1 . After rescuing the lonely animal, Sam and Vera found it extremely emotional to have to release her back out into the wild to fend for herself — even though they knew it was the right thing to do. But after having such a strong bond with an animal, it was really difficult to see her go. They had put so much time, effort and energy into raising her but to see her walking in a herd of blesboks made it all worthwhile.

......

Which word can best explain the underlined word “fend” in the last paragraph?

A．Look.	B．Care.
C．Search.	D．Hunt.

2 . Using first-of-their-kind observations from the James Webb Space Telescope. a University of Minnesota Twin Cities-led team looked more than 13 billion years into the past to discover a unique, minuscule galaxy cluster (星系团) that generated new stars at an extremely high rate for its size. The galaxy is one of the smallest ever discovered at this distance —around 500 million years after the Big Bang — and could help astronomers learn more about galaxies that were present shortly after the universe came into existence.

......

What does the underlined word “minuscule” in paragraph l mean?

A．Extremely small.	B．Remarkably dark.
C．Especially remote.	D．Quite complicated.

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。

The milu deer certainly seemed happy to be back in China because their numbers started     1     (grow) steadily. There were soon so many of     2     (they) that 64 milu deer     3     (send) to a newly opened reserve in Shishou, Hubei Province from Beijing in the 1990s. They can move     4     (free) in the reserve and feed entirely on wild plants.

At the moment, the milu deer are still living in reserves     5     they are being protected     6     cared for. As a result, their population     7     (be) now recovering fast. Soon a new chapter will be added to the strange tale of these special     8     (animal). The deer are being trained to survive outside the park so that they can one day all return     9     the wild. The resue of the milu deer is already a     10     (succeed) story. Now it is up to us to make sure that the deer live happily ever after.

4 . 阅读下面两篇短文，根据其大意，从方框中选择适当的短语，并用其正确形式填空。

in addition     turn one’s back     break down     a variety of          live in harmony     run out     maintain friendships     be concerned with

A

Friendship clubs provide a platform for people to take part in     1     social activities, such as group outings, shared hobbies, and interactive events. They help to bring together like-minded individuals who are seeking to make new friends.     2    , joining a friendship club is also beneficial for people to     3     through face-to-face interaction.

B

Nature is our home. Humans and other living things on the planet couldn’t survive without the resources that come from nature. We should take care of our “home” before it’s too late. If we keep overusing and destroying nature, it will finally    4     on us. We should try our best to     5     with nature.

5 . Mutual cooperation in which humans cooperate with wild animals is extremely rare. One such system involves the greater honeyguide, a small African bird that leads humans to sources of honey. Once a nest is found, the human honey hunters break into it to obtain honey and bee worms, and the birds benefit from consuming beeswax in the now-exposed honey comb. Both the birds and the humans use specialized sounds to communicate their availability to participate in this cooperative interaction.

The two areas studied by Spottiswoode and Wood are northern Mozambique, where the honey hunters are from the Yao cultural group, and northern Tanzania, where the honey hunters are from the Hadza culture. The Yao communicate with honeyguides using a short and high-pitched sound followed by a low sound ”brrrrhm“, whereas the Hadza use a melodic whistle. Thus, signal and response both vary geographically.

Spotiswoode and Wood propose that the geographic variation they have identified in this mutualism is the product of cultural codevelopment. To qualify as cultural, the cooperative behaviors would have to be acquired through social learning from individuals of the same species. Social learning, however, is less of a given on the honeyguide side. Instead, what is required of honeyguides is another form of vocal learning - comprehension learning — in which the meaning of a signal is learned. Comprehension learning is common in birds. Whether social learning is involved, however, is not so, obvious.

Honeyguides put in considerable effort helping their human partners find food and are faithfully rewarded by being given food in return. In some human cultures, honey hunters purposefully leave out honeycomb to reward honeyeaters, but in others the hunters go, to great length to deny the birds any reward, by collecting, burying, or burning any honeycomb exposed when they destroy a nest. The reason given for these acts is that keeping the birds hungry causes them to continue guiding.

A promising question for future research is whether geographic differences in human cultural preferences for rewarding or not rewarding honeyguides affect the preferences of individual birds for guiding versus taking advantage of the guiding of others.

1. What is the purpose of mentioning the two areas in Paragraph 2?

A．To show that honey hunting is very popular in their culture.

B．To explain that communication methods differ in geography.

C．To illustrate the differences between the Yao and the Hadza.

D．To show that birds can understand various human cultures.

2. Why do some hunters refuse to give honeyguides any prizes?

A．To let them realize human’s power.

B．To make them keep providing help.

C．To cause them to burn honeycomb.

D．To use the honeycomb themselves.

3. What can be inferred about the relationship between humans and honeyguides?

A．Honeyguides have already had strong skills to learn from society.

B．Honeyguides have a genetic tendency to guide humans for honey.

C．Humans and honeyguides have a mutually beneficial relationship.

D．Human honey hunters will lose their jobs without honeyguides.

4. What is likely to be discussed in the following paragraph?

A．The impact of human cultural preferences on honeyguide behavior.

B．The further study on the cultural differences in human preferences.

C．The ecologically rewarding consequences of honeyguide behavior.

D．The influence of honeyguide behavior on human cultural practices.

6 . A songbird jumps around in the woods near Washington, D. C. On its back it carries a very small, lightweight electronic device called a tag (标签). Ecologist Emily Williams watches from behind a bush. On this clear spring day, she says, “Now I’m watching to see whether he’s found a mate.” The bird has moved to a nearby tree where there is another robin. When the bird leaves, this new device it carries will send data about its position to a special satellite, then back to Williams’ computer.

The Georgetown University researchers have been attaching tracking (跟踪) tags on birds and animals for many years. But, the International Space Station and the involved satellite now provide new ways to receive the information sent by the tags. The new system permits scientists to watch songbird movements from a faraway place in much greater detail than before.

“We’re in a sort of golden age for bird research,” said Adriaan Dokter, an ecologist at Cornell University, adding that the technology is improving as the tags are made smaller and smaller. “We can track a robin by satellite with smaller and smaller chips. The device that the robin wears can report its immediate place on Earth, within about 10 meters. Ten years ago, that was unthinkable,” said the scientist, who is not involved in Williams’ study.

A second new device, for only the heaviest robins, provides more information about the bird’s movements; future versions may also measure the humidity and barometric pressure of the space the bird occupies. The devices are known as ICARUS tags.

Martin Wikelski is director of the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior. His scientific team is working to improve the ICARUS technology. He hopes that more and better devices could help develop what he called “an Internet of animals”—a collection of sensors around the world giving us a better picture of the movement of life on the planet.

1. What is Emily Williams doing in the woods?

A．Trying to catch a songbird.

B．Observing a bird with a new device.

C．Playing a bird game on the computer.

D．Taking an adventure trip in the nature.

2. How does the electronic device help the researchers?

A．Find the exact place of the robins quickly.

B．Take control of the robins easily.

C．Collect all the information from the satellite.

D．Communicate with the robin in a faraway place.

3. How does the text mainly develop?

A．By explaining the reasons.	B．By making a comparison.
C．By listing two new devices.	D．By analyzing the data.

4. Which is the expectation of Martin Wikelski?

A．People can use more devices to keep healthy.

B．Technology can give better ways to track animals.

C．Human beings and animals can live in harmony.

D．People will know more about animals from the Internet.

7 . Like many others, Animal Lovers League (ALL) all started with a love for animals. ALL is a charity and home to over 500 dogs and cats. It encourages the public to adopt (领养) instead of buying animals and tries to help the animals at ALL find loving families.

Tasks that the founders, Cathy and Mohan, as well as volunteers carry out to care for the animals include feeding them, taking sick animals to hospital and bringing them for checkups.

The adoption process at ALL:

STEP 1 Contact us

Learn more details about our animals for adoption, or view them on our website www.animalloversleague.com .

For dog adoptions, please WhatsApp Catheryn at 9753 3320.

For cat adoptions, please WhatsApp Mohan at 9670 8052.

STEP 2 Meet our furry kids

Get a chance to play with our furry kids, one-on-one, to find your perfect match!

All adoption visits are by appointment (预约) only. No walk-ins are allowed.

STEP 3 Homestay

We will interview you and do a home visit to ensure you are able to take care of our kids.

After that, you will go through the adoption initiation (开始) process with a 2-week homestay to see if our furry baby is able to get used to the environment of your home and if you can follow the lifestyle of having a furry kid to care for.

STEP 4 Successful adoption

You will be asked to fill in an adoption form upon the completion of this process.

We will keep in contact with you to check up on your progress.

No adoption fees are required as we do not put a price on the lives of our furry kids.

1. What do we know about Animal Lovers League?

A．It focuses on taking care of animals.

B．It offers professional medical treatment to animals.

C．It is home to many animals including dogs and cats.

D．It was set up to stop the buying and selling of animals.

2. What is the purpose of STEP 2?

A．To give people some detailed information about the animals at ALL.

B．To ask people to provide a home for the animals at ALL.

C．To teach people how to get along with animals at ALL.

D．To invite people to get close to the animals at ALL.

3. What should people do at the end of the adoption process?

A．Give some money to ALL.	B．Complete an adoption form.
C．Attend an adoption interview.	D．Do some volunteer work for ALL.

8 . A team of researchers from the University College London (UCL) has recently found that humans transmit viruses to domestic and wild animals more frequently than they contract them from these animals. This major analysis of viral genomes offers new insights into the dynamics of disease transmission across species.

Through an exhaustive examination of all publicly available viral genome sequences, the experts aimed to trace the cross-species transmission—or host jumps—of viruses.

The team sought to challenge the prevailing view that humans are primarily at the receiving end of zoonotic diseases, which are infections that jump from animals to humans. These diseases have been responsible for outbreaks such as Ebola, flu, and COVID-19.

The research team developed and applied methodological tools to analyze the nearly 12 million viral genomes that have been published on public databases to date, outlining the scale of their investigation into the evolutionary paths and mutations of viruses as they adapt to new hosts.

Contrary to the common perception of humans as mere recipients of animal viruses, the study’s findings suggest a more bidirectional exchange of pathogens (病原体). “We should consider humans just as one node in a vast network of hosts endlessly exchanging pathogens, rather than a sink for zoonotic bugs,” said co-author Francois Balloux, a professor at the UCL Genetics Institute.

“By surveying and monitoring transmission of viruses between animals and humans, in either direction, we can better understand viral evolution and hopefully be more prepared for future outbreaks and epidemics of novel illnesses, while also aiding conservation efforts. ” Study lead author Cedric Tan, a PhD student at the UCL Genetics Institute and Francis Crick Institute, pointed out the broader implications of their findings, especially concerning conservation and food security. “When animals catch viruses from humans, this can not only harm the animal and potentially pose a conservation threat to the species, but it may also cause new problems for humans by impacting food security if large numbers of livestock need to be killed to prevent an epidemic, as has been happening over recent years with the H5N1 bird flu strain.”

1. What is the prevailing view mentioned in paragraph 3?

A．Humans are passive recipients of zoonotic diseases.

B．Zoonotic diseases are preventable with proper measures.

C．Animals are the sole source of all infectious diseases.

D．Ebola, flu, and COVID-19 are the most severe zoonotic diseases.

2. Regarding the analysis of virus genomes in the UCL study, which of the following statements is incorrect?

A．The study involved a deep analysis of over ten million virus genomes.

B．The analysis revealed evolutionary patterns of viruses as they adapt to new hosts.

C．The study found that all virus genomes exhibit similar mutation patterns.

D．The analysis results contribute to our understanding of virus transmission and mutation mechanisms.

3. What does “broader implications” primarily refer to in Cedric Tan’s article?

A．New discoveries about the mechanisms of virus transmission.

B．Improvements in the treatment of zoonotic diseases.

C．Reflections on the impact of human lifestyles and the environment.

D．Potential effects on global public health policies.

4. What can be a suitable title for the text?

A．Humans transmit more viruses to animals than we catch from them

B．Zoonotic Diseases: The Leading Cause of Human Ailments

C．Revolutionary Breakthroughs in Viral Genomics

D．Cross-Species Viral Transmission: A Complex Web of Relationships

9 . At the Northeast China Tiger and Leopard National Park, a handful of female wildlife rangers (护林员) traveled through snowbanks. _______ the strong mountain winds, they moved slowly. Sweat ran down, although the temperature was _______, at around -20°C. “We can’t take a long rest, because we need to _______ a drop in our body temperature,” said Xu Chunmei, a member of the ranger team. After a short _______ they struggled back into the forest to carry out their mission of protecting the forest and _______ wildlife.

The team of female rangers is _______ for patrolling (巡逻) more than 23,000 hectares home to some 50 Amur tigers, one of the world’s most endangered species. Along their path through the forest, the team will search for, and _______ illegal animal traps, and rescue wildlife they come across that may be in _______. During this process, the team not only faces threats from bad weather, but also from the local _______. “On a very hot summer day, ________ a hornet’s (蜂的) nest by accident. All of a sudden, countless hornets rushed at me. And I was badly hurt,” recalled ________ from a team member Zhang Xin.

Despite these difficulties, they tried many ways and ________ to solve them one by one. “Besides that, they are the best data collectors,” said Li Gang, head of the local forestry station. “Their work is really ________.” All of the team members feel proud, and the ________ of wildlife protection has taken root in them. They say they will ________ the concern for wildlife protection to future generations.

1.

A．Braving

B．Studying

C．Enjoying

D．Observing

2.

A．normal

B．different

C．freezing

D．average

3.

A．feel

B．prevent

C．keep

D．show

4.

A．hesitation

B．silence

C．break

D．discussion

5.

A．new-born

B．at-risk

C．world-famous

D．lovely-looking

6.

A．thankful

B．anxious

C．late

D．responsible

7.

A．record

B．remove

C．design

D．avoid

8.

A．peace

B．trade

C．order

D．trouble

9.

A．family

B．wildlife

C．people

D．authority

10.

A．guarded

B．found

C．cleaned

D．repaired

11.

A．worriedly

B．calmly

C．excitedly

D．painfully

12.

A．agreed

B．managed

C．learned

D．allowed

13.

A．easy

B．interesting

C．meaningful

D．boring

14.

A．custom

B．knowledge

C．awareness

D．reality

15.

A．pass down

B．think about

C．keep on

D．look for

10 . When it comes to adopting a dog from a shelter, senior dogs are often overlooked favor of puppies. And while younger animals are often seen as cute, older pets have great charm, too—and they still have a lot of love to give!

In order to help get its elderly residents the attention they deserve, Florida-based Flagler Humane Society came up with a funny idea-dressing the older dogs in senior citizen clothes. The scarf dressed up their senior dogs as if they’re senior citizens for an adorable photoshoot. They worked together with their adoption specialist, who is a photographer, and carried out the great adoption promotion, to find a warm home for the senior dogs.

The final photos showed the adorable residents dressed in hats, wigs, and glasses. One dog, named Bambi, wore a wig, a beautiful scarf, and a purse. “She was so scared when she first came to us. It didn’t take her too long to get used to the staff, and we’d love to get her into a loving home as soon as possible,” said the Flagler Humane Society. “Don’t let her age impede you. Bambi is ready for walks, play, hug, and rolling in the grass wherever you are!” There’s also Kale, who was styled in a hat, glasses, and a baby blue sweater. “This sweet senior boy is looking for a second chance at the life he deserves,” said the shelter. “While he has some limits to his vision, it doesn’t stop him from being right next to his people and asking for all the love and affection he can get!”

All in all, the photoshoot was a success! All but three of the senior dogs have already been adopted.

1. What problem did old dogs in the shelter face?

A．They received little care from people.

B．They were ignored by adopters.

C．They were afraid of human contact.

D．They couldn’t play with other dogs.

2. Why did Flagler Humane Society put forward the idea of photographing old dogs?

A．To get senior dogs adopted.

B．To advertise for the shelter.

C．To catch the residents’ attention.

D．To take pictures of old dogs.

3. What does the underlined word “impede” mean in paragraph 3?

A．Attract.

B．Stop.

C．Inspire.

D．Impress.

4. Which of the following can describe the idea of photographing old dogs?
①Successful.       ②Influential.       ③Creative.       ④Moving.

A．①④

B．②④

C．③④

D．①③