1 . If humans were truly at home under the light of the moon and stars, we would go in darkness happily, the midnight world as visible to us as it is to the vast number of nocturnal (夜间活动的) species on this planet. Instead, we are diurnal creatures, with eyes adapted to living in the sun’s light. This is a basic evolutionary fact, even though most of us don’t think of ourselves as diurnal beings. Yet it’s the only way to explain what we’ve done to the night: We’ve engineered it to receive us by filling it with light.
The benefits of this kind of engineering come with consequence called light pollution whose effects scientists are only now beginning to study. Light pollution is largely the result of bad lighting design, which allows artificial light to shine outward and upward into the sky. Ill-designed lighting washes out the darkness of night and completely changes the light levels and light rhythms to which many forms of life, including ourselves, have adapted. Wherever human light spills into the natural world, some aspect of life is affected.
In most cities the sky looks as though it has been emptied of stars, leaving behind a vacant haze (霾) that mirrors our fear of the dark. We’ve grown so used to this orange haze that the original glory of an unlit night—dark enough for the planet Venus to throw shadow on Earth—is wholly beyond our experience, beyond memory almost.
We’ve lit up the night as if it were an unoccupied country, when nothing could be further from the truth. Among mammals alone, the number of nocturnal species is astonishing. Light is a powerful biological force, and on many species it acts as a magnet. The effect is so powerful that scientists speak of songbirds and seabirds being “captured” by searchlights on land or by the light from gas flares on marine oil platforms. Migrating at night, birds tend to collide with brightly lit tall buildings.
Frogs living near brightly lit highways suffer nocturnal light levels that are as much as a million times brighter than normal, throwing nearly every aspect of their behavior out of joint, including their nighttime breeding choruses. Humans are no less trapped by light pollution than the frogs. Like most other creatures, we do need darkness. Darkness is as essential to our biological welfare, to our internal clockwork, as light itself.
Living in a glare of our making, we have cut ourselves off from our evolutionary and cultural heritage—the light of the stars and the rhythms of day and night. In a very real sense light pollution causes us to lose sight of our true place in the universe, to forget the scale of our being, which is best measured against the dimensions of a deep night with the Milky Way—the edge of our galaxy—arching overhead.
1. According to the passage, human being ________.| A．are used to living in the daylight | B．prefer to live in the darkness |
| C．were curious about the midnight world | D．had to stay at home with the light of the moon |
| A．show how light pollution affects animals |
| B．provide examples of animal protection |
| C．compare the living habits of both species |
| D．explain why the number of certain species has declined |
| A．human beings are curious about the outer space |
| B．human beings should reflect on their position in the universe |
| C．light pollution does harm to the eyesight of animals |
| D．light pollution has destroyed some of the world heritages |
| A．The Magic Light | B．The Orange Haze |
| C．The Disappearing Night | D．The Rhythms of Nature |
Animal-rights activists often complain that cute beasts get more sympathy than ugly ones. If so, one would think a lovely creature like the mink (貂) would be easy to protect. Yet in the Netherlands, mink is the only animal
Dutch farmers normally raised about 2.5 million minks a year,
That was a win for the Netherland’s Party for the Animals, which has four seats in the 150-member parliament. In 2013,
Fur farmers say modern standards allow minks to be raised humanely, and
3 . Have you always dreamed of having a garden,but thought you didn’t have enough space (空间)?
Plan your layout (布局) carefully.
Make use of vertical (垂直的) space. One of the best ways to make the most of your small garden is to use vertical gardening skills. Vertical gardening is an excellent way to add more greenery to your small garden without taking up too much space.
Include the eatable into your garden. Growing your own food is not only satisfying,but it can also save you money on groceries Even if you only have a small garden. you can still consider growing various fruits,vegetables, which can be grown ta containers like boxes and pots.
With these tips in mind,you can create a beautiful and productive garden in even the smallest space. Happy gardening!
| A．Follow design rules. |
| B．It’s time to think again. |
| C．Choose suitable plants. |
| D．First,owning a garden is important. |
| E．You can grow plants on walls or ladders. |
| F．Before planting. think about how to use your garden. |
| G．They can provide fresh and delicious food throughout the season. |
Jessica and I wanted a dog more than anything else on Earth. At night, after Mom and Dad had gone to bed, Jessica and I would sneak out our bedroom windows and we’d sit together on the roof and talk about dogs. Sometimes, we had an argument about what our ideal dog would be. But it didn’t really matter — any dog or puppy (小狗崽) would do.
One summer night, as we sat together on the roof, Jessica saw something. “What’s that?” She pointed down toward a dark shadow on our driveway. The moon was up, and everything looked either black or milky. All I saw was darkness. Then the shadow moved. For one astonished second, Jessica and I just stared at each other. Then we scrambled down onto the porch. There in our yard stood a dog. A big, black dog with long hair. Jessica made a little kissing noise and held out her hand. And the dog came to us slowly, taking a few steps forward, then a step back, not sure whether to trust us, I guess.
“She’s a female,” said Jessica.
“Oh,” I said, pulling back and looking. The dog was so skinny and her coat was full of dirt. She must be a homeless dog.
“What can we give her?” I asked. Then I had a thought. “Bread! I’ll get her a big loaf of bread.” So, Jessica waited with the dog, and I sneaked into the kitchen to fetch the bread.
The dog got the bread and ran into the shadows and disappeared. We smiled at each other in the moonlight, our insides full of excitement. “We’re going to have a dog!” I whispered.
On the following nights, the dog, who we named “Shadow”, would come and Jessica and I would prepare food for her. But we never saw her eating anything, and each time she got the food she would run away into the darkness quickly.
“Why didn’t she eat?” I was curious. “And she is still so skinny.”
“We can look into the case,” Jessica said. So, we decided to find out the truth.
One night, we followed Shadow secretly at a distance.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Finally, we had a dog in our home and it was one of the puppies.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________5 . Scientists have long considered the question of whether and how plants communicate. For years, the topic sparked controversy. Books like 1973’s The Secret Life of Plants suggest that plants grow well if you sing or play classical music. Such statements were later debunked: Any evidence that music helps plants grow is not convincing at all. Still, researchers firmly believe there is some sort of communication going on between plants.
Plant communication is a complicated topic. What we do know is that plants have a wide range of mechanisms for communicating with each other and their surroundings. “It’s quite clear that plants are not just unresponsive victims, but that they are very aware of nearby things,” says Richard Karban, an entomologist at the University of California. “And they respond to reliable information.”
When a plant sends out chemicals in the air in response to a perceived threat, other sensitive leavcs on that same plant, as well as the leaves of their neighbors, perceive those signals and subsequently increase their own defenses. Karban’s research, for instance, shows that plants sound the alarm when they’re attacked by pests, so that other plants respond by growing faster and stronger. Even other species, like tobacco, can sense and react to the alarm.
In a study published in the journal Cell this March, Lilach Hadany, a professor at Tel Aviv University, put tomato and tobacco plants in an isolated box and then recorded ultrasonic (超声的) sounds. They experimented with, cutting stems or leaving them without water to simulate drought. The researchers found that the plants emitted (popping and clicking sounds at around 60 decibels in response, approximately as loud as human chatter. These sounds were at an ultrasonic frequency that humans can’t naturally hear, however. Hadany’s team even matched different sounds to the plants’ environment. And each type of stress could be matched with a specific, identifiable sound.
“We don’t know if they’re using the sound, or if the sounds are emitted in a completely passive way due to physiological changes,” Hadany says. “But we do know they are in the air, and they contain information.”
1. What does the underlined word “debunked” in Paragraph 1 mean?| A．Confirmed. | B．Ignored. | C．Disproved. | D．Promoted. |
| A．Plants can make no response to their attackers. |
| B．Chemicals are sent by plants to attack the perceived threat. |
| C．Plants rely little on their neighbors’ information to survive. |
| D．The alarm sounded by one plant travels beyond plants and species. |
| A．The sounds are loud enough to scare away pests. |
| B．The sounds are produced when plants are in danger. |
| C．The sounds can be heard by man without equipment. |
| D．The sounds can be matched to the human environment. |
| A．To inform readers. | B．To compare things. |
| C．To warn readers. | D．To advertise things. |
6 . Sharks and their relatives are some of the most threatened vertebrates (脊椎动物) on Earth. Coral reefs (珊瑚礁) provide homes for countless fish species that are vital for fisheries and are therefore an especially important ecosystem for humans — and one where the decline of shark populations seems to be especially acute.
The study by Simpfendorfer with his team is the result of a worldwide collaboration called the Global FinPrint project. The data analyzed include more than 20,000 hours of standardized underwater video taken at nearly 400 reefs in 67 countries around the world. It reveals declines of 60 to 73% of once-abundant coral reef shark species at reefs around the world. The global conservation status of sharks and rays (鳐鱼) is worse than a decade ago and is even more concerning for some groups of sharks.
However, the findings of Simpfendorfer with his team include signs of hope and a clear path forward. Their results show that although shark populations in many reefs had declined, some healthy reef shark populations remained. The reefs with healthier shark populations had some important similarities: They tended to be in the waters of high-income countries with stronger natural resource management regulations. Unfortunately, such countries are relatively rare, and lower-income countries tend to have fewer resources for sustainable management.
The most unexpected result of the study is that a decline or complete loss of shark species in one reef was not always associated with similar changes in nearby reefs. They found that one reef can be overfished so badly that a once-common reef shark species is totally gone, but another reef a short distance away can have healthy populations of that same species.
The problem is clear — animals that provide ecosystem services that are vital for human food security and livelihoods are disappearing at an alarming rate. The loss of sharks and the ecosystem services they provide represents an ecological disaster that can cause substantial harm to humans.
1. Why is Simpfendorfer with his team mentioned in paragraph 2?| A．To stress the result of global collaboration. |
| B．To state the urgency of protecting the ocean. |
| C．To show the severe condition of certain sharks. |
| D．To present the figures of their contributions to sharks. |
| A．developed countries | B．strict laws in rich countries |
| C．similarities between other waters | D．overfishing management regulations |
| A．Humans and animals coexist in ecosystem. |
| B．Changes in reefs lead to loss of shark species. |
| C．It’s not clear whether humans cause damage to biodiversity. |
| D．The declined shark species have nothing to do with overfishing. |
| A．Acute Decline of reef sharks | B．Potential recovery of reef sharks |
| C．Global cooperation of food security | D．Amazing discovery of Coral reefs |
The English word “garden” gives an entirely wrong idea of the Chinese yuan, for “garden” suggests a lawn and a wide
No Chinese house allows an outsider
Adaptation from My Country and My People by Lin Yutang
Tom is a special child. Ever since he was little, dogs have been his greatest passion. He often growled (低吼) and barked and sometimes moved around the house on all fours. His parents brought in a little brown female dog named Lynn. Tom was on cloud nine. One day, this little boy, together with Lynn, was sitting quietly down by the side of the street when suddenly a giant dog walked across him. He was a little surprised and started screaming as loudly as he could! All of this frightened Lynn away immediately.
Tom’s parents tried to see what the chances were of Lynn coming home on her own. But five days later, there was still no sign of Lynn. The boy didn’t just have tears streaming down his cheeks — his parents were saddened too.
The woods behind their home stretched for over 50 miles! Together with their neighbors, they searched for over a month. But Lynn was gone. Tom’s parents wanted to choose a new puppy for him. But no dog could replace Lynn for him.
Tom was not the same boy. He locked himself in his room. He seemed to have lost his love for dogs. He could not focus his attention on his classes so he didn’t want to go to school. He would easily get angry with people around him. Tom changed from a happy, smiling boy to an upset and annoying kid.
Tom’s parents wanted him to stay home and he had been studying at home ever since. His parents accompanied him almost every day, but staying home didn’t help much. The boy’s mother worried a lot. One rainy afternoon, she saw him staring out the window. “I miss Lynn so much. I wonder if everything is okay with her?” It had been a long time since his beloved dog ran away, but Tom’s despair was as great as the day it happened. Days later, Tom walked out the front door with his head down and sat by the side of the street.
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。
A huge brown dog crossed the street and stood in front of the crying boy.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Tom ran after Lynn and entered the woods.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________A cat wanders into our backyard during a thunderstorm. The cat stares at us through the kitchen window as we eat steak and garlic potatoes. She places a pa w against the window and makes a sad face.
We open the door and the cat comes right through the back door and makes herself at home on the beanbag.We give her the steak and garlic potatoes. She eats the steak but leaves the garlic potatoes.
The next evening, the cat returns. Dinner is salmon and green beans. Lucky for the cat, our children would rather eat their own shoes. The cat licks(舔) herself for an hour, making sure not to miss a single square inch of her body. She falls asleep with her paws in the air.
The children decide that the cat is ours. She has come now for seven nights, always around dinner time. No wonder, my wife says, she’s being fed like a queen. I remind my wife that the cat is eating what we are eating,which means that we too must be fed like queens.
I was rubbing her belly, and she bit my finger. Blood is drawn. If she does it again, she’ll have to go. Five minutes later, she does it again, this time to my wife. The children beg for one last chance, but my wife puts the cat out and tells it to go home. Later on, we hear the cat mewing through the bedroom window. The rain is striking the roof like gunfire. My wife sighs and rolls out of bed. Without speaking, she goes to the kitchen and cooks chicken on a frying pan. She puts a cardboard box in the shed (小屋) and puts the cat in there with the chicken. She comes back to bed. I can feel the rain on her feet.
Almost everything goes around the cat in the family. We buy cat toys and cat treats and even a bed for her.
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。
I am anxious about going away for the wedding anniversary(纪念日) we have planned
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
When we get back, the cat is gone
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
10 . 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 |
