2 . Plastic pollution has long been a problem, but now it's gotten to a new height-literally.

Microplastics, referring to plastic fragments and particles less than 5 millimeters in diameter, have been found on Mount Qomolangma as high as 8,440 meters above sea level, just 408.86 meters below the peak of the mountain, according to a recent study published in the journal One Earth.

“These are the highest microplastics ever discovered so far, “ lead author Imogen Napper from the University of Plymouth, UK, said in a statement.

Scientists collected snow and water samples from 19 different locations from 4, 200 meters above sea level all the way up to the top of Mount Qomolangma. They found microplastics in all the water samples and part of the snow samples. The most polluted sample was from the Base Camp in Nepal, where most human activity on the mountain is concentrated. It had 79 particles of microplastics per liter of snow.

But how have these fragments made it all this way and in such a great abundance? The answer is apparent-human activities. It is climbers who bring plastic products to the mountain. Even if they don't litter, just walking for 20 minutes or opening a bottle of water can release microplastics into the environment.

Even covered in ice, the Arctic is also a victim of plastic pollution. A 2020 report published in Nature suggests that there are 2,000 to 17,000 plastic particles per cubic meter in Arctic ice cores. Experts think microplastics may be transported by air and then reach the North Pole in snowfall.

“What we don't yet fully know is the potential problems these tiny pieces of plastic could be having to ecosystems," said Christian Dunn of Bangor University , UK.

Then what can we do? “We need to start focusing on deeper technological solutions that focus on microplastics, like changing fabric design and include natural fibers instead of plastic when possible, " Napper said.

1. Where did Napper's team find the microplastics?

A．At 408.86 meters below the top of Mount Qomolangma.

B．In all water and snow samples collected.

C．At 4,200 meters above the Everest Base Camp.

D．At the foot of Mount Qomolangma.

2. Which of the following may protect Mount Qomolangma from microplastics?

A．Stopping littering.	B．Avoiding bottled water.
C．Limiting use of equipment.	D．Forbidding climbing at all.

3. How do experts think plastic pollution reached the Arctic?

A．By planes flying in the air	B．By wind from other places.
C．By humans traveling there	D．By huge tides in the sea.

4. What did Napper suggest?

A．Promoting new styles of clothes.	B．Improving technology for ecosystems.
C．Replacing plastic with natural fibers.	D．Researching microplastics' harm.

3 . Human activities are damaging our marine environment, and ocean pollution threatens human health, a new research has uncovered. The research was conducted by an international research team that published their results in the journal Annals of Global Health. They wrote about the widespread damage to the oceans by the actions of humans, which in turn also cause damage to human health. The researchers also made several recommendations regarding solutions to lessen these damages.

The study detailed the latest scientific findings of the critical role that the oceans play in our health and the health of our planet. It also examined the key factors damaging ocean health. With the increase in temperatures worldwide, the melting of sea ice also increases. It causes an increase in harmful bacteria and algae （藻类）into waters that were unpolluted in the past.        

Coastal populations are threatened by the rise in sea level and the increasing frequency and violence of coastal storms. The increase of carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere increases ocean acidity （酸度），which destroys sensitive food chains in the ocean. Climate change also worsens ocean pollution

According to the study's author Philip Landrigan, who is also a professor and Boston College Global Observatory on Pollution & Health director, the pollution in the ocean is a major problem. It is getting worse and is directly affecting human health. Landrigan also adds that the ocean's plastic pollution is not the entirety of the problem.

According to Landrigan, the toxic pollutants that are dumped into our oceans are finding their way into people's bodies. The pathway is mainly through the consumption of polluted seafood. The most severely affected sectors include those fishing communities and small island countries. Their lives are dependent on the health of the ocean.

The research team suggests several measures to turn the situation around and save our oceans and our health, hoping that human activities change for the better so that ocean pollution is stopped and human health is improved.

1. What did the researchers find in their new study?

A．Oceans are becoming more and more polluted.

B．Oceans get back on humans for their activities.

C．Oceans are faced with the increasing temperature.

D．Oceans are being threatened by bacteria and algae.

2. What would happen with the rise of acidity in waters?

A．Coastal storms will occur regularly and violently.

B．The harmful bacteria and algae will grow faster.

C．The ocean food chains will be poorly damaged.

D．Climate change over the oceans will be worse.

3. What can we learn according to Landrigan?

A．The plastic pollution is a tough problem.

B．Toxic pollutants will be deadly to the fish.

C．The ocean pollution puts people at risk.

D．Plastics most seriously pollute the oceans.

4. What does the author want to tell in the passage?

A．How ocean pollution damages human health.

B．What has caused the oceans' severe pollution.

C．How humans can find practical solutions.

D．What situation the oceans are exposed to.

4 . On November 7, Lewis Pugh completed a one-kilometer swim in the freezing waters of King Edward Cove, off South Georgia in Antarctica. He was wearing only his swimming glasses, cap and Speedo !

Pugh is an advocate for our oceans and seas, working to protect these ecosystems with their large diversity of marine life. When asked why he doesn't wear a wetsuit(防寒泳衣), Pugh says, "I ask world leaders to do everything they can to protect our oceans. Sometimes the steps they need to take are difficult and unpopular. If I'm asking them to be courageous, I must also be. Swimming in a wetsuit would not send the right message."

It took Pugh about 19 minutes to complete the one-kilometer swim in Antarctica where the water averaged about 1.6 degrees Celsius. He says that his body can only tolerate about 20 minutes in the freezing waters before it starts shutting down. As he swims, his body temperature steadily drops, which in turn causes his muscle control to drop, slowing him down. When he is done with his swim, his support team rushes him to a hot shower and it takes almost an hour for his body temperature to return to normal.

Doctors and Pugh caution that one must receive months of training to swim in such cold waters. Even expert swimmers who are unused to freezing water can drown within minutes because of the physical shock experienced by the body. Pugh says he trained for six months before this swim.

This is not the first time that Pugh has swum in dangerous conditions. In 2007, he swam one kilometer in the North Pole to draw attention to the melting Arctic ice due to climate change. In 2015, he swam in the Bay of Whales in Antarctica's Ross Sea as part of his successful campaign to help set up a marine reserve there.

1. Why did Lewis Pugh swim without a wetsuits ?

A．To show his bravery.

B．To swim faster.

C．To build up his body.

D．To have overnight fame.

2. What does the underlined word "it" in Paragraph 3 refer to'?

A．His body temperature.

B．His body

C．The water.

D．The water temperature.

3. What's Pugh's advice about swimming in freezing waters?

A．One should be expert at swimming.

B．One must be used to long-distance swimming.

C．One should be ready to take on challenges.

D．One must be adequately prepared for it.

4. What may be the best title for the text?

A．Lewis Pugh: achieving the impossible

B．How to survive a swim in cold waters

C．Lewis Pugh: swimming for a cause

D．How to prepare for extreme swimming

5 . Scientists can’t predict earthquakes. But toads(蟾蜍)might be able to.

In the spring of 2010, Rachel Grant, a researcher in life sciences, was studying a population of toads in a large dry lake in central Italy. Common toads reproduce once a year, sometimes traveling great distances to gather at their breeding(繁殖)grounds, and Grant was looking at whether her subjects were using the cycles of the moon to coordinate their romantic encounters.

In the previous three years, she had watched the toads increase in number when the moon grew from new to full. But that year was different. The moon became almost full, and suddenly the toads were gone. “It went from there being 90 to 100 toads down to six, and then to one, and then zero,” says Grant.

“I was at a loss. Did somebody come and disturb them? Did somebody run through with a tractor? But that didn’t seem right. Toads get run over by cars all the time, and that doesn’t make them run away,” she says.

Five days after the toads disappeared, she had a possible answer: an earthquake struck in the middle of the night. The 6. 3-magnitude quake was the deadliest to hit Italy in nearly 30 years, killing roughly 300 people and leaving tens of thousands homeless.

Grant stayed to count her toads in spite of the aftershocks. When a full moon rose three days after the quake, a few toads risked a return. But then their numbers dropped again, remaining low until two days after the last aftershock-a full 10 days after the first quake. “It’s never been reported to have happened before,” says Grant. “Once they’re breeding, then they’re breeding. That’s it. “

The question now, says Grant, is whether seismologists(地震学家)can do anything with her research to try to predict the next big one. “A lot of people are asking, “Can we use them as a kind of monitoring tool, keep one at home and watch to see if they run away? “ says Grant. “That’s obviously not going to work. “ But she’s hoping something might.

1. What was Grant’s main purpose in going to the large dry lake in Italy?

A．To use toads to predict earthquakes.	B．To study toads during an earthquake.
C．To check the number of toads there.	D．To study toads’ breeding activities.

2. What was unusual about the toads before the earthquake?

A．Their number increased when a new moon rose.

B．Their number increased when the moon became full.

C．They disappeared just before the moon became full.

D．They disappeared when a new moon rose.

3. What does Grant really mean by stating “I was at a loss”？

A．She felt sorry for the toads.	B．She felt puzzled at what she saw.
C．She felt fearful about the earthquake.	D．She felt sad about what somebody had done.

4. When did the number of toads begin to increase after the earthquake?

A．When the moon began to rise.	B．After the aftershocks stopped.
C．Two days after the earthquake.	D．Three days after the moon became full.

6 . 阅读下面文段，按照句子结构的语法性和上下文连贯的要求，在空格处填入一个适当的词或使用括号中词语的正确形式填空，并将答案填写在答题卡的相应位置上。

While thousands of college students headed for warm climate to enjoy sun and fun during their week off from classes, seven local students had other plans.

The Northern Essex Community College (NECC) students and one of their teachers spent part of their spring break in New York City, helping repair an area     1     (destroy) by the hurricane. “I wanted to see for myself what happened,” said Terry. “I couldn’t imagine    2    it is like to lose your home and everything that you know and the    3    (power) effect the hurricane had on those people. I wanted to do something, to understand their feeling of helplessness.” The group headed into Brooklyn’s Red Hook district, which was hit hard by the hurricane. There they met people from other parts of the country,     4    had also volunteered to help. Together, those volunteers and the NECC students worked     5     (clear) rubbish out of a three-story building. They put on protective suits and gloves    6    they entered the building.

Inside the building, the students saw nothing but broken walls and doors and pieces of the building     7    (lie) all over the place.

The students returned to school with     8    sense of achievement, a feeling     9    they helped people in need. I was remarkable how a community lost so much and was still able to recover, and this left the deepest impression    10    the students.

7 . 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。

Bushfires are disasters that occur each year in many parts of the world. The worst bushfires usually involve eucalypt trees,     1     leaves burn easily. A eucalypt tree can explode in     2     ball of fire. Therefore, eucalypt forest fires can be extremely violent.

The most severe bushfire in the world is burning in south-eastern Australia and its     3     (surround) areas in this dry season. The current summer     4     (present) the perfect storm for wildfire so far. Climate change is making Australian wildfires more powerful     5     (large) due to its effects on dryness and fire weather. Australia’s climate has warmed by more than one degree Celsius over the past century. The ongoing climate change originating from human activities is virtually certain     6     (increase). This assessment of the science evidence has been repeated in countless     7     (report), including the IPCC’s report,     8     (publish) in August 2019.

Apart from being more severe, the fire seasons are becoming longer. October used to be recognized     9     the start of the fire season. But with the season starting in August, we are now facing a new     10     (real) and should pay special attention.

8 . 为响应我市全面创建国家卫生城市的号召，学校学生会开展了以“绿色城市，健康生活”为主题的英语征文活动。请你以“Green City, the Healthy Lift”为题，根据所给提示， 用英语写一篇短文。

主题	绿色城市，健康生活
做法	绿色出行，减少空气污染；垃圾处理，保持城市整洁：多种树木，保护自然环境……
观点

注意：
1.词数100左右，短文开头已给出，不计入总词数；
2.可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。

The Green City, the Healthy Life

As a citizen of Huludao City, it’s our duty to _______________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

9 . While the human world is suffering from the novel coronavirus outbreak, our planet is actually showing certain signs of “recovery” from the damage caused by human activity. According to the BBC, new satellite images released by the European Space Agency showed that levels of air pollutants and greenhouse gases have “fallen sharply” in major cities in Europe and the United States ever since the lockdown started.

This is what happened after recent discoveries in Antarctica. An international team of 89 scientists found that the ice in Greenland and Antarctica is melting six times faster in the 2010s than it was in the 1990s. And in February, Argentina’s Marambio research station in Antarctica recorded a record high temperature of 20.75 ℃ on the continent.

So what exactly will happen if the temperature keeps rising and the ice keeps melting? A third study might give you an idea. A team of scientists drilled a hole into the seafloor in west Antarctica and extracted (提取) material from underground, in which they found traces of roots, spores and pollen—typical products of a rainforest—that dated back 90 million years ago. In other words, Antarctica was very likely a rainforest back when the dinosaurs walked on Earth. But given the fact that the South Pole has four months of darkness during winter—even millions of years ago—scientists believe that the rainforest could only exist if the greenhouse gas concentrations were extremely high back then to keep the continent warm when there was little or no sunlight.

“We didn’t know that this Cretaceous (白垩纪的) greenhouse climate was that extreme,” Johann Klages of the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany and a co-author of the research told the Guardian. “It shows us what carbon dioxide is able to do.”

Ice or no ice, Antarctica will be—and has always been—fine with extreme changes. The human world, however, may not be.

Now, during the coronavirus lockdown, we’ve seen the changes resulting from less human activity. Hopefully, we’ll hold on to those changes—not for Antarctica or the planet, but for ourselves.

1. What does Paragraph 1 mainly tell us?

A．Our planet is returning to its original state due to the novel coronavirus outbreak.

B．The lockdown of major cities contributed to the decrease of greenhouse gases.

C．The novel coronavirus has a positive effect on the human beings.

D．The novel coronavirus outbreak resulted from human activity.

2. What do we learn from the third study?

A．Typical products of a rainforest were dug out in Antarctica.

B．Traces of dinosaurs living in rainforests were spotted in Antarctica.

C．There was a good possibility of high greenhouse gas concentrations in Antarctica.

D．There used to be enough sunlight for the rainforest in the Cretaceous Antarctica.

3. Which of the following statements is true according to the passage?

A．Human activity doesn’t threaten life in Antarctica.

B．The ice in Antarctica is melting faster in the 2010s than now.

C．We should reduce carbon dioxide emissions for our own sake.

D．The lockdown can be carried on to slow down global warming.

4. What is the main purpose of the passage?

A．To encourage us to defeat the novel coronavirus.

B．To explain the effects of greenhouse gases.

C．To draw our attention to ecosystem in Antarctica.

D．To call on us to reduce human impact on the environment.

10 . 阅读下面材料，在空白处填入适当的内容（1个单词）或括号内单词的正确形式。

Chinese net users have found a new way to battle desertification by playing virtual (虚拟的) planting games. Ant Forest,     1     is under Ant Financial of the Alibaba Group, told the Global Times that they had planted over 50 million trees covering about 507 square kilometers across China from 2016 to 2019.

Ant Forest is the first such game in China. In the Ant Forest plan, any activity     2    (consider) low carbon, including walking, taking public transport and online payments, will be converted into virtual “green energy”. The energy will be used to grow a virtual tree in the “forest” of the     3    (user). They exchange     4    for a real tree by paying the corresponding energy. Ant Forest will plant the real trees in spring and autumn each year     5    the help of local authorities in the desert areas. This way of planting trees    6     (recognize) on October 23, 2018 by the National Afforestation Committee as    7    means for citizens to fulfill their obligation of planting trees.

The Chinese government attaches great    8     (important)to the protection of ecosystems. China aims     9    (increase)the forest cover to 23 percent by 2020, and to 26 percent by 2035. A new study using data from NASA satellite shows that the Earth becomes    10    (green) as a result of ambitious tree-planting programs in China.