1 . Direction: 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.

A.increasing 　　　　B.defend　　　　 C.partially 　　　　D.depriving E.sharpened　　 　　 F.breaks 　　　 　G.endured 　　　　H.granting I.issues 　　　　　　J.activate 　　　　K.roughly

Flood-hit Venice’s shrinking population faces mounting problems

Venetians(威尼斯人) are fed up with what they see as inadequate responses to the city’s mounting problems: record-breaking flooding, environmental and safety threats from cruise ship traffic and the burden on services from over-tourism.

They feel largely left to their own devices, with ever-fewer Venetians living in the historic part of the city to    1    its interests and keep it from becoming mainly a tourist land.

The historic flooding this week---marked by three floods over 1.5 meters (nearly 5 feet) and the highest in 53 years at 1.87 meters(6 feet, 1 inch)---has    2    calls to create an administration that recognizes the uniqueness of Venice, for both its concentration of treasures and its    3    vulnerability.

Flood damage has been    4    estimated at hundreds of millions of Euros (dollars), but the true range will only become clear with time. The frustration goes far beyond the failure to complete and    5    78 underwater barriers that were designed to prevent just the kind of damage that Venice has    6    this week. With the system not yet completed or even    7    tested after 16 years of work and 5 billion Euros ($5.5 billion) invested, many are suspicious it will even work.

At the public level, proposals for better administering the city including    8    some level of autonomy(自制) to Venice, already enjoyed by some Italian regions like Trentino-Alto-Adige with its German-speaking minority, or offering tax    9    to encourage Venice’s repopulation.

Just 53,000 people live in the historic part of the city that tourists know as Venice, down by a third from a generation ago and dropping by about 1,000 people a year. That means fewer people watching the neighborhood, monitoring for public maintenance    10    or neighbors in need. Many leave because of the increased expense or the daily difficulties in living in a city of canals, which can make even a simple errand a hard journey.

2 . 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.

2. Why did Sarimin and Suyatmi open their restaurant?

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.

3. What does the underlined word “deduct” in paragraph 3 mean?

A．Increase	B．Replace
C．Remove	D．Equal

4. What is the text mainly about?

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.

3 . Each year, backed up by a growing anti-consumerist movement, people are using the holiday season to call on us all to shop less.

Driven by concerns about resource exhaustion, over recent years environmentalists have increasingly turned their sights on our “consumer culture”. Groups such as The Story of Stuff and Buy Nothing New Day are growing as a movement that increasingly blames all our ills on our desire to shop.

We clearly have a growing resource problem. The produces we make, buy, and use are often linked to the destruction of our waterways, biodiversity, climate and the land on which millions of people live. But to blame these issues on Christmas shoppers is misguided, and puts us in the old trap of blaming individuals for what is a systematic problem.

While we complain about environmental destruction over Christmas, environmentalists often forget what the holiday season actually means for many people. For most, Christmas isn’t an add-on to an already heavy shopping year. In fact, it is likely the only time of year many have the opportunity to spend on friends and family, or even just to buy the necessities needed for modern life.

This is particularly, true for Boxing Day, often the target of the strongest derision(嘲弄) by anti-consumerists. While we may laugh at the queues in front of the shops, for many, those sales provide the one chance to buy items they’ve needed all year. As Leigh Phillips argues, “this is one of the few times of the year that people can even hope to afford such ‘luxuries’, the Christmas presents their kids are asking for, or just an appliance that works.”

Indeed, the richest 7% of people are responsible for 50% of greenhouse gas emissions. This becomes particularly harmful when you take into account that those shopping on Boxing Day are only a small part of our consumption “problem” anyway. Why are environmentalists attacking these individuals, while ignoring such people as Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, who has his own￡1.5bn yacht with a missile defence system?

Anyway, anti-consumerism has become a movement of wealthy people talking down to the working class about their life choices, while ignoring the real cause of our environmental problems. It is no wonder one is changing their behaviours—or that environmental destruction continues without any reduction in intensity.

1. It is indicated in the 1st   paragraph that during the holiday season, many consumers .

A．ignore resource problems

B．are fascinated with presents

C．are encouraged to spend less

D．show great interest in the movement.

2. It can be inferred from Paragraphs 2 and 3 that the environmentalist movement .

A．has targeted the wrong persons

B．has achieved its intended purposes

C．has taken environment-friendly measures

D．has benefited both consumers and producers

3. The example of Roman Abramovich is used to show environmentalists’ .

A．madness about life choices

B．discontent with rich lifestyle

C．ignorance about the real cause

D．disrespect for holiday shoppers

4. It can be concluded from the text that telling people not to shop at Christmas is .

A．anything less than a responsibility	B．nothing more than a bias
C．indicative of environmental awareness	D．unacceptable to ordinary people

4 . Directions: Read the following passage. Fill in each blank with a proper sentence given in the box. Each sentence can be used only once. Note that there are two more sentences than you need.

Sustainable Transport in Cities

Transporthas always shaped cities. In Medieval times crossroads gave birth to bloomingmarket towns. Many North American cities were created for the car. But how arethe cities of today being shaped by a need for more sustainable transport?

Manylocal governments are speeding up change through policy initiatives such asjoined transport, congestion charges and low emission zones, sustainablegaining and life-cycle costing, and opening data up to companies and academics.And these city level policies can move markets in more sustainable directions.    1     This ha resulted in five vehicle manufacturers committing to meetingthat deadline, which is both in their own commercial interests and good for theenvironment.

The least dense cities, for example, Houston, have per capita（人均价）carbonemissions nearly ten times higher than the densest, such as Singapore.     2    This involves gathering mixed use developments around a key transport center, as with the KL Central area in Kuala Lumpur, built around the largest railway station in Southeast Asia.

    3    Others are using motivations and behavioral change to encourage people to choose more efficient -- and often healthier -- forms of transport. Copen has a number of progressive cycling policies including the Green Wave, whichallows people cycling at 20km /h to hit all green lights during rush hour.

Light weighing and new engine and fuel technologies are helping to make existing road and rail vehicles more efficient.     4     The main options are hydrogen fuelcells, fossil fuel hybrids, and electric vehicles, and the best solution may well vary from city to city.

A．Many options require city -   level investment in new facilities.

B．However, it is not yet clear   which technologies and fuels cities will back.

C．Through their actions, city   governments today are helping to shape the cities of the future.

D．For example, London is   requiring all newly licensed taxis to be zero - emission capable from 2018.

E．City planners are using   transport - oriented development to increase density while maintaining quality of life and property value.

F．Some cities, such as Delhi,   are investing heavily in creating the mass transport systems needed to change   how citizens travel.

5 . Directions: Read the following passage. Summarize the main idea and the main point(s) of the passage in no more than 60 words. Use your own words as far as possible.

Ban the Bag!

Standing in line at the grocery store last week, I watched the woman in front of me buy a tube of toothpaste. As the clerk placed her purchase in a plastic bag, I couldn’t help wondering how long it would take for that bag to end up in the trash. Then I noticed the big purse the woman was carrying and wondered why she had needed a plastic bag at all.

People have come to rely on plastic bags as everything from shopping bags for groceries to trash-can bags. Although plastic bags can be recycled, only about one percent of those used in the United States are. Instead, after helping people transport items from one place to another, most are thrown away. They end up in landfills, where it can take a plastic bag up to a thousand years to decay. Some bags end up elsewhere in the environment, sticking to trees and fences, blocking rivers and oceans, or floating along city sidewalks.

Plastic bags harm the environment in several ways. First, they break down into particles that pollute our soil and water. Because most plastic bags are made of polyethylene, a product derived from crude oil (原油) or natural gas, they waste nonrenewable resources. Plastic bags can also harm animals. Scientists estimate that more than one million sea animals, including whales, seabirds, and turtles, die each year from intaking or becoming stranded in plastic.

People all over the world are starting to recognize the problems associated with plastic bags. Countries such as China, South Africa, Switzerland, and Uganda are taking action and banning the bags. Other nations, including Italy and Ireland, have been trying to restrict the use of plastic bags by taxing them. In the United States more and more communities are ridding themselves of plastic bags. Now more and more people are also purchasing inexpensive, reusable bags and using them when they shop. If we all take this simple step, we can be a part of a “green” revolution.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

6 . Hailing from Sweden, “plogging” is a fitness craze that sees participants pick up plastic litter while jogging adding a virtuous, environmentally driven element to the sport. Plogging appears to have started around 2016, but is now going global, due to increasing awareness and __ over plastic levels in the ocean.

The appeal of plogging is its __—all you need is running gear and a bin bag, and the feeling of getting fit while supporting a good cause. By adding regular squats(蹲) to pick up junk and carrying __ to jogging. we can assume the health benefits are increased.

Running and good causes have always gone __ — just think of all the fundraising marathon runners do. But there couldn’t be a more on-trend way of keeping fit than plogging.

Anything that’s getting people out in nature and connecting __ with their environment is a good thing, says Lizzie Carr, an environmentalist who helped set up Plastic Patrol, a nationwide campaign to __ our inland waterways of plastic pollution. There’s been a real __ in the public mindset around plastics, helped by things like Blue Planet highlighting how disastrous the crisis is,” she says.

We need to keep momentum high and the pressure up, and empower people through __ like plogging and Plastic Patrol.

The plastic Patrol app allows users to __ plastic anywhere in the world by collecting discarded items, photographing them and __ to the app, giving us a better knowledge of what sorts of plastic and which brands are being thrown out. “I’d urge all ploggers to get involved,” adds Carr.

Plogging isn’t the first fitness trend to combine running with a good cause, Here are some of our favourites:

Good Gym

Its idea is simple: go for a run, visit an elderly person, have a chat and some tea, and run back.

__ among the elderly is a growing problem in the UK. With over 10,000 runs so far, __, Good Gym is finding a solution.

Guide Running

Guide runners volunteer their time to helping blind people get __. By linking themselves together, the __ —impaired individual can feel safe while both work of a sweat.

___for the Homeless

Start-up Stuart Delivery and the Church Housing Trust collaborated last year in bringing clothing and healthy food to the homeless. Deliveries are mostly made by bike, so those who deliver keep fit while helping rough sleepers(无家可归者).

1.

A．satisfaction

B．hesitation

C．fear

D．control

2.

A．complexity

B．simplicity

C．instrument

D．expense

3.

A．substance

B．responsibility

C．value

D．weight

4.

A．one on one

B．head to toe

C．hand in hand

D．on and off

5.

A．positively

B．neutrally

C．objectively

D．fairly

6.

A．accuse

B．rid

C．assure

D．rob

7.

A．shift

B．interest

C．aid

D．delight

8.

A．motives

B．performances

C．exercises

D．initiatives

9.

A．eliminate

B．map

C．seek

D．degrade

10.

A．leading

B．devoting

C．ending

D．uploading

11.

A．Disappointment

B．Tiredness

C．Sickness

D．Loneliness

12.

A．therefore

B．moreover

C．however

D．instead

13.

A．excited

B．ready

C．active

D．smart

14.

A．visually

B．audibly

C．visibly

D．sensibly

15.

A．Running

B．Plogging

C．Driving

D．Cycling

7 . 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.

8 . 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.

9 . 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.

10 . Darrell Blatchley, a marine biologist and environmentalist based in the Philippine city of Davao, received a call from the Philippines, Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (渔业与水产资源局) early Friday morning reporting a death of a young whale.

When the necropsy (尸检) was performed, Blatchley told NPR, he was not prepared for the amount of plastic they found in the whale’s stomach. “It was full of plastic nothing but nonstop plastic.” he said “It was filled to the point that its stomach was as hard as a baseball.” That means that this animal has been suffering not for days or weeks but for months or even a year or more,” Blatchley added.

Blatchley is the founder and owner of the D’Bone Collector Museum, a natural history museum in Davao. In the coming days, the museum will display all the items found in the whale’s system. Blatchley and his team work with the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources and other organizations to assist in rescue and recovery of marine animals.

“Within the last 10 years, we have recovered 61 whales and dolphins just within the Davao Gulf,” he said. “Of them, 57 have died due to man whether they took plastic or fishing nets or other waste, or gotten caught in pollution — and four were pregnant.”

Blatchley said he hoped that the latest incident would launch the issue of plastic pollution in the Philippines and across the globe. “If we keep going this way, it will be more uncommon to see an animal die of natural causes than it is to see an animal die of plastic,” he said.

1. What can be inferred from the second paragraph?

A．The whale was starved to death.

B．Blatchley was shocked at what he found.

C．The dead whale must have swallowed a baseball.

D．Blatchley didn’t make preparations for the necropsy.

2. What will be shown in the D’Bone Collector Museum?

A．Waste collected from the ocean.

B．The whole system of the whale.

C．Things found in the whale’s body.

D．Many different tools of whaling.

3. What does Blatchley think of plastic pollution in the Philippines?

A．Uncommon.

B．Worrying.

C．Inspiring.

D．Mild.

4. What is the best title for the text?

A．A Whale Found Dead of Plastic

B．Stand Up for Protecting Whales

C．Plastic Threatening Our Existence

D．Natural Death or Merciless Murder