1 . With egg shortages already a familiar sight on supermarket shelves, farmers are warning that vegetables and grains could be next, because environmental plans take out large areas of land that are used for food production.
Stephen Holt, who owns 670 acres in Northamptonshire, said farmers were being incentivized (刺激) by the government subsidy to reduce food production in favour of wildlife. He has signed up to an environmental plan which is being carried out in England under the concept of “public money for public goods”.
“Instead of 1,300 tonnes of product, we will produce 900 tonnes of product from our farm,” Holt said. Under the new plan, his input costs will be reduced and he will be paid a guaranteed (有保证的) sum.
“In my view, the huge danger is that there will be a serious decrease in agricultural output,” he said. “We are not helping but we can't have the whole food system of the UK on our shoulders, because everyone has to act in their individual best interests.”
James Williams, who farms in Oxfordshire, said the environmental plans will reduce the risks in his farm business and that he will not be affected by the weather and international markets. “It does mean that we will be taking perhaps 30 per cent of our wheat land out of production for a season or two, or more,” he said. “What has not been mentioned is that if some disaster fell and our imports were disrupted (扰乱), growing wheat to produce bread could not be turned on like a tap. It will take several years and a significant increase in prices to get production back up to today’s levels.”
The UK produces about 60 per cent of its food consumption, including the majority of grains, meat, dairy and eggs. However, seasonal labour shortages have led many British farm businesses to reduce their production by as much as 20-30 per cent since 2020. Egg production has dropped to its lowest level in nine years.
Liz Webster, a farmer in north Wiltshire, said, “There just doesn't seem to be any thought or concern for food security and food supply. They’ve just left it up to the supermarkets.” The farmers’ concerns include imported food produced in countries with lower welfare (福利) standards, and labelling of food origins. “These imports are packaged here, and if they’re packaged or processed here they can have a British flag, which is absolutely dishonest,” Webster said.
1. The word “subsidy” in paragraph 2 is closest in meaning to ______.| A．ban | B．warning | C．permission | D．award |
| A．Reducing wheat production may cause negative impacts. |
| B．The environmental plans can improve the farm business. |
| C．The international markets will affect the farmers' interests. |
| D．A recovery in wheat production will come soon after disruption. |
| A．Supermarkets are responsible for food safety. |
| B．The safety of imported food cannot be guaranteed. |
| C．A British flag on food package ensures food safety. |
| D．Food safety and supply issues have been addressed. |
| A．Seasonal labour is in short supply. |
| B．Imported food prices are on the rise. |
| C．Farmers fear food shortage caused by green plans. |
| D．Government worries about the slow agricultural development. |
2 . There isn’t much doubt that one of the most influential people in my life was my grandmother Lizzie Kerns.
My brother Mike started the family custom of moving in with Granny Kerns during our high school years. I lived with her all through my senior year. She lives very close to the school, so I’d come over and eat lunch with her. On game days, I’d come over and take a nap from about four o’clock to seven-thirty, since game time was eight o’clock. I’d just go there, lie on the floor and go to sleep. Granny would come in at seven-thirty and say, “You’d better get up. You'll be playing in half an hour.” We used to shoot free throws every morning at six o'clock. One day I just wanted to sleep in. Granny woke me up and said, “Larry, those other boys are down there. You should be down there with them.” I got up and went to free throw practice.
Mark and I would be at Granny's for supper and later on, just before it was time to go to bed, Mark would say, “Mmm, some popcorn would taste good right now. Larry, what would you think about some popcorn?” Granny wouldn’t say a thing. But the next thing you knew, she’d have that pan out and you’d hear that popping sound in the kitchen.
We started moving in with her because we just didn’t have enough room. It was always a problem. After Mike started it, Mark did it for a while and then me. Later on, Eddie used to eat lunch there every day.
Granny was proud of all her grandkids. Oh, she read everything about me she could get her hands on and she knew I’d signed contracts (合同) for big money, but she never discussed it. None of us got special treatment. Granny loved all of us and that's the way it should be.
I’d have given her anything, but what she really wanted was security. Granny just wanted to know she had enough to get by. She always told me one thing, “I’m not afraid to die. When I get old and can’t do it anymore, I'm not going to be afraid to die.” That showed me a lot. Unfortunately, Granny passed away while I was writing this, so she was never able to see that I dedicated (献给) my book to her.
1. What can be inferred from paragraph 2?| A．Both Mike and the author were lazy and playful. |
| B．Granny always had a nice way of handling things. |
| C．The author preferred sleeping to playing basketball. |
| D．Granny was good at controlling her grandchildren's life. |
| A．Strict and tough. | B．Determined and fair. |
| C．Loving and considerate. | D．Optimistic and tolerant. |
| A．She didn’t take pride in the author's success. |
| B．She was trying to treat all grandchildren equally. |
| C．She didn’t know the author had made a good fortune. |
| D．She was afraid that the author would be too proud of himself. |
| A．Granny didn’t know he wrote a book. |
| B．Granny didn’t know how much she meant to him. |
| C．Granny died and couldn’t take care of him any more. |
| D．Granny couldn’t read the book written in honor of her. |
3 . Dror Angel, an ecologist, had for years heard his archaeologist (考古学家) colleagues talk about ancient shipwrecks on the bottom of the Black Sea that were perfectly preserved by the low-oxygen environment. “You can see ropes,” Angel says. “It’s something which is quite amazing.” Now, Angel wants to fight climate change by purposefully adding to the wreckage (残骸) , sinking waste wood to the sea floor, where carbon that the trees stored up can remain locked away for centuries.
Angel is a scientist for a company that could help limit global warming by drawing carbon out of the atmosphere and locking it up. However, some carbon capture (捕获) strategies require expensive machines and complex chemistry, burying waste wood at sea is extremely simple: All it takes are tugboats and woody waste from forestry and agriculture.
The approach has advantages over another popular ocean-based carbon capture strategy: growing massive amounts of seaweed. Because the plant material is grown on land rather than in the ocean, it is less likely to rob nutrients from the surrounding water and upset the ecology. Industrial agriculture and forestry could grow, process, and transport plants, in contrast to marine farming, which has never been attempted at scale. And because woody plants are tough and unlikely to break down, they are good at hanging on to their carbon.
At the same time, the approach may fall short of what’s needed to fight climate change. To keep global warming below 2°C, the world needs to capture and store about 10 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year by midcentury. But waste wood can be sunk only where supplies of it are located near suitable bodies of water. By one recent study, the approach could lock a few tens of billions of tons of carbon dioxide in total — just a little of the need.
“This approach is not going to solve the full problem,” says ocean engineer Kate Moran. “It’s going to be a small piece of the pie if it is considered to be more beneficial than risky.” But the urgency of carbon removal demands that every possible approach be explored thoroughly, she adds, “Anyway, we need all the tools in the toolbox.”
1. Why did the author cite “You can see ropes” in paragraph 1?| A．Angel dropped the ropes into the deep sea for experiment. |
| B．Things can be well preserved in the low-oxygen environment. |
| C．Carbon that the ropes stored up can be locked away for a long time. |
| D．Angel’s archaeologist colleagues were studying the deep sea environment. |
| A．It is supported by mature techniques. |
| B．It requires cheap machines and simple chemistry. |
| C．Woody plants are more environmentally friendly. |
| D．Waste wood takes in lots of carbon from the surroundings. |
| A．The strategy alone isn’t enough to fight climate change. |
| B．The strategy can capture and lock the carbon dioxide needed. |
| C．The global warming can’t be kept below 2°C with the strategy. |
| D．Supplies of waste wood are available near suitable bodies of water. |
| A．Doubtful. | B．Negative. | C．Supportive. | D．Unconcerned. |
9 . I did not discover I could not read until after I had left college. I found it out only
As a student, I had read all the books I was now going to teach but, being very young and
As time went on, I found out not only that I did not know very much about any of these books, but also that I did not know how to read them very well. To
Fortunately for me I was found out, or else I might have been
After the first year of teaching, I had few illusions (错觉) left about my literacy.
1.| A．if | B．before | C．after | D．once |
| A．honest | B．earnest | C．ignorant | D．energetic |
| A．relief | B．delight | C．sorrow | D．surprise |
| A．mastered | B．sorted | C．revised | D．possessed |
| A．cut back on | B．make up for | C．stand up for | D．get rid of |
| A．aware | B．tired | C．afraid | D．certain |
| A．need | B．pretend | C．happen | D．appear |
| A．working on | B．depending on | C．thinking about | D．caring about |
| A．angry | B．careful | C．satisfied | D．disappointed |
| A．lay in | B．resulted in | C．brought in | D．called in |
| A．answers | B．sources | C．technology | D．information |
| A．hunted | B．damaged | C．quitted | D．achieved |
| A．adapting | B．rereading | C．discussing | D．designing |
| A．acquired | B．balanced | C．reflected | D．tracked |
| A．even | B．still | C．also | D．always |
I checked my phone again. Still nothing from my 13-year-old granddaughter, Noe Why won’t she return my text messages? I wondered.
Noe was my grandchild. For years, Noe and her family lived close by and she and I spent a lot of time together. It made my day to see Noe’s face light up whenever I arrived. Then my husband and I moved to a different part. Actually it wasn’t an impossible distance. But with traffic it now took up to two hours to drive to Noe’s house. So, my regular visits with Noe came to a sudden end. The last time I saw her, she was excited about the latest addition to her life: Golden, a puppy (小狗). Golden was just like her name, a fluffy (毛茸茸的) ball of bright yellow down. For a while, Noe and I kept in touch via text messages and phone cells. Gradually, her text replies took longer to arrive. Phone calls became brief.
“How’s school going?”
“Okay.”
“What’s your favorite subject?”
“Dunno.”
Nothing I tried seemed to break through Noe’s sudden wall of indifference (漠不关心), Was she okay? Did she even miss me? I asked about Golden every time we talked. But caring for Golden seemed more interesting to her than talking to me. She was often busy with him and didn’t come to the phone when I called.
Was I being replaced by the puppy? My cell phone rang. Noe! But there were no words in the text. Just photos. Noe on her bike with Golden on her lap. Noe and Golden walking on the street with a shining leash(狗绳) in hand. Obviously, it was carefully selected. I don’t want to be jealous (嫉妒的) of a puppy. Months passed with seldom a word from Noe. At last, I couldn’t wait. I decided to pay a visit to Noe’s house.
Upon my arrival, I said to Noe, “show me your puppy.” She was stunned (惊呆) but quickly led me to the backyard and introduced me to her fluffy friend, giving detailed descriptions of his preferences. It was more words than we’d exchanged in a year,
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。
Then, Noe asked me whether we could walk Golden together.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________We understood each other better after much conversation and now it’s time to say goodbye.
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