1 . Some of the oldest living things on our remarkable planet are trees. The record holders are bristlecone pines (狐尾松) of the western United States, quite a few of which are known to be more than 3,000 years old. One individual, discovered in 2012, is estimated to be more than 5,060 years old, making it the oldest known non-clonal tree in the world!
So, how do trees survive for thousands of years?
The other part of the answer has to do with how trees age. In fact, there is quite a debate about whether ancient trees can be considered “immortal (永生的)”. That is, will such trees ever die if they are not killed by an outside force? We may never know the answer to that, but, at the very least,
Older trees benefit greatly from having bodies made mostly of dead woody tissue. In fact, an old tree might be as much as 95 percent dead tissue! Given that it isn’t alive, wood does not require metabolic (新陈代谢的) activity to maintain it,
| A．so an old tree doesn’t really need to do much to keep living |
| B．This is a question that has something to do with the good luck of trees |
| C．However, bristlecones are certainly not alone in terms of the oldest creatures |
| D．This is a fascinating question for biologists that does not yet have a settled answer |
| E．What’s more, some ancient trees have superior chemical defenses against pests and diseases |
| F．which means that trees can survive everywhere without being limited by external and internal conditions |
| G．we know that ancient trees age in ways that are dramatically different from the ways that most animals and even other plants age |
2 . Lying in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, the fishing village Huatulco is home to nine bays, 36 beaches and thousands of baby turtles that apparently needed me. I had three open days on my calendar, and a desire to save some turtles. And so, away I went to Huatulco with Wildcoast, a group of champions-for-change who were protecting coastal and marine ecosystem in the U. S. and Mexico.
I was taken to La Escobilla to experience Wildcoast in action. Just one hour north of Huatulco, this protected beach is where mass turtle nesting happens. This natural phenomenon lasts just four days during rainy season, hundreds of thousands of female sea turtles swinging their way ashore to lay their eggs.
Between threats of dogs, crabs, development and oil spills, the little creatures have the whole world against them. As recently as 2002, turtles hunting was not only a common practice, but an important part of the culture and diet in the Oaxaca communities. Luckily, Wildcoast rescues turtle eggs and recreates habitats by monitoring temperatures and humidity. Thanks to their efforts, the sea turtles have made a major comeback, with now over 72 million turtles being born on the beaches that Wildcoast protects.
I got to hold 50 of the tiny creatures in a bowl. Despite an average laying of 100 eggs, just one in 1, 000 baby turtles will make it to adulthood. Gazing into the bowl, I so badly wanted them to taste the sea and find shelter somewhere deep in the ocean. Finally, it was time to liberate those little creatures. Out spilled the creatures, some moving full steam ahead while others barely paddled in place. Literally, hundreds of them began to spread out across the beach.
With each set of waves, we witnessed the survival of the fittest, some pushing past the whitewash while others crashed back to shore. Their fight for life made my eyes wet. A flock of birds were ready to dive into the sea for their moving targets. “One in 1, 000.” Nature was cruel and compassionate at the same time. After 30 long minutes, the last creature made his way to the sea.
1. The baby turtles are threatened by various factors except ________.| A．the cruel hunters | B．the rapid development |
| C．the extreme weather | D．the oil-polluted ocean |
| A．With slow pace and fear. | B．With all energy and enthusiasm. |
| C．With full caution and curiosity. | D．With great satisfaction and responsibility. |
| A．One baby turtle in 1,000 can make his way to the sea. |
| B．Thousands of baby turtles were crashed back to shore. |
| C．The struggle of baby turtles for life touched the author. |
| D．Baby turtles can hardly survive the harsh living conditions. |
| A．Think twice before you leap. | B．God helps those who help themselves. |
| C．Cease to struggle and you cease to live. | D．When the buying stops, the killing can too. |
3 . The behavior of beavers and other animals has often inspired expressions in English. If someone is very industrious or hard-working in tackling many things at once, we can say the person is “as busy as a beaver.” This phrase hints at one of the characteristics of these wild animals—they are indeed active creatures.
With their large teeth, which are orange due to iron in the tooth enamel (牙齿的珐琅质), beavers can cut down trees and change their environments like no other animals except humans. They use these fallen trees to build dams, creating safe, watery environments. The busy beavers build homes — called lodges — in the ponds created by the dams. The only way to get in and out of lodges is by entering an underwater opening of the structures. This offers beavers protection from predators such as bears, wolves, or coyotes.
It’s also interesting to note that beavers have another reason for cutting down trees aside from building dams. Beavers can digest cellulose, so wood is a significant food source for them, with their diet 15 also consisting of leaves and aquatic plants. Chewing on trees also helps beavers keep their teeth sharp, making it easier for them to keep chopping down trees.
Of course, no discussion about beavers would be complete without mentioning their most noticeable feature their large, flat tails, which have different uses. One is that they act as a rudder, helping them steer in the water. Another is that the animals pound their tails on the water to warn other beavers of danger. Since beavers work so hard building their homes and warning others of potential harm, it’s no surprise that busy as a beaver is a common phrase.
1. Which of the following usages of “as busy as a beaver” correct?| A．My cat is as busy as a beaver since it always lies on the sofa. |
| B．This kind of tree is as busy as a beaver because it takes hundreds of years for it to be used as timber. |
| C．Hanna is having a cup of coffee and listening to music in the living room. She is truly as busy as a beaver. |
| D．Oliver is responsible for two projects and has to train the three new employees, so he has been as busy as a beaver recently. |
| A．What countries beavers are found in. | B．How beavers keep themselves safe. |
| C．The animals that threaten beavers. | D．The food that beavers eat. |
| A．The wood is very strong. |
| B．The water from dams helps beavers digest wood. |
| C．Dams make it harder for other animals to catch. |
| D．Dams provide beavers with lots of water to drink. |
| A．Tail | B．Teeth | C．Paw | D．Head |
4 . As cities balloon with growth, access to nature for people living in urban areas is becoming harder to find. If you’re lucky, there might be a pocket park near where you live, but it’s unusual to find places in a city that are relatively wild.
Past research has found health and wellness benefits of nature for humans, but a new study shows that wildness in urban areas is extremely important for human well-being.
The research team focused on a large urban park. They surveyed several hundred park-goers, asking them to submit a written summary online of a meaningful interaction they had with nature in the park. The researchers then examined these submissions, coding (编码) experiences into different categories. For example, one participant’s experience of “We sat and listened to the waves at the beach for a while” was assigned the categories “sitting at beach” and “listening to waves.”
Across the 320 submissions, a pattern of categories the researchers call a “nature language” began to emerge. After the coding of all submissions, half a dozen categories were noted most often as important to visitors. These include encountering wildlife, walking along the edge of water, and following an established trail.
Naming each nature experience creates a usable language, which helps people recognize and take part in the activities that are most satisfying and meaningful to them. For example, the experience of walking along the edge of water might be satisfying for a young professional on a weekend hike in the park. Back downtown during a workday, they can enjoy a more domestic form of this interaction by walking along a fountain on their lunch break.
“We’re trying to generate a language that helps bring the human-nature interactions back into our daily lives. And for that to happen, we also need to protect nature so that we can interact with it,” said Peter Kahn, a senior author of the study.
1. What phenomenon does the author describe at the beginning of the text?| A．Pocket parks are now popular. | B．Wild nature is hard to find in cities. |
| C．Many cities are overpopulated. | D．People enjoy living close to nature. |
| A．To compare different types of park-goers. | B．To explain why the park attracts tourists. |
| C．To analyze the main features of the park. | D．To find patterns in the visitors’ summaries. |
| A．Walking is the best way to gain access to nature. |
| B．Young people are too busy to interact with nature. |
| C．The same nature experience takes different forms. |
| D．The nature language enhances work performance. |
| A．Language study. | B．Environmental conservation. |
| C．Public education. | D．Intercultural communication. |
1. Why should we let dogs keep on sleeping?
| A．Because they are learning while they sleep. |
| B．Because they are singing while they sleep. |
| C．Because they are dreaming while they sleep. |
| A．On the dogs' necks. | B．On the dogs' heads. | C．On the dogs' backs. |
| A．Only once. | B．Two times. | C．Three times. |
| A．Mental activity. | B．Physical activity. | C．The brain activity. |
6 . A mysterious illness is turning some black bears friendly and unafraid of humans, among other strange symptoms.
Researchers believe the illness, which young bears around a year old appear to suffer from, is a kind of encephalitis (脑炎), according to a news report by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife late last month. Since 2014, a handful of bears in Nevada and Caledonia have shown signs of the condition, and four California bears were confirmed to have it last year. One of them walked into a school and entered a classroom where she sat down among the children, behaving very much like a friendly dog.
The encephalitis has other serious effects on the nervous system of the bears, including tremble, head tilts and seizures (癫痫). Affected bears also tend to be seriously underweight. One female bear, observed in February picking up an apple and eating it among humans in a yard, weighed only 21 pounds when she should have been around 80 pounds. She was also covered in ticks (扁虱), walked strangely and was ultimately euthanized (安乐死).
It’s still unclear exactly what's causing the brain illness. But in the course of studying the phenomenon, scientists have identified five previously unknown viruses in the affected bears.
Bears suffering from encephalitis typically have to be euthanized. Their symptoms make them unequipped to survive in the wild, and those placed in zoos or shelters can become a huge burden due to the lifelong medical care they need.
Two bears exhibiting neurological (神经系统的) issues in recent years, however, were able to find new homes. One, now named Elinor, was brought to the Orange County Zoo. The other bear, who has become famous after being caught on camera sniffing a snowboarder and is now named Benji, lives at the San Diego Humane Society’s Ramona Wildlife Center. Last month, Benji celebrated his third birthday there with a cake made out of fruit and potatoes. Details are as follows.
1. Which of the following is uninvolved in the symptoms of the bears’ disease?| A．Serious weight loss. | B．Getting close to humans. |
| C．Some neurological issues. | D．Desiring to learn knowledge. |
| A．An environmental change. | B．A severe shortage of food. |
| C．Some unknown kinds of viruses. | D．The lack of necessary medical care. |
| A．Add some background knowledge. |
| B．Provide some advice for the readers. |
| C．Summarize the previous paragraphs. |
| D．Introduce some further information about Benji’s birthday. |
| A．Black Bears in Nevada and California |
| B．A Disease Making Bears Endangered |
| C．An Unknown Bear Species |
| D．Black Bears Getting Much Friendlier |
1. What is the relationship between the speakers?
| A．Student and teacher. | B．Sister and brother. | C．Mother and son. |
| A．A dog. | B．A parrot. | C．A cat. |
| A．They are hard to attend. | B．They smell bad. | C．They look ugly. |
| A．Have a talk with Robert. | B．Buy a snake as a pet. | C．Go to the market. |
8 . Wild animals seem to have escaped the Indian Ocean tsunami, adding weight to ideas that they possess a “sixth sense” for disasters, experts said on Thursday.
Sri Lanka wildlife officials have said the giant waves that killed over 24,000 people along the Indian Ocean island’s coast seemingly missed wild beasts, with no dead animals found.
“No elephants are dead, not even a dead hare or rabbit. I think animals can sense disaster. They have a sixth sense. They know when things are happening.” H.D. Ratnayake, deputy director of Sri Lankan’s Wildlife Department, said on Wednesday.
The waves washed floodwaters up to 3 km (2 miles) inland at Yale National Park in the southeast, Sri Lankan’s biggest wildlife reserve and home to hundreds of wild elephants. “There has been a lot of evidence about dogs barking or birds migrating before volcanic eruptions or earthquakes. But it has not been proven,” said Matthew van Leroy, an animal behavior specialist at Johannesburg Zoo.
“There have been no specific studies because you can’t really test it in a lab or field setting.” he said.
Other authorities agreed with this conclusion.
“Wildlife seems to be able to pick up certain phenomenon, especially birds. There are many reports of birds detecting coming disasters.” said Clive Walker, who has written several books on African wildlife.
Animals certainly rely on the known senses such as smell or hearing to avoid danger such as predators (食肉动物).
The idea of an animal “sixth sense” is a lasting one that the evidence on Sri Lankan’s damaged coast is likely to add to.
1. This passage is mainly about________.| A．why animals can save them from natural disasters |
| B．the different opinions about animals natural power |
| C．how to protect the wildlife when disaster happens |
| D．the damage that was caused in the Indian Ocean tsunami |
| A．It has been proved that animals have a “sixth sense”. |
| B．It’s generally considered that animals can sense the coming of disasters. |
| C．Research has been made on the special movements of animals before disasters. |
| D．Animals have depended on the known senses to escape the Indian Ocean tsunami. |
| A．It is the animal’s imagination in the brain. |
| B．It is a kind of sense that is the same as smell or hearing. |
| C．It is the natural ability of animals that can save them from danger. |
| D．It is some hidden power to say in advance that something will happen. |
| A．News Report. | B．Culture. | C．Science Fiction. | D．Discovery. |
9 . GPS has completely transformed how we get around. But other animals have long had their navigation (领航) systems built right in.
“We know their eyes are quite sensitive to polarized (偏振的) light and the sky has a particular pattern of polarized light relative to the position of the sun,” Barbara Webb, a researcher at the University of Edinburgh, says.
You can see polarized light firsthand if you take a pair of polarized sunglasses and spin them against the sky-the light passing through the glasses changes. Webb says the insects have polarization like that built into their many eyes. “You can think of it as having lots of sunglasses pointing in different directions.”
But Webb was curious whether there’s really enough information in the sky to give insects an accurate sense of direction. So her team built a sensor (传感器) modeled after a desert ant eye and put it under artificial light meant to simulate the sky. They then put that sensor into a model meant to model the brains of desert ants and other insects. And they found that with the insects’ sensing and processing equipment, they can likely sense direction down to just a couple degrees of error.
A system based on that of insects could someday be a cheap, low-energy choice to GPS. Insects have very tiny brains. A brain the size of a pinhead that’s using hardly any energy. And yet they’re still able to navigate better than we can with GPS, which is surprising. Webb is now working on building a robot that can use light to get its directions.
1. What can we learn from the text?| A．GPS is not accurate enough. |
| B．Insects have better eyes than humans. |
| C．Light changes passing through polarized sunglasses. |
| D．Insects have tiny brains that use no energy. |
| A．Pretend. | B．Cover. |
| C．Block. | D．See. |
| A．Insects can’t find their ways during nights. |
| B．Insects can find directions with little mistakes. |
| C．Insects always make mistakes finding directions. |
| D．Insects have sensing and processing equipment in their eyes. |
| A．Disappointing. | B．Interesting. |
| C．Amazing. | D．Confusing. |
10 . “Birds” and “airports” are two words that, paired together，don’t normally paint the most harmonious picture. So it really raises some eyebrows when China announces plans to build an airport that is for birds.
Described as the world’s first-ever bird airport, the proposed Lingang Bird Sanctuary(保护区）in the northern coastal city of Tianjin is, of course,not an actual airport. Rather，it's a wetland preserve specifically designed to accommodate hundreds-even thousands-of daily takeoffs and landings by birds traveling along the East Asian-Australian Flyway. Over 50 species of migratory (迁徙的）water birds，some endangered, will stop and feed at the protected sanctuary before continuing their long journey along the flyway.
Located on a former landfill site，the 150-acre airport is also open to human travelers.(Half a million visitors are expected annually.) However，instead of duty-free shopping，the main attraction for non-egg-laying creatures at Tianjin’s newest airport will be a green-roofed education and research center, a series of raised “observation platforms” and a network of scenic walking and cycling paths totaling over 4 miles.
“The proposed Bird Airport will be a globally significant sanctuary for endangered migratory bird species, while providing new green lungs for the city of Tianjin.” Adrian McGregor of an Australian landscape architecture firm explained of the design. Frequently blanketed in smog so thick that it has shut down real airports, Tianjin is a city---China’s fourth most populous----that would certainly benefit from a new pair of healthy green lungs•
1. The underlined phrase “non-egg-laying creatures” in Paragraph 3 refers to?| A．Visitors. | B．Designers. |
| C．Endangered water birds. | D．Planes. |
| A．People cannot watch birds up close here. |
| B．It is located on a 150-acre landfill site. |
| C．It functions as an actual airport and a wetland preserve. |
| D．It provides migratory birds with food and shelter. |
| A．The airport will become a permanent home for birds. |
| B．Tianjin will win worldwide fame in the future. |
| C．Tianjin’s air quality will improve thanks to the airport. |
| D．Tianjin will be able to accommodate more people. |
| A．Airports shut down and open up. |
| B．China is to open the first Bird Airport. |
| C．Airports turn into green lungs. |
| D．Birds are no longer enemies to airports. |
