1 . You’ve heard that plastic is polluting the oceans — between 4.8 and 12.7 million tonnes enter ocean ecosystems every year. But does one plastic straw or cup really make a difference? Artist Benjamin Von Wong wants you to know that it does. He builds massive sculptures out of plastic garbage, forcing viewers to re-examine their relationship to single-use plastic products.
At the beginning of the year, the artist built a piece called “Strawpocalypse,” a pair of 10-foot-tall plastic waves, frozen mid-crash. Made of 168,000 plastic straws collected from several volunteer beach cleanups, the sculpture made its first appearance at the Estella Place shopping center in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
Just 9% of global plastic waste is recycled. Plastic straws are by no means the biggest source (来源) of plastic pollution, but they’ve recently come under fire because most people don’t need them to drink with and, because of their small size and weight, they cannot be recycled. Every straw that’s part of Von Wong’s artwork likely came from a drink that someone used for only a few minutes. Once the drink is gone, the straw will take centuries to disappear.
In a piece from 2018, Von Wong wanted to illustrate (说明) a specific statistic: Every 60 seconds, a truckload’s worth of plastic enters the ocean. For this work, titled “Truckload of Plastic,” Von Wong and a group of volunteers collected more than 10,000 pieces of plastic, which were then tied together to look like they’d been dumped (倾倒) from a truck all at once.
Von Wong hopes that his work will also help pressure big companies to reduce their plastic footprint.
1. What are Von Wong’s artworks intended for?| A．Beautifying the city he lives in. | B．Introducing eco-friendly products. |
| C．Drawing public attention to plastic waste. | D．Reducing garbage on the beach. |
| A．To show the difficulty of their recycling. |
| B．To explain why they are useful. |
| C．To voice his views on modern art. |
| D．To find a substitute for them. |
| A．Calming. | B．Disturbing. |
| C．Refreshing. | D．Challenging. |
| A．Artists’ Opinions on Plastic Safety |
| B．Media Interest in Contemporary Art |
| C．Responsibility Demanded of Big Companies |
| D．Ocean Plastics Transformed into Sculptures |
“Why she let out my secret? why she did that to me?” I vividly remembered that day when I was confused at the knowing looks which everyone gave me. That terrible experience was imprinted (铭刻) on my mind. I couldn’t forgive the person with whom I had shared my secret. She lost all my trust and friendship.
Five years back, Sally was a new addition in our class. I don’t know what but there was something sticky about her that attracted me towards her. She was the most friendly person I knew. We started as classmates but after a few months we were like best friends. We did homework together and dreamed of going to the same university one day. We hung out and went to the movies on weekends. That was a sweet time.
Nevertheless, I couldn’t expect such an enormous betrayal from her. I didn’t know what made me tell Sally about my personal life. I felt much regret to myself. She exaggerated (夸大) the matter, added her own spices to it and made it the hottest topic in school. It was like someone had stabbed a knife in my back. After she revealed my secret, everyone at school started laughing at me and gazing at me wherever I passed. I was like a pond in which someone had thrown a stone and it had been spilled up. It was the most embarrassing time I had gone through. Soon afterwards, I left school and shifted to another one, because I thought no one had the right to laugh at me. Sally called me many times but I didn’t answer. My heart was broken because the person whom I trusted most cheated me.
I made efforts to remove the scar from my heart. I started a new life, leaving all the bad memories behind, because they made me a person who often thought about the past experiences. Five years later, with the life going on, I made new friends and seldom thought about the past.
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。
But one day I met Anna in the market, my former classmate, who told me shocking news.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________I immediately called Sally in order to explain the misunderstanding.
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