1 . In the classic novel The Day of the Triffids, giant plants terrorise humanity. Triffids can walk and are equipped with poisonous stingers, but their real power lies in their ability to communicate and so plot against us.

It sounds far-fetched, but since John Wyndham’s book was published in 1951, one aspect of this fiction has proved to be science fact: plants do talk to one another. It has long been known that insects such as pollinators (传粉者）and pests can distinguish between plants by the chemicals they release. What’s new is the idea that plants use their emissions to talk among themselves. “Plants release chemicals into the atmosphere—these can be viewed as a language in the sense that a plant releasing the chemicals can be viewed as ‘speaking’ and the plant receiving them as ‘listening’ and then responding,” says chemical ecologist James Blande at the University of Eastern Finland.

Now we are discovering that air pollution can disrupt these communications. In one study, Blande and his colleagues put individual bumblebees into a box containing paper flowers resembling those of black mustard (芥末). When the scientists injected the scent of real black mustard flowers that grew in either a clean or polluted atmosphere the bumblebees’ reactions were unequivocal: they were immediately attracted to the unpolluted scent, while that from polluted air left them flying around aimlessly.

It’s not just the clarity of plant language that gets disrupted，the “loudness” is affected, too. To find out how much things have changed since pre-industrial times, Jose Fuentes at the University of Virginia and his colleagues made a computer model that included historic air pollution levels. It revealed that scents(气味)produced by flowers that could once be picked up kilometres away now travel as little as 200 metres.

Even between clean and dirty environments today, a similar reduction in signal can be seen. Take lima beans. When one plant is attacked by spider mites, it emits chemical signals that make others nearby produce more sugary nectar. This, in turn, attracts predatory mites, which eat the attackers. If the atmosphere is clean, Blande found, the beans easily communicate with neighbours growing 70 centimetres away. But in polluted conditions, their warning cries can’t be heard more than 20 centimetres away.

1. The writer mentions the novel The Day of the Triffids in order to_________.

A．show how far-fetched the novel is

B．introduce the topic of the passage

C．warn readers of a possible danger

D．illustrate a new discovery of plants

2. The word “unequivocal”（in paragraph 3) is closest in meaning to_________.

A．familiar	B．unpredictable
C．different	D．inter-related

3. What can be inferred from the passage?

A．The scent of plants can’t travel in a shorter distance in polluted air

B．Classic novels are usually based on some proved scientific facts.

C．It was in pre-industrial times that pollution came into existence.

D．Warning cries made by insects are getting softer and softer.

4. What is the passage mainly about?

A．Chemical signals vary with the age of plants.

B．Pollinators and insects either damage or benefit plants.

C．Pollution has an impact on the communication between plants.

D．Plants communicate with each other by means of what they emit.

2 . A Swedish power plant is taking reuse and recycle to the next level by burning unusable clothing instead of coal, Bloomberg reports.

Retail giant Hennes & Mauritz, more commonly known as H&M, is helping the utility transition away from coal through its moldy (发霉的) or otherwise unsalable clothing.

The multi-fuel power and heating station in Västerås, central Sweden, is planning to be completely fossil-fuel free by 2020. It’s the largest station of its kind and Sweden claims it’s one of Europe’s cleanest. To kick its coal habit, the station is turning instead to other burnable materials including recycled wood, rubbish and yes, clothes.

“Our goal is to use only renewable and recycled fuels,” Jens Neren, head of fuel supplies at the utility company which owns and operates the Västerås plant, told Bloomberg.

Johanna Dahl, head of communications for H&M in Sweden, told Bloomberg that the company allows only the burning of clothes which are no longer safe to use.

“It is our legal obligation to make sure that clothes that contain mold or do not meet the requirements of our strict restriction on chemicals are destroyed,” she said.

The Västerås plant has burned around 15 tons of old H&M clothes so far this year, compared with about 400,000 tons of rubbish, Neren told Bloomberg.

Sweden has one of the world’s greener energy generating systems, and has invested in bioenergy, solar power and electric buses. In 2015, the Scandinavian country announced an ambitious aim to become one of the first nations in the world to end its dependence on fossil fuels. According to the Swedish government, the country has already heavily reduced its dependence on oil, which accounted for 75% of the energy supply in 1970, and now makes up a 20% share.

1. Which of the following can serve as fuel in the Västerås plant?

A．Fashionable coats in H&M chain store.	B．Old TV sets deserted as rubbish.
C．Wooden furniture in second-hand shop.	D．H&M clothes unsuitable for sale.

2. The underlined word in the last paragraph “generating” is closest in meaning to ______.

A．eliminating	B．adjusting
C．producing	D．circulating

3. What can we learn from the passage?

A．The Swedish government discourages the development of bioenergy.

B．Clothes only take up a small proportion of the burning material.

C．Sweden’s fossil-fuel free plan is almost accomplished by now.

D．Sweden has an ambition to be the cleanest country in the world.

4. What is the main idea of the passage?

A．A Swedish power plant is burning unusable H&M clothes for fuel.

B．The Swedish government aims high and is taking effective action.

C．H&M is looking for a new way to strengthen its position in fashion.

D．Coal and oil are no longer regarded as the primary fuels in Sweden.

3 . Directions: Fill in each blank with a proper word chosen from the box. Each word can be used only once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

Mentally and Intellectually Harmful

Last month, the Indian Medical Association declared a public health emergency in New Delhi because of high levels of air pollution. Schools were shut and emergency traffic restrictions put in place.

New Delhi is far from alone. Our research into the    1     of air pollution in China shows that, in addition to the more obvious physical price, air pollution can also have serious negative effects on mental health and cognition (认知),    2     reducing a person’s happiness and their scores in verbal and mathematical tests.

Such harmful mental effects have serious negative consequences for livelihoods and human capital development, suggesting that development    3     should go beyond the traditional focus of boosting GDP in the developing world.

India's recent pollution emergency is the most    4     incidence(发生率)of dangerous air pollution, but smoggy skies have been a cause of growing    5     in most developing countries.

Major cities across the developing world---from Thailand to Brazil, to Nigeria---    6     experience pollution at several times the WHO safe limits. In fact, 98% of cities with more than 100.000    7     in low and middle-income countries fail to meet the WHO’s air quality guidelines.

India’s extreme levels of air pollution are well recognized, and examining the effects provides clear warnings for other countries seeking fast growth through rapid industrialization.

We used nationally     8     longitudinal (纵向)surveys on mental health and cognition, matched with daily air quality data for the time and place of interviews, to see what pollution does in a given time to individual happiness and cognitive performance. Because each person in our survey was     9    multiple times, we can control for the effect of individual characteristics on the outcome variables.

We found that worsening air quality led to a decrease in happiness that day    10    to about 10 percent of the reduced happiness one would experience form a negative major life event such as divorce.

4 . Directions: Complete the following passage by using the -words in the box. Each -word can only be used once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. infections     B. factors                 C. particularly          D. separate          E. seriously        F. passive G. mixtures          H. significantly   I. present                       J. negative            K. exposed

Air pollution triggers (引发)more heart attacks than using cocaine and poses as high a risk of sparking a heart attack as alcohol, coffee and physical exertion, scientists said on Thursday. Anger, marijuana (大麻)use and chest or respiratory (与呼吸有关的)     1     can also trigger heart attacks to different extents, the researchers said, but air pollution,       2     in heavy traffic, is the major cause.

The findings, published in The Lancet journal, suggest population-wide       3     like polluted air should be taken more       4     when looking at heart risks, and should be put into context besides higher but relatively rarer risks like drug use. Tim Nawrot of Hasselt University in Belgium, who led the study, said he hoped his findings would also encourage doctors to think more often about population level risks.

Nawrot’s team combined data from thirty-six       5     studies and calculated the relative risk posed by a series of heart attack triggers and their population-attributable fraction (PAF)—in other words the proportion of total heart attacks estimated to have been caused by each trigger. “Of the triggers for heart attack studied, cocaine is the most likely to trigger an event in an individual, but traffic has the greatest population effect as more people are       6     to it,” the researchers wrote. “PAFs give a measure of how much disease would be avoided if the risk was no longer       7    . ”

A report published late last year found that air pollution in many major cities in Asia exceeds the WHO’s air quality guidelines and that poisonous       8     of pollutants result in more than 530,000 earlier deaths a year. While       9     smoking was not included in this study, Nawrot said the effects of secondhand smoke were likely to be similar to that of outdoor air pollution, and noted previous research found that bans on smoking in public places have       10     reduced heart attack rates.

5 . An art program is helping students at some of the lowest performing schools in the United States.

On June 8，much of the world ____ the United Nations World Oceans Day. The idea is to remind people how important the world’s oceans are to all life on Earth, to celebrate their beauty, and to bring attention to the ____ human activity has on the oceans.

This year, the theme is “Our Oceans, Our Future,” with special emphasis on finding solutions to plastic pollution, and ____ marine litter for a healthier ocean and a better future.

The world's oceans ____ nearly three fourths of the Earth's surface, and contain 97 percent of our planet’s water. They produce over half of our oxygen，help regulate our climate, absorb carbon dioxide，and support the greatest ____ of life on our planet.

Nearly half of all species on Earth depend on the oceans for survival, and for many of the rest, including people, the oceans ____ the quality of life.

The oceans are also ____ to the world’s economy, because they are key to transportation and recreation. As over 95 percent of the underwater area remains unexplored, it is nearly a ____ that their depths may hold the cure to many a disease, the ____ to many a problem.

And yet, as much as 40 percent of the world’s oceans are ____ affected by human activities that result in pollution, over-fishing, and loss of coastal habitats. Of particular ____ is plastic garbage. Some of it comes from ships that use our rivers, lakes and seas, and eventually ____ into the ocean. But about 8 million metric tons of plastic waste washes off land into the ocean each year.

Once there, it begins to ____ until it turns into small fragments known as micro-plastics. Plastics are a serious threat, because they degrade very slowly, trap sea creatures, damage habitats like coral reefs, and are ____ by marine animals. Researchers have documented the impacts of plastic on over 650 different marine species—including sea turtles, seals, whales, dolphins，porpoises, seabirds, and fish.

On World Oceans Day, we must remember that the health and safety of our oceans is our collective ____，one that we cannot afford to neglect. Only through good stewardship can we safeguard the health of our oceans, and ensure that the oceans continue to meet the needs of future generations.

1.

A．makes

B．observes

C．watches

D．establishes

2.

A．impact

B．energy

C．effort

D．attempt

3.

A．promoting

B．defending

C．preventing

D．protecting

4.

A．carry

B．wrap

C．involve

D．cover

5.

A．abundance

B．effect

C．influence

D．feature

6.

A．destroy

B．improve

C．damage

D．spoil

7.

A．accessible

B．indispensable

C．harmful

D．available

8.

A．certainty

B．doubt

C．phenomenon

D．symptom

9.

A．revolution

B．contribution

C．resolution

D．distribution

10.

A．hardly

B．barely

C．nearly

D．heavily

11.

A．importance

B．concern

C．value

D．priority

12.

A．makes its way

B．loses its way

C．fights its way

D．goes its own way

13.

A．break out

B．break down

C．break into

D．break through

14.

A．digested

B．disliked

C．enjoyed

D．swallowed

15.

A．source

B．resource

C．responsibility

D．wealth

6 .

Whenever human populations have lived in forest areas, they have always cut down trees which they used for a number of purposes, for housing and ships and served as a source of heating fuel and timber. Growth of cities often meant expansion into forest areas, while even more trees were removed to provide space for agriculture. With the growing demand for paper, vast quantities of trees have also been cut down for paper production. These factors, along with many others, have been contributing to a dangerous phenomenon known as deforestation.

In the last 5,000 years, humans have reduced forest from roughly 50 percent of the earth’s land surface to less than 20 percent. Most of this original, or old growth, forest cover is concentrated in three large areas: the Canadian and Alaskan boreal forest, the boreal forest of Russia, and the tropical forest of the northwestern Amazon Basin and the Guyana Shield. These areas comprise almost 70 percent of the world’s remaining original forest cover. In most places, the rate of deforestation is increasing, with the alarming result of 16 million hectares disappearing worldwide every year.

Loss of forest does not just mean the decline of natural resources. There are several other factors that make deforestation seriously harmful to both the human and natural worlds. One of them is changes in the global climate. For example, forest clearance is releasing substantial volumes of carbon dioxide (CO₂) into the atmosphere as vegetation is burnt or decays. It has been suggested that this is a significant factor in global warming. Moreover, about 10 percent of the world’s tree species are in danger of extinction as a result of deforestation. Deforestation also threatens biological diversity through the destruction of wildlife habitats, which endangers a number of animal species and leads to their potential disappearance. Species are particularly easy to extinction in tropical rainforests because many species have few individuals per unit area, which makes reproduction more difficult. Finally, since forests play an important role in storing water and stabilizing soil, deforestation and the resulting change in land use cause soil erosion(腐蚀) and other forms of land degradation.

1. The passage discusses all of the following EXCEPT the ________.

A．causes of deforestation	B．consequences of deforestation
C．management of deforestation	D．rate of deforestation

2. The word “diversity” in the last paragraph probably means “________”.

A．variety	B．expansion
C．development	D．advantage

3. Why does the author mention fuel and timber in Paragraph 1?

A．To explain the rate of deforestation.

B．To compare them with housing and ships.

C．To show the dangers of deforestation.

D．To illustrate the causes of deforestation.

4. Which of the following sentences summarizes Paragraph 3 best?

A．Deforestation threatens biological diversity.

B．Deforestation has many harmful consequences.

C．Deforestation causes changes in global climate.

D．Deforestation should be stopped.