．communication

D．businesses

2.

A．missed

B．caught

C．noticed

D．heard

3.

A．hungry

B．soft

C．broken

D．warm

4.

A．toilet

B．hotel

C．hospital

D．house

5.

A．advertising

B．opening

C．repairing

D．decorating

6.

A．encourage

B．save

C．charge

D．assist

7.

A．drive

B．follow

C．lead

D．send

8.

A．start

B．fill

C．check

D．wash

9.

A．plenty

B．lack

C．variety

D．diversity

10.

A．direct

B．straight

C．long

D．short

11.

A．worried

B．lucky

C．excited

D．annoyed

12.

A．time

B．turn

C．duty

D．decision

13.

A．Apart from

B．Together with

C．Because of

D．Instead of

14.

A．share

B．offer

C．tolerate

D．transform

15.

A．comfort

B．pleasure

C．trouble

D．entertainment

16.

A．waiting

B．grabbing

C．sleeping

D．crying

17.

A．promises

B．roles

C．actions

D．remarks

18.

A．upset

B．grateful

C．surprised

D．proud

19.

A．bought

B．supplied

C．prepared

D．received

20.

A．city

B．center

C．lesson

D．disaster