Diets have changed in China — and so too has its top crop. Since 2011, the country
A taste for meat is
According to the World Bank, China accounts for about 30 percent of total
On a hot September afternoon, Peter and his friend Isabel were on their way to the library. When they passed by Tubman park, Isabel suggested cutting through it to get to the library. As they entered the park, the sight of the swings (秋千) and the merry-go-round brought back a flood of memories of their childhood spent there. But now everything looked so old, sad, and dirty. Litter lay on the ground next to an overflowing trash bin. There were still young schoolchildren playing there but they had to avoid the trash that littered the playground. A little boy told them that the city took the other trash cans away and the remaining one never got emptied often.
As they headed toward the library, the two high school students wrinkled their forehead. In the library, they encountered Mrs. Evans, their kind-hearted fifth-grade teacher, retired yet still passionate. Mrs. Evans listened as Isabel and Peter eagerly explained what they’d seen. Finally, she recommended them to go to the City Hall to voice their concerns.
The next day, Isabel and Peter went into the building of the City Hall but were met with an impatient officer. They were informed that the city couldn’t help with their problem due to a tight budget. Discouraged, they left and turned to Mrs. Evans for help.
Under her guidance, they decided to ask Go Green, a non-profit organization whose goal is to protect the environment, for help. “This group is good at raising money for projects just like yours, ” said Mrs. Evans. She promised to arrange them to present their ideas to Go Green. Hearing this, their face lit up.
Two main tasks remained ahead: researching ways to clean up the park and preparing a convincing presentation. As Isabel was good at researching while Peter always had a talent for speaking, they cooperated quite well. Isabel learned from a science magazine that a new type of trash bin can squeeze the trash down without being emptied often, which saves time, money, and energy. Based on this, Peter practiced his presentation over and over again.
注意：1. 续写词数应为150左右；2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
A week later, Peter stood nervously at the back of the hall where Go Green was meeting.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________After the meeting, Isabel excitedly told Peter the good news.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________3 . Tima Abudhi is a 55-year-old mother of five. When growing up, she remembers watching her neighbors
As the mangroves
“Replanting the mangroves is not
Today, the women of Kizingitini no longer have to
Mangrove forests can
| A．cut away | B．settle down | C．set out | D．get up |
| A．moved | B．disappeared | C．died | D．rose |
| A．contribution | B．choice | C．disaster | D．luck |
| A．encouraged | B．motivated | C．forbade | D．persuaded |
| A．neighbor | B．community | C．beach | D．village |
| A．selling | B．assessing | C．closing | D．running |
| A．increased | B．gained | C．produced | D．decreased |
| A．difficult | B．easy | C．worthwhile | D．suitable |
| A．return | B．calm | C．withdraw | D．remove |
| A．hard | B．enough | C．long | D．cheap |
| A．struggle | B．stop | C．prepare | D．determine |
| A．attempt | B．witness | C．afford | D．refuse |
| A．unemployment | B．resignation | C．participation | D．ignorance |
| A．gender | B．wealth | C．income | D．age |
| A．cancel | B．keep | C．accelerate | D．slow |
4 . The rechargeable lithium-ion (锂离子) battery market is worth more than ＄50 billion. Lithium-ion batteries, whose demand continues to go up day by day, are used in a wide range of electronic devices. They are made of four main components, and cathode (阴极) is one of them. The cathode’s active material type is what determines the capacity of a battery.
A recent study, led by Wang Yan, a material scientist of Worcester Polytechnic Institute, finds that lithium-ion batteries made with recycled cathodes work better than those with new cathodes.
“The battery industry is expected to grow sharply in the next decade. This high demand has led companies to go to extremes, like increasing deep-sea mining, to gain access to the minerals used in lithium-ion batteries,” Wang said. “Mining minerals will have environmental impacts. Recycling spent lithium-ion batteries offers a way out.”
But until now, the prospect of using recycled materials in lithium-ion batteries has some manufacturers (制造商) worrying that it could impact performance. Thus, lithium-ion batteries are still not widely recycled. Aware of decreasing resources and environmental impact, Wang and other researchers set out to find a way to make recycling lithium-ion batteries economically practical. Through experiments, they could recover more than 90% of the key metals from spent batteries. These recovered metals became the basis of the new recycled battery’s cathode’s active material.
In tests between Wang’s team’s recycled batteries and brand-new batteries of the same composition, the recycled batteries outperform the new ones in their ability to maintain capacity. It took 11,600 charge cycles for recycled cathode batteries to lose 30 percent of their original capacity. That was about 50 percent better than the 7,600 observed cycles for new cathode batteries, the team reported. Those thousands of extra cycles could translate into years of better battery performance, even after repeated use and recharging.
1. What can we learn about lithium-ion batteries from the first paragraph?| A．They are high in price. |
| B．They are in great demand. |
| C．They are limited in use. |
| D．They are simple in composition. |
| A．The target users of recycled batteries. |
| B．The ways to get minerals for batteries. |
| C．The major reasons for recycling batteries. |
| D．The complex process of recycling batteries. |
| A．Declining mineral resources. |
| B．Difficult recycling techniques. |
| C．Serious environmental problems. |
| D．Inefficient battery performance. |
| A．The battery industry is going to develop dramatically. |
| B．Recycling batteries reduces impact on the environment. |
| C．Scientists can recover key materials from spent batteries. |
| D．Recycled batteries outperform new ones in charging circles. |
5 . A carbon capturing device, called Orca, began operating in Iceland in September. The machine was invented and made by a Swiss company called Climeworks. The name comes from the Icelandic word orka which means energy.
Orca can pull carbon dioxide out of the air and send it deep into the ground, where it is turned into stone. The device is made up of four sections which look like giant air conditioners stacked together. Each section contains 12 large fans that suck air from outside into steel compartments.
Inside, the air passes through a filter (过滤器) which gathers the carbon dioxide. It is then heated to a high temperature so the carbon dioxide can be collected from the filter. Then, the carbon dioxide is mixed with water and put deep in the ground into a type of rock called basalt. Basalt causes the carbon dioxide mixture to turn into stone after two or three years.
Orca is an experimental device. It was built to demonstrate that it is possible to permanently remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. It can remove 4, 000 metric tons of carbon dioxide from the air each year. That’s about the same amount as the emissions produced by 850 cars in a year. In order to remove enough carbon dioxide to make a big difference to global warming, much larger devices like Orca would have to be built in many countries around the world.
Some environmental activists say governments should spend more time and money on reducing the amount of greenhouse gas we produce each year, instead of investing in carbon capture methods. But others say that, in order for countries to meet their goal of net zero emissions by 2050, they will need to do both: reduce new emissions and remove the carbon dioxide already in the air.
1. What’s the purpose of designing Orca?| A．To conserve energy. | B．To achieve zero emissions. |
| C．To protect natural resources. | D．To remove carbon dioxide in the air. |
| A．Orca. | B．The basalt. | C．The air. | D．Carbon dioxide. |
a. Sucking the air. b. Collecting the carbon dioxide.
c. Mixing with water. d. Filtering and heating.
e. Putting into the ground.
| A．a, d, b, c, e | B．a, c, d, b, e | C．a, d, c, b, e | D．a, b, c, d, e |
| A．Reducing emissions is more important. |
| B．It might result in new pollution. |
| C．The technology is not mature. |
| D．It doesn’t work efficiently. |
6 . Birds’ bodies are becoming smaller in size in response to climate change, even in places like the Amazon rainforest that are relatively untouched by human hands, according to a new study published in the journal Science Advances.
Researchers found that nearly all of the birds’ bodies have become lighter since the 1980s, losing on average about 2% of their body weight every decade. For an average bird species that weighed about 30 grams in the 1980s, the population now averages about 27.6 grams. The study also revealed that wingspan was getting bigger in the Amazon bird species studied.
These birds don’t vary that much in size. When everyone in the population is a couple of grams smaller, it’s significant. This is undoubtedly happening all over and probably not just with birds.
A lower body weight and increasing wing length means that birds use energy more efficiently, the researchers noted. For example, compared with a fighter jet with short wings that needs lots of fuel to fly, a glider plane with a thin body and long wings flies up into the air with much less energy.
The study concluded that a warmer climate was the driving force of these changes. The climate in Brazilian Amazonia, where the birds lived, had gotten hotter and wetter over the study period. Since 1966, rainfall increased by 13% in the wet season and fell by 15% in the dry, with temperatures increasing by 1 degree Celsius in the wet season and 1.65 degrees Celsius in the dry season. The change in climate might have made food or other resources insufficient.
Together, body proportions moved in the direction of more efficient flight and lower metabolic heat production and are consistent with a plastic or genetic adaptation to resource or thermal stress under climate change.
Animals are dealing with climate change in different ways.
1. What is the direct cause of birds’ changes?| A．A warmer climate. | B．A scientific advance. | C．A lack of sufficient food. | D．A lack of drinking water |
| A．To show planes fly with much less fuel. | B．To prove birds need much energy to fly. |
| C．To demonstrate birds’ efficient energy use. | D．To illustrate planes need lots of fuel to fly. |
| A．Animals’ other body part changes. | B．People’s attempts to protect animals. |
| C．Birds’ adaptation to climate change. | D．Animals’ ways to tackle climate change |
| A．Birds Nowadays Also Have to Adapt to Climate Change |
| B．The Climate Crisis Is Influencing Birds’ Body Shapes |
| C．It’s Our Duty to Take Measures to Protect Birds on the Planet |
| D．It’s Time to Raise Human Beings’ Awareness of Climate Crisis |
7 . On September 29, 2021, the US Fish and Wildlife Service declared it would be removing 23 species from its Endangered Species Act, including the ivory-billed woodpecker, various Hawaiian birds and freshwater fish, not because they had been pulled back from the edge of extinction, but because the USFWS believed these species would never recover, and were most likely extinct, therefore not requiring protection.
In April, 195 countries are getting together in China for a UN conference to discuss global agreements to protect nature and biodiversity, with the hope of finalizing an agreement to safeguard plants, animals, and ecosystems. However, the new strain (毒株) of Covid-19, Omicron, has potentially thrown the plans into a mess, and negotiators may switch to online talks if travel restrictions to China are put in place again.
“We can't go another four months without any progress” said Georgina Chandler, senior international policy officer at the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. Conservationists are urging the talks to go ahead — online if necessary — as the biodiversity crisis shows no sign of slowing up.
“Nature loss has not gone away and threatens both human lives and the global economy,” said Lin Li, director of global policy at the organization. “With one million species currently in danger of extinction, delaying action is not an option.”
Improving conservation and management of natural areas, such as oceans, forests, and wildernesses is crucial to safeguarding the ecosystems on which humans depend. However, forests are still being devastated, often for farming or commercial use. As trees absorb about a third of planet-warming emissions produced worldwide, stopping deforestation is key. At COP26 in Glasgow last November, world leaders plan to invest $19 billion in public and private funds to protect and restore global forests.
It’s easy to feel disheartened by the disappointing news, but the only way to stop more species suffering the same fate is to pay attention and take actions.
1. Why would the 23 species be removed from the Act?| A．Because they are less endangered. |
| B．Because they have already died out. |
| C．Because more fund is in need to protect them. |
| D．Because nothing can save them from extinction. |
| A．Take immediate actions. |
| B．Put off the conference. |
| C．Have online talks. |
| D．Improve global economy. |
| A．Abandoned. | B．Destroyed. | C．Rearranged. | D．Disturbed. |
| A．To explain why some species have disappeared. |
| B．To recommend ways to protect and restore forests. |
| C．To describe the present situation of global ecosystem. |
| D．To call for attention and action against biodiversity crisis. |
8 . Open an app at your smart phone and scan the code bar on the garbage can. When you throw garbage into the garbage can, it will show the weight of the garbage and the points you can get from doing so.
In some cities, a variety of multifunctional smart garbage cans are being put into use. In Beijing, for example, a smart garbage can is equipped with an LED screen, which not only shows national policies on garbage classification but also shows the correct steps for garbage sorting. It can also calculate the weight of the garbage and the accumulated points one can get. They can be traded for some articles of daily use.
Garbage disposal is a small issue that involves everybody each day. However, it is also a big issue.
| A．Garbage sorting has been a new fashion. |
| B．Another kind of garbage can is even smarter. |
| C．It is no wonder that residents cheered for their presence. |
| D．Such a way of handling garbage has appeared in some cities. |
| E．It will affect China’s transformation towards green development. |
| F．Over 200 million tons of garbage is produced each year in some cities. |
| G．The good habit of garbage classification can improve the living environment. |
内容包括：1.时间及地点；2.展览内容和学生收获；3.活动反响。
注意：1.写作词数应为80左右；2.可适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。
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10 . Natalie Doan, 14, has always felt lucky to live in Rockaway, New York. Living just a few blocks from the beach, Natalie can see the ocean and hear the
On October 29, 2012, that ocean turned
In the following few days, Volunteers came with carloads of donated clothing and toys. Neighbors devoted their spare time to helping others
In the coming months, her website page helped lots of kids.
Today, the scars (创痕) of
| A．noises | B．waves | C．bells | D．songs |
| A．fierce | B．calm | C．active | D．silent |
| A．ran | B．headed | C．escaped | D．moved |
| A．in ruins | B．at risk | C．in rags | D．at sea |
| A．rich | B．healthy | C．young | D．elderly |
| A．excitedly | B．hurriedly | C．sadly | D．temporarily |
| A．improve | B．rebuild | C．develop | D．react |
| A．buildings | B．floors | C．flights | D．storeys |
| A．astonished | B．interested | C．inspired | D．awakened |
| A．appear | B．help | C．show | D．speak |
| A．discovered | B．landed | C．put | D．replaced |
| A．Additionally | B．Unexpectedly | C．Frankly | D．Amazingly |
| A．made | B．promised | C．awarded | D．offered |
| A．ocean | B．love | C．decoration | D．destruction |
| A．will | B．hope | C．belief | D．truth |
