1.用手洗衣服；
2.多走楼梯，少乘电梯；
3.逛超市自备购物袋；
4.步行或者骑自行车上学。
注意：可适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。
Dear students,
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The student union
2 . Recently a new study found that elephants in central African forests can encourage the growth of slow-growing trees and increase the ability of the forest to store carbon.
“As a tree, there’s a so-called balance that you can’t have it all,” explained Fabio Berzaghi, who led the study. Elephants prefer to eat fast-growing trees in more open spaces. As they feed and walk, they cause damage to these species, knocking over trees or breaking off branches, which results in an ecosystem that favors large, slow-growing hardwood trees. “As the elephants thin the forest, they increase the number of slow-growing trees and the forest is capable of storing more carbon,” said Stephen Blake, one of the paper’s authors.
Scientists collected field measurements in the Congo Basin and used a computer model to predict how elephants would affect forest structure, and carbon storage potential in the long term. The data confirmed that when elephants are present, the forest contains larger trees and higher abundances of species with high wood density. On the contrary, should forest elephants go extinct, leaving those slow-growing trees struggling to compete with fast-growing species, it would result in a 7 percent loss of above-ground biomass (生物总量). As a result, central African forests could lose up to three billion tons of carbon, potentially accelerating climate change.
The sad reality is that humans are doing their best to rid the planet of elephants. lain Douglas Hamilton, founder of Save the Elephants said, “It is shocking that just as we are beginning to understand how elephants might have a key role in Africa in storing carbon, they are under real threat of extinction.” One limitation of the study, Mr. Berzaghi said, is that we do not know how much carbon has already been lost because of the elephants’ decline. But it does seem certain, he added, that putting a stop to illegal hunting and restoring forest elephant populations would bring climate benefits.
1. What can we infer about slow-growing trees in Paragraph 2?| A．They are elephants’ favorite food. | B．They are easily hurt by elephants. |
| C．They may reduce elephant populations. | D．They can help forests store carbon. |
| A．Larger trees would defeat fast-growing species. |
| B．The forest structure would remain unchanged. |
| C．The forests would lose more fast-growing trees. |
| D．Climate change would possibly be sped up. |
| A．Lead a low-carbon life. | B．Protect forest elephants. |
| C．Stop destroying forests. | D．Evaluate the carbon loss. |
| A．Elephants Defend Against Climate Change |
| B．Elephants Disappear in Parts of Africa |
| C．Climate Change Affects Forest Structure |
| D．Humans and Nature Live in Harmony |
1. 现在越来越多的人意识到很多自然灾害都与人类的行为有关；
2. 地球是人类唯一的家园，要尽力保护它。
注意：1. 词数100左右;
2. 可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。
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4 . We are the products of evolution, and not just evolution that occurred billions of years ago. As scientists look deeper into our genes (基因), they are finding examples of human evolution in just the past few thousand years. People in Ethiopian highlands have adapted to living at high altitudes. Cattle-raising people in East Africa and northern Europe have gained a mutation (突变) that helps them digest milk as adults.
On Thursday in an article published in Cell, a team of researchers reported a new kind of adaptation—not to air or to food, but to the ocean. A group of sea-dwelling people in Southeast Asia have evolved into better divers. The Bajau, as these people are known, number in the hundreds of thousands in Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. They have traditionally lived on houseboats; in recent times, they’ve also built houses on stilts (支柱) in coastal waters. “They are simply a stranger to the land,” said Rodney C. Jubilado, a University of Hawaii researcher who studies the Bajau.
Dr. Jubilado first met the Bajau while growing up on Samal Island in the Philippines. They made a living as divers, spearfishing or harvesting shellfish. “We were so amazed that they could stay underwater much longer than we local islanders,” Dr. Jubilado said. “I could see them actually walking under the sea.”
In 2015, Melissa Ilardo, then a graduate student in genetics at the University of Copenhagen, heard about the Bajau. She wondered if centuries of diving could have led to the evolution of physical characteristics that made the task easier for them. It seemed like the perfect chance for natural selection to act on a population,” said Dr. Ilardo. She also said there were likely a number of other genes that help the Bajau dive.
1. What does the author want to tell us by the examples in Paragraph 1?| A．Environmental adaptation of cattle raisers. | B．New knowledge of human evolution. |
| C．Recent findings of human origin. | D．Significance of food selection. |
| A．On the beach. | B．Near rivers. | C．Off the coast. | D．In valleys. |
| A．They could walk on stilts all day. | B．They had a superb way of fishing. |
| C．They could stay long underwater. | D．They lived on both land and water. |
| A．Entertainment | B．Science | C．Health | D．Sport |
提示： 1.每天步行上学；
2.离开教室时关灯，关电扇、空调等；
3.不用水时，记住关水龙头，循环使用水；
4.充分使用纸张；
5.不使用塑料袋......等。
参考词汇： tap水龙头 plastic bags塑料袋
要求：1. 词数：100--120词 2. 文章内容要涉及所给提示，可适当发挥。
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6 . Have you ever imagined what will happen in the ocean when an earthquake happens underground? If you’ve ever felt a big earthquake or seen one on television, you know that it has the power to shake the ground and move large buildings. When a great earthquake happens under the ocean floor, the earthquake’s large energy is transferred (转移) to the water above it, creating a series of water waves called a tsunami (海啸). The word comes from the Japanese words tsu (harbor) and nami (wave).
Normal ocean waves have an average wavelength (波长) of about 100 meters and an average height of about 2 meters, while a tsunami can have a wavelength of 193 kilometers or more. Travelling at up to about 800 kilometers per hour in the deep ocean, a tsunami might be at a height of as little as 0.9 meters, which makes it almost impossible to be noticed, even for a ship in the area.
As a tsunami approaches (靠近) a coastline, things begin to change greatly. As it approaches shallow (浅的) waters, the wave speed drops below about 80 kilometers per hour. The wavelength also decreases much, but amplitude—the height of the wave—increases greatly, leading to the huge wall of water along coastlines, which causes great damage to coastal areas.
About 80% of tsunamis happen in the Pacific Ocean. Tsunamis cannot be prevented, but areas that experience tsunamis regularly have developed tsunami warning systems to give as much advance warning as possible to people who live along the coastline. For example, there are tsunami warning signs and warning sirens (警报器) on the top of nearby hills along Japanese coastlines. And many Japanese coastal communities have built tsunami walls, floodgates and others to stop or change the direction of water from incoming tsunamis.
1. According to the passage, tsunamis are hard to find mainly because of ________.| A．their low sound | B．their low height |
| C．their fast speed | D．their short wavelength |
| A．Changes. | B．Develops. | C．Reduces. | D．Produces. |
| A．how to study tsunamis |
| B．where tsunamis always happen |
| C．what tsunami warning systems include |
| D．how to reduce damages caused by tsunamis |
| A．The word “tsunami” comes from Japanese. |
| B．An earthquake is sure to cause a tsunami. |
| C．About 80 percent of tsunamis happen in Japan. |
| D．Tsunamis can be stopped by warning systems. |
7 . Wind turbines (涡轮) and solar panels (太阳电池板) that produce electricity are examples of “green” technology. A new study finds that such renewable energy might be green in another sense. Large collections of those turbines or solar panels appear capable of bringing rains to the desert and would allow more plants to grow.
Building large wind or solar farms just to study their question was not an option. It would be too expensive. So experts Kalnay and Safa developed a model of North Africa’s Sahara Desert to find out how wind turbines and solar farms might change the desert’s climate.
The team ran its model several times. In one run, it assumed that people would set up wind farms only. Another run assumed people would set up just solar farms. A third assumed people would build both. They would affect the desert’s weather with temperature and average daily rain increased — but differently. Setting up a mix of solar farms and wind turbines brought about a bigger change — not in temperature but in rainfall. In the Sahara, having both wind and solar farms more than doubled the amount of rain that fell, up to 215.4 millimetres (毫米) per day.
The models predicted that the average rainfall would increase over time, as more plants grew. Plants move water from the ground to the air. Warmer air can carry more water. So as this air rises, it can carry more water up to become clouds. Those clouds can release rain, relieving the thirst of plants below. Over time, this process repeats itself over and over. This positive feedback can greatly increase rains.
“Such rainfall changes could lead to better agriculture,” says Safa. “More rain also would help wild plants grow. We believe that the countries in the Sahara should seriously consider investing in wind and solar power,” he added.
1. What is the new finding of the research?| A．Deserts will be suitable for farming. |
| B．It costs much to get deserts greener. |
| C．Renewable energy can green a desert. |
| D．Clean energy helps plants grow better. |
| A．High construction expenses. | B．A lack of suitable test sites. |
| C．Shortage of manpower. | D．Terrible climate. |
| A．Build more farms to grow crops. |
| B．Save more water for agriculture. |
| C．Invest in wind and solar power. |
| D．Consider moving to other places. |
| A．Greatly raising rainfall in the desert. | B．Increasing temperature largely. |
| C．Doubling global rainfall per day. | D．Saving more energy with less cost. |
8 . Global warming, the increases of the earth’s average surface temperature, results from greenhouse gases, for example, carbon dioxide, which traps heat that would otherwise escape from the earth. After the trees are cut down and more greenhouse gases are released, the “blanket” around the earth, called the ozone layer(臭氧层), will get thicker. This catches more heat and makes the earth hotter. Luckily, there are many things that every citizen of the earth can do to help reduce the effects of global warming, and it’s never too late or too early for children to take action.
Children should learn what a carbon footprint is. A carbon footprint is the amount of greenhouse gases people make as they lead the daily life and go about the normal activities. In other words, the carbon footprint is a measure of the environmental impact the life has. To live an environmentally friendly life that hardly contributes to global warming, people should make the fewest carbon footprints possible.
Almost everything people do contributes to global warming and is related to fossil fuel consumption. These things people do can be direct use of fossil fuels, like riding in a gasoline-powered car, or indirect contributions to greenhouse gases, such as eating fruit and vegetables that have to be shipped from faraway places to reach their tables.
If a child wants to make a contribution to reducing global warming, he should ride a bicycle to the near park, the school, his friend’s house, or anywhere else not so far instead of taking a car. Or he may try to walk or jog, which is also helpful. In addition, although trains and buses often run on fossil fuels, on average, each person uses less energy and produces less pollution to take a train or a bus. Next time if children with their parents have to go around town or go to someplace too far to walk to or bike to, take a bus or other public transportation instead of riding a car.
1. What is the first paragraph mainly about?| A．A brief description of the carbon footprint. | B．The serious water pollution. |
| C．The protection of the ozone layer. | D．The causes of global warming. |
| A．Useless. | B．Expensive. | C．Helpful. | D．Attractive. |
| A．Go to the near park by bus. | B．Walk or cycle as much as possible. |
| C．Keep staying at home. | D．Go around town with parents by car. |
| A．What can people do to use less energy? |
| B．How can kids help reduce global warming? |
| C．How do carbon footprints measure pollution? |
| D．Why global warming affects humans’ life? |
1.讨论主题；
2.讨论过程；
3.谈谈收获。
注意：1.词数80左右；
2.可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。
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10 . Nola (August 21, 1974 -November 22, 2015) was a northern white rhino (犀牛) who lived at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park near Escondido, California. At her death, she was one of only four remaining northern white rhinos in the world. The other three lived in Kenya. World Rhino Day, held on September 22, is to raise awareness (意识) of the less than 30,000 other rhinos left on Earth.
“Rhinos need our help today, not tomorrow. ” Nola’s lead keeper Jane Kennedy said. “Last year we lost over 1,200 rhinos just in South Africa. If we continue to lose more than 1,000 rhinos a year, in 10 to 20 years all the rhinos on the earth will be gone.”
Unfortunately, most animals are in danger of dying out because of humans. Kennedy says, “Humans have either poached (偷猎) animals, or because there are over seven billion of us, we’ve taken up too much of the world’s resources.” Poachers illegally hunt rhinos for their horns (角). They sell the horns for thousands of dollars per pound, to be used for art, jewelry, and decorations. Experts believe that one rhino is poached every eight hours.
In 1975, the San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research started the Frozen Zoo, a program through which researchers have collected cell samples (细胞样品) from more than 8,000 different types of animals, including the northern white rhino. Scientists hope that by studying the rhino cells, they will get greater understanding of it, and will find ways to increase its numbers.
At the San Diego Zoo, children and adults are welcome to visit and speak with zookeepers to learn about rhinos. For more information, go to www.worldrhinoday.org.
1. What is the purpose of setting up a World Rhino Day?| A．To honor a rhino named Nola. |
| B．To draw people’s attention to rhino protection. |
| C．To let people know the importance of wildlife protection. |
| D．To tell people there are still a great number of rhinos left on Earth. |
| A．Rhinos will die out soon. | B．The number of rhinos is increasing. |
| C．Rhinos are under good protection. | D．Immediate action should be taken to protect rhinos. |
| A．The limited natural resources. | B．Human beings’ activities. |
| C．The pollution of the environment. | D．Diseases found on their horns. |
| A．Science. | B．Sports. | C．Education. | D．Business |
