1 . Early one morning, servers at an Egyptian restaurant began their usual preparations for the day. They laid out rows of desserts. But the offerings weren’t for customers. Instead, within an hour, staff from an organization called Tekeya had arrived to take away 135 portions of perfectly eatable dishes. The desserts — made a day earlier — weren’t considered fresh enough to eat.

Throughout Egypt, which boasts a rich culinary (烹饪的) history, such views aren’t uncommon. Now, though, with a global reflection on the food chain and its role in the climate crisis, attitudes in Egypt are slowly changing.

The restaurant is one of around a dozen across the Egyptian capital that Tekey’s staff visits each day in a quest to stop fit-for-consumption food from being dumped. Restaurants pay a small annual fee that allows them to alert Tekeya’s staff whenever they have unsold food. Personal users of Tekeya’s app can then buy that food at half price, or either the restaurants or the users can request Tekeya to deliver the food to a food bank or charity of their choosing. In total, up to 40 plates are saved from going to the trash each day.

“I’ve seen several platforms helping fight food waste across Europe. It’s uplifting to find one that does the same here in Egypt, ” says the manager, who has been using the app for three years.

In 2019, Menna Shahin had an idea particularly inspired by a festival, which brings about both celebration and waste. “I would put so much thought into how to deal with food responsibly without harming the environment, and how to minimize my excess (过度的) usage,” Ms. Shahin says. “I thought to myself, why not assist everyone to deal with their excess food wisely?”

Ms. Shahin ended up co-founding Tekeya along with her husband, Max Hartzen. By Tekeya’s second year, some 10, 000 discounted meals were ordered during one month, with users choosing to donate roughly a quarter of those to charities.

1. Why were the desserts in paragraph 1 not for customers?

A．They were sold out.	B．They were not eatable.
C．They had gone sour.	D．They were not fresh enough.

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

A．Thrown away.

B．Kept up.

C．Squeezed out.

D．Tracked down.

3. What does paragraph 5 mainly talk about?

A．How a festival is celebrated.	B．How waste comes about.
C．How Tekeya is originated.	D．How food is dealt with.

4. Which best describes Tekeya?

A．It takes ages to see its effect.	B．It has produced good results.
C．It needs to be widely applied.	D．It has received sharp criticism.

2 . The environment has never been more in need of a helping hand from us. Schools, in particular, are in a great position to educate future generations and make sure that good environmental habits are learned and adopted from an early age. So, ranging from energy efficiency to recycling, here are our tips to make your school more eco-friendly and sustainable.

☆    1    

Sending waste to landfill to slowly rot away isn’t the best use of the world’s resources. Plus, the space available for landfill is rapidly running out. Instead, boost recycling by providing appropriate and appealing facilities with clear signage (标识).     2    .

☆Turn off the lights and fit energy-efficient light bulbs

Saving energy used for lighting is one of the easiest things that we can do.     3    . Turn off lights when they’re not needed. Signage asking people to turn off the lights can act as a useful reminder.

☆Go paperless

    4    , with paper now being seen as outdated in many cases. This is good news for the environment, but it sometimes needs people to change how they do things. Look into options for creating and using fewer paper-based administration systems at school and think twice before printing or photocopying all those A4 pages, for example.

☆Reject plastic water bottles

Recent television programs and campaigns have raised the issue of waste plastic towards the top of the environmental agenda. In some ways, this isn’t surprising because, again, it is relatively easy for everyone to make a difference to the environment with minimal effort.     5    . Just stop buying brand-new water bottles that are used once and then recycled, and reuse existing bottles and containers instead.

A．Encourage and enable recycling

B．The world is becoming ever more digital

C．All it takes is a little bit of planning ahead

D．Get everyone involved with clean-up days

E．It will also save money on buying traditional materials

F．Try to maximize the use of natural light as much as possible

G．This is the key to preventing pollution of different waste streams

3 . OH1, a crow-sized seabird, touched down just off the Maryland coast on April 18, completing a migration from Argentina. Soon, more terns (燕鸥) joined OH1, and nesting season was officially underway.

The common terns had become uncommon in Maryland until conservationists and scientists gave the birds, listed as endangered in the state, an artificial wooden raft (筏子). This is one of the birds’ last toeholds in the state.

Every spring for the last three years, staff at the Maryland Coastal Bays Program (MCBP), have pulled the nesting raft into the water of Chincoteague Bay, a narrow slice of ocean situated between the state’s mainland and a chain of barrier islands. The bay was once rich with the kind of nesting habitat seabirds need: small sandy islands where predators (捕食者) are rare and bushes provide shade to flightless chicks on hot summer days. But over the last century, due to coastal development and sea level rise, those islands have disappeared. And so did the terns. By 2020, there were only 60 nesting pairs left.

Initially intended as a temporary solution, the rafts have not only stopped the common tern’s population decline — they’ve completely reversed it. In 2021, 23 pairs of tern s nested on the platform; in 2022, 155 sets of parents hatched 140 chicks.

Figuring out the formula for the birds’ success has been an ongoing process. Dave Brinker, a regional ecologist, says that observing the birds each year “helps us get more terns on the rafts.”

For example, during the first year the raft contained only some tiny wooden shelves intended to provide shade to the baby birds. But the adult terns used the chick shelters like fence lines, outlining their territory. “A natural habitat will have grass to provide that natural geographic separation,” Brinker says. “So the next year we added plastic grass to break up the visual landscape.”

While the nesting platform has become a life raft for the tern population, it remains a temporary solution. The team hopes ultimately to convince the state to rebuild the lost islands.

1. Why did scientists put the nesting raft into the water of Chincoteague Bay?

A．The weather there is warmer.

B．It is the only bay left for seabirds.

C．There are visitors waiting to see terns.

D．The environment is suitable for terns to produce.

2. What does the underlined word “reversed” in paragraph 4 probably mean?

A．Recorded.

B．Changed.

C．Ended.

D．Employed.

3. What is the purpose of paragraph 6?

A．To introduce terns’ natural habitat.	B．To explain ecologists’ ongoing work.
C．To point out the living habits of terns.	D．To show the construction of rafts.

4. What can be the best title for the text?

A．Terns in Maryland Are in Danger

B．Various Measures Are Taken to Save Seabirds

C．Threatened Seabirds Get a Life Raft in Maryland

D．Rafts Are Becoming Terns’ Permanent Settlements

4 . The first commercial airliner to cross the Atlantic on a purely high-fat, low-emissions fuel flew Tuesday from London to New York in a step toward achieving what supporters called “jet zero”.

The Virgin Atlantic Boeing 787 flight was powered without using fossil fuels, relying on so-called sustainable aviation (航空) fuel made up largely of tallow (动物油脂) and other waste fats and plant sugars. “The world will always assume something can’t be done, until you do it.” said Virgin founder Richard Branson, who was aboard the flight with government officials, engineers and journalists.

The UK Transport Department, which provided 1 million pounds to plan and operate the flight, called the test a “huge step towards j et zero” to make air travel more environmentally friendly, though large challenges remain in making the fuel widely available.

Sustainable aviation fuel, which reduces greenhouse gas emissions by about 70%, is the best near-term way for the international aviation industry to achieve its net zero target by 2050, the US Energy Department said.

Holly Boyd-Boland, president of corporate development at Virgin Atlantic, said the flight shows the fuel can power existing aircraft but said the challenge is enlarging production to get to enough volume so that they are using more sustainable aviation fuel every day.

While this is the first jetliner to make the trans-Atlantic journey using only the sustainable fuel, it is not a commercial flight and not the first jet to do so. Gulfstream Aerospace was the first to make the crossing earlier this month with a business jet powered only by the eco-fuel. Air France-KLM flew from Paris to Montreal two years ago using a mix of petroleum-based jet fuel and a synthetic (合成物) made from waste cooking oils.

“This flight somehow gets us closer to guilt-free flying. Sustainable aviation fuel represents around 0.1% of aviation fuel globally and will be very hard to expand sustainably, but the flight is a valuable try,” said policy director Cait Hewitt.

1. What can we infer from paragraph 2?

A．The Boeing 787 has a special structure.

B．Greener fuel has become a reality in a way.

C．Airlines should put waste fats to good use.

D．Fossil fuels will be replaced in the near future.

2. What’s Holly’s concern about the sustainable fuel?

A．It runs into technical difficulties.

B．It is unsuitable for commercial flights.

C．It is unable to gain the public recognition.

D．It fails to power existing planes constantly.

3. What do Gulfstream Aerospace and Air France-KLM have in common?

A．They follow in Virgin Atlantic’s footsteps.

B．They take advantage of waste cooking oils.

C．They develop sustainable fuel products actively.

D．They are attempting to create eco-friendly aviation.

4. What is Cait Hewitt’s attitude towards this test flight?

A．Supportive.

B．Doubtful.

C．Indifferent.

D．Concerned.

5 . 阅读下面短文，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) today announced the 2023 Champions of the Earth.     1     (honor) in the Entrepreneurial Vision category this year, the Blue Circle of China, which involves more than 6.000 individuals and over 200 companies from China’s eastern province of Zhejiang, has employed block-chain technology and the Internet of Things     2     (track) and monitor the full life-cycle of plastic pollution. It has already collected over 10,700 tons of abandoned plastics from the sea, making     3     China’s largest marine plastic waste program.

“To protect our planet, we must find innovative ways to reduce the amount of plastic waste,” said Inger Andersen, Executive Director of UNEP. “One of this year’s Champions of the Earth, Blue Circle of China, has found a very good     4     (solve) to deal with the problem.”

Plastic has transformed everyday life and produced many     5     (benefit) to society. But the world     6     (turn) out around 430 million tons of plastic every year, two thirds of     7     quickly becomes waste.

The addiction to plastics has created what experts call an environmental disaster. Every year, up to 23 million tons of plastic waste goes into lakes, rivers and seas. By 2040, carbon emissions associated with the production, use and disposal of plastics could account     8     nearly one fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions. Chemicals in plastic can also cause health problems in humans.

UNEP’s Champions of the Earth honors individuals, groups and organizations whose actions have a     9     (significance) impact on the environment. The annual Champions of the Earth award is the UN’s     10     (high) environmental honour.

7 . Climate change is causing more areas to turn into deserts. This issue is affecting the lives of 250 million people as land that used to be good for farming becomes dry and unproductive. Around one-third of the world’s land is impacted, including regions in Africa, southern Europe, Asia and America.

Sand to Green is a Moroccan company that can transform a patch of desert into a sustainable (可持续的) and profitable plantation in five years, according to Wissal Ben Moussa, its co-founder and chief agricultural officer. The solution is using agroforestry (农林业)to create a new kind of agriculture that is sustainable and that can be resilient (有适应力的) in front of climate change.

The system can be set up close to any source of salty water, which Sand to Green cleans using energy from the sun. It then grows different types of fruit trees and plants together in the same area—a method called mixed planting—and waters the plants’ roots directly with the cleaned water, to reduce water loss to the air. The soil is regenerated using what Sand to Green calls “green manure”, a mixture that includes compost, biochar(生物炭)and microorganisms that help the soil “wake up”. Biochar is a form of charcoal that can help dry soil hold on to water.

In a five-hectare trial in southern Morocco that’s been running since 2017, Sand to Green has tried out a variety of plants in search of the best performers. Among the intercropping herbs (草本植物) that have been successfully trialed are rosemary, geranium, vetiver and citronella, which Ben Moussa describes as “very low-maintenance and very high-profit”.

Sand to Green is now working to scale up to a 20-hectare commercial site, also in southern Morocco. It says a site of that size would cost around $475,000 to set up and would start bringing financial returns in about five years.

According to Ben Moussa, with this system they create biodiversity, which means better soil, healthier crops and a bigger yield. The plantation can generate 1.5 times more yield, thus making more money than a farm that grows only one type of crop in the same space.

1. What phenomenon does the author describe in paragraph 1?

A．Deforestation.	B．Desertification.
C．Global warming.	D．Urbanization.

2. Why did Sand to Green use agroforestry?

A．To preserve the crop’s survival rate.

B．To protect water from pollution.

C．To make a new type of soil.

D．To help people adapt to climate change.

3. What can we learn about Sand to Green?

A．It aims to plant more trees.

B．It earns a good reputation.

C．It develops new plants.

D．It produces good results.

4. What does the underlined phrase “scale up” mean in paragraph 5?

A．Expand.

B．Object.

C．Refer.

D．Prefer.

8 . “The era of global warming has ended and the era of global boiling has arrived,” the UN secretary general, Antonio Guterres, said after scientists confirmed July 2023 was the world’s hottest month on record.

“Humanity is in the hot seat,” Guterres told a press conference on Thursday. “For vast parts of North America, Asia, Africa and Europe, it is a cruel summer. For the entire planet, it is a disaster. And for scientists, it is clear that humans are to blame. Climate change is here, it is terrifying, and it is just the beginning. The era of global warming has ended; the era of global boiling has arrived.”

Guterres urged politicians to take swift action. “The air is unbreathable, the heat is unbearable, and the level of fossil fuel profits and climate inaction is unacceptable. Leaders must lead. No more hesitancy, no more excuses, and no more waiting for others to move first. There is simply no more time for that.”

“It is still possible to limit global temperature rise to 1.5℃and avoid the very worst of climate change but only with dramatic, immediate climate action. We have seen some progress, but none of this is going far enough or fast enough. Accelerating temperatures demand accelerated action.”

The WMO secretary general, Petteri Taalas, said, “The need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is more urgent than ever before. Climate action is not a luxury but a must.”

Other climate scientists confirmed the findings. Karsten Haustein at Leipzig University found the world was 1.5℃ hotter in July 2023 than in the average July before industrialisation.

Marina Romanello, a climate and health researcher at University College London, said, “We have data showing how the very foundations of health are being undermined by climate change. But we still have time today to turn the tide and to ensure a liveable future for us and our children.”

1. What made Guterres feel worried?

A．Global economy.	B．Natural disasters.
C．Serious pollution.	D．Rising temperatures.

2. Why did Gutemes use the phrase “global boiling”?

A．To appeal to quick action.	B．To change people’s concept.
C．To frighten the general public.	D．To make his report vivid.

3. How does the author develop the text?

A．By analyzing some facts.	B．By quoting some experts.
C．By offering statistics.	D．By giving explanations.

4. What would be the best title for the text?

A．Global Boiling: It Is Time to Act.

B．Global Boiling: Who Is to Blame?

C．Global Boiling: It Isn’t That Serious

D．Global Boling: What Measure Should Be Taken?

9 . Nature has the power to alter an element’s identity with time and space. This is evident by the transformative effect Britain’s deep coal mines have been showing after decades of being one of the biggest reasons for pollution. Now, they’re being employed to supply green energy to the town of Gateshead. The town is the first place to experience something like this in the country, but the success of the phenomenon has encouraged the authorities to apply it to other towns.

In 2021, coal was just producing 2% of electricity in the UK. Most of the electricity in the country is being supplied through oil and gas. This has resulted in massive abandoned coal mines all across the country. As years went by, these mines were flooded with water, making it a source of geothermal（地热的） energy, which is used to generate heat and electricity. Gateshead hosts such a mine in its town, whose council, therefore, launched a mine water project in March 2023.

The authorities put in a large central heat pump in the mine. Mine water can often sit with a temperature of 45℃. The water is then pumped using appliances to home heat pumps. The process increases the temperature further. The water then goes ahead and warms up the interior space and home water supply. After the heat from the water has been used, it’s sent back to the mine where it again goes through the same process. The project has been successful in supplying low-carbon heating to 350 high-rise buildings, a college and several office buildings.

“Recovering heat from mine water below the ground within abandoned coal mines provides an exciting opportunity to generate a low-carbon secure supply of heat, benefitting people living or working in buildings on the coalfields,” said Gareth Farr, head of heat and by-product innovation at the Coal Authority.

The water resources through the mines are estimated to be two billion cubic meters or half the amount of water in Loch Ness. Farr added, “With many millions of people living upon abandoned coalfields in Great Britain, the potential for mine water heat could be significant.”

1. What does the town of Gateshead feature?

A．It’s been one of the most heavily polluted areas.	B．It has the most deep coal mines nationally.
C．It mainly relies on geothermal energy.	D．It is the first one to reuse abandoned coal mines.

2. Why were many coal mines abandoned in the UK?

A．They were quite remote.	B．Prices of coal declined a lot.
C．There weren’t enough miners.	D．The UK prioritizes cleaner energy.

3. What is implied in the last paragraph?

A．The number of abandoned coal mines is stably increasing.

B．The future of sourcing energy from coal mines is promising.

C．The dependence on water resources in the UK is decreasing.

D．The technique to take advantage of mine water is impressive.

4. What is the text mainly about?

A．An innovative way to obtain green energy.	B．A method of living in harmony with nature.
C．A national project for abandoned facilities.	D．A discussion on the future of coal mines.

10 . In recent years, the popular idea of reducing carbon footprints by eating locally to cut down food miles has come under close examination. However, a recent study published in Nature Food indicates that global food miles might account for as much as 20 percent of food-related emissions, a significantly higher percentage than previous estimations. This statement begs the question: Are food miles more significant than we initially believed?

Food miles represent the distance food travels from production to consumption, with previous studies suggesting that the emissions from these miles are tiny compared to the emissions produced during the food growing process. For instance, producing one kilogram of beef generates almost 99 kg of CO₂, while apples only produce 0.4 kg per kilogram. If the goal is to minimize dietary carbon footprints, it would be more beneficial to choose foods with lower overall carbon footprints, even if they have to travel a distance. Therefore, reducing meat and dairy intake could prove to be a more effective strategy.

The recent study doesn’t contradict (相矛盾) this conclusion. The reason why the reported proportion is higher is that the calculation includes all transport involved, including the transportation of fertilizers, farm equipment, and pesticides (杀虫剂). Hannah Ritchie, a researcher at the University of Oxford, suggests that a term other than “food miles” would be more appropriate to avoid any confusion. If the study had followed the standard definition of food miles, the per-centage would drop to 9 percent, which corresponds more closely with the 4 to 6 percent found in prior research.

Moreover, the study theorizes that even if all food was produced in the countries where it is consumed, the reduction in emissions would only be 1.7 percent overall. This is due to the fact that a larger proportion of food would be transported by road rather than by sea, with trucks producing higher emissions per ton of cargo than ships.

“So, overall, the bottom line is still that what you eat has a much bigger impact on emissions than the distance that food has to travel to reach you,” said Ritchie.

1. What has the recent study found?

A．Food production has caused a lot of carbon emissions.

B．Carbon emissions from food miles are increasing rapidly.

C．Carbon emission reduction largely depends on eating locally.

D．Global food miles lead to more carbon emissions than expected.

2. Why does the author mention “beef” and “apples” in paragraph. 2?

A．To explain the benefits of apples

B．To highlight food production’s effect

C．To compare beef and apple production

D．To advocate short-distance transportation

3. Which of the following is the best solution to food-related carbon footprints?

A．Supplying high-calory foods

B．Upgrading food delivery systems

C．Reducing meat and dairy consumption

D．Avoiding chemical pesticides for plants

4. What is the Ritchie’s attitude toward the recent study finding?

A．Unfavourable.

B．Supportive.

C．Tolerant.

D．Uncertain.