1 . 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。

“Planting 200 acres of rice in two hours, I didn’t dare to dream of such efficiency in the past,” Xie Feilong, a farmer from Liuyuan town of Aksu Prefecture (地区) of Northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, expressed     1     (he) gratitude for the use of drones (无人机) to plant rice this year.

Xie’s family has planted over 3,000 acres of rice. In previous years, during the rice planting season, the whole family and several dozen workers would walk into the     2     (ice) rice fields to plant seeds. “Last year, some people in the village     3     (use) drones to plant rice. I was hesitant because I wasn’t sure whether it would work well, so I didn’t dare to try it. As it turned out, the rice     4     (plant) with drones by others was evenly distributed and at the right density (密度),     5     saved time, effort and money. This year, I also employed drones for planting, removing the need for the whole family     6     (work) in the cold water,” Xie said.

On April 22, 2024, 14,000 acres of rice in     7     town Xie comes from were all planted using drones, achieving mechanized planting. It’s expected that this year’s rice output will range from 700     8     900 kilograms per acre,     9     (generate) income of around 700 to 1,000 yuan per acre.

In 2024, Aksu Prefecture plans to plant 100,000 acres of rice. The prefecture has greatly promoted the use of new technologies and equipment in agriculture, innovated service models and     10     (active) promoted services such as drone planting and pest control.

2 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passages coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.

Vertical Farms: Is the sky really the limit?

At a hyper-controlled indoor farm in industrial South San Francisco, four robots carefully transfer seeds from barcoded trays into 4.5-meter towers that then are hung vertically (垂直地) inside a 445 sq metre grow room. Workers in branded jumpsuits     1     (inspect) the greens for imperfect produce, but there is almost     2    . Then the pesticide-free product is packaged and put on a truck     3     (deliver) to a local market where the customer becomes the first person to touch it. With the world’s population expected to reach nearly 10 billion by 2050, most of     4     will be living in cities, experts say a 70% increase from current levels of global food production will be needed. But agricultural land is     5     short supply thanks to the climate crisis and urbanization.

Indoor farming raised more than $1 bn in 2021, exceeding the combined funding in 2018 and 2019. But critics say the massive energy costs     6    (need) to run vertical farms and greenhouses make the practice far less eco-friendly than their branding suggests.

Designed to produce yields hundreds of times larger than traditional outdoor farming, vertical farms occupy spaces such as buildings or shipping containers while using 70 to 95% less water     7     they can recapture and recycle rather than waste it due to poor irrigation (灌溉) or evaporation. Products are fully traceable from seed to shelf, stay fresher longer and there’s little risk of bacteria, infected animal faces (粪便) or     8    (have) to transport them long distances in trucks and planes.

Entrepreneurs like Irving Fain, CEO and founder of Manhattan-based Bowery Farming, say that they’re gathering knowledge about plant growth and agronomy (农学) that     9     take traditional farmers outdoors hundreds of years to accumulate. The possibilities raised by vertical farms have also captured the imagination of a number of large venture capitalists and private equality funds. “While it is still too early to tell     10     these high-tech, high-rise growing machines will become a real estate asset class in their own right, some investors are starting to take a serious look at vertical farming as a possible new asset category.” said Fain.

3 . 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。

It’s a harvest that’s almost magical: growing rice in saline (含盐的) soil and making a fortune at the same time.

Wu Zaizhou is     1     local farmer in Da’an, Jilin Province. He says his secret for success is following a     2     (science) recipe that really transforms the saline soil, a kind of soil even the scientists     3     (them) called “problematic”. But by     4     (pull) in opinions from some 1,400 scientists, a way was found to transform that unwanted soil. It’s a comprehensive     5     (solve) that involves treating and improving the soil itself, screening salt-tolerant crop varieties, and employing special planning techniques as well as caring for the overall environment.

“We call it Da’an Model,     6     improves the soil, the seed and the technique in agriculture. It’s proven cost-effective, easily repeatable, and     7     (wide) applicable and good for Jilin’s saline oil area,” said Wu.

Since 2021, lots of land (almost 5,000 square kilometers) in the province     8     (transform). That was previously almost impossible for agriculture, including Wu’s cropland.

Wu said he’s not only expanding his field, but his experience has convinced some of his     9     (neighbor) to join him. “In the new year, we will continue to work     10     (change) the saline land into fertile (肥沃的) land, and we may have a good harvest of rice from here,” he said.

4 . 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。

More young people are trying their hand at farming the soil. Guo Lan, 29, works in a vegetable greenhouse on his organic farm     1     (locate) in the suburban district of Hefei, East China’s Anhui province. It is the eighth time this summer that Guo has failed to grow vegetables     2    using chemicals. Despite trying various homemade pest solutions, such as plant ash and mixtures of pepper and alcohol, the vegetable     3     (leaf) were still being eaten by insects. “I will not give up     4     (try),” the 29-year-old accountant-turned-farmer says. He is determined to turn his farm into     5     organic one, cultivating fruits and vegetables with the same flavors as those from his childhood memories.

“Growing tasty and healthy food     6     (be) my dream since I was a teenager. I know     7     challenging it can be, but if you take the soil     8     (serious), I believe it will pay off,” Guo says. He adds that farming is not a business that can make quick money, but for him, it has become an uplifting activity that brings back memories of spending time on the farm with     9     (he) parents as a child. Guo’s passion for organic farming and commitment to producing healthy food will surely inspire more young people to explore     10     (sustain) agriculture.

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。

More and more young people tend     1     (give) opportunities to gain direct insights into the interrelationships of nature and humans, the handling of animals, and the origin of their food,     2     it is not enough—agriculture should reach every student.

Agriculture is a subject that combines a wide     3     (various) of fields of knowledge. In almost all grades and types of school, either the lessons or the guideline of the schools     4     (become) inclusive, to integrate agriculture and farming into the learning concept. The preservation of the natural basis of life and questions about the production of regenerative energy and renewable raw materials     5     (think) to be vital aspects of school lessons in primary, middle and high schools.

The problems of agriculture and farming are     6     particular interest at the present stage of the development of different countries and regions. The reason is that the development of the agro-industrial complex is one of the priority projects,     7     agriculturalists believe should lead to an increase in agricultural production and the development of the farming part of the economy.

The farm is significant, serving as a unique,     8     (impress) out-of-classroom space with action-centered knowledge transfer (迁移) , where students can get practical experience and skills.     9     is apparent that farmers win over schools to teach agricultural contents in a very vivid way at the learning site of the farm, thus     10     (offer) their students direct and clear insights into the living and working world of farmers.