1 . I fell in love with rhinos when I worked in a zoo in the 80s, and spent much of the next 20 years as the keeper of the largest captive (圈养的) group of rare black rhinos.
There’s a popular misconception that rhinos are aggressive and stupid, but I found them sensitive and affectionate animals. Weighing over a ton, black rhinos are unexpectedly agile (敏捷的) and have an unpredictable nature — but, given reassurance, they tend to believe people. In the past few decades, their numbers have dropped dramatically. In recent years, I’ve helped look after rhinos being moved to the reserve so they can form new populations in countries that have few left. Last year, I helped on a project to fly five black rhinos from a private reserve in South Africa to the Serengeti National Park. Once there, the animals had to be kept captive for a few weeks to adapt to the new environment, in which time they lived in “bomas” — wooden enclosures with “bedrooms”, designed to create a calm space.
A couple of weeks before their planned release, the sky filled with smoke. Watching the flames rushing through the bush toward the bomas, I froze. Terrified that it would catch fire, my instinct was to release the rhinos, but they hadn’t yet been fitted with transmitters (发信器). If I let them out into a bushfire and they were injured, we’d have great difficulty tracking them down. So I dashed back to the bomas and called the rhinos to the bedrooms. Sensing the fear in my voices, they moved without hesitation and remained astonishingly calm. It was crucial the rhinos didn’t panic — they can easily hurt each other if they do.
That we and the rhinos had escaped safe and sound was a miracle. The teamwork of everybody there played a large part, and the rhinos were very much a part of that team. The relationships we’d built with them had proved crucial — had they or we panicked, all our work would have been in vain.
1. What does the author think of the rhinos?| A．They are trusting animals. | B．They are highly organized. |
| C．Their habitats are under threat. | D．Their adaptability needs improving. |
| A．To assist rhinos to settle in. | B．To boost tourism in the reserve. |
| C．To avoid rhinos’ aggressive behavior. | D．To stop rhinos from fleeing. |
| A．By setting them free. | B．By tracking them down. |
| C．By driving them into bomas. | D．By fitting them with the transmitters. |
| A．The keepers’ timely alarm. | B．The inborn nature of rhinos. |
| C．The faith in the keepers’ heart. | D．The teamwork between the keepers and the rhinos. |
2 . Earth’s protective ozone(臭氧) layer is slowly but noticeably healing at a pace that would fully mend the hole over Antarctica in about 43 years, a new United Nations report says. The layer of ozone in Earth’s atmosphere shields the planet from harmful radiation linked to skin cancer, cataracts and crop damage. The progress is slow. The global average amount of ozone 18 miles high in the atmosphere won’t be back to 1980 pre-thinning levels until about 2040, the report said. And it won’t be back to normal in the Arctic until 2045. Antarctica, where it’s so thin there’s an annual giant gaping hole in the layer, won’t be fully fixed until 2066, the report said.
Scientists and environmental advocates across the world have long hailed the efforts to heal the ozone hole—springing out of a 1987 agreement called the Montreal Protocol that called on all countries to ban a class of chemicals often used in refrigerants and aerosol—as one of the biggest ecological victories for humanity. “Our success in phasing out ozone-eating chemicals shows us what can and must be done to transition away from fossil fuels, reduce greenhouse gases and so limit temperature increase,” professor Petteri Taalas said in a statement. Signs of healing were reported four years ago although the observations at that point were in the early stages. “Those numbers of recovery have solidified a lot recently,” Petteri said.
“There has been a sea change in the way our society deals with ozone reducing substances,” said lead researcher David W. Fahey. Decades ago, people could go into a store and buy a can of refrigerants that eat away at the ozone. Now, not only are the substances banned but they are no longer much in people’s homes or cars, replaced by cleaner chemicals.
Natural weather patterns in the Antarctic also affect ozone hole levels. And the past couple years, the holes have been a bit bigger because of that but the overall trend is one of healing. This is “saving 2 million people every year from skin cancer,” United Nations Environment Programme Director Inger Andersen said in an email.
1. What can be concluded about ozone layer from the United Nations report?| A．It has been improved. | B．It has little harmful radiation now. |
| C．It will be in the best condition in 2040. | D．It will free Antarctica of biological risks in 2066. |
| A．New household appliances. | B．Development in fossil fuels. |
| C．Global efforts and cooperation. | D．Measures to slow global warming. |
| A．They are likely to be prohibited. | B．They are not easily obtainable currently. |
| C．They fail to meet great demand. | D．They are produced at a low cost. |
| A．Antarctic: a promising island. |
| B．Ozone layer: on track to recovery. |
| C．Restoration Progress: Overcoming Challenges. |
| D．The Montreal Protocol: A Global Success Story. |
3 . Now, Earth Day is celebrated around the world. We still face many challenges, such as climate change, plastic pollution, and deforestation. But we can all make a difference.
Her Trees Save LivesAdeline Tiffanie Suwana was 12 when her family’s home flooded. Indonesia, her island nation, is often hit hard by floods and other natural disasters.
Adeline learned that mangrove trees play a key role in flood protection and rallied classmates to plant 200 trees during a school break. They started a group called Sahabat Alam or Friends of Nature, which works to conserve the region’s biodiversity and combat climate change.
Today. Adeline attends university, studying how businesses can help the environment.
Teens’ Two-Fold InventionEPS—expanded polystyrene foam—is the white, lightweight stuff used to make things like takeout food containers, foam egg cartons, and packing “peanuts”. But it takes up a lot of space and is difficult to recycle. EPS breaks into small pieces as it floats down waterways into oceans, harming wildlife along the way.
Eighth-graders Julia Bray, Luke Clay, and Ashton Cofer looked at EPS’s chemical makeup and saw that it was mostly carbon. That sparked an idea. Could they turn it into activated carbon, a material that filters toxins from water?
After 50 hours of experiments, including one that accidentally set the family grill fire, they succeeded!
Solar for Her SchoolWhen Claire Vlases of Montana was in seventh grade, she learned about plans to expand and modernize her middle school. Claire asked the school board to add solar panels to the project. The board liked the idea but said it could contribute just $25,000, one-fifth of the cost. So Claire organized a group of kids and adults who set to work raising the rest.
They asked for donations, even going door-to-door for them. And they appealed to charitable foundations too. One even donated half the cost!
After two years of hard work, the group paid for the solar panels, which now supply one-fourth of the school’s electricity needs.
1. What do the three groups of teenagers have in common?| A．They are Earth-helping heroes. | B．They are from island countries. |
| C．They are high school students. | D．They are keen on experiments. |
| A．$25,000. | B．$50,000. | C．$62,500. | D．$125,000. |
| A．To give models for colorful school activities. |
| B．To explore the ways to deal with plastic pollution. |
| C．To inspire people to act for environmental problems. |
| D．To display the amazing power of effective cooperation. |
4 . Disney announced Tuesday that it has partnered with Impossible Foods to serve plant-based hamburgers at Disneyland in Anaheim, California. Impossible Foods makes hamburgers that taste like meat but are made from plants instead of
The plant-based product isn’t just another kind of
Now plant-based hamburgers run to the
That’s why Americans have been increasingly interested in meat replacements that don’t require them to
“Our
| A．vegetables | B．animals | C．chickens | D．sausages |
| A．avoiding | B．eating | C．buying | D．donating |
| A．disaster | B．problem | C．goal | D．conclusion |
| A．cheap | B．unhealthy | C．ugly | D．tasty |
| A．solve | B．study | C．show | D．meet |
| A．dropping | B．reviving | C．growing | D．competing |
| A．harvest | B．produce | C．absorb | D．need |
| A．park | B．trap | C．ruin | D．rescue |
| A．menu | B．variety | C．analysis | D．application |
| A．improvement | B．loss | C．market | D．size |
| A．concentrate on | B．give up | C．make up | D．depend on |
| A．ignore | B．appreciate | C．ensure | D．imagine |
| A．characters | B．students | C．adults | D．guests |
| A．forced | B．stopped | C．amused | D．inspired |
| A．courage | B．hope | C．chance | D．power |
5 . When it comes to going green, intention can be easier than action. Case in point: you decide to buy a T-shirt made from 100% organic cotton, because everyone knows that organic is better for Earth. And in some ways it is; in conventional cotton-farming, pesticides strip the soil of life. But that green label doesn’t tell the whole story. Or the possibility that the T-shirt may have been dyed using harsh industrial chemicals, which can pollute local groundwater. If you knew all that, would you still consider the T-shirt green?
It’s a question that most of us are ill equipped to answer, even as the debate over what is and isn’t green becomes all-important in a hot and crowded world.
But what if we could seamlessly calculate the full lifetime effect of our actions on the earth and on our bodies?
| A．Would you still buy it? |
| B．What if we could think ecologically? |
| C．It’s going to have a radical impact on the way we do business. |
| D．Ecological intelligence is ultimately about more than what we buy. |
| E．Not just carbon footprints but social and biological footprints as well? |
| F．But nothing in evolution has prepared us to understand the accumulative impact industrial chemicals may have on us. |
| G．That’s because our ability to make complex products with complex supply chains has outpaced our ability to comprehend the consequences. |
6 . A group of students at Tongji University made a power box to aid relief work in quake-hit areas of Turkiye, which would be sent to Turkiye by air.
Two earthquakes, measuring 7.8 and 7.5 in magnitude, struck nine hours apart in southeastern Turkiye and northern Syria on Feb 6. Scores of strong aftershocks added to the damage as more than 6,000 buildings collapsed. The death toll has climbed past 30,000, and millions have been made homeless.
After learning that the earthquake-stricken area urgently needed mobile power, the students thought they might design a power box to aid the post-quake rescue and recovery work. And soon a seven-strong research and development team was set up. The team was divided into online and offline groups. Students living in Shanghai were responsible for the offline purchases and assembly of the power box. Other students online shared ideas for the design, compilation of equipment instructions and user manuals (用户手册) in Chinese and English, and were responsible for communication with the Turkish contact person for donations.
Though portable power boxes are available on the market, their design is tailor-made as the students have taken into consideration local sunshine and disaster relief needs to determine the power, capacity, size and other parameters of photovoltaics (太阳能光伏参数) and batteries.
The best use of the power box, which weighs around 15 kilograms and is equipped with a 10-watt LED light bulb, is its ability to provide 30 to 40 straight hours of light if fully recharged. That should guarantee the power box to be a reliable light source for a whole night even if it can’t be fully charged when the sunshine is not enough in the day. Their teachers also offered advice whenever the team encountered difficulties. They included a manual in Turkish, with the assistance of a student from Turkmenistan.
When the sign “humanitarian donation”was posted on the package, Bai Haoran, one of the students said,“It is worth the hard work over the past few days. We come to realize what the common community of mankind means”.
1. The underlined word “tailor- made” in Para.4 can be best replaced by “________”.| A．customized | B．fancy | C．handmade | D．brand-new |
| A．Reliability. | B．Portability. | C．Mobility. | D．Flexibility. |
| A．The process of the design was finished mainly online. |
| B．Students learned a lot about humanitarian in the design activity. |
| C．The power box has played an important role in the rescue work. |
| D．Students at Tongji University made the power box all by themselves. |
| A．International Cooperation in Rescue Work for Earthquakes |
| B．A New Power Box Hits the Market in Turkey |
| C．Students Send Innovative Aid to Disaster-hit Region |
| D．Big Earthquakes Strikes Turkiye and Syria |
7 . Marina Herrera is struggling to pack more food into her already overflowing shopping bags.
In the morning shopping rush at Tesco, Marina looks like any other shopper, stocking up for the week ahead. But she is getting all this fresh produce for free, which will be given out when she gets home. If she doesn’t, it will end up as part of the food waste mountain. “All this would be regarded as rubbish and going straight in the dustbin. It is perfect food; I hate to see any of it wasted,” she says.
Marina’s efforts have earned her the title of “hero” in the food waste war. Sadly, nearly a half of all food grown in the world is thrown out, contributing four times more carbon emissions (排放) each year than the aviation industry. Cutting that has been described as the most effective action people can take to handle climate change.
“I wouldn’t call myself a hero,” Marina laughs. “I’m just trying to attract more people to it, getting more people on board.” That’s why she was one of the first volunteers in the “Food Waste Heroes” programme launched by supermarket chain Tesco and food sharing app OLIO.
OLIO founder Tessa Clarke views the volunteers as heroes in the fight for the planet, who have signed on to prevent eatable food being thrown away by supermarkets and redistribute it for free in their communities instead. “It was billions of small actions that got us into the climate crisis, so surely billions of small actions can help us get out of it. The food waste heroes are particularly powerful because they are pioneering and inspiring so many other people,” Tessa Clarke says.
OLIO also encourages its users to post their unwanted food for redistribution. Globally its users have shared 35 million portions (份) of food, which equals saving 101 million car miles and 5.1 billion litres of water.
1. Why is Marina Herrera special as a shopper?| A．She helps prevent food being wasted. |
| B．She purchases more food than needed. |
| C．She gets the fresh produce at a discount. |
| D．She appeals to the shopping mall to save food. |
| A．The climate change. | B．The food waste war. |
| C．The carbon emission. | D．The aviation industry. |
| A．It is a non-profit project. |
| B．It contributes to solving the climate crisis. |
| C．It redistributes eatable food among communities. |
| D．Its users have saved 5.1 billion litres of water globally. |
| A．Marina will get more support from Tesco. |
| B．Climate crisis is the leading threat to humans. |
| C．New technology should be applied to food industry. |
| D．The “Food Waste Heroes” programme proves a success. |
增加：在缺词处加一个漏字符号 (⋀)，并在其下面写出该加的词。
删除：把多余的词用斜线(\)划掉。
修改：在错的词下画一横线，并在该词下面写出修改后的词。
注意：1.每处错误及其修改均仅限一词；
2.只允许修改10处，多者(从第11处起)不计分。
Last week, we conducted an survey on what measures high school students take them to live a green life. Here are the results.
65% of the students lead a green lifestyle by walking, cycling or take public transportation. 40% of them recycle waste with an active manner. The number of the students saving electricity and water account for 35%. However, only 16% of the students chose to buy eco-friendly products. One possible reason is the products are expensive. Also, 8% of the students take other measure, like using reusable drinking cups.
In my opinion, living a green life is easy said than done, and one small step at a time can make a big difference.
9 . More than one-third of the world’s food is wasted or thrown away. This adds up to an unbelievable 1.3 billion tons of waste a year, most of which rots in landfills, emitting (排放) methane and contributing to climate change.
But one of the most promising and simple solutions lies in the problem itself: this wasted food — if composted ( 堆 肥 ) — could slow climate change and improve soil quality. When food waste break down in composting facilities or even in backyard compost piles, they don’t produce methane, and they result in carbon-rich soil. Higher quality soil also continues to absorb more carbon from the atmosphere, helping to fertilize plants and contributing further to fighting against climate change. Increasing the amount of carbon in the world’s soil by just 0.4 percent a year would stop the rise of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Returning one ton of organic matter to each hectare of soil would increase production of cereal crops each year by millions of tons.
While it is true that people can compost in their yards, community gardens, schools or even on their kitchen counters, larger-scale efforts, including infrastructure ( 基 础 设 施 ) and reward system for consumers, would take it to the next level. Imagine that consumers could just leave food leftovers in a bin for pickup, or drop them off at a local store, earning a few cents a bucket, just like what has been offered for recycling bottles or newspapers. Moreover, in the case of composting, the reward system would be sustainable because the end-product of compost can be sold to farmers.
There have been important steps recently toward keeping food waste out of landfills. But food still makes up the largest part of city landfills. Until that changes through increased composting, we are wasting a lot more than food. We are wasting the opportunity to slow climate change and ensure adequate future food supply for the world.
1. What is the consequence of food waste?| A．Food shortage. | B．Climate change. |
| C．Less farming land. | D．Worse soil quality. |
| A．It emits large amounts of carbon. | B．It stimulates the production of carbon-dioxide. |
| C．It increases by 0.4 percent every year. | D．It benefits both plants and the environment. |
| A．Taking steps to ban landfills is urgent. |
| B．Composting on a large scale is helpful. |
| C．The end-product of compost is affordable. |
| D．It is just a matter of time before food waste stops. |
| A．Where Landfills Go | B．Why Farmers Compost Food Waste |
| C．What Modern Farming Brings Us | D．How Wasted Food Could Save the Planet |
10 . Our planet is losing species at an alarming rate. As the world has become increasingly industrialized, natural habitats have been destroyed to build cities that are unlivable for wildlife. However, a pair of European designers, architect Rene Hougaard and product designer Alexander Qual, believe there are ways to encourage cities to coexist with nature. Inspired by everyday people who build “insect hotels“ in their backyards, they’ve created outdoor furniture that would be beautiful to look at, but also allow bugs, birds and wildflowers to thrive (繁殖).
The natural world tends to appear messy and chaotic to the human eye, but there is often method in the madness. Qual and Hougaard kept this in mind as in all the structures, they played with the concepts of order and messiness.
Qual created a large, yellow, leaf-shaped insect hotel, that’s designed to be placed on a flower bed in a park. The structure contains wooden blocks with holes that are 6, 7 and 8 millimeters in diameter (直径), since different insect species prefer holes of different sizes.
Hougaard created a metal log bench with an empty space in the middle specifically designed to hold a decaying (腐烂的) log that can provide a habitat for insects and plants, along with birds and bats. While humans often shun decay, Hougaard imagines a place where people can sit down and observe the slow process in which bacteria break down the wood, creating food for insects, birds and other animals.
As for the question of whether people actually want to be so close to bugs, snakes and nesting birds, the designers acknowledge that modern humans have been trained to stay away from such creatures. But Hougaard says these structures keep animals contained, while allowing people to observe and appreciate them safely. And eventually, if we want to maintain biodiversity, humans need to become much more comfortable living alongside wildlife, rather than feeling the need to destroy it. After all, we humans need nature to survive.
1. Why did Hougaard and Qual build insect hotels?| A．To inspire more people to build one. | B．To bring biodiversity back to cities. |
| C．To provide a way to manage the city. | D．To slow down the process of industrialization. |
| A．The size of species. | B．The variety of colors. |
| C．The building materials. | D．The combination of order and disorder. |
| A．Avoided. | B．Crealed. |
| C．Observed. | D．Provided. |
| A．Bugs and snakes annoy people a lot. |
| B．Modern people have destroyed some creatures. |
| C．People should protect wildlife for our own good. |
| D．Hougaard’s structures enable people to touch the animals. |
