1 . Much of the United States is locked by an unusually large winter storm, which has sent temperatures dropping sharply across the country, from coast to coast and as far south as southern Texas. In many areas, ice and snow storms have added to the challenges. Only a few areas in the south have dodged the freezing weather pattern. The National Weather Service( NWS) says that a winter storm, this large and this serious, has almost never been seen before.
The NWS reports that over 150 million Americans were under winter storm warnings. In Texas, over 2.7 million people were left without power on Monday. Texas isn't used to such serious winter weather. In the city of Houston, temperatures have dropped to - 9℃. The storm has led to huge, deadly highway accidents, and has forced its airport to cancel flights. On Sunday, President Joe Biden declared an emergency in Texas, allowing the state to get more help for the weather disaster from the US government. Several other states have declared some sort of weather-related emergency. In Washington and Oregon, warming shelters were opened to help people stay warm and safe.
The NWS says cold air from the Arctic is behind the record-breaking low temperatures. Though it may seem surprising, global warming may be one of the causes. A strong wind known as the jet stream usually flows in a circle around the Arctic, keeping super-cold air near the North Pole. But as the jet stream weakens because of climate change, the cold air is able to escape the Arctic and bring freezing temperatures to places that are normally much warmer.
The NWS is forecasting there’ll be more snow and freezing rain over the next few days as a new storm cuts up toward the Northeast from the middle of the country. The NWS says that much of the country will continue to have extremely cold temperatures, and it's likely that hundreds of cold weather records will be broken. Perhaps, people should think about the consequences of global warming.
1. Which can best replace the underlined word “dodged” in paragraph 1?| A．Seen. | B．Recorded. |
| C．Avoided. | D．Defeated. |
| A．It’s hit the hardest by extreme weather. |
| B．It's brought the super cold under control. |
| C．It's the first to warn of the climate disaster. |
| D．It's helping other states with the winter storm. |
| A．How the jet stream forms in the Arctic. |
| B．What causes the extreme cold in America. |
| C．Why the cold air escapes from the Arctic. |
| D．When the global warming affects America. |
| A．It’ll change climate permanently. | B．It’ll cause another new storm. |
| C．It’ll lessen global warming. | D．It’ll go on for some time. |
2 . About 12 million tons of plastic wastes are entering the oceans every year. This garbage pollutes the water, kills wildlife and breaks down into small pieces that fish and other creatures eat.
Now a group of Spanish fishermen will receive economic support to catch plastics. It is part of a new project. Carlos Martin is one of the fishermen taking part in the project. He and his partners collect the plastic in the ocean and bring it back to land every week. Martin thinks rivers carry a lot of plastics to the sea. He says his most concern is no more than that the plastics often get caught in the nets, which makes nets not work properly. They take on mud（泥）, causing the nets to break because they weigh so much.
Under the new programs, one million pounds will support ocean cleanup efforts for fishermen like Martin. The money is coming from the European Union and the Catalan government. Sergi Tudela, the General Director of Catalonia Fisheries, is responsible for the cleanup project. He said, "We are hopeful that if we are successful in this project, we can apply it to other areas in the Mediterranean（地中海）."
Government reports show that the amount of plastic wastes washing up along the Spanish coastline has grown by 65 percent in just six years. Fishing equipment makes up a large part of the about 8 to 12 million tons of plastics left in the world's oceans every year.
Martin says the fishing community now understands how big the problem is. He says, "In the past we didn't see it that way. We took the plastic garbage and threw it back into the water. I think that after a few year here we have realized the problem. Nothing is thrown into the water; we collect everything and bring it to shore.
1. What worries Martin most about plastic wastes at the beginning?| A．They pollute the sea environment. |
| B．They affect the quality and taste of fish. |
| C．They prevent the fishing nets from working well. |
| D．They kill wildlife and reduce his fishing amount. |
| A．Getting more money to support the project. |
| B．Getting help from other European countries. |
| C．Spreading the cleanup project to more places. |
| D．Praising the European Union for their helping to the oceans. |
| A．Its members do a lot of work for free. |
| B．It has stopped using plastic fishing equipment. |
| C．It has made positive changes to fight plastic wastes. |
| D．Its members find people sill throw the garbage carelessly. |
| A．New programs are changing fishermen's life |
| B．Money is given to Spanish fishermen to clean up oceans |
| C．Traditional fishing equipment causes a lot of plastic wastes |
| D．Spanish fishermen are encouraging people to clean up oceans |
3 . Micro-plastics have occupied almost every part of the planet today, including the most distant reaches.
The Arctic is far from clean, though it s rarely stepped in by visitors. Melanie Bergmann, a marine ecologist (海洋生态学家) and her colleagues had been studying plastics on the Arctic seafloor since 2002. In deep sea, they found about 6,0000 particles (微粒) in every 2.2 pounds of mud. In sea ice, there were as much as 12,000 pieces per 34 ounces of melted ice.
Scientists measured micro-plastics in snow from this distant location and found a lot, which could only have caught rides on the wind. The study raises concerns about the pollution that micro-plastics brought to the air, bringing a health risk to people and animals that breathe them in. But they are less worried about the threat that breathed-in pollutants have to wildlife than about polluted snow going into water.
The science on the health effects of micro-plastics is still going on.“For human health, we now now very little," says micro-plastics researcher Chelsea Rochman, “There is a lot of concern. For wildlife, we know that micro-plastics may go into every level of the food chain." Laboratory studies find some physical and chemical effects from micro-plastics, but the findings vary by the plastic type, shape experiments will be carried out soon with use of equipment if financial support approves."
Even worse is the threat from airborne micro-plastics in the area---too small to be noticed and may actually enter cells. Research on that also has been done and it could be a bigger problem, according to Rochman.
1. What can you learn from the data in Paragraph 2?| A．Visitors rarely step into the Arctic. |
| B．Micro-plastics threaten the human beings. |
| C．Micro- plastics are everywhere in the world. |
| D．The Arctic suffers serious micro-plastics pollution. |
| A．Wildlife's threat by micro-pollutants. |
| B．Human beings breathing micro-plastics in. |
| C．Micro-plastics entering the water ecosystem. |
| D．Micro-plastics pollution worsening global warming. |
| A．Damage of micro-plastics to health. |
| B．Appeals for environmental protection. |
| C．Findings about airborne micro-plastics in the Arctic. |
| D．Measures to solve micro-plastics pollution. |
| A．Science. | B．Health. |
| C．Education. | D．Entertainment. |
4 . "Like a monster, it destroys everything. " That's how one school girl described a tsunami（海啸）.
On Dec. 26, 2004, a magnitude-9. 1 earthquake in Indonesia set off a massive tsunami. It killed more than 230,000 people across four countries and cost an estimated $ 10 billion in damage.
Nov. 5 is World Tsunami Awareness Day and at the United Nations Wednesday, disaster risk reduction was high on the agenda.
"What I can tell you is that the tsunami wave cannot be stopped," said Bulgarians U. N. Ambassador Georgi Velikov Panayotov. He was on vacation in Thailand in 2004 and survived the tsunami. "What we can do is build early warning systems and, of course, educate the population about the damaging power of the tsunami wave," he said.
On March 11, 2011, a magnitude-9 earthquake rocked northeastern Japan triggering a fierce tsunami that also damaged the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, south of Sendai.
"When the big earthquake hit Japan in 2011, people thought that we were prepared for it," said Japan's U. N. Ambassador Koro Bessho. "It caused severe damage. We had dams； we had drills. However, we had been counting on something that hits every 100 years and the earthquake was of the size of possibly every 500 years or thousand years, he said.
These two events sent the countries of the region into overdrive to review and improve disaster preparedness. In 2015 the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction was born. It aims to help create a better understanding of disaster risk and improve preparedness for an effective response.
Indonesia is made up of thousands of islands which are disaster-prone（易受灾地区）. Willem Rampangilei, head of the Disaster Management Agency of Indonesia, said his government now has plans for every disaster-prone city.
Countries at risk are also expanding their education programs. Children from an early age are taught how to react in case of a tsunami and then go with their classmates to higher ground away from coastal areas to avoid the walls of water the tsunami triggers.
1. What does Georgi Velikov Panayotov mainly talk about?| A．The general features of a tsunami. | B．Ways for humans to face a tsunami. |
| C．His suffering in the 2004 tsunami. | D．The loss caused by the 2004 tsunami. |
| A．It caused a fierce tsunami. | B．It destroyed a nuclear plant. |
| C．The size was beyond expectation. | D．There was no effective defense system. |
| A．Children should be protected by all means. |
| B．The improvement of preparedness can reduce damage. |
| C．Proper response in case of a tsunami can save one's life. |
| D．Stronger measures should be taken in disaster-prone areas. |
| A．World Tsunami Awareness Day |
| B．Nations Attacked by Massive Tsunami |
| C．The Unpredictable and Destructive Disaster |
| D．Learn from Disasters to Prevent Future Ones |
5 . An extraordinary new restaurant in Semarang, Indonesia is on a mission (使命) to support locals trapped in poverty, many of whom are earning less than $25 a month, by providing them with an alternative way to pay for their food.
The Methane Gas Canteen, run by husband and wife team Sarimin and Suyatmi, is located in an unexpected place for an eatery — Jatibarang Landfill. The landfill is a mountain of purifying waste, where poor locals spend their days collecting plastic and glass to sell. Meanwhile, the couple, who spent 40 years collecting waste before opening the restaurant, is busy cooking.
What makes the restaurant unusual, aside from its location, is that no cash is required to pay for meals. Poor people have the option to pay for their food with recyclable waste instead of cash. Sarimin weighs the plastic customers bring in, calculates its worth, and then deduct that value from the cost of the meal, giving any extra value back to the customer. The scheme is part of the community’s solution to reduce waste in the landfill and recycle non-degradable plastics.
“I think we recycle 1 ton of plastic waste a day, which is a lot. This way, the plastic waste doesn’t pile up, drift down the river and cause flooding,” said Sarimin in an interview with Channel News Asia. “It benefits everyone.”
The restaurant seats about 30 people and serves meals that cost between $0.40 and $0.80 each. Since opening the canteen Sarimin and Suyatmi have seen their daily income more than double to $15 a day.
“I’m happy to see our customers enjoying their meals,” Sarimin told NHK World. “The poor must also have the right to enjoy healthy eating. I want to give them that chance as much as possible.”
1. What do we know about Jatibarang Landfill?| A．An unusual restaurant for people to eat free meals. |
| B．A mountain where the locals live on selling waste. |
| C．A place where poor locals collect waste to sell. |
| D．A plant where waste is recycled. |
| A．To double their daily income and profit. |
| B．To prove waste is a valuable thing. |
| C．To provide food for locals trying to survive. |
| D．To help settle the issues of poverty and trash. |
| A．Increase | B．Replace |
| C．Remove | D．Equal |
| A．An unusual way to pay for meals. |
| B．A local mission to help get rid of poverty. |
| C．A different scheme to reduce waste. |
| D．A new restaurant getting double income. |
