1 . “Is there going to be a flood?” asked Daniel. He looked nervously at his dad and mom. They both looked worried. Dad was completely wet and dirty. He and some other men in town had spent the morning piling bags of sand on top of the levee (防洪堤) along the river. For years the levee had kept the Mississippi from flooding its banks. After three straight days of rain, though, the water grew higher and higher. If the levee broke, Daniel’s neighborhood would be flooded for sure.
“We’ll be fine,” Dad placed a reassuring hand on Daniel’s shoulder. Outside, lightning flashed, followed by distant thunder. “Just in case,” said Dad. “I think we should start moving some things to Uncle Mike’s house.” Uncle Mike lived farther away from the river on higher ground. “And we’ll take everything we need to cook and eat upstairs,” he said, “like camping out in our own house.”
By nightfall, everything the family needed had been moved upstairs. Dad had taken their new couch and TV to Uncle Mike’s. Daniel helped his dad tie a fishing boat to the front (门廊). “Just in case,” said Dad.
Lying in bed that night, Daniel tossed and turned. He could hear the heavy rain beating on the roof. “Everything will be all right,” he said to himself just before falling asleep.
Several hours later, the sound of sirens (警报器) woke Daniel from a sound sleep. He sat straight up in bed, his heart pounding. In rushed Mom ,“Get dressed, Daniel! The levee just broke! We’ re leaving. We have no other choice.”
A few minutes later they all got into the fishing boat, leaving behind just about everything they owned. Daniel asked, “We’re going to lose everything, aren’t we?”
“No, not everything”, said Mom, pulling him close. We’ll always have each other.”
“That’s right,” said Dad. “We may lose the house, but we can always rebuild it. We can’t ever lose our home, though, because home is us.”
1. What caused the levee to break?| A．Bad construction. | B．High water levels. |
| C．Lack of sandbags. | D．People’s carelessness. |
| A．shaking | B．disturbing | C．disappointing | D．comforting |
| A．By taking a fishing boat. | B．By being saved by the police, |
| C．With the help of Uncle Mike. | D．By camping out on higher ground. |
| A．life isn’t a bed of roses | B．east or west,home is best |
| C．home is where the family is | D．a man’s house is his castle |
2 . Jeremi Swietochowski was doing his homework when he heard a thump (重击声). A bird had flown into the window and fallen onto the balcony (阳台) Swietochowski rushed to check on it. “Just when I was about to open the door. it flew away,” he said.
Not all birds are so lucky. According to a study, between 365 million and a billion birds are killed each year in the United States by flying into glass.
“Birds, of course, don’t mean to fly into buildings. It’s the reflectivity (反射性) of the windows that tricks (欺骗) them,” says Christine Sheppard. director of the glass-collisions (玻璃碰撞) program at the American Bird Conservancy. “When birds see reflections of trees-to them, they are just more trees that they can fly into.”
Sheppard and others, including environmentalists and building designers. work to make buildings bird-friendly to lower the number of bird collisions.
One method is to use less glass. Another is to cover a glass building with some kind of screen. The Orange Cube, in Lyon, France, is a good example of this method. The screen can be seen by birds, but it doesn’t block natural light. A third method is to use special glass. This was done in New York City. on a huge glass building called the Javits Center. It used to be one of the city’s deadliest buildings for birds.
Officials agreed to use patterned glass to take the place of some glass in2009. Building designer Daniel Piselli worked on the project. “We need to consider what humans need and what birds need” Piselli says. He notes that with glass. “the main thing is to put something on it that birds can see so they are not tricked by reflections and people can still enjoy daylight through the glass.”
Work on the Javits Center project was completed in 2014. “We ended up bringing down collisions by more than 90%,” Piselli says.
1. Why did the author think the bird was lucky?| A．It wasn’t hurt by an enemy. | B．It could fly freely in the sky. |
| C．It received good care from its owner. | D．It wasn’t killed after hitting the window. |
| A．They need to stop to have a rest. | B．They want to play tricks on humans. |
| C．They’re trying to get inside the buildings. | D．They’re confused by reflections in the windows. |
| A．Reasons for making friends with birds. | B．Ways to make buildings safer for birds. |
| C．The disadvantages of glass windows. | D．Great examples of new high buildings. |
| A．It was very successful. | B．It was unacceptable to bird lovers. |
| C．It took longer to complete than expected. | D．It played a big role in stopping air pollution. |
3 . Facing fierce mountain wildfires, a young man from Chongqing stepped forward to join the battle against flames.
When seeing a mountain fire break out in the city’s Fuling district on the evening of Aug 17, Yu Qiupeng, a student from Chongqing Industry and Trade Polytechnic, said: “I just felt a ‘boom’ in my head”. Without giving a second thought, he set out to join the fight against the fire.
Because of traffic restrictions, Yu had to walk to the fire scene. At around 10 pm, Yu arrived at the fire site and started working with other volunteers. When cleaning a water pipe, Yu accidentally burned his hand. “I looked up and saw a fireman next to me pouring water on another fireman who had just rushed out of the fire, and the water immediately vaporized (蒸发) into smoke,” said Yu. “I really wanted to cry at that time.”
After hours of hard efforts by firefighters and volunteers, the fire was extinguished. On the evening of Aug 18, hot embers (余烬) at two sites of the mountain fire began to burn up again. Once again Yu joined the volunteer group to put out the flames. This time, the condition of the land was more difficult. Yu needed to transport supplies on the extremely hot slope (山坡), He carried a backpack full of supplies and went back and forth more than 10 times under the burning sun.
Yu’s deeds won praise online. Video clips spreading online show him running, fighting the fire and digging isolation strips (隔离带) in the fire scenes. While people were trying to recognize the young man, Yu’s hometown also caught fire because of the continuous heat waves. The 18-year-old headed to the fire scene for a third time.
When his teacher asked: “Did you know how dangerous it was?” Yu said: “I didn’t think about it.”
1. What happened to Yu Qiupeng when he was cleaning the water pipe?| A．He fell into water. | B．His hand got burnt. |
| C．His head began to ache. | D．He knocked into a fireman. |
| A．Lit up. | B．Burnt up. |
| C．Set on. | D．Put out. |
| A．Brave and fearless. | B．Helpful and curious. |
| C．Patient and careful. | D．Modest and determined. |
| A．A voluntary job offered to a fireman. |
| B．A young man who fought against fires. |
| C．A mountain fire happening in Chongqing. |
| D．A battle against the wild mountain wildfires. |
It has been estimated that rapidly growing modernization is leading to ignorance towards the environment. Humans have created a situation in
Over the years, scientists researching on this topic
It is known that the rapid industrial growth has led to
5 . Green architecture is designed in an environmentally-friendly way. Many people think interest in green architecture has only begun in recent years.
To make it, much of green architecture focuses on building intelligently. For example, plumbing systems (管道系统) may be designed to use less water while still functioning normally.
Many architects build environmentally to show people that it’s possible. And they want to show the fact that being environmentally-friendly does not have to make a building bad-looking.
The green design can be kept in mind when we build various future buildings, ranging from a private home to a tall office building. Green designs can also be applied to remodeling (改造) and repairing existing buildings.
| A．The goal is to make a building prettier. |
| B．Not many buildings have great green designs. |
| C．A green building’s design need solve many problems. |
| D．In fact, humans have tried green architecture for thousands of years. |
| E．After all, pulling down a building can quite damage the environment. |
| F．Actually, many of the green designs can make a building more beautiful. |
| G．And smart lighting would turn off when people are not around to save energy. |
6 . Efforts to preserve the Amazon rainforest, which supports immense biodiversity and locks away tons of climate threatening carbon, are growing more urgent as the ecosystem’s destruction speeds up. Indigenous (当地的) peoples have been trying to protect the region by patrolling (巡逻) their territorial boundaries for illegal activities. But rapid deforestation continues.
A recent study shows that combining on-the-ground monitoring with satellite data and smartphone technology could help put the brakes (刹车) on Amazon deforestation —and potentially that of forests elsewhere.
Illegal logging, agriculture and coca cultivation particularly threaten the Amazon in the Peruvian Indigenous communities and outsiders are often the culprits (罪魁祸首). The research team wondered if providing training for local people to use satellite based “early deforestation alerts (警报)” could help. The scientists cooperated with 76 Indigenous communities, 36 of which participated in using these alerts to watch over the forest. Over the next two years these trained participants were paid to work as forest monitors and received monthly alerts via the app when satellite data indicated local forest losses. Monitors investigated alerts, patrolled for deforestation in other areas and reported confirmed tosses back to their communities, which decided whether to deal with the culprits on their own or inform state authorities.
The researchers analyzed the same forest-loss satellite data from the given time period in all 76 communities. They found the early-alert program reduced forest loss by 8.4 hectares in the first two year — a 52% reduction compared with the average loss in the control communities.
Experts say this approach to tackling Amazonian deforestation looks promising. “Would this work in all communities that have high risk of deforestation? Given the results, it’s worth a try,” says Catherine Tucker, a researcher at the University of Florida. “But some communities may not have access to the resources needed for such a program, or their territories may hold valuable minerals that would increase the risk of deforestation by outsiders despite monitoring efforts,” wrote Francisco Hernandez Cayctano, a community member involved in the research, “we as Indigenous peoples ask the world for support.”
1. Why did the research team conduct the program?| A．To stop carbon being locked away. | B．To tackle Amazon deforestation. |
| C．To monitor satellite movement. | D．T control illegal activities. |
| A．By offering locals training in using a smartphone app. |
| B．By combining local monitoring with smartphone alerts. |
| C．By organizing native people to fight against the outsiders. |
| D．By equipping local forest with satellite data and monitors. |
| A．Pessimistic. | B．Objective. | C．Approving. | D．Sympathetic. |
| A．Local Monitors Trained for Forest Loss. | B．Satellite Data Cure Deforestation. |
| C．Outsiders Are to Blame for Forest Loss. | D．Smart Patrol Fights Deforestation. |
7 . New bio-plastics are being made in laboratories from straw, wood chips and food waste, with researchers aiming to replace oil as the source of the world’s plastic.
The new approaches include genetically modifying bacteria to eat wood and produce useful chemicals. But the bio-plastics are currently significantly more expensive to make than fossil fuel-based plastics.
Land and seas around the world, from high mountains to deep oceans, have become polluted with plastic, prompting major public concern. The world has produced 8bn tons of plastic since the 1950s and demand is still rising.
While some waste plastic is recycled, much of it is burnt to produce electricity, resulting in carbon emissions that drive climate change. In contrast to plastic made from oil, plastics made from plant-based materials only release the carbon the plants absorbed from the air as they grew. Bio-plastics will also give more options for products that biodegrade (生物降解) in the environment, although they can be made very long-lasting if required.
“Plastics are an incredible enhancement to our daily lives,” said Paul Mines, CEO of Biome Technologies in the UK, which has spent t5m in the last five years on bio-plastics research. “But we can’t go on using fossil fuel-based materials. About 6-7% of every barrel (桶) of oil is used to make plastics.”
“Using plant materials is feasible,” said professor Simon, at the University of York. “Replacing half of the nation’s plastic bottles could be done using just 3% of the sugar beet crop, 5% of wheat straw or 2.5% of food waste,” he said.
Currently, just a few thousand tons of bio-plastic are used in the UK each year, compared to millions of tons of conventional plastic. Mines said this could rise to about 20,000 tons in the next five years.
1. Why are high mountains and deep oceans mentioned in Paragraph 3?| A．To display the range of plastic pollution. | B．To show the widespread use of plastic. |
| C．To present a reason of wide use of plastic. | D．To stress the increasing demand for plastic. |
| A．Producing electricity. | B．Being eco-friendly. |
| C．Driving climate change. | D．Biodegrading other plastic. |
| A．Possible. | B．Troublesome. | C．Original. | D．Costly. |
| A．Plastics arc necessary in daily life. | B．Oil is the source of the world’s plastic. |
| C．Bioplastic making is a promising industry. | D．Scientists are researching bioplastic making. |
8 . Clothes were once used until they fell apart. Not today. In high-income countries in particular, clothing and footwear are increasingly frequently bought, thrown away and replaced with new fashions, which are themselves soon thrown away and replaced.
The so-called ‘Fast fashion’ is having a surprising environmental impact. The first one is water. The fashion industry consumes anywhere from 20 trillion (万亿) to 200 trillion litres every year. Then there are micro-plastics. Plastic fibres are released when we wash polyester (聚酯纤维) textiles, which make up between20% and 35% of the micro-plastics choking the oceans. Added to this are specific chemicals, such as those used to make fabrics stain resistant and the pesticides required to protect crops such as cotton.
Change is badly needed, but will require the fashion industry to work harder to embrace more of what is known as the circular economy. That will involve at least two things: refocusing on making things that last, and so encouraging reuse; and more rapidly expanding the technologies for sustainable manufacturing processes, especially recycling. There’s a big role for research-both academic and industrial-in achieving these and other ambitions.
Researchers could begin by helping to provide more accurate estimates of water use. There is also work to be done on improving and expanding textiles recycling. Undoubtedly, used textiles go to landfill in part because there are relatively few systems that collect, recycle and reuse materials. Such recycling requires the manual separation of fibres, as well as buttons and zips. Different fibres are not easy to identify by eye, and overall such manual processes are time-consuming. Machinery that can help is being developed. Technologies also exist to recycle used fibres chemically and to create high-quality fibres that can be reused in clothing. But these are nowhere near the scale needed.
Another challenge for researchers is to workout how to get consumers and manufacturers to change their behaviour. Other research questions include finding ways to encourage people to purchase long lasting goods; exploring how to satisfy desires for something new while reducing environmental impact; and understanding why certain measures can be successfully scaled up whereas others fail.
1. Why does the author mention “water”, “micro-plastics” and “chemicals” in Paragraph 2?| A．To provide an idea. | B．To prove a point. |
| C．To give a definition. | D．To present new concepts. |
| A．Efforts are made to lengthen the lifespan of textiles. |
| B．Worn-out clothes are used as dishcloths and oil rags. |
| C．High-quality fibres are created to be reused in clothing. |
| D．Fashion industry is encouraged to release new lines more often. |
| A．To make sure that all of the used textiles go to landfill. |
| B．To separate fibres, as well as buttons and zips manually. |
| C．To improve and expand textile recycling to a larger extent. |
| D．To encourage consumers to satisfy their desires for fashion. |
| A．Say Yes to the So-called Fast Fashion |
| B．Cut Fast Fashion’s Environmental Impact |
| C．Address the Academic Challenges for Researchers |
| D．Improve the Efficiency of the Separation of Fibres |
9 . China has seen important achievements in improving the environment and green development over the past 70 years, especially in fighting against desertification (沙漠化).
Desertification was a serious problem in the 1990s. It caused deadly sandstorms, and did great harm to the local (当地的) people. As President Xi Jinping has said, clear waters and green mountains are the most valuable things. The government and people have been making every effort to fight against desertification. In the process (过程), Chinese people’s efforts and determination to create “green” areas have played a crucial role, without which nothing may be achieved.
A lot of campaigns (活动) have been carried out by the central government to improve the environment. For example, in 1998, China started the Natural Forest Protection Program. Thanks to the program, forests in China increased greatly from 12 percent in the 1980s to nearly 23 percent last year.
Another example of the campaign is the Elion Resources Group, which has been recognized by the UN for its contribution that has slowed desertification.
In Kubuqi, a desert in the North China, Elion has successfully greened 600,000 hectares (公顷) of land. Surprisingly, it also has helped lift more than 102,000 people out of poverty through the development of solar energy and tourism, as well as planting herbs (草药) for traditional Chinese medicine.
In addition, the group’s technologies have also been used in many other important programs, including Yangtze River Ecological Park and Qilian Mountain National Park.
“We will develop new ways to improve our ability to control the sand with the help of modern technologies, such as drones (无人机), AI, big data and the internet of things,” said Ao Baoping, president of Elion Green Land Technology.
1. What does the underlined word “crucial” in the second paragraph mean?| A．Active. | B．Direct. | C．Key. | D．Practical. |
| A．More areas in China are covered with forest. |
| B．A similar new campaigns will be carried out. |
| C．The result of the program is far from satisfactory. |
| D．The central government has carried out a lot of campaigns to develop the economy. |
| A．Its main aim was to lift local people out of poverty. |
| B．It made Kubuqi become a center for tourism. |
| C．It has got help from other ecological programs. |
| D．It will use modern technologies to fight desertification. |
| A．In a text book. | B．In a newspaper. |
| C．In a science novel. | D．In an advertisement. |
10 . In recent years, we have always seen different kinds of new energy vehicles on the road frequently, but do you know anything about them?
In the 21st century, with the increasing shortage of resources such as oil and natural gas, the issue of non-renewable resources has become a major concern. The traditional industry uses mostly oil as a fuel, and the carbon dioxide produced by burning oil hurts the air. The vehicle emissions (排放) contribute to global warming and other poisonous gases cause serious air pollution.
In response to the problem of vehicle pollution, countries and regions worldwide are setting increasingly strict standards for vehicle emissions. To cope with the increasing severity of vehicle emission standards, the major car manufacturers(制造商) are now mainly adopting methods to improve the technology related to the engines of conventional energy vehicles. Although this has improved the quality of emissions, it will be increasingly difficult to upgrade the technology. At this point, the development of new energy vehicles has become a new option for manufacturers, as the production and use of new energy vehicles will fundamentally solve the problem of vehicle emissions. Therefore, the development of new energy vehicles are a necessity and a general trend.
New energy vehicles are proposed as opposed to traditional vehicles, which are mainly fuelled by petrol. A new energy vehicle is a type of vehicle that runs on clean energy sources, using new energy sources as the fuel commonly used to power the car and provide the drive energy for the vehicle. New energy vehicles can be divided into several categories, such-as pure electric vehicles, fuel cell electric vehicles, hybrid (混合动力) vehicles, and so on. In addition, new energy vehicles have the advantage of low energy consumption and low-carbon environmental protection.
However, although new energy vehicles follow the concept of sustainable development, there are still many problems and challenges in the development of new energy vehicle research and production. For instance, many issues require specialist technicians and solutions, and further breakthroughs are needed in key technology areas. In addition, the efficiency of new energy use needs to be further improved, making it difficult to form an industrial-scale operation in a short period.
1. What does using non-renewable resources invite?| A．Harm to the planet. | B．Low-carbon life. |
| C．Less air pollution. | D．Shortage of water. |
| A．Improving energy efficiency of traditional resources. |
| B．Replacing the engines of conventional energy vehicles. |
| C．Innovating vehicles related to renewable resources. |
| D．Manufacturing more cars and lowering their prices. |
| A．The source, fuel and advantage. |
| B．The definition, fuel and protection. |
| C．The source, category and conformation, |
| D．The definition, category and advantage. |
| A．They should be replaced. | B．Further exploring in needed. |
| C．It is unnecessary to improve. | D．They call for no more energy. |
