1 . The newly-elected president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro says that his country should withdraw (退出) from the 2015 Paris Agreement, and that Brazil’s rainforest protections are standing in the way of economic success. During the election campaign, he promised to ease protections for areas of the Brazilian Amazon set aside for native people and wildlife. Are Brazil’s rainforests in danger?
The Amazon, the world’s largest rainforest, is called “the lungs of the planet.” Each tree takes in and stores carbon dioxide from the air around it. Billions of trees pull up water through their roots and release water vapor into the air, forming tiny drops of water. The Amazon creates 30 to 50 percent of its own rainfall. Carlos Nobre, a climate scientist, says that it is almost impossible to say Just how important the rainforest is to the planet’s living systems.
Some of Bolsonaro’s support comes from business and farming groups. One supporter, Luiz Carlos, noted that farmers “are not invaders, they are producers.” He blamed the past government for supporting rainforest protections at the cost of farmers. “Brazil,” he said, “will be the biggest farming nation on Earth during Bolsonaro’s years.”
Paulo Artaxo, a professor of environmental physics at the University of Sao Paulo, says that if Bolsonaro keeps his campaign promises, then “deforestation of the Amazon will probably increase quickly — and the effects will be felt everywhere on the planet.”
Other scientists warn that if the Amazon and other tropical rainforests lose too many trees, this could affect rainfall in other areas. Without enough trees to support the rainfall, the longer and bigger dry season could turn more than half of the rainforest into a tropical grassland.
1. The first paragraph is intended to ________.| A．draw people’s attention to the disappearing rainforests |
| B．ask people to ease the protection of rainforests |
| C．attract the public to the newly-elected president |
| D．to complain about the new government's withdrawing |
| A．produce much farmland |
| B．examine people’s lungs |
| C．change the earth’s living system |
| D．destroy farmers’ crops |
| A．The new president’s supporters care less about farmers. |
| B．Scientists are concerned about the protection of rainforests. |
| C．The rainforests will stop the economic development in Brazil. |
| D．The past government is to blame for the destruction of rainforests |
| A．a newspaper |
| B．a magazine |
| C．a guidebook |
| D．a textbook |
2 . Zea Tongeman, a 14-year-old student, who is crazy about the Internet, applied technology to create an application that encourages people to recycle while having fun.
Zea was really inspired when she attended “Little Miss Geek Day”, an event that aims at making technology more accessible and appealing to young women and inspiring them to consider technology careers. Soon after, she entered “Apps for Good”, a competition that encourages students to create positive change through technology. Teaming up with her friend, Jordan Stirbu, she laid the foundations for “Jazzy Recycling”.
The “Jazzy Recycling” application is designed to encourage young people to recycle more, which wins the favor of the youth. It turns waste disposal into a game and helps you find places to recycle. Then you scan what you need to recycle, share it, and get rewards such as shopping vouchers (代金券) and games to be unlocked for what you have recycled.
Tapping into the teen enthusiasm for sharing every little aspect of their daily life on social media like Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, recycling efforts can be shared too as a fun game among friends, which makes more people take part in recycling activities.
Zea explains why she is addicted to the Internet and how technology has changed her ideas about the future, “I used to think technology was just fixing computers and using smartphones; I have become very tired from just using what is available. I have discovered another side to it and that I can make technology of my own.”
In fact, Zea Tongeman has taken the idea of recycling seriously and hopes all her fellow beings would give it a serious thought. This teen girl from the United Kingdom has made use of computer programming to create her own app that would encourage people to go recycling for a better world.
1. What is “Little Miss Geek Day” intended to do?| A．To inspire students to go recycling. | B．To encourage students to create more. |
| C．To introduce some famous young ladies. | D．To get girls interested and involved in technology. |
| A．It combines recycling with fun. | B．It offers money to those who recycle. |
| C．It raises their awareness of waste disposal. | D．It provides varieties of convenient services. |
| A．Considerate. | B．Generous. | C．Creative. | D．Modest. |
| A．Teenagers have a talent for creating apps. |
| B．Technology plays a significant role in education. |
| C．Competitions inspire teenagers to achieve success. |
| D．Youngsters can make a difference in their own ways. |
3 . Microplastics are “one of the greatest man-made disasters of our time”, according to the Natural History Museum. That’s bad news, given they are also everywhere: in tap water, the food you buy, the clothes you wear and the air you breathe.
The largest microplastics can be seen by the naked eye and are anything under half a cen- timetre in size. But many of them are small enough to act like spots of dust which we can unconsciously breathe in or eat in food. The smallest particles are called nanoplastics and they are small enough to get their way deep into the human body.
New findings from the University of Portsmouth show that there is so much synthetic material in our homes that we might be breathing in up to 7, 000 microplastic particles a day. Using special equipment, researchers measured a typical family home and found the highest concentration of it was in the bedroom of the eight-year-old daughter, whose room was decorated with plastic-based bedding, carpet and soft toys.
Although research is in its early stage, the risks of these plastics could be serious—some studies have linked high exposure to cancer risk and disrupting our hormones. In animal studies, the particles have been shown to affect metabolism, gut bacteria and the immune system, among other things.
It is not yet known what a healthy level of microplastics might look like, but Dr Sabine Donnai, CEO of the Viavi clinic, thinks that many people in the West are over the limit. In tests at her clinic, patients often come back with dangerously high levels of plastic in their bodies, she says.
1. What does paragraph 2 talk about?| A．The seriousness of microplastics. | B．The size of microplastics. |
| C．The solution to microplastics. | D．The effect of microplastics. |
| A．With technical instrument. | B．By referring to previous data. |
| C．Through experiments. | D．By observing environment. |
| A．Deciding. | B．Disturbing. | C．Discovering. | D．Defending. |
| A．New study found microplastics | B．Microplastics are found in clothes |
| C．Microplastics are threatening our life | D．We breathe in microplastics every day |
1. Why does the woman plan to wear a mask tomorrow?
| A．Because of the smog. |
| B．Because of her illness. |
| C．Because of the cold weather. |
| A．The heavy traffic. |
| B．The air pollution. |
| C．The large population. |
| A．Change their ways to go to work. |
| B．Ask the government to do something. |
| C．Call on people to protect the environment. |
| A．He always uses the public transport. |
| B．He seldom listens to the weather report. |
| C．He is waiting for the weather to improve soon. |
5 . The world is going through a basic transformation,which is changing the way we live, work and think. The Fourth Industrial Revolution is bringing dramatic change and giving rise to a future filled with exciting opportunities and new challenges. Together, governments and businesses must find solutions to society's most pressing needs—from creating a carbon-free economy to tackling population growth and urbanization.
In any period of rapid change there is a trend to look for a simple method,to greet the new things and replace the old way of doing things. But a closer look at the facts tells a different story. Complex problems require many solutions working in harmony to enable positive change.
The challenge for scientists and engineers is to provide solutions in fact, data and today's realities. And while technologies offer new tools to help uncover solutions, the process also requires hard work, imagination and lots of improvement.
Success rests on performing practical, realistic, long- term solutions that make the world cleaner, safer and more sustainable(可持续的).
The environment is a case in point. Much of the public debate has centered on the central role of renewable power sources in realizing a low-carbon energy future. While the industry is fully behind developing renewables, today we understand that a low or zero-carbon future depends on adopting a multifaceted approach.
We cannot control sunshine levels or decide when the wind blows, which means solar power and wind power generators will produce too much or too little energy at times. The transition to renewables needs to take account of serious considerations.
Batteries have been much discussed as a means of storing extra energy, but there are other choices. Power-to- X technologies enable spare energy created by renewables to be stored and redistributed when and where it is needed.
1. Which of the following best explains the underlined word“tackling" in Paragraph 1?| A．Caring about. | B．Dealing with. |
| C．Going through. | D．Suffering from. |
| A．Offer new tools to help uncover solutions. |
| B．Look for a simple method to face the future. |
| C．Find out ways to solve the problem. |
| D．Realize a low-carbon energy future. |
| A．Powerful. |
| B．Safe. |
| C．Clean. |
| D．Unsteady. |
| A．They can adjust power supply. |
| B．They take the place of batteries. |
| C．They help make more electricity. |
| D．They can create power from wind and sun. |
During the World Elephant Day on Thursday, Chinese and foreign experts gathered in one online forum(论坛)
The 15 wild Asian elephants among
Zhou Jinfeng, Secretary of the China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation, mentioned an idea which focused
Zhang Chenglin, Deputy Director of the Beijing Zoo，who introduced some measures taken by Chinese zoos to take good care of elephants,
“
7 . Nashville-based helicopter pilot Joel Boyers had just finished his job on Saturday morning and was heading home when he received a call for help from a woman in Pennsylvania. Her brother Johnson’s home in Waverly, Tennessee, was underwater and he was trapped on a roof with his daughters. Could Boyers help?“I thought how I would feel if I told her I was not even going to try?” he said in a Thursday interview. “She just so happened to call the right person, because I’m the only person crazy enough to even try to do that.”
The weather was terrible and Boyers had to deal with hills and power lines on the way to Waverly, a small city about 60 miles west of Nashville. Just before reaching the town, he found the Internet was down, making it impossible to locate the house he was looking for. He flew on anyway.
“When I arrived, it was nothing but raging water below me,” he said. A few people were out in boats, rescuing the trapped. Boyers was alone in the sky. He started flying up and down the flooded area, grabbing anyone he could.
Boyers said he ended up rescuing 17 people that day. He was proud of that, but said he was the one who should be thanking them. “I literally prayed just days before this that I would be given some meaning in my life, and then I end up getting this call,” he said. He had flown over disasters before including floods, but “The police are usually there, and my hands are tied. This time there isn’t any,” he said.
To perform the rescues, Boyers had to carefully avoid power lines, balance his skids (打滑) on sloped rooftops, and fly over flood waters. It took all the skills learned over 16 years of flying, including for a television news station, for documentaries and for country music stars. “I don’t want to lie,” he said. “It was almost a little fun for me.”
1. Why did Boyers fly to Waverly？| A．Because he had to do his routine tasks. |
| B．Because his brother was caught in the flood. |
| C．Because he was going to have an interview. |
| D．Because he received an emergency call. |
| A．A long distance. | B．The Internet failure. |
| C．High mountains. | D．Fallen power lines. |
| A．Caring and courageous. | B．Ambitious and demanding. |
| C．Modest and creative. | D．Humorous and cooperative. |
| A．Surviving a Crisis | B．Performing a Task |
| C．Braving a Flood | D．Testing Flight Skills |
8 . A different kind of food service app is allowing loyal customers to buy restaurant food at a low price before it goes into the waste bin.
Too Good To Go provides buyers with a bag of nearly wasted, but perfectly good food for takeaways as a way to cut back on food waste and help support the restaurant industry. Unlike other apps of a similar type that can allow customers to pick and choose which items they want to save, Too Good To Go offers only bags of whatever food the restaurants have. People will think it has a true enterprise spirit. The app is one of the several winners of Fast Company’s 2021 World Changing Ideas Award, which reports that 40% of the food in America is wasted.
It’s impossible to know how much food really will end up in landfills(垃圾处理厂)，but it’s possible to know how many meals Too Good To Go has prevented from going there. Originally sold only in a few selected American cities, 200,000 meals have been sold, and these meals can be thrown into the garbage in a few hours. And over 1, 500 restaurants have signed up in cities like New York, Boston, and Los Angeles. At present, 150,000 orders are going out the door per day in 15 countries, across a user base of around 37 million people, saving incredible food waste.
It is also easier for the restaurants to deal with the leftovers since it’s not likely to guess and predict what will be available at the end of any night. Decomposing food in landfills is a major source of methane, which can cause climate-related damage before completely decomposing after a decade.
“We think we can save more than 2 million meals from the trash in the U.S. in 2021, avoiding thousands of tons of emissions.”said Lucie Basch, co-founder of Too Good To Go.
1. What is special about Too Good To Go?| A．It provides buyers with a bag of leftover food for free. |
| B．It allows customers to select whatever food they want. |
| C．It limits consumers’ choices to the food the restaurants have. |
| D．It is the only app winning 2021 World Changing Ideas Award. |
| A．Find out the categories of the food wasted most. |
| B．Figure out how much food will end up in landfills. |
| C．Predict what food will be available in the restaurants. |
| D．Prevent more meals being thrown into the garbage. |
| A．Cutting down. | B．Breaking down. | C．Turning down. | D．Putting down. |
| A．An app reducing food waste |
| B．An app distributing optional food |
| C．An app causing climate-related damage |
| D．An app promoting a true enterprise spirit |
9 . On a cold November night, Layton was on his way home when he got an urgent call from his mother. “The mountain’s on fire.” she
Layton’s family
He
Over the next two hours, he travelled through the
| A．explained | B．declared | C．cried | D．screamed |
| A．shared | B．owned | C．rented | D．built |
| A．hit | B．stamped | C．stepped | D．pressed |
| A．walked | B．flew | C．headed | D．ran |
| A．gone | B．missing | C．scared | D．awake |
| A．fix | B．save | C．sell | D．leave |
| A．touring | B．renting | C．repairing | D．deserting |
| A．smoky | B．foggy | C．cloudy | D．rainy |
| A．worried | B．hesitant | C．wounded | D．panicked |
| A．highlighted | B．ruined | C．covered | D．lost |
| A．happy | B．safe | C．far | D．contented |
| A．back | B．home | C．away | D．out |
| A．disabled | B．desperate | C．waiting | D．trapped |
| A．across | B．along | C．through | D．over |
| A．led | B．pulled | C．carried | D．pushed |
| A．nearly | B．narrowly | C．accidentally | D．occasionally |
| A．Apart from | B．Due to | C．Except for | D．As for |
| A．claim | B．spare | C．protect | D．drop |
| A．intelligent | B．delighted | C．philosophical | D．critical |
| A．income | B．price | C．value | D．damage |
Every day we use energy. We use it for cooking, for heating and for lighting our cities. The energy comes from many different
These fuels come from the remains of plants and animals. It takes millions of years
We need to have a strong sense of
What about turning off anything
Cars consume a lot of fuel, but there
