1. What's the weather like now?
A.Foggy. | B.Sunny. | C.Rainy. |
A.The woman told him. |
B.He called the weather service. |
C.He heard the weather report on TV. |
A.He likes sports much. | B.He worries too much. | C.He is quite serious. |
A.400-600-121. | B.400-600-122. | C.400-600-123. |
2 . 听下面一段独白,回答以下小题。
1. What is the speech mainly about?A.A disaster. | B.An experiment. | C.An exhibition. |
A.Hundreds of boots. | B.A huge block of ice. | C.A number of photos. |
A.Outside the hall. | B.At the entrance. | C.On the walls. |
A.Send photos to their friends. |
B.Share what they have learned. |
C.Search for updated information. |
3 . Tropical cyclones(热带气旋), including hurricanes and typhoons, are now moving at a slower speed than they did decades ago, new research shows.
While having a cyclone travel with less speed may seem like a good thing, it’s actually just the opposite. Wind speeds within the storm remain high, but the whole system itself moves slower, allowing punishing rains to stay longer over communities. “Nothing good comes out of a slowing storm,” says James Kossin, author of the paper. “It can increase the amount of time that buildings suffered from strong wind. And it increases rainfall.”
In his paper, Kossin showed that from 1949 to 2016, tropical cyclones across the globe slowed their movement by 10 percent on average. In some regions (地区), the speed of those storms slowed even more as they hit land. In the western North Pacific, the decrease was much more manifest—almost a third. That means a storm that may already hold more moisture (水分)will have time to drop more of it in each spot.
Kossin’s work was based on details of almost 70 years’ worth of storms, but he didn’t try to determine what was causing the slowdown. Still, the change is exactly what he and other cyclone experts said, which would be expected from climate change. With the polar regions warming faster than other parts of the globe, that is changing the pressure and reducing the winds that push these storms.
Christina Patricola, a scientist, called Kossin’s work important and new and said she found it reliable. “I was not surprised by his findings,” she says. “But I was surprised by the speed of the slowdown.”
Kossin hopes that scientists will begin building models that show which places are likely to face the most risk. Given that storms in some regions are moving towards polar regions and already increasing in intensity(强度), cyclones causing unusually powerful rain may threaten places not normally in their paths. Scientists must take action to make those places suffer less from the disasters.
1. Why is the decrease in cyclones’ speed a bad thing?A.It leads the cyclones to move faster on the ground. |
B.It causes the cyclones to have higher wind speed outside. |
C.It makes hard rains and strong wind last longer in one place. |
D.It results in more typhoons taking place in some communities. |
A.Obvious. | B.Satisfying. | C.Confusing. | D.Impossible. |
A.Climate change in the polar regions is under control. |
B.Scientists find it hard to understand the slower cyclones. |
C.Scientists should do further experiments in polar regions. |
D.Climate change may be the cause of the slowdown of the cyclones. |
A.To find out the normal paths of serious cyclones. |
B.To prove the speed of the cyclones can be controlled. |
C.To reduce the damage from cyclones to possible areas. |
D.To call on scientists to focus on the danger of climate change. |
4 . 听下面一段独白,回答以下小题。
1. How many communities is the district made up of?A.23. | B.24. | C.25. |
A.20℃. | B.30℃. | C.40℃. |
A.Spring. | B.Summer. | C.Autumn. |
A.Skating. | B.Boating. | C.Both A and B. |
5 . 听下面一段独白,回答以下小题。
1. What is the date next Tuesday?A.May 12th. | B.May 11th. | C.May 10th. |
A.On Monday. | B.On Wednesday. | C.On Sunday. |
A.25℃. | B.8℃. | C.5℃. |
6 . 听下面一段独白,回答以下小题。
1. What will the weather be like on Christmas day?A.Dry. | B.Rainy. | C.Snowy. |
A.On Christmas Eve. | B.On Christmas Day. | C.On Boxing Day. |
A.Watch the roads when driving. |
B.Wear warm clothes when going out. |
C.Stay indoors and drink hot chocolate. |
A.The weather condition during Christmas period. |
B.The plan on celebrating the New Year. |
C.The arrangement on Boxing Day. |
1. What was the weather like over the last weekend?
A.Rainy. | B.Hot. | C.Windy. |
A.In the morning. | B.Around lunch time. | C.In the late afternoon. |
A.Early warning of fire in the city center. |
B.Notes about traveling in the countryside. |
C.Bad news for people living in the forest area. |
8 . Across the world, animals including bears, moose, lynx, squirrels and frogs are leaving their homes as the planet warms.
A study was done of more than 4,000 species from around the world. It showed that about half of them are on the move, according to National Geographic. They are moving up slopes and away from the equator toward the poles to seek cooler environments. The ones on land are moving an average of more than 16 kilometers per decade, while marine species are moving four times faster.
Mountain species in particular, “are struggling to keep pace” with global warming, said Shaye Wolf, climate science director at the Center for Biological Diversity in the US. In North America, for example, pikas used to climb an average of 13 meters per decade but it has gone up to 145 meters per decade since the late 1990s. Similarly, moths on Mount Kinabalu in Borneo, an island in the Pacific Ocean, moved up 67 meters in altitude to escape rising temperatures. “We’re concerned many species won’t be able to move quickly enough, or that they will run out of mountaintop to flee,” said Wolf.
In some cases, moving species can lead to big changes in the whole ecosystem, as such areas aren’t able to deal with it. In Australia’s seas, kelp forests are being destroyed by tropical fish that have come in to eat them, threatening the survival of rock lobster, which also feeds on help forests.
And this is just adding fuel to the fire, making climate change worse. Take the pole ward spread of bark beetles in northern hemisphere forests as an example. The beetles attack trees that might already have been weakened by warmer, drier conditions, leading to more pest outbreaks and tree deaths. These, in turn, provide more fuel for forest fires, releasing more planet-warming carbon dioxide.
Climate-driven species’ movement shouldn’t be a concern only for scientists — it should worry everyone, Nathalie Pettorelli, at the Zoological Society of London, UK, told the Guardian. “The world as a whole isn’t fully prepared to deal with the range of issues emerging from species moving across local, national, and international boundaries”.
1. How are mountain species influenced by the global warming?A.They are moving slower than they used to. |
B.They are having a difficult time adapting to it. |
C.They are moving downhill to cooler environment. |
D.They are struggling with the warmer temperatures. |
A.Tropical fish threaten to eat lobster. |
B.The beetles make trees warmer and drier. |
C.Dealing with environmental problems faces new challenges. |
D.Moving species make some change in the whole ecosystem. |
A.More concern and action from the public. |
B.A focus on improving forest ecosystems. |
C.Stricter regulations on animal movement. |
D.Increased research on species movement. |
A.Keeping pace means moving slowly. |
B.Large quantities of pest are the final killer of tree deaths. |
C.Marine animals are moving a little faster than those on land. |
D.Many animals flee their home because of the occupation of their habitats. |
9 . European Union scientists said on Wednesday that 2023 would be the warmest year on record. The average world temperature for the first 11 months of the year hit the highest level on record, 1.46 degrees Celsius above the 1850 to 1900 average.
The record comes as governments are in negotiations at the COP28 meeting in Dubai. Governments are deciding whether to gradually stop the use of coal, oil and gas, the main source of warming emissions.
The 2015 Paris climate agreement set a goal of limiting worldwide temperature rise to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial times. Above that limit, scientists warn of severe effects on weather, health and agriculture.
Diplomats, scientists, activists and others have been meeting in Dubai to find ways to limit warming to those levels. But the planet is not cooperating. They say Earth is on its way to reach 2.7 to 2.9 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times. C3S records go back to 1940. United States government records go back to 1850. Using information from ice cores, tree rings and corals, scientists have said this is the warmest 10-year period Earth has seen in about 125,000 years. That dates back to the time before human civilization.
Scientists say there are two driving forces behind the six straight months of record hot temperatures. One is human-caused climate change from the burning of coal, oil and gas. And El Nino, the natural warming of surface waters in the Pacific, is making it worse.
Samantha Burgess, deputy director of C3S, said in a statement that “the November temperatures, including two days warmer than 2C above preindustrial, mean that 2023 is the warmest year in recorded history, which is very likely to be a cool year in the future unless we do something about our dependence on fossil fuels.”
1. According to the passage, what is the natural driving force behind the temperature record?A.El Nino. | B.The burning of coals. |
C.The dependence on fossil fuels. | D.The use of gas |
A.Pessimistic. | B.Optimistic | C.Unclear. | D.Concerned. |
A.Whether to depend on fossil fuels. | B.2023 would be warmest year on record. |
C.El Nino makes global warming worse. | D.Main source of warming emissions. |
A.What was the temperature condition in the preindustrial time. | B.How to deal with global warming. |
C.How to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. | D.Why is 2023 likely to be a cool year in the future. |
10 . Placed before you are two pots. Each contains 100 balls. You are given a clear description of the first pot’s contents, in which there are 50 red balls and 50 black balls. The economist running the experiment is tight-lipped about the second, saying only that there are 100 balls divided between red and black in some percentage. Then you are offered a choice. Pick a red ball from a pot and you will get a million dollars. Which pot would you like to pull from? Now try again, but select a black ball. Which pot this time? Most people choose the first pot both times, despite such a choice implying that there are both more and fewer red balls than in the second pot.
This fact is known as the Ellsberg paradox after Daniel Ellsberg, who called the behaviour hate uncertainty. It reveals a deeper problem facing the world as it struggles with climate change.
Ignorance of the future carries a cost today: uncertainty makes risks uninsurable, or at the very least expensive. The less insurers know about risks, the more capital they need to protect their balance-sheets against possible losses.
Insurance is a tool of climate adaptation. Indeed, insurance calculators have as big a role to play as activists in the fight against climate change. Without insurance, those whose homes burn in a wildfire or are destroyed by a flood will lose everything. Insurance can also be a motive for corrective action. Higher insurance expenses, which accurately reflect risk, stimulate people to adapt sooner, whether by discouraging building in risky areas or encouraging people to move away from high fire risk land. If prices are wrong, society will be more hurt by a hotter world than otherwise would be the case. Politicians considering financial aid for home insurance on flood plains ought to note.
1. The experiment of the two pots shows that ___________.A.instinct sometimes works better than reasoning | B.most people prefer predictability to uncertainty |
C.people are willing to take risks to get a reward | D.it is impossible to always make the right decision |
A.It raises people’s awareness of climate change. | B.It prevents people from taking risks. |
C.It motivates people to adapt to risky environment. | D.It helps climate refugees to relocate. |
A.Opposing | B.Supportive | C.Uncertain | D.Ambiguous |
A.Prevention is better than remedy | B.Improving forecast can reduce uncertainty |
C.Uncertainty pushes up the price of insurance | D.Speedy action is urgently needed for climate change |