1 . Balancing preservation of the land with our desire to travel is a challenge for us travelers. When seeing cities face constant resource and waste problems, I couldn’t help but think about how much travel can affect the environment.

Back in my youth, I was an environmental activist. But over the years, I leave the lights on. I fly a lot. I drink out of plastic bottles. I eat a lot of meat. And I love fish, especially tuna. However, recently, I’ve begun thinking harder about how travel affects the environment and how I affect the environment. In doing so, I’ve tried to be a lot more aware of my actions.

I don’t know if there is an easy solution for this problem. The most environmentally friendly activity is not to travel at all, but that’s unrealistic and too extreme. There’s so much money in travel that I don’t think the government and regulation can do much. Only when their profits are hurt will hotels, operators, and the industry as a whole begin to listen. Instead, it’s all about the consumers. The only good way is to get people to be more environmentally conscious and make better decisions.

Consumers have a lot of power. Why did Wal-Mart start selling only sustainable fish and whole milk? Consumers wanted it. I think if we as travelers begin to demand more environmentally friendly practices and avoid companies with poor environmental records, we can change things.

Now, I recycle more, I use fewer water bottles, I shut off the lights, Most importantly, I use operators and stay at places that are reducing their environmental impact.

Travel can destroy the environment but it doesn’t have to. We have the power to make things better. We can do small things and demand more of the places we stay and visit. We can and should demand more of places, and of ourselves.

1. Which of the following might be the best title for the text?

A．My experiences of protecting the environment.

B．Can we balance travel and the environment?

C．Is there an easy way to solve environmental problems?

D．How can we travel in an environmentally friendly way?

2. Why does the writer list his actions over the years?

A．To show he is wealthy.

B．To tell he is fond of travelling.

C．To indicate he has become less environmentally conscious.

D．To explain his hobby.

3. What’s the realistic way to solve the problem according to paragraph 3?

A．People do not travel at all.

B．The government takes effective measures.

C．Tourism industry follows environmental rules.

D．Consumers become more environmentally conscious.

4. What can be learned from the last paragraph?

A．Travel will surely destroy the environment.

B．Few things travelers can do to protect the environment.

C．We can get a lot from the places we travel.

D．What travelers do can make a difference to the environment.

2 . Imagine an area 34 times the size of Manhattan. Now imagine it covered ankle-deep in plastic waste—a total of about 19 billion pounds of garbage.     1    .

“We’re being overwhelmed(淹没) by our waste,”said Jenna Jambeck, an environmental engineer who led the 2015 study that determined this astonishing number.     2    , unless something is done to stop the tide of garbage.

Plastic—a widely-used material—has in many ways been a benefit to humans but it has also caused a growing problem. Today, plastics are the No.1 type of garbage found in the sea. Ocean Conservancy, a nonprofit that organizes an annual coastal cleanup event worldwide, said plastic waste makes up around 85 percent of the garbage collected from beaches and oceans.

Ocean Conservancy says plastics are believed to threaten(威胁)at least 600 different wildlife species(物种).     3    ; a growing body of evidence suggests humans are consuming plastics through the seafood we eat. A research suggests some plastics could be poisonous to humans, and could potentially increase the risk of health problems.

    4    . At the Economist World Ocean Summit this week, ten nations announced to reduce plastic sea liter as part of UN Environment's CleanSeas campaign.     5    Corporations also have a role, as do individuals. We can start by thinking twice before using single-use plastic products—and when we do use them, we should take care to properly throw them off or recycle.

A．The following is what we should do

B．And it’s not just wildlife that’s threatened

C．And this figure is likely to double by 2025

D．But it’s not just countries that need to do their part

E．By 2050,that figure is expected to rise to 1000 pieces

F．That’s how much plastic waste ends up in our oceans every year

G．All of us have an important role to play in dealing with the problems

3 . Just a year ago, the colors were bright under the waves. Now it’s gray — the Maldivian reef is dead. The coral is killed by the pressure of rising temperatures.

Coral reefs are areas underwater where small creatures live. The coral is hard material formed on the bottom of the sea by the skeletons of those creatures. But the world has lost about half its coral reefs in the last 30 years. Scientists are working to prevent their destruction. Due to global warming, over 90 percent of corals are expected to die by 2050. “To lose coral reefs is to fundamentally undermine the health of a very large proportion of the human race,” said Ruth Gates, director of the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology.

Why are coral reefs important? Coral reefs support a fourth of all marine species, as well as half a billion people worldwide. They serve as barriers to protect coastlines from the storms. They provide billions of dollars from tourism, fishing and other trade. They are also used in medical research for cures for diseases. “Everyone should be concerned,” said biologist Ove Guldberg at Australia’s University of Queensland. “This is not just some distant dive destination. This is the basic structure of the ecosystem we depend on.”

The ocean is getting warmer. A rising temperature of just one to two degree Celsius can force coral to expel the algae (驱逐海藻) that live there. This leaves their white skeletons uncovered. It is a process called “bleaching”. Sixteen percent of the world’s corals died of bleaching in 1998. The problem has become much worse in recent years.

“We’ve lost 50 percent of the reefs, but that means we still have 50 percent left,” said Ruth Gates, who is working in Hawaii to breed corals that can better withstand increasing temperatures. She is also trying to “train” corals to survive rising temperatures. Gates says it is time to start “thinking outside the box”— find creative ways to help them.

1. What does the underlined word “undermine” in paragraph 2 mean?

A．Regain	B．Weaken
C．Promote	D．Develop

2. What can we learn from Ove Guldberg’ words?

A．People won’t find a dive destination in the future.

B．The effort to save corals will turn out to be fruitless.

C．The bright sea has lost its charm because of those dead corals.

D．The destruction of coral reefs will affect the earth ecosystem.

3. What’s the fourth paragraph mainly about?

A．The harm of algae.	B．The importance of coral reefs.
C．The process of “bleaching”.	D．The change of ocean temperature.

4. What is Ruth Gates’ attitude towards the protection of corals？

A．Worried	B．Positive
C．Casual	D．Curious

4 . E-waste is fast becoming a serious global problem.     1    

The source of e-waste

We live in a society that constantly produces and consumes electronic products. It is often cheaper to buy new pieces of equipment than to repair old ones. Also, through clever advertising, companies persuade consumers to replace their old TVs, mobile phones and computers for the latest models. E-waste is created when we throw away electronic equipment like this. In the EU alone, about 8.7 million tonnes of e-waste is produced each year.     2    

The problem with e-waste

Burying e-waste in landfills or burning it causes serious problems for the environment.     3     These substances can then leak into the ground in landfills or pollute the air when they are burnt.

Global recycling schemes (计划)

    4     However, their schemes are not always managed properly and sometimes electronics are just sent to poor countries such as Ghana. Here they are often burnt in public areas, which is very bad for people’s health. Setting up recycling programs in the countries that create e-waste could solve this problem. E-cycling centres could recycle the parts that we can reuse and properly dispose of the rest.

Take-back policy

Another solution to e-waste is to make manufacturers responsible for their used products. This could mean forcing them to take back old products which are no longer wanted.     5    

Consuming less

We can all reduce the amount of waste we produce by buying electrical products only when we have to.

A．In recent years, many countries have started recycling e-waste.

B．They should then make sure they are properly recycled or reused.

C．Sadly, just over one million tonnes is recycled.

D．This report will examine this problem and provide some possible solutions.

E．By resisting the temptation to buy a product just to have the latest version, we cut down on e-waste.

F．Electronics contain dangerous chemicals and metals.

G．Both manufacturers and consumers must accept their responsibilities and make efforts to keep it to a minimum.

5 . The early life of the green sea turtle (海龟) is full of danger. Only one in 1,000 baby sea turtles survive to adulthood (成年). From its home in the sand, it breaks its egg with an egg tooth. Its mother is not there to help it. Instead, it is greeted by crabs, coyotes, and dogs waiting to eat it for dinner. To survive, the baby turtle must hide in the sand until night. Then, it moves slowly to the sea.

The small turtle must swim hard to reach the ocean waters. In the sea, it tries hard to find food. It must also keep itself from being food for fish.

As dangerous as the sea turtle’s life is in the natural world, its most dangerous enemies are humans. The rubbish left by humans in the ocean causes problems for the small green sea turtle. A little turtle might eat a piece of plastic (塑料) in the sea. It might also eat oil on the ocean’s surface. Young turtles also get caught in fishing nets. There are laws against hunting sea turtles. Still, many are hunted, both for their meat and for their shells (壳). All of these dangers must be prevented.

Sea turtles that do survive to grow into adulthood go through many changes. For example, adult green sea turtles weigh about 500 pounds. They stop eating jellyfish and other meat and eat only plants. And they may plan a trip to go back home again. A mother sea turtle goes back to the beach where she was born. This is the only place where she will lay eggs. Even if it has been forty years since she was a baby, she always knows her way back home.

1. Why do baby turtles move to the sea at night?

A．They dislike sunshine.

B．They prefer lower temperatures.

C．They can find food easily then.

D．They need to avoid enemies.

2. What does the author think of the young turtles in Paragraph 3?

A．Pitiful.	B．Careless.
C．Interesting.	D．Courageous.

3. What can we learn about sea turtles?

A．They mainly feed on fish and meat.

B．They always produce eggs at their birthplaces.

C．They can live for around forty years.

D．They visit their beach homes several times a year.

4. What is the text mainly about?

A．The homes of green sea turtles.

B．How sea turtles find their food.

C．The dangers faced by sea turtles.

D．How young turtles become adults.

6 . Blue Planet II’s latest episode focuses on how plastic is having a disastrous effect on the ocean and slowly poisoning our sea creatures. Researchers recently also found that sea creatures living in the deepest place on Earth, the Mariana Trench, have plastic in their stomachs. Indeed, the oceans are drowning in plastic.

Though it seems now that the world couldn’t possibly function without plastics, consumer plastics are a remarkably recent invention. The first plastic bags were introduced in the 1950s;   the same decade that plastic packaging began gaining in popularity in the United States. This growth has happened so fast that science is still catching up with the change. Plastics pollution research, for instance, is still a very early science.

We put all these plastics into the environment and we still don’t really know what the outcomes are going to be. What we do know, though, is disturbing. Ocean plastic is estimated to kill millions of marine animals every year. Nearly 700 species, including endangered ones, are known to have been affected by it. One in three leatherback turtles, which often mistake plastic bags for jellyfish, have been found with plastic in their bellies. Ninety percent of seabirds are now eating plastics on a regular basis. By 2050, that figure is expected to rise to 100 percent.

And it’s not just wildlife that is threatened by the plastics in our seas. Humans are consuming plastics through the seafood we eat. I could understand why some people see ocean plastic as a disaster, worth mentioning to the same degree as climate change. But ocean plastic is not as complicated as climate change. There are no ocean trash deniers (否认者), at least so far. To do something about it, we don’t have to remake our planet energy system.

This is not a problem where we don’t know what the solution is. We know how to pick up garbage. Anyone can do it. We know how to dispose (处理) of it. We know how to recycle. We can all start by thinking twice before we use single-use plastic products. Things that may seem ordinary, like using a reusable bottle or a reusable bag----when taken collectively, these choices really do make a difference.

1. Why is plastics pollution research still a very early science?

A．The plastics pollution research is too difficult.

B．Plastics have produced less pollution than coal.

C．The world couldn’t possibly function without plastics.

D．Plastics have gained in popularity too fast for science to catch up.

2. How did the author support his opinion in Paragraph 3?

A．By statistics.

B．By quotations from leading experts.

C．By using examples from his own experience.

D．By comparison and contrast.

3. What can we infer about climate change?

A．Climate change is caused by human activities.

B．Some people hold some doubts about climate change.

C．Climate change is less important than ocean pollution.

D．Ocean plastic is more complicated than climate change.

4. What is the main idea of this passage?

A．Ocean plastic is a global issue.

B．The oceans become choked with plastic.

C．Blue Planet II has left viewers heartbroken.

D．Plastics gain in popularity all over the world