1 . Soot (煤灰) pollution is speeding up climate-driven melting in Antarctica, a new study suggests, raising questions about how to protect the delicate continent from the increasing number of humans who want to visit.
“It really makes us question, is our presence really needed?” says Alia Khan, one of the authors of the new study. “We have quite a large black carbon footprint in Antarctica, which is enhancing snow and ice melt.”
Black carbon is the leftover thing from burning plants or fossil fuels. Soot in Antarctica comes primarily from waste gases of cruise ships (游轮), vehicles, airplanes and electrical generators, although some pollution travels on the wind from other parts of the globe. The dark particles (微粒) coat white snow and absorb heat from the sun the way a black T-shirt does on a warm day. The blanket of dark bits speeds up melting that was already happening more quickly because of global warming. When snow and ice are uncovered, they reflect an enormous amount of sunlight before it can turn into heat.
“These are the mirrors on our planet,” says Sonia Nagorski, a scientist at the University of Alaska Southeast. “When those mirrors are covered in a film of dark bits, they are less reflective. That means more heat is trapped on Earth, speeding up melting and contributing to global warming.”
As a scientist who personally visits Antarctica every year, Khan says she is troubled by her own research results. On the one hand, she goes to Antarctica to collect crucial data about how quickly the snow and ice there are disappearing. “But then when we come to conclusions like this it really does make us think twice about how frequently we need to visit the continent,” she says, “and what kind of regulations should be placed on tourism as well.” That could mean requiring that cruise ships and vehicles be electric, for example, or limiting the number of visitors each year.
1. What are the feelings expressed in Khan’s words in paragraph 2?A.Doubt and concern. |
B.Confidence and courage. |
C.Anger and disappointment. |
D.Optimism and certainty. |
A.Burnt plants. |
B.Tourist vehicles. |
C.Black carbon elsewhere. |
D.Fossil fuels underneath Antarctica. |
A.It causes Antarctic surface temperature to rise. |
B.It is increasing in amount because of wind. |
C.It reflects a large volume of sunlight. |
D.It is like a big mirror on Earth. |
A.Help design scientific research regulations. |
B.Use electric cars for her daily transportation. |
C.Collect more data about Antarctica. |
D.Reduce her visits to Antarctica. |
2 . Be a Green Child
What does it mean to be green? “Green” is more than just a color.
Reduce It!
Reuse It!
Sometimes people call ours a “throwaway society”. It means that we’re a little to willing to throw away old stuff (东西) and buy new stuff.
For instance, if your baby brother becomes older and loses interest in his plastic basketball hoop (篮圈), why not give it to another family who has a little kid?
Recycle It!
Recycling has never been easier. Many communities will pick it up right in front of your house and some towns even require it. Recycled goods go to a recycling center, where they can be turned into new cans, bottles, and paper.
Enjoy It!
It’s true that rubbish and pollution are problems, but the Earth remains a huge and beautiful place that’s ready for you to explore.
But before you travel the globe, take a look at your own backyard. Is there a spot where you could plant a tree or put in a little fruit or vegetable garden?
A.It also means taking special steps to protect the environment. |
B.Many times, even if you no longer need something, someone else just might. |
C.You can start locally by visiting the naturally beautiful spots in your city. |
D.Turn off the water when you’re brushing your teeth. |
E.Get out there and get your hands dirty. |
F.You can watch with pride as your tree takes root and your garden plants grow. |
G.When you use less of something, you do a good thing for the Earth. |
3 . An endangered species is a group of animals that could soon become extinct.
Habitat destruction is the main reason why animals become endangered and this happens in two ways. When humans move into a new area, the animals’ habitat is destroyed and there is nowhere for them to live and nothing to eat because humans chop down trees and build houses and farms.
So what can individuals and governments do to protect endangered species? We should take care not to pollute natural areas, and farmers or companies who destroy animal habitats should face severe financial penalties.
A.Animal habitats are also destroyed because of pollution. |
B.Endangered species are also the result of hunting and fishing. |
C.Eventually, all the creatures on Earth will enjoy being together. |
D.Recent changes, however, have helped to improve the situation. |
E.The public can help out by refusing to buy any products made from these animals’body parts. |
F.Extinction happens when the last of the species has died out and there will be no more. |
G.If we all cooperate and take these steps, we will protect these animals for future generations. |
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(\)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.
Rain is great importance to us. Without rain, our water supply would be cut off and we would die, so will plants and animals. Therefore, too much rain does a lot of harm to us. It floods fields, towns and cities, causes us great losses. So far man's control over rain had never ceased. If they can gain more effective control over rain, we will enjoy more free from nature. Fortunate, we human beings have taken steps, such as planting more trees and using weather forecasts, it helps avoid flood damage and protect our water supply. I am greatly convinced that only if we join the hands to fight our common enemy can we live a rosy life.
5 . If plastic had been invented when the Pilgrims sailed from Plymouth, England, to North America - and their Mayflower had been stocked with bottled water and plastic-wrapped snacks, their plastic waste would likely still be around four centuries later. Atlantic waves and sunlight would have worn all that plastic into tiny bits. And those bits might still be floating around the world’s oceans today, waiting to be eaten by some fish or oyster, and finally perhaps by one of us.
Because plastic wasn’t invented until the late 19th century, and its production only really took off around 1950, we have a mere 9. 2 billion tons of the stuff to deal with. Of that, more than 6. 9 billion tons have become waste. And of that waste, a surprising 6. 3 billion tons never made it to a recycling bin - the figure that shocked the scientists who published the numbers in 2017.
No one knows how much unrecycled plastic waste ends up in the ocean, the earth’s last sink. In 2015, Jenna Jambeck, a University of Georgia engineering professor, caught everyone’s attention with a rough estimate: between 5. 3 million and 14 million tons of plastic waste each year just come from coastal regions.
Meanwhile, ocean plastic is estimated to kill millions of marine( 海 洋 的 )animals every year. Nearly 700 species, including endangered ones, are known to have been affected by it. Some are harmed visibly, stuck by abandoned things made of plastic. Many more are probably harmed invisibly. Marine species of all sizes, from zooplankton to whales, now eat microplastics, the bits smaller than one-fifth of an inch across.
“This isn’t a problem where we don’t know what the solution is,” says Ted Siegler, a Vermont resource economist who has spent more than 25 years working with developing nations on garbage. “We know how to pick up garbage. Anyone can do it. We know how to deal with it. We know how to recycle.” It’s a matter of building the necessary institutions and systems, he says, ideally before the ocean turns into a thin soup of plastic.
1. Why does the author mention the Pilgrims in paragraph 1?A.To prove plastic was difficult to invent. |
B.To introduce what marine animals like eating. |
C.To tell the Pilgrims contributed a lot to the marine protection. |
D.To show plastic waste has a lasting effect on the ocean. |
A.Lacking protection. | B.Being stuck by plastics. |
C.Being caught by humans. | D.Treating plastics as food. |
A.Some people don’t know the solution of plastics waste. |
B.Plastics will turn the ocean into a soup of plastic. |
C.It’s time to take measures to deal with plastic waste. |
D.People should avoid using plastics to protect the ocean. |
A.A biology textbook. | B.A travel brochure. |
C.An environmental report. | D.A lifestyle magazine. |
6 . As the world’s population continues to increase, so does the amount of global waste people produce. According to data collected by the World Bank Group, nations will generate 4 billion tons of waste annually by the year 2100. The pollution from trash is not only ruining the world’s oceans, air and soil but endangering all living creatures.
For years government agencies have been telling citizens to live a zero-waste lifestyle. Traditionally, manufacturers would make a product to be used and thrown by consumers. This linear model of production offered no help in the fight against global waste. Alternatively, a circular economy has been introduced. This is a system which aims to minimize waste and restore used materials. Once a product’s value is exhausted, the materials are recycled and returned to manufactures. The outcome is less waste.
In 2016, The Wall Street Journal reported on the Taiwan island’s recycling success rate in an article titled The World’s Geniuses of Garbage Disposal. In 1997, Taiwan established its signature 4-in-l Recycling Program, consisting of communities, recycling enterprises, government cleaning teams and the Recycling Fund. Residents separate their recyclable waste and bring it to their community’s recycling locations. The local government collection teams and private collectors collect it. Recycling companies buy waste materials from them to generate profits. Importers and manufacturers who are responsible for the recyclable products pay a fee into the Recycling Fund. The Recycling Fund is an essential aspect of the program used to subsidize (资助) the recycling disposal system, support education and research and development as well as finance recycling efforts in the future.
By following a circular system, more products than ever are being manufactured using recycled materials. For example, used tires can be recovered to pave roads, while plastic is reused to make new plastic products. And it also helps to conserve natural resources, reduce pollution, save landfill space and even create new job opportunities.
1. Why has a circular economy been introduced?A.The population is on the rise. |
B.It can help handle global waste. |
C.The living creatures on earth are getting less diverse. |
D.Traditional products are not environmentally friendly. |
A.The recyclable materials can be collected officially or privately. |
B.The importers and manufactures cover the costs of the program. |
C.Recycling companies buy waste materials from the residents. |
D.The government invests money as the recycling fund. |
A.It will cause no waste or pollution. | B.It reduces the costs of the products. |
C.It helps lower the unemployment rate. | D.All the materials can be recycled again. |
A.Do nothing by halves. | B.All that glisters isn’t gold. |
C.Actions speak louder than words. | D.One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. |
7 . If you live in Shanghai, you might have to take a “lesson” in sorting garbage (垃圾分类), as the city recently introduced new garbage-sorting rules.
It’s now required that people should sort garbage into four groups, namely recyclable, harmful, dry and wet waste. However, if people fail to sort their garbage properly, they can be fined up to 200 yuan.
More cities are introducing similar rules, following the practice in Shanghai. By the end of 2020, garbage-sorting systems will have been built in 46 major Chinese cities, including Beijing and Shenzhen, reported People’s Daily.
According to a study by the Policy Research Center for Environment and Economy, under the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, over 90 percent of the public believe that garbage sorting is important for the protection of the environment.
However, garbage sorting is still a big problem in China. Only 30 percent of participants(参加者) said they think they are adequately sorting their garbage, the study noted.
According to Xinhua News Agency, it’s partly because many people lack the willingness to sort their own waste. In the past, some garbage rules didn’t give clear fines for people who failed to sort garbage.
“It’s a must to have a legal guarantee (法律保障) to support garbage sorting,” Liu Jianguo, a professor from Tsinghua University, told China Daily.
Liu Xinyu, a researcher of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, told China Daily that the importance of the new rules in Shanghai is to change the past voluntary action into compulsory action for everyone.
Besides China, many other foreign countries have also introduced garbage-sorting rules. In Japan, waste sorting has become a basic survival skill, reported Xinhua. There is a fixed time to deal with each kind of garbage and littering can result in high fines and being sentenced in prison.
In Germany too, people are asked to sort waste into specific groups, reported HuffPost. For example, in Berlin, people have yellow dustbins for plastic and metals and blue dustbins for paper and cardboard.
1. What do we know about garbage sorting in Shanghai?A.People should put their garbage into two groups. |
B.People will be fined 200 yuan each time they break the rules. |
C.Shanghai is the first city to introduce garbage-sorting rules in the world. |
D.It sets an example for many other cities in China. |
A.put off | B.lead to | C.turn in | D.cut down |
A.Why garbage sorting is important. |
B.How other countries sort garbage. |
C.Garbage sorting has started in China. |
D.The world’s garbage problem is becoming worse. |
8 . Do you know anyone who plays Ant Forest? It is a game on Alipay. Users collect “energy “ for their “trees” to grow. When their “tree” finishes growing, Alipay will plant a real tree in the desert areas of China.
This is part of China’s efforts to fight desertification . Since 1978, China has planted over 66 billion trees across its dry northern areas, according to China Daily.
Desertification means there are no trees or grass. Water can’t stay in the soil and sand is everywhere.
About 2.6 million square kilometers of China’s land is covered with sand. That’s about 27 percent of the country’s land. It has also caused sandstorms .
By planting new trees, sandstorms in China have been cut by 20 percent in recent years. About 13,000 square kilometers of land have become oases (绿洲).
Ian Teh, a British photographer , traveled through northern China last year. He saw many new oases.
“It was hard to imagine that it was ever a desert,” he told Wired magazine.
1. What is Ant Forest?A.It is an app that lets people buy things. |
B.It is a game that can help fight desertification. |
C.It is a forest for people to grow trees in. |
D.It is a name for a group of special ants. |
A.Planted billions of trees. | B.Built houses in dry northern areas. |
C.Moved all the sand to one place. | D.Built oases around cities. |
A.2.6 percent | B.27 percent | C.20 percent | D.66 percent |
A.It was hard to travel in the desert. | B.It was amazing to see new oases there. |
C.It was still full of sand. | D.It was not easy to find any trees in the north. |
9 . Record fires sweeping across the Amazon this month have been grabbing global headlines as scientists and environmental groups are worried that they will worsen climate change crisis and threaten biodiversity.
As the largest rainforest in the world, the Amazon is often called “the lungs of the world”. It is also home to about 3 million species of plants and animals, and 1 million native people. The vast areas of rainforest play an important role in the world’s ecosystem because they absorb heat instead of it being reflected back into the atmosphere. They also store carbon dioxide and produce oxygen, ensuring that less carbon is released, mitigating the effects of climate change.
“Any forest destroyed is a threat to biodiversity and the people who use that biodiversity,” Thomas Lovejoy, an ecologist at George Mason University told National Geographic. “The overwhelming threat is that a lot of carbon goes into the atmosphere,” he stressed. “In the midst of the global climate crisis, we cannot afford more damage to a major source of oxygen and biodiversity. The Amazon must be protected,” U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres said.
Data from the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) show that the number of forest fires in Brazil quickly increased by 82 percent from January to August this year from a year ago. A total of 71,497 forest fires were registered in the country in the first eight months of 2019, up from 39,194 in the same period in 2018, INPE said. “We estimate that the forest areas in the Brazilian Amazon have decreased something between 20 and 30 percent compared to the last 12 months,” Carlos Nobre, a researcher at the University of Sao Paulo, told German broadcaster Deutsche Welle.
Brazil owns about 60 percent of the Amazon rainforest, whose degradation could have severe consequences for global climate and rainfall. The extent of the area ruined by fires has yet to be determined, but the emergency has transcended (超出) Brazil’s borders, reaching Peruvian, Paraguayan and Bolivian regions.
1. What is the second paragraph mainly talking about?A.The effects of climate change. | B.The role of the Amazon rainforest. |
C.The results of the Amazon rainforest fires. | D.The causes of the decreasing biodiversity. |
A.The biodiversity makes the rainforests unique. |
B.The rainforest fires result in serious consequences. |
C.The global climate crisis brings more rainforest fires. |
D.The dry weather leads to the rainforest fires. |
A.To prove the importance of rainforest. | B.To show the influence of forest fires. |
C.To explain the process of the research. | D.To present the reduction of rainforest areas. |
A.The climate change crisis is worsening. | B.The forest areas are on the decline. |
C.“The lungs of the earth” is burning. | D.The world’s ecosystem is under attack. |
High on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau