1 . Some talk of building settlements on the moon or Mars to help make sure humanity survives long into the future. Others have their sights set closer to home: on future cities under the ocean.
“Technologically speaking, it is absolutely possible to colonize the bottom of the sea,” says Fabien Cousteau, a well-known ocean explorer who once spent 31 days living in what is now the world’s only functioning undersea habitat, Aquarius. It’s about the size of a school bus and located 62 feet below the ocean surface off the Florida Keys.
Just as astronauts test what it would be like to live in space, aquanauts (海底观察员) try out undersea living with an eye on the future. Escaping from disasters such as climate change, wars, or pandemics is one reason to live under the sea. Others include studying, exploring, or appreciating the ocean. It’s costly and expensive to constantly keep up an ocean habitat which must make its own air, electricity, and fresh water. Residents have to deal with high pressure. And infections can develop rapidly due to high humidity (湿度).
Despite the challenges, several new ocean habitats and cities are under construction. A series of space station-like undersea living areas for aquanauts called Proteus are scheduled to be completed by 2025 off Curacao, an island in South America. Meanwhile, an undersea city called Ocean Spiral in Japan would link its surface to the deep sea, using the difference in pressure to generate energy and produce fresh water. This sounds amazing, but it would be extremely expensive and remains just a design.
Not everyone agrees that building homes in the ocean is a good idea. This type of development could place even more pressure on ecosystems that are already struggling with pollution and climate change. It’s important to make sure that any construction is done carefully, says Susanne Menden-Deuer, an oceanographer at the University of Rhode Island. Wild undersea habitats should be treated as “the precious, irreplaceable resource that they are,” she says.
1. What do we know about Aquarius?A.It is still under construction. |
B.It functions as an undersea school bus. |
C.It is the only ocean habitat in operation. |
D.It only allows a person to live there for 31 days. |
A.The present and future of living under the sea. |
B.The reasons and challenges of living under the sea. |
C.The purpose and cost of building undersea settlements. |
D.The problems and findings of building undersea settlements. |
A.Rapid development of undersea habitats. |
B.Protection of irreplaceable ocean resource. |
C.Negative impacts on undersea ecosystems. |
D.Struggles with pollution and climate change. |
A.Build up. | B.Settle in. | C.Think up. | D.Take in. |
2 . Western Australia may soon be home to the world’s tallest wooden building, after authorities plans for a 191.2-meter-tall tower constructed using mass wood. Perth’s Metro Inner-South Joint Development Assessment Panel (JDAP) approved the developer Grange Development’s proposal for the tall building.
The tall building, currently named the C6 building, would stand nearly twice as high as the current record holder. The developers say 42% of the building will be constructed from wood, with the columns and core made of concrete (混凝土). If completed, the high-rise will go beyond the current world’s tallest wooden building, the Ascent tower in Wisconsin, America, which stands at 25 stories or 86 meters. The structure, located in South Perth, Australia, will also be taller than the coming wood Atlassian Headquarters in Sydney, which is expected to claim the record from Ascent but is yet to be completed.
Like Atlassian Headquarters, the C6 building will combine wood beams (横梁) with a steel supporting structure to support the whole structure. According to Grange Development, the 50-story building will contain more than 200 apartments.
It will be Western Australia’s first carbon-negative residential building. Grange Development’s director, James Dibble, said, “Our desire with the building is to shift the focus towards a more climate-conscious approach.” The building will use 7,400 cubic meters of wood harvested from 600 trees. “We can’t grow concrete,” Dibble said, calling the plan “a new open sourced blueprint that uses construction methods to balance out the CO2 within our built environment, which is the single biggest trigger to climate issues”. “This is our opportunity to show that we genuinely care about the climate crisis we are doing very little about as an industry,” he added.
Philip Oldfield, head of the University of New South Wales’ School of Built Environment, said, “Typically we build tall buildings out of steel and concrete, Concrete is responsible for 8% of all CO release. So by replacing concrete and steel with a biological material such as wood, it is going to reduce the environmental impact of the building quite significantly.”
1. Where will the second tallest wooden building appear?A.In South Perth, Australia. | B.In Sydney, Australia. |
C.In New South Wales, Australia. | D.In Wisconsin, America. |
A.Relief. | B.Limit. | C.Improvement. | D.Contributor. |
A.Low-carbon. | B.High-risk. | C.Material-saving. | D.Energy-wasting. |
A.The tallest wooden building has been all done in Australia |
B.The tallest wooden building causes environmental worries |
C.The tallest wooden building highlights more than its height |
D.The tallest wooden building fits well the climate in Australia |
3 . The UK typically produces an additional 30% of rubbish throughout the festive period compared to the rest of the year, as Britons collectively send over 100 million bags of rubbish to landfills every Christmas.
Remember that less is more. Research from Business Waste found that UK citizens spend £700 million on unwanted gifts every year. In addition, of all the purchases made for Christmas, only 1% will remain in use six months down the line.
You need to know the materials.
A.One gift can mean 1,000 |
B.Consider cutting out gifts and cards |
C.As there are so many materials to choose from |
D.They’re made to last, complete with a 10-year guarantee |
E.While many of us know single-use plastic can’t be recycled |
F.So you’d better try to focus on quality, not quantity, when shopping for gifts |
G.Thankfully, we’re on hand to share some tips to lower your impact this Christmas |
内容包括:
1.保护野生动物的重要性;
2.如何保护野生动物;
3.保护野生动物的倡议。
How can we protect wild animals?
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________5 . A powerful earthquake hit Morocco, killing thousands of people and causing huge damage over a large area.
The earthquake struck around 11 pm on Friday night. It was not only one of the most powerful earthquakes ever recorded in Morocco, but also the country’s deadliest earthquake in over 60 years. So far, the earthquake is reported to have killed over 2,900 people. The earthquake was especially precarious as it happened at night, when most people were asleep at home.
The center of the earthquake was in the Atlas Mountains, about 72 kilometers southwest of Marrakesh, a large city popular with tourists in the center of Morocco. Fortunately, many of its modern buildings survived the earthquake. However, the old part of the city, called the Medina, whose buildings are over 1,000 years old, was hit hard, leaving many of those buildings in ruins.
Outside of Marrakesh, the earthquake caused even more damage. In the Atlas Mountains, the earthquake’s center, there were many small villages. Many people in the area lived in simple houses made of mud, a traditional way of building in Morocco. But they’ re not strong enough to survive earthquakes and many of these houses simply fell apart, turning into sand. The Moroccan government has laws requiring buildings to be built more safely, yet these rules were often overlooked.
In larger cities, rescue efforts seemed to be going well. But it took a lot longer for help to reach remote (偏远的) areas in the mountains. That meant the local people in those areas had to deal with the situation on their own. They had to dig through the ruins with their hands, searching for survivors who were trapped. Moreover, many people were sleeping outside, unsure if their houses were safe enough.
More help was on the way. Many outside countries offered teams of experts and emergency supplies. But the government said too many different rescue teams could make the situation more confusing.
1. Why did the earthquake lead to the most deaths on record in Morocco?A.It struck a large and tourist city. | B.It was powerful and happened at night. |
C.The rescue teams arrived too late. | D.The traditional houses were not strong enough. |
A.Dangerous. | B.Powerful. | C.Unique. | D.Impressive. |
A.They had no shelter to stay. | B.They ran out of food supplies. |
C.They lost contact with the outside world. | D.They couldn’t get necessary rescue in time. |
A.A science magazine. | B.A travel journal. |
C.A news report. | D.A cultural website. |
6 . As newer, more advanced technologies come out, huge amounts of electronics (电子产品) are thrown away, instead of being reused. These goods often end up in landfills, where the chemicals inside them may be a danger to the environment. Electronics can contain harmful materials. If these materials get into the ground or water, the pollution can cause serious problems. Most electronics require metals. These metals must be mined from the Earth. Often the mining process creates serious pollution.
A group known as Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Forum is trying to make people more aware of the problems of e-waste. Recently, the WEEE Forum asked researchers from the United Nations (UN) to study a kind of e-waste that’s often not noticed because people don’t consider the goods to be electronics. The WEEE Forum calls this kind “unable-to-be-seen” e-waste.
The UN study shows that about 1/6 of all e-waste is “unable-to-be-seen”. Though it’s “unable-to-be-seen”, it’s certainly not a small amount. The “unable-to-be-seen” e-waste weighs about 9 billion kilograms. The WEEE Forum says that if this e-waste were put into 40-ton trucks and the trucks were then lined up, the line of trucks would be about 5,630 kilometers long.
The surprising kind leading the “unable-to-be-seen” e-waste group was toys. Worldwide, roughly 7.3 billion electronic toys are thrown away each year. These include goods like car racing sets, electric trains, and musical toys. They also include toys with electronic parts, like dolls that speak or games with electronic timers. In all, toys make up about 35% of “unable-to-be-seen” e-waste. But the problem is far larger than just toys. The report also shows that other everyday goods like home alarms, smoke alarms, power tools, and computer cables (电缆) are also big sources of “unable-to-be-seen” e-waste.
The WEEE Forum is hoping that as more people and governments become aware of e-waste, they will make a much greater effort to make sure electronics get reused.
1. What is paragraph 1 mainly about?A.The amount of electronics. | B.The development of electronics. |
C.The ways of reusing electronics. | D.The pollution of electronics. |
A.People’s interest in electronics’ character. |
B.People’s impression on electronics’ package. |
C.People’s misunderstanding of electronics. |
D.People’s struggle to adapt to electronics. |
A.By showing numbers. | B.By providing examples. |
C.By making a summary. | D.By making a comparison, |
A.Designing advanced electronics. | B.Making electronics get reused. |
C.Stopping giving away electronics. | D.Reducing electronics’ production. |
7 . In the U. S., people eat more protein than they need to, which might not be bad for human health, but does pose a problem for the country’s waterways. The nation’s wastewater is loaded with the leftovers from protein digestion: nitrogen compounds(氯化合物) that can feed harmful algal blooms(藻华) and pollute the air and drinking water.
Maya Almaraz, a biogeochemist at the University of California, Davis, and her team wanted to see how much of this nitrogen entered into the U. S. wastewater system because of a protein-heavy diet. The researchers found that the majority of nitrogen pollution present in wastewater—some 67 to 100 precent—is a by-product of water people consume.
Once it enters the environment, the nitrogen can have a series of ecological impacts. It helps algae grow much faster than they would normally, which is harmful to humans, other animals and plants. And when the algae eventually die, the problem is not over. Microorganisms(微生物) that feed on dead algae use up the oxygen in the water, leading to “dead zones,” where many species simply cannot survive, in rivers, lakes and oceans.
Although it is possible to treat algal blooms, many of the current methods are not always effective at getting rid of all of the harmful growth. Some of these methods can even lead to additional pollution. So the best strategy for dealing with the effects of nitrogen pollution is prevention, says Patricia Glibert, an ocean scientist at the University of Maryland. Almaraz and her team suggest that controlling nitrogen pollution could be approached more quickly with a change in eating habits that could save billions of dollars in the long term.
1. Which aspect of Americans’ diet does Almaraz’s research focus on ?A.Its variety. | B.Its effect. | C.Its make-up. | D.Its amount. |
A.No oxygen for many species. | B.Death of lots of healthy algae. |
C.Microorganisms’overconsumption of nutrients. | D.Poisonous chemicals released by harmful algae. |
A.They are costly. | B.They may kill all algae. |
C.They are slow to take effect. | D.They may cause secondary pollution. |
A.It is high time to treat wild algae growth. | B.Eating too much protein harms the planet. |
C.Prevention is better than cure in treating air pollution. | D.Researchers find solutions to the wastewater problem. |
8 . Micro plastics can accumulate in the brains of mammals (哺乳动物) and even lead to behavioral changes, according to a new study. This not only adds to evidence about the harm that micro plastics are doing to our environment, but crucially provides new insight into what they could be doing to our bodies.
Plastic pollution is a huge environmental concern. In particular, tiny pieces of micro plastic have been found everywhere from our oceans to the atmosphere. A team led by University of Rhode Island professor Jaime Ross wanted to learn about whether these micro plastics accumulate in the brains of mammals and the potential impact on behavior.
The researchers gave mice drinking water contaminated (污染) with different concentrations of micro plastics over a three-week period. They used mice of different ages to see whether the effects would vary in the younger or older mice.
Besides indications of changes in the mice’s brains, the team saw changes in their behavior, which were particularly apparent in the older animals. The behavioral changes are similar to symptoms you might expect to see in patients with dementia (痴呆) .
“These were not high doses of micro plastics, but in only a short period of time, we saw these changes,” Ross said in a statement.
“In this study, the micro plastics were delivered orally via drinking water, detection in tissues such as the gastrointestinal tract, which is a major part of the digestive system, was always probable,” Ross explained. “But the brain is protected by a boundary called the blood-brain barrier, which should make it harder to access. The team found that micro plastics had entered the brain’s tissues.”
“Once inside, micro plastics cause a decrease in the levels of a brain protein called GFAP,” Ross said. “A decrease in GFAP has been associated with early stages of some neurodegenerative diseases, including dementia and depression.”
Now that even the remotest parts of our planet are seemingly unable to escape contamination with micro plastics, more research like this, which seeks to better understand how human beings’ plastic habit could be coming back to bite us, is more urgently needed than ever.
1. What does paragraph 2 focus on?A.Why the study was carried out. | B.How ocean pollution appeared. |
C.How a team studied micro plastics. | D.Why micro plastics spread quickly. |
A.They delivered micro plastics directly into mice’s brains. |
B.They used mice of the same age to consume micro plastics. |
C.They set boundaries for mice’s digestive systems in advance. |
D.They gave mice micro plastic-contaminated drinking water. |
A.Brain tissues are easy to attack. | B.The study is far from convincing. |
C.The research results are surprising. | D.Mice’s brains are generally inactive. |
A.Moving to the remotest parts of our planet. |
B.Conducting more research on micro plastics. |
C.Keeping human beings’ current plastic habit. |
D.Preventing industries from producing plastics. |
1.表明意图;
2.日常做法;
3.你的感想。
注意: 1.写作词数应为80个左右;
2.请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
Dear classmates,
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1. 目前环境面临的威胁;
2. 提出可行措施;
3. 保护环境的意义 。
注意:1. 文章应包括以上要点,可适当发挥。
2. 词数 80 词左右。
Dear fellows,
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